FRONTPAGE ASUS GTX 760 DirectCU II OC Graphics Card Review

Continuing our cadre of GTX 760 cards, we're back today with ASUS' offering, the ASUS GTX 760 DirectCU II. It is overclocked slightly over the base GTX 760, but not quite as far as the EVGA card we looked at before. Let's see what ASUS has to offer!

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Coming up from a gigabyte 660ti on a 1080p monitor,, which is a gk104 and i have it overclocked to 1228mhz stable with 6500 on the vram,i cannot see the improvement with the gtx 760,the only big difference is the 780, that it may worth the upgrade,thanks for the nice review guys.

No real surprise there, 660ti oc'd is in par with our better than a 670/760 at stock.
They, of course can be oc'd too though.

I've looked at this card and seen the profile...i know the cooler doesn't jut out above the card...but the images just keep telling me that 2 of these in SLI could obstruct airflow worse than most with that hideous, bulky fan.

It's a 2-slot card. Airflow won't be any worse than any two slot card abutting another two slot card. The cooler isn't any thicker (and is just slightly thinner) than the PCIe bracket.



Most motherboards leave a slot between SLI/CFX slots so there will be plenty of room for airflow.

IMO nothing beats rear-exhaust cards for SLI/CFX, everything else recirculates hot air right back into the fans if there isn't a ton of case airflow.
Asus does a pretty good job on coolers though usually.

The stuff making me amazed the most is the great price/performance ratio of the 760, it even beats all the 600 series cards as far as i can see. So Nvidia attacking theyr own series? OK why not... old is finally old but in usual the new series was way more pricy than the old series. Nowadays the battle with AMD is that hard that Nvidia apparently is changing theyr usual mentality and is even creating some great "price/performance" cards. The GTX 760 is rendering all the 600 series cards at mid range (660/670) close to useless, because its simply the better price at comparable peformance. Means Nvidia probably stopped production of 600 series or is not having lot of chips left, else it would not make much sense attacking them.

260 $ isnt much for a card of those specs (when OC it can challenge a 7950/ GTX 670), but still not truly worth it when already owning a 7870 (to less performance difference, prehaps 10-15%). But it surely is awesome deal in term someone got a card with more than 20% weaker performance and may need the performance gain. In my country the price for a 7870 equipped with DCII cooler is about same such as this GTX 760 card (reviewed one), so it even beats the 7870 at price/performance. Just to bad i already got a 7870 and not truly worth it to upgrade (i enjoy a proven card and usualy only switch when i see more than 20% gain).

Would love to see more cards to compare with and not just a bunch, but its sufficient to see a good estimation where it stands (OC, non OC)

Finally, the 660 Ti OC is about 270+$ in my country, about same price. The GTX 760 at OC clearly beats the 660 Ti OC and thus the price/performance isnt any worse and the 660 Ti OC simply the inferior choice (considering its older achitecture). A non OC 660 Ti is about 30 $ lesser but still inferior price/performance ratio than a 760 OC. The GTX 670 itself is totaly demolished when it comes to price/performance.

Some people do not consider "price/performance" a important value, in that term no need to look at a GTX 760, just buy a Titan or GTX 780... powerful stuff is always overpriced but at least "powerful" for a few months (no one knows how fast a even faster card is released, thinking about AMDs 8000/9000 series). In my view its not always worth it going for "max performance" because that kind of spec is sometimes demolished faster than i enjoy, but its usualy always worth it going for price/performance (taking the 20% upgrade into account).

Sure. price/performance is what most people look for,not everyone will upgrade the graphic card every generation, the 760 is the best budget card along with 7950 at least for 1080p resolution and for a new build, but for upgrades i think the line may come at 560ti to 580,anything below may need an urgent upgrade. or have to go for SLI if the card is still visible on the charts with a low priced older card the yearly upgrade may come possible for allot of people like myself and night gamers

Think the cheapest 7950 in my country is ~350$, about 50$ more and a 7970 could be gotten, so its not a good price/performance (about mid range). Made a chart so the stuff can be seen the easy way.

Raw price (low to high) (taking into account it can be hard to make such a spec "ultimate" because vendors got big influence, so i tried to find the best prices i can find):
Note: This is my countrys best price, not Newegg. Newegg for example is 300 $ for 7950, making it a very good budget card in theory (still weaker than 760), however, most of the other cards are more or less in the correct chart order.

660 TI (no OC): <230 $
760: <260 $
7870: <270 $
660TI (factory OC): <270 $
7950: <350 $
670: <370 $ (price recently dropped a lot but still way to less, because other cards dropped even more. Probably because 670 GTX is very popular so the price is "pushed")
7970 (GHz): <400 $
680: <430 $
770 <450 $

Raw Performance (low to high) (taking into account that all may have around same OC potential, using newest drivers of course):

660 Ti = 7870 (comparable)
760 +15%
670 = 7950 (comparable) +10%
680 +10%
7970 (GHz) +5%
770 +5%

Of course in term a "weaker" card is a good OCer, nowadays its no problem to reach the performance of the next higher card, because the performance steps are to minor and most of them OCs pretty well. So, luck of the draw can achieve "comparable" performance for lesser price but thats a lottery and not a "given performance". The flagships are no true flagships anymore, so the decision for getting cutting edge may be hard and price/performance is currently a high focus for most people.

Finally the price/performance chart:

1. 760
2. 660 Ti
3. 7870
4. 7950
5. 7970 (GHz) = 670 (comparable)
6. 770
7. 680 (sad to see but apparently true)

Note: In term the 7970 is same price/performance such as a 670 GTX but stronger at raw performance, then the 7970 is at advantage. People mainly chose a 670 GTX because apparently lesser "microstudder", a matter im trying to investigate (true or not, problematic or not). Considering the "Skyrim issue" im unable to find a solid proof that the Radeon could be inferior. The frame time variance would be able to show the microstudder value and the 7970 was very good at that spec. It could probably become a issue when Crossfired but for single GPU users there should not be a difference (making the 7970 the better choice).

As the final note: Nvidia in the past was almost never good at price/performance, it was usualy a consumer market AMD is maintaining. Nowadays, Nvidia is in overall at least head to head with AMD considering that spec, which is kinda a surprise and a good proof that Nvidia is now trying to attack AMD way harder than they ever did. So we somewhat have a harsh battle. Nvidia is still trying to continue with theyr "old mentality" but just for the "super high end series", GTX 780 + Titan.