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

Updated: May 30, 2013

GPU Tweak: Overclocking

We did our overclocking using ASUS’s GPU Tweak software which ASUS provides with all their video cards and the results were impressive to say the least. If you’ve never used GPU Tweak, in addition to the ability to control over clock and fan speeds, it also gives you detailed monitoring levels on everything from GPU voltage, to fan speeds, to the maximum amount of GPU percentage used.

We upped the GPU Boost Clock speed to 1250 MHz and the fan levels to manual at 70% in order to achieve solid cooling temperatures and get the most performance out of the card. Even without maxing the fans out, the ASUS DirectCU II GTX 770 never got hotter than 71C even while overclocked and because GPU Boost 2.0 is based off of GPU temperature, because the card operated so cool, even though we set the boost to 1250 MHz, we saw a maximum boost speed of 1293 MHz which can be seen below.

As a result of tweaking the boost clocks on the ASUS GTX 770 DirectCU II, combined with the stellar cooling performance, we saw performance gains on average of 3-6 more average frames per second in Battlefield 3, Metro Last Light, Crysis 3 and Batman Arkham City. Most impressive of all is that even with these performance gains, the ASUS 770 still managed to run about 9C cooler than the reference, so you’re not sacrificing heat at the cost of boosting the card. With a price point of $409.99, out of the box, the ASUS GTX 770 DirectCU II competes head to head with the AMD HD 7970 GHz in terms of performance, but with a little tweaking and the DirectCU cooling, even better results can be achieved.

Continue Reading: Conclusion

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AMD ASUS Direct CU II featured GTX 770 GTX 780 HD 7950 HD 7970 GHz NVIDIA PC reviews

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
Gtxfanboy9000

I cannot believe this is a stock version , 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.