Performance Summary and TL;DR
In an effort to make sorting through all the results as easy as possible we have combined the results all of all the game results into an easy to digest summary format. By comparing the PNY GeForce GTX 770 XLR8 OC2 to its similar products in all the games you will be able to easily find the game(s) you are interested in, see the improvement and decide if the PNY GeForce GTX 770 XLR8 OC2 is the worth the investment.
Score Card and Summary
Packaging & Accessories: 9 out of 10.
The shipping container may not be the flashiest of boxes we have ever seen, but it is still aesthetically pleasing and offers good protection to the card while in transit. More importantly finding room to store this box – in case you need to RMA this lifetime warrantied card – will be a snap. The only issues on this front is PNY has once again opted for a rather sparse accessory list and one that certainly doesn’t live up to the standards “Enthusiast Edition” infers. Luckily, the card itself does the talking for it and takes care of any such concerns!
Functionality & Aesthetics: 18 out of 20
As with its bigger brother – the excellent 780 XLR8 OC – the PNY GeForce GTX 770 XLR8 OC2 looks as impressive as it performs. The very fact that the PNY engineers were able to do this while still keeping length in check is rather remarkable. The only possible issues anyone will take is that opting for two fans instead of three does slightly increase the noise profile of the card and the black and gold racing stripes may not be to everyone’s liking.
Build Quality & Warranty: 19 out of 20
PNY spent a lot of time and effort making their 770 the best it could possibly be and it shows. While water cooling enthusiasts may not be overjoyed by the use of a custom PCB, most consumers will love what PNY were able to do. The end result is a beefy card that should last a long, long time. When you add in the lifetime warranty to the equation there really is not much to dislike about this card from this POV.
Performance: 26 out of 30
A very good and quiet cooler with a downright amazing overclock makes this GeForce GTX 770 one heck of a performer. If you use a 1080P resolution monitor you will love what this GPU can do. At this resolution we were amazed at how close it consistently came our stock 780s performance results and considering the older GPU it uses that is a rather remarkable feat. With that being said there is only so much that can be done with the older GK104 core and heavily overclocked or not it does start to lose a step at higher resolutions. In either case, the added 2GB of RAM is not going to be that much of a benefit outside of very niche cases as the GK104 will bottleneck results long before modern games need it, but from a performance perspective it certainly does not hurt the 770 OC2 to have it either!
Value: 18 out of 20
That selfsame combination of excellent cooling, very good performance and a lifetime warranty makes this card a remarkably good value. While yes it certainly does cost more than what a stock GeForce GTX 770 demands the extra expense is money well spent considering this 770 can almost compete with the 780s of the marketplace. The only fault that can be found with this card is the fact that the extra 2GB of DDR5 Ram does come with a price premium that is out of sync with the performance benefits it has to offer and the 2GB version of the 770 XLR8 OC2 would be an even better value.
Final Score: 90 out of 100
From its lifetime warranty, to excellent factory cooler to the impressive real world performance everything about this card screams excellent value for lower resolution gaming enthusiasts. At lower resolutions this highly overclocked GK104 is almost able to keep up with a GTX 780 and it is only at higher resolutions that the older – but higher clocked – GK104 will show its age. At higher resolutions the disparity in price vs. performance is not all that great and a good argument could be made for opting for either a stock 780 or this PNY GeForce GTX 770 XLR8 OC2 card. The very fact that any 770 can once again make it a tough decision is actually impressive considering the new lower price point of the standard GeForce GTX 780s!
