NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 2GB Review Feat. ASUS DirectCU II GTX 770

Conclusion

At the end of the test day there are some interesting things to discuss, first and foremost that the price is incredible on the GTX 770 and will put NVIDIA at a different level and positioning. Even though in the hard light it is really a ramped up supercharged 680 with a few new twists and renamed the GTX 770, this is not a bad thing at all and if anything shows NVIDIA trying to compete in a lower price position to AMD’s cards, which will only benefit NVIDIA fans who wanted a GTX 680, but could not afford one as well as give them the same advanced features as the Titan and GTX 690 including GPU Boost 2.0 technology. ASUS, as they are known for used a totally non-reference designed card for their DirectCU version of the GeForce GTX 770. This includes superior parts and the ASUS patented direct to copper cooling solution. Cooling the card is one of the absolute key factors in how well it functions and how long it will keep working and ASUS has been working hard to achieve that goal.

When you see DirectCU on an ASUS card that means it offers their altered cooling and the number following equates to the amount of fans seen on the card, thus DirectCU II means that the card has 2 active fans. NVIDIA has now also gotten into the custom fan tuning game on their reference based cards, but ASUS has been doing this for quite some time now and their custom fan tuning works very well to either keep your card cool during overclocking by revving up the fans or keeping your card running quiet in normal operation mode by slowing them down. This also helps increase the maximum boost clock that can be attained by the card by allowing it to run cooler and hence get a better boost in return. By using a design that keeps dust out plus keeps the card running at steady temperatures the card will have a longer life expectancy than reference based cards allowing the user many more hours of gaming.

The new GeForce GTX 770 is essentially a reworked GK104 chip with some added design capabilities that also beats the previous generation GTX 680 if only by a small margin, but now sells at a much lower price point of $399.99 dollars. That price is for the basic models and a bit more for advanced non-reference designed cards due to the R&D involved in manufacturing them. ASUS is always trying to one up their competition either by features or software that allows them to maintain a lead in the market and also makes them the trendsetter not the follower. One of the biggest benefits however this time with ASUS DirectCU technology is that NVIDIA’s new GPU Boost 2.0 works off the cards temperature and the better the cooling solution the better the boost and hence our ability to have the card run at a base clock of almost 1300MHz without additional voltage. For those overclockers not looking to break work records, but wanting to still have successful overclocking that is stable and safe right out of the box (without any modification) the ASUS GeForce GTX 770 is a solid gaming solution. For gaming at 1080p the 2GB version of the ASUS GeForce GTX 770 is an Editors Choice product due to its custom design, components and overall gaming as well as overclocking experience.  You get a lot of bang for your buck with this card as well due to the fact that it ships at a price that is only $10.00 above the reference cards, Game on my friends.

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