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

Updated: May 30, 2013

DirectCU II GeForce GTX 770 Look and Design

The ASUS DirectCU II version GTX 770 looks nothing at all like its reference-designed brother by NVIDIA, from the PCB up ASUS has retooled and changed the way the card looks by way of different components and their direct to copper cooling solution called DC II. The top view shows us the shroud and plastic housing that covers the GPU and the underlying components as well as the two fans that blow air across them. Some ASUS cards in their DirectCU lineup are so big they take up three slots, but this card only uses a dual slot design.

From the side you can see the heatpipes that make up part of the DC II cooling apparatus. The heatsink makes direct contact with the GPU, which then dissipates the heat throughout the heatpipes that in turn gets blown away by the fans.

Like the reference card, the DC II has a single 8-pin and single six-pin power connector as well as two SLI fingers and a rear I/O that offers up two DVI ports, an HDMI port and a standard display port. If you are into the R.O.G color scheme you will be happy as the DC II matches up with those boards and with the Haswell release there will be a few more boards to choose from in that family of products.

It would be cool if ASUS put some colored lights on the side of the card although they do have some cool running lights showing you the card is powered up in green, or connected when red showing you clearly what the cards status is.

The back of the card on the ASUS model has a protective metal plate that keeps the PCB from touching anything and this allows the card to be set on its backside as well as protect you from hurting yourself on any sharp soldering point. None of the other cards I have seen on launch day have this feature and it is something worth merit in my eyes because it makes the card much easier to handle as well as protecting it from damage either electrical or physical. Small things like this are what set apart the DirectCU series of cards from their competitors.