GIGABYTE GV-N770OC-2GD Pro Reviews

While we run the risk of sounding like a broken record, the WindForce 3X OC deserves the praise being heaped on it. This GTX 770 thoroughly outclasses more expensive GPUs without costing a penny more than a reference card, is quiet and still has room to overclock. Not only does this make Gigabyte’s $399 offering an enticing option for budget-minded gamers but it also makes reference GTX 770 cards all but obsolete.

There hasn't been an influx of new GPU architectures at Computex this year, with Nvidia instead choosing to flesh out the GTX 700-series range with a card that's essentially a revised and improved variant of last year's GTX 680. From a reference-design perspective, what makes the GTX 770 genuinely lustworthy is Nvidia's impressive Titan cooler. This gives add-in-card partners a problem of sorts: how do you differentiate with custom designs that are fundamentally better than reference? Knowing that the default card looks fantastic, cools well, keeps quiet and expels hot air from within the chassis, it's proving difficult for aftermarket coolers to improve on all fronts. Not wanting to stray from what's historically a winning formula, Gigabyte's WindForce cooler uses a familiar three-fan design and delivers reference-beating temperatures under load. Coupled with a mild overclock and competitive pricing, the WindForce 3X is another fast and well-made GTX 770 that's worthy of consideration. If there's a caveat, it's that Gigabyte has been a driving force in the graphics market for some time, and given the financial muscle available to the company's engineers, we were hoping for something genuinely better than the competition.

Our thoughts on the GeForce GTX 770 are somewhat mixed. On one hand, the card is clearly faster than a GeForce GTX 680, the GeForce GTX 770 is outfitted with a quieter more efficient cooler, and it offers support for NVIDIA’s GPU Boost 2.0. On the other hand, the GeForce GTX 770 behaves much like a factory overclocked GeForce GTX 680 would. There are clear distinctions between reference models, and we’d obviously consider reference GeForce GTX 770 cards to be more attractive than reference GeForce GTX 680s in virtually every respect. The lines are somewhat blurry between the custom GeForce GTX 770 cards like those from MSI and Gigabyte, though. The differences between factory overclocked GeForce GTX 680s and GeForce GTX 770s are far more difficult to spot. GeForce GTX 770 cards should be available immediately at a variety of price points. References models with 2GB of memory are expected to be priced at $399, with factory overclocked 2GB cards falling in the $410 - $450 price range. 4GB GeForce GTX 770 cards are expected to be priced about $50 higher than 2GB models, with similar increases for factory overclocked products. With GeForce GTX 680s currently selling for $400 or so and Radeon HD 7970 cards in the $370 - $440 range, NVIDIA is pricing the GeForce GTX 770 fairly well. We’d obviously prefer the GeForce GTX 770 to be even more affordable, of course, but as it stands today, the card is faster, quieter and cheaper than a GeForce GTX 680 and Radeon HD 7970, so we won’t be complaining.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 WindForce 3X 2GB video card performs great, has solid overclocking numbers and is currently the lest expensive NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 video card on the market today.

The GeForce GTX 770 is another cornerstone for the foundation of a strong GeForce 700 Series. The new card is largely based on last-generation's GeForce GTX 680, but improves upon it by running higher GPU and memory clocks, and adding NVIDIA's GPU Boost 2.0 algorithm. The memory chips have been upgraded to a fast 7 Gbps; this is the first time we see such memory used on a graphics card. Such memory allows NVIDIA to run significantly higher memory clocks, which directly translates into a performance improvement. Visually, NVIDIA has chosen to use a cooler that's similar to the GTX Titan's, which is definitely a pretty sight. Gigabyte's GTX 770 WindForce OC is overclocked out the box by almost 100 MHz, which provides a nice performance boost. Unfortunately, memory is not overclocked, which would have been easy given how well the new 7 Gbps memory chips overclock in our testing. In terms of performance, we see the GeForce GTX 770 beat the GeForce GTX 670 by about 16%, and the improvement over the GTX 680 is 10%. Compared to the recently released GTX 780, the card is 8% slower, which still makes the GTX 780 a significant upgrade (at much higher cost, though), especially when looking at factory-overclocked GTX 780 cards. The GTX 770 easily beats the more expensive Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition with an 11% performance lead. The new GPU Boost 2.0 algorithm focuses more on operating temperatures, so the card's clocks will be reduced once it reaches 80°C. Gigabyte's custom cooler ensures the card never hits that limit, which results in higher performance delivered. Being based on the GK104 graphics processor, it's not surprising that we see maximum overclocking results similar to other GK104 cards like the GTX 680 and GTX 670. The new memory chips are great overclockers that set new records, though; we reached well over 2000 MHz actual memory clock on the tested cards, which is a good 200 MHz higher than anything we've ever seen before.