GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 770 WindForce Pictured

[btarunr]

GIGABYTE was a little early in making the product page of its upcoming GeForce GTX 770 WindForce OC graphics card live, much to our delight. Here are some of the first pictures of GIGABYTE's creation (model: GV-N770OC-2GD). The card looks nearly identical to the GeForce GTX 780 WindForce OC we reviewed last week. It uses the same WindForce cooling solution that's designed to handle thermal loads as high as 450W. The specifications tab in the product page gives out clock speeds of this factory-overclocked card, which are 1137 MHz core, 1189 MHz GPU Boost, and 7.00 GHz memory. At this point, we can't tell if the card is based on an NVIDIA reference-design PCB, it lacks NVIDIA markings.

Many Thanks to T4CFantasy for the tip.

 

[Delta6326]

Awesome I expect this will be even more silent than the 780 version. I just wish these cards came with a backplate to support these heavy coolers, but now that I'm in love with Horizontal cases that's not to big of a deal.

 

[Therion_I]

I bought a GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 670 WindForce and have had nothing but problems with it. It's gone wrong for the second time since I bought it now and the Gigabyte RMA process is so awful I'm thinking of just binning the £330 card and buying something else.

The problem I've got is a well known one with Z77 PCI-E 3.0 16x, and yet Gigabyte still refuse to admit the problem even exists!

I'd steer clear of getting one of these, at least until any initial kinks have been worked out.

 

[OneCool]

Is this based on a GTX 680? (the GTX 770)

 

[Hilux SSRG]

I bought a GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 670 WindForce and have had nothing but problems with it. It's gone wrong for the second time since I bought it now and the Gigabyte RMA process is so awful I'm thinking of just binning the £330 card and buying something else.

The problem I've got is a well known one with Z77 PCI-E 3.0 16x, and yet Gigabyte still refuse to admit the problem even exists!

I'd steer clear of getting one of these, at least until any initial kinks have been worked out.

My experience has been quite the opposite and recommend anyone buy the first batches of this card. First batches of the gtx670 OC WF3 have had phenomenal overclocking. Later manufacturing runs and/or revisions of the WF3 and WF2 variants have been quite buggy or have died outright in the first six mos. or so of ownership - as you can read the newegg reviews to see what I mean.

How old is your WF3/2? Have you checked with the gigabyte or mobo manufaturer for revised drivers/bios?

 

[Hilux SSRG]

Is this based on a GTX 680? (the GTX 770)

Yeah, it's a revised gk104 with higher clocks for gpu and memory.

 

[RCoon]

My experience has been quite the opposite and recommend anyone buy the first batches of this card. First batches of the gtx670 OC WF3 have had phenomenal overclocking.

I also highly recommend Gigabyte cards to anyone thinking of getting any cards. They are always very reasonably priced and the windforce coolers are quite literally amazing.

 

[Therion_I]

My experience has been quite the opposite and recommend anyone buy the first batches of this card. First batches of the gtx670 OC WF3 have had phenomenal overclocking. Later manufacturing runs and/or revisions of the WF3 and WF2 variants have been quite buggy or have died outright in the first six mos. or so of ownership - as you can read the newegg reviews to see what I mean.

How old is your WF3/2? Have you checked with the gigabyte or mobo manufaturer for revised drivers/bios?

Bought mine straight after the TechPowerUp roundup which recommended them. Bios version was F1 so pretty sure it was first run. Card would be great on a non z68 or z77 mobo. As I run z77 I have to turn it down to PCI-E 2.0 which doesn't impact performance but it's bloody annoying for a £330 card. I try every bios they release, but I'm sure it's a physical problem with the board.

It's all very well you lot recommending Gigabyte cards because they perform well, but their RMA is completely crap. They basically make it so you just don't want to bother trying. They've now dropped the £15 admin fee for even accepting it as an RMA but it took them 2 months to process my card the first time and whatever fix they didn't last long. If your product is over six months when it dies they'll also only send you a B-grade/second hand one instead of a new one.

I'd rather buy a slightly slower card from a much more reliable company myself.

 

[Therion_I]

Oh and this is the six page thread on the official gigabyte forum about the common fault my card has:

http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,9144.0.html

And their only answer was:

"Hi guys ! Sorry for not picking up the thread earlier but I have been very busy. The problem here is that this forum (and centre) mainly deals with motherboards and the graphics card division is not here... etc"

So why do you have a blooming Graphics Card subsection? Sod off Gigabyte!

 

[omnimodis78]

I bought a GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 670 WindForce and have had nothing but problems with it. It's gone wrong for the second time since I bought it now and the Gigabyte RMA process is so awful I'm thinking of just binning the £330 card and buying something else.

The problem I've got is a well known one with Z77 PCI-E 3.0 16x, and yet Gigabyte still refuse to admit the problem even exists!

I'd steer clear of getting one of these, at least until any initial kinks have been worked out.

Not to disrespect your comment, or give the impression that your problems aren't real, but I have been using my Gigabyte GTX670 with a z77 board for some time now (and with an AMD 770 chipset before then) and I had/have zero issues! I have it overclocked (the GPU) around what I gather to be an above-average OC for this chip, and still, no issues at all. What is this "well known" problem you are referring to, I'm just curious now.

 

[jihadjoe]

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd find myself preferring the reference cooler to just about every custom solution. Nvidia has really outdone themselves with this one.

 

[Therion_I]

Not to disrespect your comment, or give the impression that your problems aren't real, but I have been using my Gigabyte GTX670 with a z77 board for some time now (and with an AMD 770 chipset before then) and I had/have zero issues! I have it overclocked (the GPU) around what I gather to be an above-average OC for this chip, and still, no issues at all. What is this "well known" problem you are referring to, I'm just curious now.

To sum up: They released a batch of them which fail on PCI-E 3.0 on 16 lanes. 8 lanes is fine. PCI-E 2.0 is fine. Read the link if you're actually "curious" (see, I can do sarcastic quote marks too )

 

[Yeoman]

Have to say, not really getting the hype about the reference cooler. Based on its looks at least, I find it looks quite tacky and almost cheap looking. The other coolers (like the gigabyte one) look better in my opinion, perhaps in part because they look 'more practical', and at least seem to perform as such too.

Just my thoughts.

 

[omnimodis78]

To sum up: They released a batch of them which fail on PCI-E 3.0 on 16 lanes. 8 lanes is fine. PCI-E 2.0 is fine. Read the link if you're actually "curious" (see, I can do sarcastic quote marks too )

I wasn't being sarcastic, actually, I was curious. And I checked out the link. You are misrepresenting the facts here. Firstly, by "their answer" (not sarcasm, just a quote) is actually one gold member's reply who explained to you very honestly and clearly why your and the other 6 people (since I'll assume you're the 7th) discussing your problems are out of his area - I think he meant that the community forum isn't really tech support - though he did state he will inform the admin, and he updated you all that he did so - you should have mentioned that just for fairness sake. And yes, Gigabyte should address your issues, I wholeheartedly agree with you. You might laugh at my suggestion, but I'm serious - if you have any friends/acquaintances who speak Mandarin, call their HQ in Taiwan - the tech support there can get you in direct contact with engineering, and those guys will always be brutally honest. They even pushed out a BIOS update from a mobo once after I contacted them to explain a really odd phenomenon I was experiencing - and that solved my problem.

 

[Hilux SSRG]

I wasn't being sarcastic, actually, I was curious. And I checked out the link. You are misrepresenting the facts here. Firstly, by "their answer" (not sarcasm, just a quote) is actually one gold member's reply who explained to you very honestly and clearly why your and the other 6 people (since I'll assume you're the 7th) discussing your problems are out of his area - I think he meant that the community forum isn't really tech support - though he did state he will inform the admin, and he updated you all that he did so - you should have mentioned that just for fairness sake. And yes, Gigabyte should address your issues, I wholeheartedly agree with you. You might laugh at my suggestion, but I'm serious - if you have any friends/acquaintances who speak Mandarin, call their HQ in Taiwan - the tech support there can get you in direct contact with engineering, and those guys will always be brutally honest. They even pushed out a BIOS update from a mobo once after I contacted them to explain a really odd phenomenon I was experiencing - and that solved my problem.

That's good advice. The manufacturer's tech support forums are the best places to get your product issues resolved and/or newegg reviews.

 

[Therion_I]

I wasn't being sarcastic, actually, I was curious. And I checked out the link. You are misrepresenting the facts here. Firstly, by "their answer" (not sarcasm, just a quote) is actually one gold member's reply who explained to you very honestly and clearly why your and the other 6 people (since I'll assume you're the 7th) discussing your problems are out of his area - I think he meant that the community forum isn't really tech support - though he did state he will inform the admin, and he updated you all that he did so - you should have mentioned that just for fairness sake. And yes, Gigabyte should address your issues, I wholeheartedly agree with you. You might laugh at my suggestion, but I'm serious - if you have any friends/acquaintances who speak Mandarin, call their HQ in Taiwan - the tech support there can get you in direct contact with engineering, and those guys will always be brutally honest. They even pushed out a BIOS update from a mobo once after I contacted them to explain a really odd phenomenon I was experiencing - and that solved my problem.

Yes yes yes, then he went and abandoned the thread.. still not great is it?

So your suggestion for getting any technical help from Gigabyte is to find someone who speaks Mandarin? Sums up Gigabyte to a 'T'.

Great cards, crap company.

 

[omnimodis78]

Yes yes yes, then he went and abandoned the thread.. still not great is it?

So your suggestion for getting any technical help from Gigabyte is to find someone who speaks Mandarin? Sums up Gigabyte to a 'T'.

Great cards, crap company.

The fact that a company even dares to get customers in touch with engineers is phenomenal, and if you understood the industry beyond your narrow minded entry level emotional outbursts, you'd understand why that is. Gigabyte is a great company, sure, not perfect, but mind telling me what is your idea of a perfect company that has the ability to provide 1:1 support? Your attitude is perhaps the problem. Not to mention, you're welcome for the awesome suggestion I gave you. If the problem is too big for you to be bothered with, then take a loss, sell you card, and buy another one from another company, it really is that simple.

 

[Therion_I]

It's a crap company, get over it.

 

[NeoXF]

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd find myself preferring the reference cooler to just about every custom solution. Nvidia has really outdone themselves with this one.

It's decent, but in no way shape or form is it better than most if not all, the custom ones. Not to mention, considering these cards can overclock quite well, I'd hate to be hampered by TDP/thermal throttling or voltage limitations.