Today the NDA regarding NVIDIAs new GeForce GTX 770 is ending. In this context ASUS was kind enough to provide us with a custom card and obviously, we've had to check what this thing is actually capable of. The GTX 770 is based on NVIDIA's GK104 chip, which is made from 3.54 billion transistors. In case of the GTX 770 there are eight SMX units activated. Overall one can expect this card to be faster than the GTX 680 and even the price tag should be interesting.
With the ASUS GeForce GTX 770 DirectCU II OC you get a card which features
a custom PCB as well as a custom cooler. The ASIC quality
measured on our sample was 77.7 % which is high considering the average being at
73 % on the cards we had in our hands.
About ASIC quality:
ASUS is using the latest NVIDIA Kepler GK104-425-A2 chip,
which is manufactured by TSMC using the latest 28 nanometer process technology.
With the GeForce GTX 770 you get eight SMX units which results in 1'536 CUDA
cores. Following the specs further, there are 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, a 256 bit wide
memory interface and 2 Gigabyte of GDDR5 memory, which is clocked at 7'000 MHz. In the end there is a memory bandwidth of 224.4 Gigabyte
per second. Concerning the GPU's clock speeds it runs at a base clock of
1059 MHz
and a boost clock of 1111 MHz. During our tests the highest boost clock we
measured was 1149 MHz, which was the same as the average boost clock.
The GTX 770 also supports GPU Boost 2.0. The very first version of GPU Boost
stopped overclocking the GPU when a certain power target was hit. This new
second version of GPU Boost stops overclocking the card, when a certain
temperature is being reached. This makes sense since the temperature is the
bigger inhibitor than the power target in most cases. In this case the
temperature target is 80 degrees Celsius. In other words, as long as the GPU
runs at less than 80°C it will keep overclocking until the maximum frequency has
been reached. This is why in our case the average boost clock was 38 MHz higher
than the typical boost clock ASUS advertises.
nVidia GeForce
GeForce GTX Titan
GeForce GTX 780
ASUS GTX 770 DCU 2 OC
GeForce GTX 680
Chip
GK110
GK110
GK104-425-A2
GK104
Process
28 nm
28 nm
28 nm
28 nm
Transistors
7.10 Billion
7.10 billion
3.54 billion
3.54 billion
GPU
clock
837 MHz
863 MHz
1'059 MHz
1'006 MHz
GPU Boost
clock
876 MHz
900 MHz
1'111 MHz
1'059 MHz
Memory
6'144 MB GDDR5
3'072 MB GDDR5
2'048 MB GDDR5
2'048 MB GDDR5
Memory
clock
1'502 MHz (6'008 MHz)
1'502 MHz (6'008 MHz)
1'750 MHz (7'000 MHz)
1'502 MHz (6'008 MHz)
Memory
interface
384 Bit
384 Bit
256 Bit
256 Bit
Memory
bandwidth
288'400 MB/s
288'400 MB/s
224'400 MB/s
192'300 MB/s
TMUs
224
192
128
128
Shader Cores
2'688 (14 SMX)
2'304 (12 SMX)
1'536 (8 SMX)
1'536 (8 SMX)
ROPs
48
48
32
32
Maximum board power
250 Watt
250 Watt
230 Watt
195 Watt
PCB Type
Reference Design
Reference Design
Custom Design
Reference Design
Lenght (PCB - Total)
27.0 - 27.0 cm
27.0 - 27.0 cm
27.0 - 27.0 cm
25.6 - 25.6 cm
Cooler
NVIDIA Reference
NVIDIA Reference
ASUS Direct CU II
NVIDIA Reference
MSRP
$999
$649
$XXX
$499
ASUS decided to equip the GeForce GTX 770 DirectCU II OC with their famous
DirectCU II cooler. In this case you get three heatpipes which all have a
diameter of eight millimeters. Soldered to the heatpipes you find the fin stack
which es being provided with fresh air via two fans. Overall this version of the
DirectCU II cooler was able to impress. In 2D the fans are inaudble and in 3D
the card is still very silent.
A closer look at the PCB shows that ASUS equipped this card with a digital eight phase power design
regardin the GPU. When it comes to the memory, you find an analog two phase
design. Once more ASUS is using super allow chokes, which provide lower
operating temperatures as well as a longer lifespan.
Checking the
voltage regulation chip we find a digital multi-phase buck controller ASP1212
from IR (International Rectifier). Furthermore there is an
unidentified Richtek 2-phase PWM labelled 02=EL WON taking care of a stable
current supply for the the
memory.
The memory chips used are made by Samsung and carry the model number
K4G20325FD-FC28. They are specified to run at 1'750 MHz (7'000 MHz effective).
The card ships well bolstered in a foam made mold.
Bundled with the graphics card there is a user guide, a driver CD that
includes the overclocking tool GPU Tweak too and a power converter (2x6-Pin-PCIe to
1x8-Pin-PCIe). If you're looking for game vouchers or
something like that you'll be disappointed, since there is absolutely nothing
like this in the box.
Idle, temperature is
taken after 15 minutes @ 30 %, 50 % and 100 % fan speed.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature under Furmark
For FurMark, temperature is taken
after 15 minutes of GPU Burn test @ 30 %, 50 % and 100 % fan speed.
We stopped the test when the GPU temperature hit 90°C.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature and fan speed under BattleField 3
For BattleField 3, temperature and fan speed values
taken, are the
highest achieved
after 1 hour gaming @ auto fan speed.
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Ed.
CrossFire (non
ref design)
111.44
473
2.36
*Entire system
More is better
Less is better
More is better
The "Performance Index" value is calculated as the sum of all
benchmarks results divided by the amount of games (3DMark and Ungine not
included into the calculation).
Performance/Price
Graphics Cards
Performance Index
Price
(€)
Performance/€*10
ASUS GeForce GTX 770 DC2 OC
76.66
nVidia GeForce GTX 770
75.33
AMD Radeon HD 7970
65.80
243
2.71
nVidia GeForce GTX 670
65.56
278
2.36
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
72.91
345
2.11
nVidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti SLI
93.67
452
2.07
nVidia GeForce GTX 670 SLI
103.55
556
1.86
nVidia GeForce GTX 680
71.30
385
1.85
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Ed.
CrossFire
111.44
690
1.62
nVidia GeForce GTX 780
87.78
590
1.49
nVidia GeForce GTX 680 SLI
111.58
770
1.45
nVidia GeForce GTX TITAN
94.13
890
1.06
More is better
Less is better
More is better
For the price we took the lowest price available on geizhals.eu,
on the day the review has been published.
ASUS’ brand new GeForce GTX 770 DirectCU II OC is a really
nice piece of hardware. This custom card is not only quite a bit quicker than
the GTX 680 it also comes at a interesting price point and the DirectCU
II cooler makes it silent. It's just a pity there there are no games in
the bundle when you buy an ASUS OC card these days. Apart from that this
thing is excellent.
- Performance
-
Cooling
Cooling / Noise
Level
+
-
GPU Temperatures were good with a maximum of 80°C
under heavy FurMark load with the fans locked at 30 % fan speed. The
DirectCU II cooler is really a good and powerful piece of hardware. In Idle the noise level is
inaudible, and when there is heavy load applied the fans are still very
silent. Overall this custom cooler was able to convince us and we
definitely like it.
- inaudible in 2D
- Very silent in 3D
Performance
+
-
A closer look at overall performance shows that the GTX
770 DirectCU II OC is
9 % faster on average in games than its predecessor, the GTX 680.
Taking a look at the clock speed shows that this card clocks at 1149 MHz
on average, when applying heavy 3D loads. At this point one can really
see GPU Boost 2.0 doing it's job, since it always tries to get the
maximum clock speeds out of the card, without overstepping the 80°C
temperature target.
A closer look at power consumption shows, that our test system, equipped
with the GTX 770 DirectCU II OC, burns 59 Watts under idle conditions
and 224 Watts under load. Compared to the reference GTX 680 this is only
a mere four watts more in both cases.
- Performance/Watt
- Power consumption under load
- Power Consumption in idle
Recommendation / Price
+
-
Should you be looking for a seriously quick
graphics card with an excellent cooler, then the GTX 770 DirectCU II OC
from ASUS is a great choice. Sure, there is there are faster cards out
there but this one even comes with a competitive price tag. In fact,
NVIDIA is able to offer more frames per buck then AMD does with the
Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition.
- High-End Gaming
We gave the
GTX 770 DirectCU II OC
from ASUS
the very good 4.5 out of 5 stars.