The Gainward GTX 970 Phantom is based on a slightly altered GTX 760 Phantom PCB design and boasts the custom Phantom cooler on top. The Phantom’s fans are hidden behind the heatsink, so it may trick some people into thinking that it’s a passive cooler. Still, if you peek through the heatsink fins, you’ll see the silhouettes of the fans. The shroud looks nice, but it is plastic.

The Phantom cooler on the GTX 970 card is not a new design, as it is already used on the GTX 760 Phantom card. The cooler uses two fans and the next image shows the GTX 970 Phantom card and the GTX 760 Phantom card. The GTX 970 Phantom card, pictured left, is 247mm long and 112mm high, the same as the GTX 760 Phantom.

We can justify Gainward’s decision not to employ the more powerful Phantom cooler with three fans due to the GTX 970’s TDP of 145W. The old GTX 760 has a TDP of 170W.

For comparison, the GTX 980 has a TDP of 165W, and just like the GTX 970 it requires two 6-pin power connectors. The GTX 780 Ti and GTX 780 have a TDP of 250W.

The last time Gainward redesigned the Phantom cooler was during the transition from GTX 600 to GTX 700 cards. The most visible difference is that the fans can be easily removed, much like hard drives from a hot swap bay, without messing with the wiring. This clever trick saves a lot of time when you clean your card.