Last week, we posted our review of the GTX 780 from NVIDIA. It’s essentially, an affordable version of the GeForce Titan minus a few shader cores, a little memory, and a lot of money. At $649 USD, the GTX 780 is only marginally slower than the Titan when it comes to gaming performance. But for those who rely on GPU rendering power know that the Titan is the clear champion. Although the GTX 780 proves to be a more affordable option, it is still outside the price range for many gamers who don’t need to run multiple displays or the immense GPU processing power that may not be all that helpful for gaming. All they want are smooth respectable frame rates from their 1080p or higher display. NVIDIA didn’t leave those people high and dry.
Like the awesome bang for buck GTX 670 before it, the NVIDIA GTX 770 falls in to the role of a more cost effective and high end gaming GPU. Price at a more palatable $399 USD, we want to know how much performance we’re losing over the GTX 780. Or is it just a rebaged GTX 680? Join us for another round of game play to see what kinds awesome you can expect from NVIDIA’s GTX 770.
Features and Specifications
In a nutshell, the GTX 770 offers many of the same gaming goodies as the NVIDIA GTX 780 we reviewed earlier. You can go straight there to get the details but here’s a quick recap.
The latest Kepler revision is built to handle the most up to date game engines like the CryTek 3 (Crysis 3), Unreal 3 and 4. Thanks to the Kepler innovation, the GTX 7xx series are intended to run them all. For those interested in the GPU characteristics, here’s a break down of the specifications between the Kepler giants.
The GTX 770 shares the exact same cooling solution as the GTX 780. There aren’t any visible heat pipes inside the heat sink which extends across much of the video card. The components are low profile underneath which is a very good thing for liquid cooling companies.
The unfortunate side of going with a custom cooling solution is that the standard NVIDIA cooler requires patience and a series of various tools to remove. I had to use small size 2 and 1.5 hex bits, Torx bits, and Philips bits in order to remove the shroud. Use caution as some of the screws are made from softer metals and the wrong tool can ruin the screw.
Overall, the GTX 770 looks great on paper and should really give the GTX 680 and GTX 780, both of which are more expensive, a run for their money.
The New GEFORCE Experience
GTX 770 users or anyone with a video card on the supported list, may use the GEFORCE Experience app for finding optimized settings for many games on the market today. It can improve the game quality, or help smooth the game play out if your card is a little slow. Simply run the program and let it automatically configure each installed games’ settings. If you don’t like it, revert back or apply your own manually.
I personally like to maximize the settings whenever possible. For testing purposes, we use maxed settings at 1080p to reveal the true differences in each GPU.
A new GEFORCE Experience feature coming this summer we didn’t cover previously is Shadow Play. Shadow Play uses the Kepler’s built-in H.264 video encoder to record your game. It’s much smoother than using FRAPS and doesn’t eat up nearly the system processes either. Why? Some gamers like to show off their skills and will at least now have the proof. An additional benefit is that the recorded content could be used to prove an online elite player’s skills are legitimate in competition play.
Either way, its nice to have a smooth recorder for a change that doesn’t create an additional system burden while recording. Let’s move on to our test system setup now and unleash the power of this new GPU!
Test System Setup
I used the same configuration from testing the NVIDIA GTX 780 so that any large variables were eliminated. Even though we’re on the cusp of a new Intel 4th Generation launch, you can expect very similar performance results for single card configurations. Keep in mind that SLI builds will vary somewhat in performance depending on your motherboards’ PCI Express controllers whether stock or third party PLX chips are used.
- Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge
- Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 OC Edition
- Memory: Kingston HyperX 2800MHz 8GB DDR3
- Graphics 1: NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780
- Graphics 2: NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770
- Graphics 3: GIGABYTE GTX 670 OC
- Graphics 4: ZOTAC GTX 680 AMP
- Graphics 5: ASUS HD 7970 DirectCU II
- Graphics 6: EVGA GTX 660 Ti SC
- Power Supply: Rosewill 1000 Watt Tachyon Platinum
- Storage: Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD
- OS: Windows 7 Pro
- CPU Cooling: Corsair H110
The display is an ASUS VG278H 3D 1080p monitor. Game settings are all maxed out to make the GPU work hardest. Frame rates were recorded with regular mode and then verified to handle 3D game settings at the end. Temperatures were monitored with EVGA’s Precision utility. For power consumption numbers, a Seasonic Power Angel at the wall was used to determine the data. We recorded noise levels with a meter at 2 feet distance in an open and closed computer case.
One final note is that the HD 7970 GPU was tested with PhysX disabled because it doesn’t support the feature. At least not officially.
Real World Gaming Performance
It’s pretty rare to see someone buying the latest video card to only play their old games unless their old card has malfunctioned. So instead of testing every generation of game, we’ve decided to concentrate on what’s most important which are the latest games that tax the performance of today’s GPUs.
Assassin’s Creed III
It may not look like much at first, but consider this is a stock GTX 770 card and the GTX 680 is a ZOTAC AMP! edition, which hauls serious frames in its own right. Still, the GTX 770 does a respectable job and is a mere 11 frames slower than the GTX 780 for over $150 more.
Battlefield 3
In this action packed shooter, the GTX 770 pulls away from the two OC cards. That’s not too shabby at all being only 9 frames away from the GTX 780. And, given BF3’s noticeable tearing at higher frame rates, NVIDIA’s adaptive Vsync feature smooths it out quite a bit as well in real world gameplay.
Metro: Last Light
Again, the GTX 770 shows its GPU power by stepping out from the overclocked cards. It wouldn’t be surprising to see factory overclocked GTX 770 cards closing the gap on the GTX 780. This game sure looks great though at 51 frames per second with everything turned up.
Batman: Arkham City
The GTX 770 is very comfortable running BMAC even with cranked settings. I find the PhysX settings worth using which really adds to the personality of this enduring game title. PhysX with 3D Vision 2 is equally as liberating offering very playable frame rates.
Synthetic Benchmarks
While real world gaming benchmarks are essential, they sometimes don’t provide the cross reference one needs to compare their own current equipment. We’ve chosen two more benchmarks that are both free and provide you a good snapshot of how this card will upgrade your experience compared to what you have right now.
Heaven Demo
Heaven Demo requires lots of GPU resources. It also reveals when it’s time to upgrade in some ways especially if your GPU cooler is starting to fail because it can really push the temperatures. Here, the GTX 770 flies through comfortably after several benchmarks, but the GTX 780 remains king after the cards cool down.
3DMark 11
The 11K score here is to be expected. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a massive amount of overclocking head room which is sometimes the case with high end GPUs. Still, this is a respectable jump in performance compared to the GTX 680 AMP! which excels with its extra bandwidth.
Thermal and Noise Evaluation
To gather maximum operating temperature, I used Unigine’s Heaven demo with three passes which provides a real world indicator of what you can expect. Keep in mind that the lab ambient temp is 20C and warmer climates will affect the numbers upwards. In fact, hotter climates usually means higher fan RPMs which add noise since the magic thermal threshold for GTX 7xx seems to be 80C.
The GTX 770 actually seems to produce the exact same amount of noise and heat as the GTX 780. Not surprising seeing as they use the same cooling solution. The card idled at a cool 29C and reached 79-80C. Even though the fan is rated, or estimated, to produce a 42dB or so maximum amount of noise. However, the card seemed to level off around 35dB which is almost undetectable to the ear when inside a computer case.
Final Thoughts
There are great things about the GTX 770 that make its cost worth its weight in games. First, its performance is a bit better than the previous generation GTX 680 but is naturally slower than the GTX 780 at stock clocks. Second, it supports up to four displays which does come in handy when you’re working on multiple projects or require additional screen real estate. Third, the NVIDIA GTX 770 only costs $399 (per NVIDIA) which is about $50 – 100 less than the GTX 680 and $250 less than the GTX 780.
For those of us who can’t readily splurge for the higher end cards, we’re more than happy to choose the NVIDIA GTX 770 especially given its performance on today’s top game titles. It’s plenty fast for the enthusiasts, doesn’t get too loud or hot at all, and is a much better bang for buck compared to its GTX 780 sibling. It also unseats the once reigning NVIDIA GTX 680 at a lower price point. We’re curious to see what better overclocks can do for performance. We’re already hearing that it gobbles up that performance gap between it and the GTX 780 pretty quickly.
Overall, my recommendation is that if you have $399 to spend on a gaming card today, then you snag one of these up as soon as you get the cash. It definitely won’t let you down in the heat of battle on today’s most punishing gaming titles.
Pros
- Great performance for the money compared to higher end
- Very respectable frame rates in today’s top games
- Reasonable power requirements
- Retains the attractive cooler from the Titan and GTX 780
- Relatively cool and quiet
Cons
- No bundled games or codes (yet)
Overall Score: 9.5/10
Help Us Improve Our Reviews By Leaving a Comment Below!