Palit GeForce GTX 770 Jetstream review (Page 23)

Palit GeForce GTX 770 Jetstream review

Graphics cards 1054 Page 23 of 23 Published 2013-05-30 14:57 by Hilbert Hagedoorn

Conclusion

As I've stated in the other GeForce GTX 770 reviews earlier on as well, the release of the GeForce GTX 770 is a little bit of a weird one, really this is a GeForce GTX 680 in disguise. Now there's nothing wrong with that as it merely is a refresh of an existing product line. The GTX 680 has been a real powerhouse in performance and to date can keep up in the high-end range of dedicated graphics cards. The reality of course for those that have purchased a GTX 680, there's no reason to upgrade whatsoever. Overall you are looking at a performance differential of 10% in favor of the GTX 770. The GTX 770 is faster thanks to a higher standard clock and memory frequency. But it's the same performance as a slightly tweaked GTX 680. What will be interesting to see is how this GTX 770 is going to cannibalize the GTX 680 sales. So keep a close eye on price development. Now I do not want to cast a negative cloud on the GTX 770 as really, it's a great product to have in your PC. The Palit card then, well this little factory overclocked beast is just great in performance, fantastic when is comes to noise levels and grand in cooling. Palit certainly injected a lot of TLC into this model. But let's break down and talk about the card in little segments.

Aesthetics

Palit applied their latest incarnation of the Jetstream cooling solution. This revision is a three slot solution and I think it just looks great, if a bit bulky perhaps. The PCB seems to follow the reference though it's been manufactured by Palit alright. Then the the cooler in its all black design combined with the dark PCB, that's just great loking. Combine it with the three silent fans you can only conclude that it is a nice product. Great looking and very sturdy as well. I mean just look at her ...

Cooling and noise levels

As you have been able to see in the our test sessions, the cooler does its job really well. With the Jetstream cooler the GPU will get something in the 400~450W of cooling power available to it. As a result the 'official' temperature target might remain 80 degrees C, but this card hovers at 70 Degrees C. Now you can get that number even lower as the fans are set at very low RPM. 60 to 65 Degrees is an option at near silence as well. We do not fire off pointless viral like applications like Furmark to test temperatures. We simply log the temperatures during our benchmark sessions and take the highest recorded temperature. So that's 13 games/applications times three resolutions which is 39 tests, and we take the hottest recorded temperature seen over all these tests. With low temperatures comes an added benefit, the dynamic clock frequency will go higher up to the point it reached its power target of 230 Watt.

Noise, once again we see a card that you can hardly hear this card, fantastic development.

Power consumption

Again not bad, the card is rated at as having a 230 Watt TDP. That 250 Watt TDP also will make running multi-GPU solutions a bit more easy. With two card we think an 800 Watt PSU would be sufficient. So yeah, it's not great to have a GPU sucking up 230 Watt, but you'lll agree with us that it could have been a lot worse, really. If you look at the dual-GPU based ARES II for example, that card alone draws 500 Watt / 250 Watt per GPU. So, perspective is the word I like you to keep in mind. Mind you that our measurements show that the card is just under 200 Watts of power consumption mostly (under stress).

Game performance

The Palit GeForce GTX 770 Jetstream in most scenarios will be 15% to 25% slower than the GTX 780, comparing towards GTX 680 it seems give or take 10% faster. Drivers wise we can't complain at all, we did not stumble into any issues. And with a single GPU there's no micro-stuttering (if that ever bothered you) and no multi-GPU driver issues to fight off. Performance wise really there's not one game that won't run seriously good at the very best image quality settings. The one title that is a little icky is Metro Last Light, just disable SSAA as the game already applies and enforces in-game AAA. Gaming you must do with a nice 30" monitor of course, at 2560x1440/1600. I mean Sleeping Dogs at high quality is still oozing out 88 FPS there. Or what about Hitman Absolution with 45 FPS at 1920x1200 High quality and 2xMSAA? At these resolutions the GeForce GTX 780 offers just a phenomenal gaming experience with image quality that you can only get on a PC.

Overclocking

Overclocking then, I find it impressive. First off, the card already has a very nice factory overclock straight out of the box. As a result the card is boosting to 1202 MHz already. A thing or two have changed, the new boost modes now also can be configured with temperature targets relative to maximum power draw and your GPU Core frequency offsets. Saying that I realize it's sounds complicated, but you'll have your things balanced out quite fast. This GPU can take 1250 MHz fairly easily really, and at that stage you added another 10% performance already (over reference GTX 770). We had great results allowing this card to run stable at just over 1300 MHz.

The GeForce GTX 770 overall is a little weird, as the product tested really is all too familiar. Sure it has difference (improved) looks and cooling. But the heart of the GTX 770 is the GTX 680, combined with a small tweak on the baseclock clock frequency and memory it brings in a nice 10% gain in performance. The decisive factor obviously is going to be pricing.

The performance of the GeForce GTX 770 is nothing to complain about, in fact at 1920x1200 this might be the best card for the money if you are looking for some brute horsepower in the high-end segment. So the MSRP pricing for GTX 770 overall is EUR 329.00 excl. VAT, which means roughly 395 EUR / USD depending on your country. And that's quite honestly a very reasonable price, especially when you consider that it is the suggested retail price. Shave off another 15% in about four weeks and that will be the final pricing (roughly). It is really interesting to see what kind of quality cards the board-partners deliver at launch. Palit in this review for example delivers a GTX 770 that might be a little bulky, but it is amongst the most silent cards we ever ever tested, I love that. The temperatures remains excellent and the performance is great thanks to that really high stock overclock. There's no need to make the conclusion any longer then needed, this product comes highly recommended if you are in the market for it, of course.

Conclusion

Conclusion

Aesthetics

Cooling and noise levels

Power consumption

Game performance

Overclocking

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