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

By
Updated: May 30, 2013
JH6A0783

You asked and we listened. Instead of the Dual-Xeon Red Dawn that we’ve gone with in the past, we went with a more practical approach that more users could relate to and went with an i7-3770K Ivy Bridge based system.

The heart of the system is build on the Asus Maximus V Extreme motherboard which is house in the Danger Den Torture Rack. We’re also using 16GB of Corsair Dominator memory which is clocked at 2133MHz and a SSD (boot)/Hard Drive (storage) setup.

Complete Parts List

  • Asus Maximus V Extreme Motherboard
  • Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core CPU (Stock)
  • Cooler Master TPC 812 CPU Cooler
  • 16GB Corsair 2133MHz Dominator RAM
  • Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD
  • Western Digital 1TB Black 7200 RPM Hard Drive
  • Samsung SH-222 CD/DVD Optical Drive
  • Rosewill Hercules 1600W PSU
  • Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)

Video Cards & Drivers

AMD HD 7950 (Catalyst 13.5) 
HIS HD 7970 GHz  (Catalyst 13.5) 
ASUS GTX 670 DCU (320.14)
NVIDIA GTX 680 (320.14)
ASUS GTX 770 DCU II (320.18)
NVIDIA GTX 780 (320.18)

Test Bed

Continue Reading: Gaming Performance: GTX 770 Style

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  • Fasio

    In the comparison pic, it’s written GTX 670 DCU II, don’t you want to write 770 ?

  • Luke Duh

    fast editing..btw nice review like always!

  • rawlston clarke

    thumbs up all involved.. really great review thanks again

  • Magnus

    Holy Jesus… Nvidia can have my money for one of these this summer. £270 ($410) is practically a steal for the kind of performance you can get from the 770.

    • ande

      i doubt there going to be £270 in the uk gtx 670 are still 270 up

      • oOInSaNeGaM3ROo

        the cheapest non reference gtx 770 i can find in on scan.co.uk for £329.99 for an msi adition, the asus version is £385.99. ridiculous prices if you ask me when compared to america but the increase in price is due to the uk tax system.

        • Jacob Swinton

          Sucks major balls. I was going to SLI two of them…might just go with a single 780 now, much cheaper.

          • ThirdLife

            But not as performant.

            Apples and pears ;)

  • QueensGambit

    So about the same performance as the 7970. Considering this card costs $400 and the 7970 costs about the same and you get a ton of games with it, I’d say the 7970 is an overall better choice.

    • Jared

      If you were going to buy those games anyways then yes, you should factor that in.

      • Gayge Smith

        Even if you weren’t going to buy the games. Free is free. I got Bioshock Infinite. I was never gonna buy it, but I fucking love the game.

        • ThirdLife

          Free is free ? Thats an interesting conclusion. I’d rather have features like PhysX and better Drivers alongside the better overall performance.

          Since almost all tests conclude the GTX770 is faster than the 7970 and 680 even if just by a small margin, for the same price i would always choose it over the AMD card.

          Better for SLI as well -> refering to the drivers again. Oh and did i forget the terrible noise those AMD cards produce (mostly). My colleague at work suffers from that too and he hates it.

          Price and performance-wise as well as feature set based no one with a clear head could get a 7970 over the 770. The only reason i could imagine is having a 7970 already and CFing them now.

          Everyone else is better off with the 770. Funny to see how nVidia is playing the price/performance competitor for AMD now. Usually AMD cards give a better performance to price ratio.

          Good for either AMD Fans and/or owners as prices will likely drop now.

    • Wifebeater666

      Just too bad AMD drivers are shit and multi GPU isnt working as it should.

      Sold my 7970 CF because of massive stuttering and framerunts, went 770 SLI and it works GREAT in all my games.

      CF hasnt worked right since Tahiti launch, AMD promises a fix in a month or so, but its just 1 year and 8 months late. And lets see if the fix is working at all… Its a major problem.

      On top of that.. My Asus DCII 770 SLI is much quieter under load than my 2x Sapphire 7970 Dual-X cards. Especially after OC…

      So free (cheap) games at the cost of load noise, driver issues etc. Nah…

  • Joseph Panaro

    How are people discussing how the 770 rocks, the 7970 gets the job done just as well… but without advanced PhysxX….ok i will shut my mouth.

  • kojmowrer321

    Gonna wait for the 760ti

  • Ryan Terribile

    How impressive, Nvidia is finally catching up with the 7970 Ghz. And the 7970 is still faster in some cases -_-

    • Ryan Terribile

      To be fair, the 770 is $50 cheaper, but it also depends on where you buy it from. But AMD could easily deal with this problem with a simple price drop, or even phase out the regular 7970 completely. Besides, a regular 7970 can be had for the same price, and overclocked to the same speeds as the Ghz Edition.

      • ThirdLife

        It still lacks other basic features. PhysX, Drivers, SLI Issues…
        For a card that fills a spot i think the 770 fares great. Three AAA games are nice, but in the end its just plain useless as most gamers will already have those titles and if they haven’t they probably do not want them.

        The real value here is the card, not the bundled games. At least i choose my cards based on featureset, stability, performance and price. Everything else is secondary.

    • Jacob Swinton

      The only 7970′s that have this card beat cost at least £80 more than it. Such as the Asus Matrix 7970 platinum or the Club3D Royal Ace cards. So it’s actually hit a sweet spot in the market. That said any 7970 will come with at least 3 AAA games where I live…adding around £100 worth of value of the card…

  • Mateusz Siemienski

    >.> ton of game’s meh… Torrentz.eu has ton’s of game’s … 1000x more then amd giving you :D

  • Gtxfanboy9000

    I cannot believe this is a stock version :P , guy’s for 10$ u get an insane amount of performance or even 20$ in some case’s! for MUCH beter coolign + SPEED from MSI / asus / evga those card’s are incredibly faster over clocked :) and without it too! So it beat’s the GTX 7970 IN EVERYTHING! 7970 get’s extremly hot , and overcloking it would be a killer in a short run yet the 770 iS VERY LOW TEMP’s not overclocked and overclocked it’s temps are MUCH LESS then the 7970 , if you buy the ASUS / MSI /EVGA card’s with the custome cooling solution

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/NorwaysVids Vegard aka NorwaysVids

    Gainward has a non-referance design pcb on its Phantom cooler design series. I have their 770 Phantom card and it is pretty amazing.