While the GTX 780 and 770 were both released recently, there has been more focus from brands on the 770 counterpart as it offers much better value for money when looking at a price vs performance argument than pretty much any other card on the market from both AMD or Nvidia, and with that we’ve had a lot more GTX 770’s come through our door, than we have 780.
As we start plowing through these cards, we also found a chance to start working with a brand that is fairly new to us, and perhaps doesn’t have the biggest presence in the UK market, unlike other key manufacturer’s and this is Gainward. Today we find their GTX 770 Phantom OC landing with us which is said to offer all of the benefits of a GTX 770 with an increased clock speed thanks to the overclock and their patented Phantom cooling solutions which provides extreme silence and extreme cooling with a unique design behind it too.
With a slightly higher price point than a reference GTX 770, we’re here to find out if the extra £30 is worth spending, and if the overclock really does help push performance while remaining cool and quiet at the same time. We will be comparing this directly to a reference GTX 770 among other key cards that are currently on the market.
Before we get straight into the performance though, there are a few things we need to look at which includes the packaging and what Gainward bundle in with the card, before we take a detailed look at the card itself and its Phantom cooling solution. Once we’ve covered the design aspect, then we can get down to the nitty gritty and look at the specs in comparison to a stock card, and then find out if the performance increase really makes a difference while focusing on the performance of the cooler as well.
Of course, in natural eTeknix fashion, we will see if the overclock can be pushed even further by manually increasing the clock speed and memory speeds on the card, but lets start by taking a look at what the GTX 770 Phantom comes in and exactly what’s included.
The box itself is nice and includes a panel that flaps open to reveal a first view of the card. There are a few spelling errors on the packaging and some words are split between two lines, but this is no real problem to be honest. Inside we find a quick install guide, driver installation CD, twin 6-pin PCI-Express to single 8-pin PCI-Express power adapter, DVI to VGA adapter and a welcome addition; a HDMI to DVI adapter.
Beautiful looking!
I haven’t seen a Gainward product for donkey years now, I almost forgot they existed.
Gainward are actually one of the biggest brands in the entire market as they are a joint brand with Palit – http://www.eteknix.com/asus-knocked-off-top-graphics-card-vendor-pedestal-by-palit-and-pc-partner/
So I believe. Their graphics cards were a very common sight here years ago, now we only see them sporadically at some e-tailers unlike the big names such as Gigabyte, EVGA, MSI & Asus which you can practically pick up at you local barber shop.
You have never seen a Gainward card? They have been around for ages and are always very good. Find this hard to believe!
I haven’t either there not sold in certain countries that’s why. I can fin most other brands easily except theirs..
Oh, God! Thank you eTeknix! I finally decide, what video card I need and want.
What do you mean by “Stock Memory Speeds” as a con? Is it lower than others?
Good review, thanks! I’ve never seen that brand here in the US.
My Phantom in the games goes to 2000rpm+ its normal?
Hey.. you clocked it, yes .. but, what is the temps saing, when you play the game ??
I discussed about the phantom on the msi twinfrozr page. I bought it a couple of weeks ago, and it is an awesome card. The phantom is really silent up until the 40% fan use. From then, it is as audible as my cpu fan when put at 2500rpm. Starting from 60-70%, you start to really hear it, but it’s still nothing compared to other cards or when you insert a CD.
As for overclocking, i managed with air cooling to push it to 1,190Mhz of clock, and 1,773 Mhz of memory
, which is close to what @RyanTheGerman:disqus expected of it, so either i’m a second silicon lottery lucky, or the card is really good. With 100% fan speed, on 3Dmark Vantage demostration (performance) bench, i never get above 64C°. (The score? between 37998 and 39374 for GPU). One weird thing, checking with afterburner, i notice that i never reach 100% GPU usage…? So i still have room for improvement, but i suck at OC so i’ll keep it at that 😛
Thanks again Ryan for your advices, and hope my post will help!