EVGA GTX 770 SC Review

Like:
Great performance; Good ACX cooling; Fairly
quiet while under load; Competitive price
Dislike:
Not a huge increase in performance over last-
gen

introduction

One of the only issues we have with the GTX 770
concerns Nvidia's decision to drop the lovely
trivalent chromium plated cooling solution from
the GTX Titan and 780 onto it. We had no
problem with the level of cooling it affords and
we certainly had no problem with the look - it
couldn't look any more bling unless it had a
diamond-studded hubcap in the middle of the fan
housing.
The problem is that the only way for card
manufacturers to differentiate themselves is to
design own-brand cooling solutions and slap
them onto their cards, maybe with a hefty
overclock to boot. And that's exactly what EVGA
has done with this Superclocked version of the
excellent GTX 770.
So instead of the matte-finished, LED-lit, robust
Nvidia cooler, EVGA has gone with its brand new
ACX (we're not using the word "Xtreme", EVGA)
cooling array. Instead of the trivalent chromium
plating, we've got plastic surrounds and a couple
of chunky fans.
It would be shallow indeed if our big concerns
around a new graphics card launch were about
its aesthetics alone, but it's a fact that no matter
how good the cooling performance of such a
replacement chiller on either a GTX 780 or GTX
770 , they're going to suffer by visual comparison.
Xtremely cool
And that's a shame, because the ACX cooling is
really quite impressive on these Superclocked
cards. Like EVGA's GTX 760 version, this GTX
770 iteration manages to chill the GPU down by
at least 10ºC.
The stock cooler, as good-looking as it is, still
gets rather hot when you apply some serious
graphics loads. We were knocking around 80ºC
with the Titan-esque cooler at 100 per cent GPU
load - this Superclocked card, on the other hand,
is sitting resolutely at 69ºC.
We couldn't spot much difference in general
acoustic levels with the out-of-the-box settings;
the top-end Nvidia reference cooler is pretty good
regarding standard noise levels. The chunkier
fans mean the ACX cooler doesn't have to spin
up so quickly to dissipate the heat, so it
shouldn't hit the same top-end noise levels.
But what about the actual gaming performance
of this factory-overclocked card? The standard
GTX 770 is already impressive, batting ahead of
the GTX 680 it's essentially replacing, and even
this OC version is cheaper than any GTX 680 I've
found.
Benchmarks
The Active Cooling Xtreme chip chiller on EVGA
cards is really impressive, especially up against
the lovely high-end Nvidia reference cooler. Being
able to stay below 70ºC - even when the chip is
dialling up to 1,228MHz with GPU Boost 2.0 in its
out-of-the-box state - is quite a feat.
DirectX 11 tessellation performance
Heaven 4.0: Frames per second: Higher is better
EVGA GTX 770 SC: 26
NVIDIA GTX 770: 24.9
EVGA GTX 760 SC: 20.6
DirectX 11 gaming performance
Crysis 3: Frames per second: Higher is better
EVGA GTX 770 SC: 31
NVIDIA GTX 770: 29
EVGA GTX 760 SC: 24
ACX cooling performance
100% GPU load: Degrees centigrade: Cooler is
better
EVGA GTX 770 SC: 69
NVIDIA GTX 770: 79
EVGA GTX 760 SC: 71
Verdict
In real terms, this Superclocked card doesn't
really offer much in terms of extra gaming chops,
compared with the reference card, which can
easily be pushed up to the same levels as this
pricier version.
What you do get for the extra money you're
spending on EVGA's Superclocked GTX 770 is a
card that can hit those top clocks without
melting the silicon inside your expensive new
GPU. It will happily run at the enhanced clock
speed, at lower temperatures than the standard
card can manage running slower.
Combined with EVGA's warranty support, this
overclocked card is worth a look for that
impressive ACX cooling alone. So long as you
don't mind ditching the chrome, that is