Galaxy’s GTX 770 Hall of Fame edition benchmarked

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-3770K reference 3.50 GHz/Turbo to 3.7GHz, overclocked to 4.5 GHz; HyperThreading is on, supplied by Intel.
• EVGA Z77 FTW motherboard (latest Beta BIOS, USB/PCIe 3.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x), supplied by EVGA
• 16 GB DDR3 HyperX Kingston “Beast” RAM (2×8 GB, dual-channel at 2133MHz; supplied by Kingston)
• Galaxy GTX 770 Hall of Fame (HOF) 2GB, factory overclocked to 1201MHz/7010MHz and further overclocked, on loan from Galaxy.
• EVGA GTX 770 SC 4GB (factory overclocked to 1111/7010MHz), on loan from EVGA.
• Nvidia GTX 770, 2 GB (reference base clocks of 1046/7010MHz), supplied by Nvidia
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• Genius SP-D150 speakers, supplied by Genius.
• 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive
• 240GB HyperX SSD, supplied by Kingston
• Cooler Master Platinum Pro 1000W PSU, supplied by Cooler Master
• Thermaltake Overseer RX-I full tower case, supplied by Thermaltake
• Philips DVD SATA writer
• HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD.
• Three 23″ ASUS VG236H 1920×1080 120Hz 3D Vision ready displays; One 27″ ASUS VG 238 1920×1080 120Hz 3D Vision 2 LightBoost display; all supplied by ASUS/Nvidia

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 326.80 beta drivers. High Quality; Single-display & multiple-display Performance mode; Prefer Maximum Performance
• Catalyst 13.8 Beta 2. High quality; all optimizations off
• Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• Galaxy XtremeTuner overclocking and monitoring software
• EVGA PrecisionX 4.21 overclocking and monitoring software
• Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions.
• vsync is forced off in the control panels.
• Varying AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
• All results show average frame rates
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 7 64, all DX9 titles were run under DX9 render paths, DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths and DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.

The Benchmarks

• Synthetic

  • 3DMark 11
  • 3D Mark 2013 – Firestrike/Firestrike Extreme
  • Heaven 4.0
  • Valley 1.0

  DX9

  • Serious Sam 3 BFE
  • Alan Wake: Ameican Nightmare
  • The Witcher 2
  • Borderlands 2
  • Aliens: Colonial Marines
  DX10
  • Crysis
  DX11
  • BattleForge
  • Alien vs. Predator
  • STALKER, Call of Pripyat
  • Metro 2033
  • Civilization V
  • Lost Planet 2
  • Total War: Shogun II
  • Crysis 2
  • Dirt 3
  • DiRT: Showdown
  • Batman: Arkham City
  • the Secret World
  • Battlefield 3
  • Max Payne 3
  • Sleeping Dogs
  • Sniper Elite V2
  • Far Cry 3
  • Hitman: Absolution
  • Assassin’s Creed III
  • Crysis 3
  • Tomb Raider 2013
  • BioShock: Infinite
  • GRID 2
  • Metro: Last Light
  • Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Before we get to the Galalxy GTX 770 HOF’s performance charts, let’s look at overclocking, power draw and temperatures.

Overclocking, Power Draw, Noise and Temperatures

Overclocking the Galaxy GTX 770 HOF is just as easy as overclocking the GTX Titan or any other GTX 700 series card. Our Galaxy GTX 770 HOF edition is already overclocked +154MHz over the Nvidia reference clocks. We were able to overclock a further +15MHz with complete stability even though we did not adjust the voltage nor our fan profile. We also managed +350MHz on the memory clocks which were respectable.Even with overclocking further, temperatures generally stayed below 75C and the fan rarely exceeded 1560rpm with 1680rpm being the highest observed at 65%. In only one instance did we see our card go over 80C, so Boost almost never throttled performance. Because of it’s custom 3-fan design, the Galaxy GTX 770 HOF is a quiet card.

One interesting thing we noted when we were running at stock setting (above) or with Overvoltage applied (below) – EVGA’s tool showed the same 1.2V. For our testing of the Galaxy GTX 770, we maxed the slider out at +123% and move the temperature target to its maximum 94C. In this way we do not allow lack of power nor moderate temperatures to throttle performance. Likewise, we also max the PowerTune slider for AMD cards.

Even though EVGA’s tool reported the same voltages, using Overvoltage appeared to help stabilize the overclock and we could hit just over +10MHz higher with it than without. Here is performance scaling using FireStrike which tolerated higher overclocks than some of the games we bench which only allowed a very conservative +15MHz on the core, but a respectable +350MHz overclock on the memory: It appears that overclocking the memory by a +100MHz offset delivers more performance in FireStrike than a +25MHz core overclock. The Galaxy GTX 770 HOF can certainly use the memory overclock although it got unstable with more than a 350MHz offset. Although it could complete the FireStrike bench, the score was no higher with +450MHz offset than with +400MHz and there was more visible artifacting.

These HOF cards that Galaxy produces just beg for extreme voltage and insanely high clocks. Here is Galaxy GTX 780 overclocking at Computex:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zJwYGC5O2w&feature=share&list=UUzvA8ZPYpQxu6BMvNvgTIog

However, Nvidia is very strict about not allowing any of their partners to support more than 1.2V. If a modder uses a modified BIOS to bypass the voltage limit, they will be denied warranty coverage. It makes it somewhat pointless to use watercooling or any other aftermarket solution with only 1.2V since Galaxy’s own custom 3-fan cooling solution is slightly overkill as the card rarely reaches 80C under the most extreme conditions!

Let’s head to the performance charts to see how the Galaxy GTX 770 HOF compares with the reference GTX 770, the EVGA GTX 770 SC 2GB, as well as versus the AMD HD 7970 at GHz Edition speeds.