770 4gb Gigabyte $460 vs EVGA $510

[Sansari]

Gigabyte 770 4gb $450

EVGA 770 4gb $510

Seems like an obvious choice; the gigabyte has 5 stars on both amazon and newegg. I've been around long enough to know evga has the best reputation; I have three video cards, a mobo, and a psu from them. But in reality is there any reason to believe the evga may turn out better? If I had to guess, the difference in price exists only because of the high demand for the evga brand. Clock speeds are almost identical. Warranty is now the same (gonna miss evga's lifetime warranty). I know the ACX cooler is supposed to be amazing but windforce has always been impressive as well, and the reported temps are great.

So any reason I shouldn't immediately grab the gigabyte?

 

[vjcsmoke]

Not really. I love EVGA but I gotta admit they are overpriced now. And without the life-time warranty, I wouldn't shell out extra for them.
It used to be that Classified or FTW products had lifetime warranties by default, but no more, this one apparently has a 3 year.

 

[Melee]

Gigabyte hands down. The factory overclocks of both cards are similar with the EVGA being a bit higher. However, both will reach about the same level and the Windforce 3 is a great cooler, as is the ACX. The point being they are both great cards. However, the Gigabyte is $60 cheaper and I can't think of a single reason not to get it over the EVGA. If I was going to shell out $520+ for a 770, I would just save up a bit more and snag a 780, tbh.

 

[Sodapopjones]

Gigabyte hands down. The factory overclocks of both cards are similar with the EVGA being a bit higher. However, both will reach about the same level and the Windforce 3 is a great cooler, as is the ACX. The point being they are both great cards. However, the Gigabyte is $60 cheaper and I can't think of a single reason not to get it over the EVGA. If I was going to shell out $520+ for a 770, I would just save up a bit more and snag a 780, tbh.

This....

I'm not getting the point of a 4gb 770 TBH, unless you got some kind of deal on it.

The only reason I have a 3GB 660Ti was I got it on sale $10 cheaper than the 2GB card heh.

 

[Flogger23m]

Not worth the extra price for EVGA. Their pricing is just not competitive and you get nothing extra or better than brands like Galaxy or MSI.

 

[powruser]

Makes sense to get a 4GB 770 if you keep your rig for 3-4 years like I do. If you're going to spend $410 on a video card, you might as well spend $450. 2GB of VRAM on a $400 in 2013 seems silly considering some games already use over 2GB.

 

[Sansari]

This....

I'm not getting the point of a 4gb 770 TBH, unless you got some kind of deal on it.

The only reason I have a 3GB 660Ti was I got it on sale $10 cheaper than the 2GB card heh.

4GB is for rendering of 3D scenes with blender's cycles and / or octane render. I would need as much vram as possible. I'm so pissed at nvidia for prohibiting the 6GB 780. I'm not going to get a damn $1000 titan just for 2gb more ram. The worst part is it's not clear if they're ever going to allow mfr's to make the 780 6gb, so I may drop $450 on this, then find out I could've gotten a 780 6gb if I waited a month or something. Called evga sales and they said they had no word on whether or not it's even being developed.

 

[hdgamer]

That's bullshit. Most games DON'T use over 2 gigs, unless you have 8msaa at more than 1600p resolution. Only a few games might. And having a 770GTX for three to four years you're going to find that the GPU is too damn slow to run those games. People and their vram nerdery. It's about performance of the gpu, the vram doesn't make the card any faster or capable unless you run into an actual bottleneck which is vastly overhyped on these damn forums. LOL

 

[257Tony]

That's bullshit. Most games DON'T use over 2 gigs, unless you have 8msaa at more than 1600p resolution. Only a few games might. And having a 770GTX for three to four years you're going to find that the GPU is too damn slow to run those games. People and their vram nerdery. It's about performance of the gpu, the vram doesn't make the card any faster or capable unless you run into an actual bottleneck which is vastly overhyped on these damn forums. LOL

This. Unless you are running multiple cards and multiple monitors the 2gb frame buffer is plenty. H did a great review on the 4gb gtx 670 and even in sli they didn't have the horsepower to utilize the extra 2gb.

 

[Sansari]

That's bullshit. Most games DON'T use over 2 gigs, unless you have 8msaa at more than 1600p resolution. Only a few games might. And having a 770GTX for three to four years you're going to find that the GPU is too damn slow to run those games. People and their vram nerdery. It's about performance of the gpu, the vram doesn't make the card any faster or capable unless you run into an actual bottleneck which is vastly overhyped on these damn forums. LOL

I'm not talking about games, I'm talking about rendering scenes I modeled with millions of polygons and many large textures with a raytracer like cycles or octane which has to load an entire scene into the vram. Using Blender, which is like max or maya if you've heard of those. The scenes are hundreds to thousands of times more detailed than what's generally rendered on screen at any given moment in a video game. Traditionally it's done on cpu & main system memory, but vram is getting up high enough to be usable. 4gb is questionable though, and 6 would be much nicer.

 

[hdgamer]

You and I posted almost the same time. My post was more directed at the one above you.

 

[tonyftw]

The gigabyte one. I love evga c/s, but that card is overpriced for what it offers. Especially since it is voltage locked.

 

[Melee]

4GB is for rendering of 3D scenes with blender's cycles and / or octane render. I would need as much vram as possible. I'm so pissed at nvidia for prohibiting the 6GB 780. I'm not going to get a damn $1000 titan just for 2gb more ram. The worst part is it's not clear if they're ever going to allow mfr's to make the 780 6gb, so I may drop $450 on this, then find out I could've gotten a 780 6gb if I waited a month or something. Called evga sales and they said they had no word on whether or not it's even being developed.

I wouldn't worry too much about buyer's remorse on these. If you buy from somewhere like Newegg or Amazon, you have a full 30 day return policy in case you either don't like it or hear news in that time of a 6gb 780. With them also being newly released, if you kept it longer than the return period then I'm sure you could still sell it for 90% of your initial investment if you wanted something else. The few used 700 Series cards that I have seen for sale are usually only priced like $10-$20 below new.

 

[Sansari]

I wouldn't worry too much about buyer's remorse on these. If you buy from somewhere like Newegg or Amazon, you have a full 30 day return policy in case you either don't like it or hear news in that time of a 6gb 780. With them also being newly released, if you kept it longer than the return period then I'm sure you could still sell it for 90% of your initial investment if you wanted something else. The few used 700 Series cards that I have seen for sale are usually only priced like $10-$20 below new.

Yeah, but I'm feeling if it ever comes out, it'll be more like end of the year. I wouldn't mind waiting that long, but I have no assurance that the 6gb will even exist. And beside the 4 vs 6 gb deal, I'm also really miffed because kepler, when it was first released, was awful for gpu compute purposes, but big kepler is supposed to be different. 770 is original kepler, and 780 is big kepler >:[
And on top of that, I have only exactly one benchmark to go off of from Tom's, which shows the 780 is much better for octane, but not much else. So it's hard to tell if big kepler really has a big advantage.

Anyway, the 770 is close enough, and it's significantly cheaper, and it's the safer investment, and I could sell it if necessary to get a 780, and I'll get the gigabyte over the evga. I really just wanted someone to tell me 'no, stupid, you don't pay $60 more for the same card'