GAINWARD GTX 770 PHANTOM Review

If you are looking for a silent powerhouse, Gainward might have just what you are looking for with their new NVIDIA GTX770 graphics card: The Phantom…

Product on Review: GeForce® GTX 770 Phantom
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Gainward
Street Price: £346.98 inc VAT (at time of review)

Gainward Co. Ltd was founded in Taipei in 1984 so they are no strangers to the technology nor are they unfamiliar with NVIDIA products as they have been board partners since 2001. 7 years ago they merged with another popular GPU manufacturer – Palit Microsystem Inc. so they are rightly considered one of the premier GPU producers and with almost 30 years of success in the business, they look set to continue providing exciting products like the one we have for review today for many years to come.

The NVIDIA GTX770 we reviewed on launch day came direct from NVIDIA and as such it had the TITAN-esque reference cooler attached. Some manufacturers opted to stay with the tried and tested cooler which is no bad thing as we found the reference cooler to be more than adequate. However, most manufacturers have opted to use their own designs which is a risky strategy given how good the reference design is. The Gainward Phantom is one such design and as we will see is a fairly bold but also inventive design. With GPU BOOST 2.0 relying heavily on temperatures to determine which clockspeed the card boost to, cooling has never been so important on a graphics card.

The Phantom design of the Gainward GTX770 is not entirely new as it has been used in both the 5 and 6 series of NVIDIA cards however today’s cooler has been tweaked and is perhaps an evolution of previous designs. It has some very neat features, looks tremendous and it has to be said that sat atop of the GTX770, it is a behemoth of a graphics card.

Can it perform though? I think we should find out….

Specification

As we can see from the spec sheet above, the GAINWARD PHANTOM is slightly faster than reference, receiving a healthy 104MHz factory overclock. the memory speed however remains the same which is odd considering how much this memory likes to be overclocked.

The remainder of the specifications are pretty much the same but it is worth noting, if you hadn’t guessed already that this card will take up 2.5 PCI slots so in effect, it is a 3 slot design.

About the NVIDIA GTX770

Based on the same GK104 found on the GTX680, the GTX770 contains 1536 CUDA cores at a slightly higher clockspeed than the GTX680. The GTX770 comes in two varients, the 2GB and the 4GB version. For most the 2GB card will provide the best balance of power vs price however should you have a larger display, then the 4GB version may be worth opting for. Both versions feature a worlds first 7GBPs (GDDR5 effective)memory subsystem which is a significant boost over the GTX680. Comprising of the same 256-bit memory controller means the GTX770 has 224.3GB/sec memory bandwidth at it’s disposal.

Kepler Core
The GTX770 is equipped with a GK104 core is fabricated on the 28nm process with every component was designed with power efficiency in mind to ensure the GPU gave the best performance-per-watt possible.

While the 28nm manufacturing process holds the bulk of the power saving features, the way the new architecture works is also key to furthering Kepler’s power reduction. SMX, an evolution of the SM from Fermi is NVIDIA’s new streaming multiprocessor:

Each SMX runs at the graphics clock speed rather than 2x that speed as previously but because the GK104 has 1536 CUDA cores (8xSMX), over Fermi’s (GF110) 512 CUDA cores (16xSM), Kepler allows the GTX770 to operate at twice the performance per watt measurement compared to the GTX570.

The clock throughput of FMA2, SFU and texture operations have all been significantly increased and while some operations still retain the same speed as the GTX580, the GTX770’s much higher core clockspeed ensures a substantial increase for all GPU operations.

To feed the new SMX, each unit has four warp schedulers, each capable of firing off two instructions per warp, every clock. With a redesigned scheduling function, the GTX770 is a lot less complex and much more streamlined allowing the compiler to determine which instructions will be issued and can provide this information direct to the hardware block rather than going around the houses using Multi-port decode and a register scoreboard along with the dependency check before the information gets issued. This method is both quicker and more importantly, more power efficient.

Perhaps the biggest change from Fermi to Kepler was the omission of the old Shader Clock. The shader clock was getting tired as it was part of the old Tesla architecture which was implemented as an area optimisation. Because of the way Kepler executes instructions at a much more streamlined manner and at a higher clock rate, fewer copies of the execution unit need be made.

Another improvement over Fermi with the introduction of SMX is the redesigned Polymorph engine (2.0). The Polymorph engine takes card of the tessellation workload of the GTX770. The design of the Polymorph engine is to ensure that the tessellation we see on screen has little (as possible) impact on the rendering performance. What you may find bizarre though is that NVIDIA have cut the Polymorph engine count in half to 8 from Fermi’s 16 yet claim it is almost twice as quick. This is thanks to the improved core an memory clockpeed.

With both a higher core clockspeed based on older (but still very fast) GK104 core and of course that blisteringly fast memory, the GTX770 looks set to replace not only the GTX670, but it’s bigger, but older brother, last years flagship graphics card, the GTX680.

GPU Boost 2.0

GPU Boost caused a bit of a stir when it was first introduced because it did away with the traditional ‘absolute’ method of dictating MHz. Rather it worked by overclocking the card by different means. To achieve an overclock using GPU Boost, one increased the MHz and Voltage as per usual however the card would then ‘Boost’ when placed under load. So rather than having a fixed clockpseed, the GPU adjusts the clockspeed depending on load, ensuring the power is there when you need it rather than it being full on all of the time, thus saving power consumption and heat production by having the card overclock dynamically.

GPU Boost 2.0 is an evolution of this idea. The techs at NVIDIA have determined that GPU power was unnecessarily limiting performance when GPU temperatures was low. Instead of boosting GPU performance based on a power target, it is now based upon temperature with this temperature threshold being 80 degrees Celsius.

Because the boosting is now determined by temperature, noise levels are also reduced as NVIDIA claim the GTX cards deliver a better acoustic profile.

So to summarise, overclocking the card using GPU boost 2.0 means adjusting the temperature threshold, for example from 80c to 85c. The GPU clockspeed will then gradually increase until it reaches this new temperature and will be dynamically adjusted on-the-fly to stay within this threshold. Because of this it is much more difficult to claim one GPU is faster than another without having both working under precisely the same operating conditions.

It therefore should go without saying (but we will say it anyway) that the colder your card runs, the faster it should theoretically operate as a colder card allows overvolting and thus even higher clockspeeds.

GPU Boost 2.0 also features overvoltage control. NVIDIA make no bones that enabling this function will damage the long term operability of the graphics card and as with AMD’s overdrive, you have to acknowledge this fact before you can unlock the cards voltage control. We applaud NVIDIA for this because they have acknowledged that enthusiasts, like us here at Vortez, like to push hardware to the max and without voltage control, the whole process becomes so much more uninteresting and much more difficult.

So, because GTX770’s boost clock and voltage level are now tied to the GPU’s temperature, the voltage can be dialled higher which in turn will allow the GPU to attain higher clockspeed values. Obviously, increasingly board voltage, as with most other products, will gradually degrade the GPU through electron migration causing a premature death of the GPU. Voltage support will be offered on a board partner by partner basis however, we would be extremely surprised if it wasn’t enabled in every GTX770’s VBIOS.

We will see how GPU Boost 2.0 performs in our overclocking section later in the review.

GeForce Experience

GeForce Experience is a new application from NVIDIA that optimizes your PC in two key ways. First, it maximizes your game performance and game compatibility by automatically downloading the latest GeForce Game Ready drivers. Second, GeForce Experience intelligently optimizes graphics settings for all your favorite games based on your hardware configuration.

Some enthusiasts will view (excuse the pun) altering settings to get the very best from a game one of the ‘fun’ elements of owning a powerful graphics card. Others just want to play their game of choice without the endless testing and benchmarking to determine what settings work best. Many don’t have the inclination or indeed the time to learn what effect each setting has upon the games visual elements.It soon becomes a bind when upon a new driver release those settings which were great before can be bettered (or lowered) for a better gaming experience. FXAA, TSAA, MMAA or simply AA. Low, medium, high, ultra texture settings along with overall visual settings can be all too confusing when configuring a games visuals and while it would be easy to just crank everything up to maximum and hoping for the best, this all too often results in choppy, unplayable gaming ruining the gaming experience.

NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience removes much of the guess work when configuring a game thereby giving users the means to jump straight into the game with the best optimised settings for there hardware.

This handy utility will also keep your GPU updated with the latest driver that can be set to automatically download, ready to be installed as soon as they are available and also it gives you access to the beta drivers.

How does it work?
GeForce experience requires an internet connection which, once connected to the NVIDIA Cloud datacenter will download optimal game settings that are tailored to your PC based upon CPU, GPU and monitor resolution.

Low end hardware will have the visuals reduced to improve framerates while high end hardware will inevitably have higher settings assigned. This is all done with a click of a button which ensures that the game not only looks great but perhaps more importantly, plays smoothly.

Testing of the settings are done by NVIDIA themselves who benchmark the game, set a framerate target to ensure smooth gameplay then adjust the settings to ensure both framerate and smooth gameplay are optimised.

In our own tests, the utility worked well and is great for those who want to jump straight into the game with the minimal of fuss and furore of adjusting GPU settings.

Our one complaint is that the supported games list requires expanding. While most of the popular games are supported, many, especially some older but very popular titles are not.

Packaging & Accessories

The GAINWARD PHANTOM GTX770 comes packaged in a rather thick box. The outer sleeve is well designed and reflects the heatsink design by the accents across its midriff. A full frontal picture of the card dominates the front of the box with company logo and the ‘Phantom’ moniker.

Flipping the box over we find GAINWARD have gone to great lengths to push the cooler design. If that were not enough the GPU manufacturer expands upon this detail with a flip up lid which also has a window showing the card itself.

Removing the outer packaging we are greeted with a rigid plastic 2 part blister pack which frames the card, holding it steadfast. Beneath this plastic bracket we get a separate compartment where we find the accessories

The accessory list is good with the standard installation guide and driver CD. Also included is a twin 6pin PCIe to 8pin PCIe power cable adaptor should you not have an 8pin PCIe cable available on your PSU. A neat little addition was a VGA to HDMI adaptor which is rarely included with GPU’s. A VGA-DVI adaptor rounds of the accessory list.

First Look

Compared to the reference design, the Gainward Phantom is both longer and taller. Unlike the perspex window on the reference design, the aluminium fins on the Phantom are completely exposed. You could be excused for thinking this may present problems with regard to dust with the 3 fans beneath sucking air in through those fins however, as we will see, Gainward have introduced a very neat design to counter this problem.

The massive heatsink is trimmed with a glossy black plastic shroud that looks great when polished up however it is a bit of a fingerprint magnet!

Flipping the card over we find that there is no backplate which was a shame given the nature of the card. The PCB is the same length as the reference GTX770 and if you look closely, you can see the overhang of the graphics card’s cooler. The dark brown PCB is certainly not to our tastes and it was interesting to see Gainward use an old ATI four screw style bracket however the plethora of stickers, some for quality control and others to prevent meddling (more on that later) spoiled the general look of the back of the card.

Unlike the GTX770 reference design, the Gainward Phantom will occupy 2.5 slots which in real terms means you will lose the use 3 expansion slots with this card in place.

Overall, we loved the look of the Phantom. The sleek glossy finish to the shroud reminded us of the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey and like the apes in that movie, we didn’t understand what the point of it was until we explored a little deeper…

Closer Look

The photo above shows us that like the reference design, the Phantom will require both 8pin and 6pin PCIe power and Gainward recommend a minimum 600W or greater system power supply with a minimum 12V current rating of 42A on the 12v rail.

You may also notice a signle thumb screw beneath the power ports. There are three of these along the length of the GPU..

Now this is a design we like. With the thumb screws unscrewed, the fans detach from the cooler like a sliding drawer. This is an ingenious design which will make cleaning the fans a cinch. You wouldn’t even have to remove the GPU from the motherboard to perform this task.

Each of the three fans us a slotting mechanism. While the fans almost 100% plastic in design, in practice they are note quite as flimsy as you might think. Upon inserting the fans back into the cooler you get a little resistance and then a satisfying click as they hit home and re-attach to the fan header.

Having two SLI tabs, the Gainward Phantom is Quad SLI ready.

Finally in the I/O department we find a pretty standard affair with the input/output comprising of DVI-I and DVI-D ports, HDMI and a single DisplayPort. It is a shame Gainward didn’t make use of the extra girth of the card by making it a 3 slot design, after all, it removes the use of 3 expansion slots so why not go the full hog and make it a 3 slot design. This would have allowed more venting at the back of the card or perhaps allowing a little more room for more connectivity?

Let’s take a look a closer, more detailed look at today’s review sample…

Detailed Look

Remember how we mentioned the plethora of stickers. Well this sticker will likely be of biggest concern as it will break the warranty of the card if broken meaning that if you should be brave enough to remove the cooler, the warranty will be invalidated.

Another interesting sticker hides a broken circuit preventing the unlocking overcurrent features perhaps. Sadly, we didn’t have the correct resistor to try this theory out but I’m sure there will be some extreme overclocking enthusiasts who will be intrigued by this.

Throwing caution to the wind we removed the cooler which was relatively straight forward however it should be noted there was no rubber stand-offs protecting the core surround so extreme caution should be used if you intend on taking the same course of action.

As we have already discussed the cooling design comprises of three fans which suck air through the longitudinal, aluminium finned array. 5 x 8mm chromed heatpipes help to dissipate the heat by channelling said heat from the copper baseplate across the breadth of the finned array.

The baseplate core was good to see as copper is one of the best conductors of heat however the finish could be improved as it was very rough.

We found that our sample had an excessive amount of GPU thermal interface material applied which completely covered the core and surrounding surface. This actually had an adverse affect on temperatures as we tested before and after (we also replaced the TIM with MX4) and saw a 2c drop in idle temps!

The midplate provides direct contact to both memory chips and the VRM via thermal pads and with a little coercing can be removed without damaging the pads.

With the whole of the heatsink and midplate removed we can finally take a look at the PCB.

While the core and memory design remain in the same position, the VRM is radically altered. With the reference design ‘only’ having a 5+1 power phase, the Gainward increases this tally to 8! This is sure to please the overclockers as stable/smooth power delivery generally equates to better overclocking. Something we will put to the test later in the review.

The Gainward uses the exact same model of memory as found on the reference design with a model number of K4G20325FD-FC28. This is the first GDDR5 memory to be clocked at 7GHz as standard. There is however much more left in the tank but Gainward opted not to overclock this part of the card…

..instead leaving the overclocking to the core itself. The GK104 on this model is clocked as standard to 1150MHz which is no mean feat, especially for what is in effect a GTX680 core. We however feel that with that souped-up VRM, there is more fiddling to be done…

Test Setup

How we test graphics cards

Testing a graphics card is an extremely lengthy process. We sometimes see reviews where a graphic card has been tested using out of date equipment, out of date games and out of date drivers. While the latter can be excused due to the sheer amount of driver updates making a thorough review impossible we will however notify the reader when we have used a different driver to the normal for example a pre-release driver. For the most part however we will always use the same hardware and where possible the same drivers unless a newer driver rectifies an issue we have encountered or significantly improves performance to such an extent that continuing with an outdated driver is not feasible.

We have also seen the emergence of frame time analysis. We covered this in a separate article here: GPU Reviews: Why Frame Time Analysis is important so we won’t go into the reasoning again but to summarise, our testing comprises both FPS testing and perhaps arguably more importantly, frame time analysis. We also look at overall performance by equating averages across the games and finally before concluding our review we take a look at value for money.

HardwareWith the latest Intel chipset release we decided to update our ageing X58 setup to the new X79 chipset. Not only that but we will be using the flagship Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor clocked to 4.5GHz to ensure we have no CPU bottlenecks. With 16GB of ram on board there should be minimal paging so the benchmarks we run today will hopefully give a true reflection of the graphics card’s performance.

High End Graphics cards on test:

Gainward Phantom GTX 770 2GB GDDR5
(Forceware 320.18) *New Release Driver*
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 2GB GDDR5 (Forceware 320.18) *New Release Driver*
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB GDDR5 (Forceware 320.18) *New Release Driver*
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 6GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN SLI 12GB(2x6GB) GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GTX680 2GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
AMD HD7970 3GB GDDR5 (AMD CAT 13.3 beta)

Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 Pro
CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition @ 4.5GHz
RAM – 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair Vengeance (Red) DDR3 @ 1866MHz 9-10-9-27
Power Supply – Thortech Thunderbolt Plus 1200W
Hard Drive – Kingston HyperX 240GB
Cooler – Corsair H100

Benchmarks
If you are a regular reader of our reviews you will know we like to test the latest hardware with the latest games and benchmarks on the market. Here are the games we have chosen:

Battlefield 3
Crysis 3
Far Cry 3
BioShock Infinite
DiRT: Showdown
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

We also take into consideration the benchmarkers out there so have included 3 of the more popular synthetic benchmarks available:

Unigine: Valley
Unigine: Heaven 4
Futuremark 3DMark Firestrike

Let’s see how today’s graphics card performed…

Temperature, Acoustics and Power Consumption

Power Consumption

To test for power consumption we use the included iPower Meter found with our Thortech PSU. As system load figures obviously differ from idle it is extremely difficult to get an accurate figure of system draw and then simply take this figure away from the overall amount because each game will generate varying levels of CPU and hard drive activity. Dynamic power adjustments which fluctuate in game will also affect accurate power figures thus rendering any such power consumption calculations redundant at worst and approximate at best.

We will therefore take our system readings averaged over a benchmark run of Tessmark (100% load) and after 20 minutes of being idle in Windows 7. These can then be used as a comparison to other graphics cards to determine how much more or less power you can expect a GPU to consume.

The Gainward card consumed nears as damn it the same amount of power as the reference design, despite the higher overclocks. An excellent result!

Temperature

To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests, we would normally run Furmark for 20 minutes, taking the absolute maximum temperature attained however we found that this throttled the card and resulted in spurious results. So we set Heaven running continuously for 20 minutes and used this as a temperature result as the card did not throttle with this application.

As with the reference design, the temperature is dictated by whatever temp is set which at reference is 80c. The Gainward card happily kept to this temperature throughout the testing with no adverse affects.

Acoustics

When we first saw the Phantom design we thought it was an out and out passive cooling design so expected it to run silently. Upon realising that the card did in fact have three small fans, we then became worried that this would drop to the opposite end of the noise scale and become a screaming banshee. Our fears were however unfounded as the card DID run silently. Even with the fans set to 100% the noise was barely more than a whooshing sound, certainly not the high pitched whine generally associated with small fans. Under normal operating conditions however, the card was unnoticeable above average case fan noise.

Futuremark 3DMark Fire Strike (Synthetic)

Fire Strike is the new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is Futuremark’s most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today.

Unigine: Heaven 4 (Synthetic)

Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system’s potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms.

Battlefield 3 (FPS)

Battlefield 3 leaps ahead of its time with the power of Frostbite™ 2, the next installment of DICE’s cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built, delivering enhanced visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and incredibly lifelike character animations. As bullets whiz by, walls crumble, and explosions throw you to the ground, the battlefield feels more alive and interactive than ever before. In Battlefield 3, players step into the role of the elite U.S. Marines where they will experience heart-pounding missions across diverse locations including Paris, Tehran and New York.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the parking lot scene on Operation Sword Breaker. High and Ultra presets were loaded at both resolutions.

Crysis 3 (FPS)

Crysis 3 from Electronic Arts is the fourth instalment of the Crysis franchise and sequel to Crysis 2. It uses the CryEngine 3 gaming engine which is perhaps the most advanced gaming engine to date and therefore the most demanding. The meme ‘Can it run Crysis’ has never been so apparent…

Far Cry 3 (FPS)

Far Cry 3 is a tropical survival shooter video game from Ubisoft Montreal and Massive studios. It’s open world design has similar traits to it’s forbear Far Cry 2 but it does it all so much better. With stunning visuals and settings to bring a PC to it’s knee’s, this game is so much more than the ‘just another console port’ it was reported to be.

BioShock Infinite (FPS)

Set in 1912 during the growth of American exceptionalism, BioShock Infinite is a thrid person shooter developed by Irrational games and published by 2K Games. It is the third instalment of the BioShock franchise. the game utilises the Unreal Engine 3, modifying it with their own lighting engine to present a visually stunning experience like no other.

DiRT: Showdown (FPS)

DiRT Showdown is the new arcade racing game from the team that brought you the award-winning DiRT series, uncaged in 2012. Pick up and play controls combine with electrifying events, frenzied crowds and stunning graphics to deliver high octane, dive in and drive thrills from event one.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (FPS)

Skyrim is not a direct successor to the very popular Oblivion. Instead it takes place 200 years after the events of Oblivion. The non-linear playing that made the Elder Scrolls such a popular series does however make a return along with the beautiful scenery the encompasses the world of Skyrim.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the drop down passage to Riverwood. V-sync was disabled to allow fluctuating (higher the 60) FPS for these runs. It is however recommended that v-sync is left enabled during normal gameplay due to the games dynamics.

Overall Performance (FPS)

We make a simple calculation for this set of results. For each game we add all of the resulting FPS totals together and then divide by the four sets to give us an overall performance figure. While the figures alone do not give you an accurate picture of how the card will perform in any given scenario, they do tell you, when averaged, which GPU is the more capable across all of the benchmarks and settings tested.

Value For Money

For those on a budget, this is perhaps the most important section of a graphics card review. For everyone else it will certainly make you think twice before calling the bank manager for an overdraft request. We calculate Value for money by taking the cost of the product and then dividing that figure by the overall performance figure which gives us a result in the guise of £ per frame – in effect how much every frame per second will cost you.

Gaming Experience (Frame Time Analysis)

Gaming experience is what we like to refer to as the Laymans term for Frame Time analysis. Frame time analysis is in its most basic sense how smooth your gameplay will be. Ever had a powerful card rendering at 100FPS with ease for it to stall for a split second before resuming? This is what Frame Time Analysis shows us: The peaks during an otherwise smooth gaming experience. This is presented to you in two ways, by showing you a line graph of a 60 second FTA capture using FRAPS and then by deducing the average and 99th percentile response times.

Some claim this should be the way graphics cards are tested and we won’t argue here because there is little point in having a card which churns out an average 100FPS if it has micro stutters lasting 50ms (GPU response time) which spoils the fluidity of the game.

Comment

The graphs above may appear very daunting however, what you want to see is a smooth line (not fuzzy) with very few peaks and troughs. While you are unlikely to notice peaks and troughs below 30ms, any peak above 30ms may be seen as a stutter during gameplay. This will however depend greatly on your own perceptions.

Average and 99th Percentile response times (Frame Time Analysis)

Here we take a look at both average (black) and 99th Percentile (coloured) response times of the graphics cards. It is highly unlikely a user will notice any micro stutter (also incorrectly referred to as lag but the effect can be interpreted to be similar) at anything below 30ms but every gamers perception differs.

[fullimage=21792]

Overclocking (GPU BOOST 2.0)

For overclocking our NVIDIA cards we will be using EVGA’s Precision X tool (ver 4.2) as this gives us all of the options we require.

Above is a screenshot of GPU-Z showing the reference speeds and reference boost clocks

Above is a screenshot of the actual overclock we achieved via PrecisionX. With both the power and temp targets maxxed out and an additional 12mv added to the core, we managed to break the 1300MHz barrier with the card topping out at a blistering 1306MHz, thanks no doubt to the immense cooling the card provides.

Better still we managed to add 500MHz to the memory surpassing 8GHz with ease.

This card just loves to be overclocked. We had to double check the overclock was latching and it wasn’t some kind of software bug but the results above show that the performance improvement had a great effect to the score of Heaven 4 when compared to reference speeds. Better still it is not very often you find a factory overclocked card with so much headroom. So, while you have the benefit of a guaranteed overclock, if all other Phantoms clock this well it could become the overclockers card of choice.

Conclusion

The GAINWARD GTX770 Phantom has impressed from the outset. From the packaging to the product itself, you can’t help but be impressed with the design. If there were any short comings it would have to be that brown PCB. While it may look black through a PC case window, the owner will still know it is brown. In fairness though , GAINWARD are not the only company to utilise this silk screening colour.

The main feature of the card is of course that massive cooler and here is where the Phantom separates itself from the rest of the field. The great design with the removable fans we thought was innovative and while it is not the first time we have seen removable fans/cleaning considerations, none have been so easy to maintain as this. The thumbscrews could be a little bigger but then my fingers are not as nimble as they once were!

That super efficient cooling enabled us to extract a great overclock from the card. Making this more impressive is the fact the card already arrives pre-overclocked. It may be argued that GAINWARD could have overclocked the card further at the factory but then that wouldn’t leave us any fun would it?

While not specifically niggles with the card itself, we were dismayed to see that a card that is clearly aimed at the enthusiast market had stickers in place to prevent, or at least deter the heatsink removal. As we have shown, this was necessary with our sample due to the copious amounts of TIM spread across the core which hindered temperatures slightly. A quick clean and re-application saw temps drop and as GPU BOOST now runs alongside GPU temps, it is the temperature which could make the difference between a good overclock and a great one.

Overall though we were thoroughly impressed with the GAINWARD GTX770 PHANTOM. We are however reluctant to give it our top award, not through any fault of GAINWARD’s you understand, but because underneath all of that innovative cooling still sits a GTX680, albeit tweaked. If however you are looking to jump on the NVIDIA bandwagon and cannot stretch to a GTX780, we highly recommend taking a look at the Phantom. For this reason and because of the cooling design this product is deserving of our Gold and Creative awards.

To summarise:
If you are on the lookout for a new GPU that is different yet cool, sophisticated with enough grunt to hold it’s own, regardless of game settings, the GAINWARD GTX770 PHANTOM has got what it takes. Highly recommended!

Pros
+ Fantastic Overclocking ability
+ Blistering memory performance
+ Fair price point
+ Very Low-noise

Cons
– Last generation GPU core
– Warranty Void with Heatsink removal