Wait, the new GeForce GTX 770 is powered by Nvidia's old GK104? That's right. And guess what? The card is faster, quieter, more feature-complete, and less expensive than the GeForce GTX 680 that came before it. Can it usurp the compelling Radeon HD 7970?
A couple of days ago I was chatting with a successful industry veteran—a gentleman who I have a lot of respect for—about my thoughts on GeForce GTX 780. “Value judgments are always something I like to see as just a sidebar to a review,” he said. “Throw down the Mercedes and Ford features and performance. Buyers will decide which one is worth the monthly payment.” The folks he works with don’t care if Nvidia’s new single-GPU card sells for $650. They see an almost-Titan priced $350 less.
So maybe I was a little harder on GeForce GTX 780 than a lot of other reviewers. It’s very true that if you put 780 and Titan next to each other, Nvidia’s first 700-series card appears to be a reasonably sound choice. But I’m still coming at this from the other direction—a Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition for $450 with $170 worth of bundled games is pretty darned impressive.
Could paying an extra $200 really buy resolutions and detail settings that aren’t playable on the AMD card? In some games, absolutely.
Even still, I had higher hopes for another card I knew was coming: the GeForce GTX 770. Based on the same GK104 graphics processor introduced more than a year ago in GeForce GTX 680 2 GB Review: Kepler Sends Tahiti On Vacation, this board needs to close the performance gap with Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. I also expect Nvidia to get a little more aggressive on pricing—the GeForce GTX 680 was selling for more than the faster AMD card, and didn't really make sense except in multi-GPU setups.
A faster, lower-cost GeForce GTX 770 can easily pick up a win in single-card configurations. But I'm equally curious about its potential in SLI. We’ve already observed the consistency of two GK104 GPUs working together—and one GeForce GTX 690 is faster than Nvidia’s GeForce GTX Titan. So, a couple of 770s at $450 apiece (that's not the actual price; it's what I was expecting, though) could be just the ticket for 2560x1440 or 5760x1080 gaming—and for less money than that vaunted Titan.
GK104 Rides Again In GeForce GTX 770
Nvidia had some room to tune and tweak GK110 to create GeForce GTX Titan, 780, and whatever else the company might do with the GPU, since the products based on this 7.1-billion-transistor chip are trimmed-back versions with 12 or 14 out of 15 total Streaming Multiprocessors enabled.
But the GK104 processor at the heart of GeForce GTX 680 is already fully-featured. The chip plays host to four Graphics Processing Clusters, each with two SMXes, and they’re all turned on. So how is Nvidia able to build a GeForce GTX 770 on the same piece of silicon? A couple of different ways. First, it turns up the clock rates on GK104. The 770’s base clock rate is 1,046 MHz (up from 1,006 MHz on GTX 680) and its rated GPU Boost speed is 1,085 MHz (up from 1,058 MHz). Second, it delivers more memory bandwidth through the same 256-bit interface. GeForce GTX 680 employed 2 or 4 GB of GDDR5 at 1,502 MHz. GeForce GTX 770 is going to be available with the same capacities running at 1,752 MHz, or 7 Gb/s.
GK104 And GK110, In More Depth
We went into great depth on GK104 in GeForce GTX 680 2 GB Review: Kepler Sends Tahiti On Vacation. For more information on the GPU and its architecture, please check out that review. If you want to know more about the GK110 processor in GeForce GTX Titan and 780, have a look at Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan 6 GB: GK110 On A Gaming Card.The 3.54-billion-transistor GPU’s other vitals map over nicely. To recap, GK104 boasts eight SMX blocks, each with 192 CUDA cores and 16 texture units. All told, you get 1,536 CUDA cores and 128 texture units. Four ROP partitions capable of eight 32-bit integer pixels per clock add up to 32. And a quartet of 64-bit memory interfaces form an aggregate 256-bit pathway.
GeForce GTX 770: Nice Genes!
We’re officially spoiled. The last three Nvidia cards to come through our SoCal lab all featured the company’s more aggressive industrial design, typified by an aluminum housing, a polycarbonate window with a view down into a beefy heat sink, and an LED-backlit GeForce logo that’s controllable through an API Nvidia makes available to its partners. In comparison, the plastic-covered GeForce GTX 680 and Radeon HD 7970 selling in that $450 range look so…vanilla.
Aesthetically, GeForce GTX 770 looks like 780, which looks like Titan. This is the same 10.5-inch PCB, metal shroud, clear window, and centrifugal fan responsible for exhausting heat out the back of the card’s I/O panel.

When you consider that Nvidia gives the GeForce GTX 770 a 230 W TDP (20 W less than Titan and 780), this thermal solution is very likely overbuilt for GeForce GTX 770—and that bodes well for overclockers hoping to push GK104 a little harder than the factory.

Of course, despite its lower TDP, you still need one eight- and one six-pin auxiliary power connector; Nvida recommends using a power supply with at least 600 W of output.

Display output is unchanged. GeForce GTX 770 drives up to four simultaneous screens through two dual-link DVI ports, one HDMI connector, and a single DisplayPort interface.
- Can A One-Year-Old GPU Still Excite Us?
- A Little Glimpse Into The Business Of Graphics Cards
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Single-Card Results: Battlefield 3
- Single-Card Results: BioShock Infinite
- Single-Card Results: Borderlands 2
- Single-Card Results: Crysis 3
- Single-Card Results: Far Cry 3
- Single-Card Results: Hitman: Absolution
- Single-Card Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Single-Card Results: Tomb Raider
- Multi-GPU Results: Battlefield 3
- Multi-GPU Results: BioShock Infinite
- Multi-GPU Results: Borderlands 2
- Multi-GPU Results: Crysis 3
- Multi-GPU Results: Far Cry 3
- Multi-GPU Results: Hitman: Absolution
- Multi-GPU Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Multi-GPU Results: Tomb Raider
- OpenGL: 2D And 3D Performance
- DirectX And CAD: 2D And 3D Performance
- CUDA Perfomance
- OpenCL: Single-Precision
- OpenCL: Double-Precision
- Power Consumption
- Heat, Clock Rates, And Noise
- Overclocking Three Partner Boards
- Gigabyte GTX 770 OC Windforce
- MSI GTX 770 OC Lightning
- Palit GTX 770 OC Jetstream
- GeForce GTX 770: My New Favorite High-End Graphics Card

Kind of an expected performance increase. Seeing overclocked GTX 680 review was conclusive enough unless you've never seen one. Never expected this card to be getting the Smart Buy award though to be completely honest.
Hey, how about another title for the review?
- GTX 680 Gets a New Cooler, BIOS Update and Price Drop! -
No? I'll think of a better one...
So they've released their "GE edition" 680 after getting smashed by the 7970 over the last six months, and thrown in a price drop. They needed it, because the neither the 670 nor 680 were worth it after AMD got their drivers sorted out, unless you were using SLI.
Kind of an expected performance increase. Seeing overclocked GTX 680 review was conclusive enough unless you've never seen one. Never expected this card to be getting the Smart Buy award though to be completely honest.
Hey, how about another title for the review?
- GTX 680 Gets a New Cooler, BIOS Update and Price Drop! -
No? I'll think of a better one...
Yes, there is a bit of power savings. Yes, multi-GPU performance is better. But, that is nothing new. I also wouldn't expect future drivers to deliver much in the way of performance improvements since this card is essentially a GTX 680 v2.
Ultimately, I expected more from nVidia. Yes, this is a polished card out of the gate. But I'm not sure the release of this card will affect AMDs bottom line as things currently stand, performance wise.
Better power consumption than 7970GE.
Less noise than 7970GE.
Runs cooler than 7970GE.
Same FPS as 7970GE.
$50 less cost.
Yeah indeed, why to get the Smart Buy award I wonder...
Yes, there is a bit of power savings. Yes, multi-GPU performance is better. But, that is nothing new. I also wouldn't expect future drivers to deliver much in the way of performance improvements since this card is essentially a GTX 680 v2.
Ultimately, I expected more from nVidia. Yes, this is a polished card out of the gate. But I'm not sure the release of this card will affect AMDs bottom line as things currently stand, performance wise.
Agreed. Sapphire 7970 Ghz ftw <3
-This should force the 7970's down a little.
-This should have been about 10% stronger with its crazy high clocks.
Bottom line: AMD really won't care much because of their bundles. Look at the 7850 prices. They really haven't budged more than $10, and they are still selling like hotcakes!
So they've released their "GE edition" 680 after getting smashed by the 7970 over the last six months, and thrown in a price drop. They needed it, because the neither the 670 nor 680 were worth it after AMD got their drivers sorted out, unless you were using SLI.
For those looking to jump into the GPU market, it can be a solid buy. But GHZ editions from Gigabyte, Sapphire, XFX can also be found at the same $400 price range with aftermarket coolers as well. Includes gaming bundle for those who want those games. No $50 advantage.
4gb 770 card would be the same cost as a high-end GHZ edition. Sapphire Vapor-X so on and so forth.
Plus you know you can add a second card without having to deal with the microstutter the competition presents.
Because I always run with two cards, AMD isn't even under my consideration. If AMD gets their multi-card issues with microstutter straightened out, I'll be looking at what they have to offer again.
Better power consumption than 7970GE.
Less noise than 7970GE.
Runs cooler than 7970GE.
Same FPS as 7970GE.
$50 less cost.
Yeah indeed, why to get the Smart Buy award I wonder...
I'll give you the reasons why I don't think the Smart Buy was necessary.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125413
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150586
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127732
All of the above cards are running at 1000MHz on the core which makes them somewhat a GHz edition card, yet they still cost $400. They all have custom design cooler which is generally better than pretty much any reference cooler, even the new Nvidia reference cooler. Heck, even this review proves that http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-770-gk104-review,3519-26.html. The cooler use on this review are not 100% similar to the ones on the HD 7970 cards links above but it applies. That disproves your heat and noise performance points.
For power consumption, during Bitmining and under maximum load, yes, the GTX 770 is marginally lower, but under typical gaming load, it's close enough that it doesn't matter much. Anandtech also shows quite similar results. Performance is quite similar indeed, but there's also the extra VRAM and game bundles that comes with HD7970 which doesn't show any sign of slowing down just yet.
To end, I don't think any awards was necessary. In my opinion, THG should probably reserve any recommendations for the monthly buyers guide. Not that I don't like the GTX 770, but prices do change and for new cards especially, those with non-reference design coolers will cost significantly more which probably is the results of manufacturers trying to rip-off uninformed and always-assume-new-is-better buyers.