ASUS STRIX GeForce GTX 970 Overclocked 4 GB DDR5 256-bit DisplayPort HDMI 2.0 DVI-I Graphics Card

I spent a few days researching GTX 970 cards, trying to find the best one that would fit in my Dell Inspiron case. I could have gone with one of the "mini" versions, but frankly, I wanted something that would run quiet and cool and those mini versions tend to be loud and hot due to the lack of the extra fan and cooling pipes. I bounced between this (ASUS STRIX OC 4GB) and the MSI and Gigabyte offerings. I was really, really leaning toward the MSI, but what swayed me to the ASUS was the backplate. The MSI didn't have one at this price point (it would have been $40 more, at least, for their model with a backplate) and with the way my case is (tiny and cramped) I wanted to have a backplate to avoid sag and other issues. I'm very glad I made that decision.I'm no stranger to ASUS products. I have an ASUS laptop, tablet, monitor, and other various things. The motherboard in my last gaming rig was an ASUS, and it served me well. I've gotten one lemon from them (Transformer Pad C103, which they fixed and it stopped working again later) but everything else has exceeded expectations, and their customer service has been good. I wouldn't say it's "awesome", but they were competent and willing to help when I needed it. They didn't go above and beyond, but they didn't fall short, either.Anyway, I felt good about trying ASUS for my graphics card. My last card was a VisionTek Radeon HD 7850, and it's still doing duty in my HTPC. It has gotten a bit long in the tooth to handle newer games, though. I switched over to Nvidia because I don't have any brand-loyalty in the Nvidia-vs-AMD war (whichever works for me is all I care about) and because, again, I have a small Dell case. Most of the R9 390 offerings were huge, and they all run hotter and draw way more power than the GeForce equivalent.Yes, I'm aware of the 3.5 .5 GB memory issue, but I'm using this for 1080p gaming, so I'm unlikely to run into that. Yes, I'm aware that R9 is a newer product and has been showing its teeth in benchmarks, but I also know that Nvidia's GameWorks, HairWorks, Physx and other technologies are present in most of the games I care about, and that the Radeon cards have been choking on those features despite being faster cards all around. What I saw was that in the comparison between the two, it really was "six of one, half-dozen of the other" and I decided to go with the card that had lower TDP, cooler operation, and more support in more of the games I play. Another consideration was that I will be using the card for video editing, encoding, and a use for Cuda processing.So I went for the ASUS STRIX. It is truly silent when idle. The fans don't spin (or spin very slowly) and the PC stays nice and quiet. When it gets going in an intense game, the fans spin up but they're still not as loud as my old HD 7850 was all the time. The case also stays very cool, considering the Ultra graphics I'm cranking out.The fit was exceptionally tight in my case. Honestly, I had to cut out my hard drive cage to make this fit, and I had to go with angled SATA connectors because this card goes right over my motherboard's SATA ports. Still, I got it in there, so if you're a Dell Inspiron i3847 owner, just know you CAN get one of these puppies in your case and onto you motherboard if you're willing to void your warranty and do a little modifying to the stock case and parts. You should also know you'll need a better power supply (the Inspiron comes with a weak little 300 watt thing). I have a Corsair RM550 in mine, and it handles this load with plenty of overhead.The STRIX uses an 8-pin connector instead of two six-pin connectors for power. That means it doesn't user-overclock as much as the competition, but that's okay... It comes out of the box already factory overclocked more than much of the competition. You still have a little room to maneuver if you want to OC, but frankly, I haven't needed to yet. This thing gobbles up everything I throw at it.I did get some framerates dropping below 40 on Arkham Origins when I maxed out everything and set it to 2715x1527 resolution, but dropping the resolution back down to 1080p made everything jump up significantly. 60 was doable at that setting.Skyrim runs like a dream on this, and that's with ultra high resolution, texture mods galore, full ultra settings, and ENB applied. I'm happy.All in all, I'm glad I jumped for the ASUS STRIX. It's a good version of the GTX 970. You'll be happy with it if you're looking to play some new games at 1080p while keeping your system cool and quiet.