Need help picking specific Nvidia GTX 760 card

[OcelotRex]

Hey all,

I am in need of help picking out the specific GTX 760 card I want to purchase. I am torn between a few different brands. First off, I will be gaming on my Samsung 1080p 50 inch plasma TV in the living room. Here's the specs on what I have now:

Processor - Core i5-3570k (running at stock speeds at the moment)
Cooler - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
Motherboard - ASUS P8Z77-M Pro Micro ATX
Ram - 2x4GB Crucial Ballistic
Power Supply - Corsair CX600m
Case - Silverstone SST-PS07W

Here's the first issue: the case. The Silverstone I bought mounts the motherboard upside down as you can see here towards the bottom of the page. The 2 120mm fans along with the CPU cooler and the rear 120mm exhaust fan I installed funnel cool air from the front of the case through the back. In this situation I am thinking that the blower style fan of the reference card would keep the overall case temps and subsequent CPU temps the lowest. Right now my processor running Borderlands for 4+ hours using the onboard HD4000 Intel Graphics maxes out about at 50 C. I would like to keep it low to overclock later but I would also like to spend the extra $10 to get a factory overclocked card with a better cooler for the GPU.

Since the GPU being installed will be installed "upside-down" as compared to other "normal" cases, I am assuming the aftermarket coolers with multiple fans would be exhausting the heat upward away from the CPU and not affect my CPU. Do you all agree with that assumption?

Here's the cards I am thinking about buying and why:

EVGA GeForce GTX 760 SC w/ ACX Cooler

EVGA 3 year Warranty and high end bearings for the cooling fans per the website.

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 760 GV-N760OC-2GD REV2.0

Windforce Cooling along with the highest stock overclock. Also the MSI afterburner software.

MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC

Twin Frozer Cooling and tied with the Gigabyte for highest stock O/C

Asus GTX760-DC2OC-2GD5

Brand Matching to the motherboard, the ASUS Direct CU II cooler, but the lowest stock overclock. Also is the shortest card but my case should be able to handle cards up to 13.5 inches.

Any help that can be offered to help me choose the best card and style of cooling solution would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[bdiddytampa]

The differences between brands will really not be noticeable performance wise, so it either boils down to brand loyalty, or best reputation. All four of the brands you have there are good makes, they all have similar open cooling designs, and they will all perform pretty much the same. I like to steer away from paying for factory overclocks, because it is something you can usually reach yourself without paying the extra 20 or so dollars. These are all open coolers so your orientation of them won't matter. I have an EVGA 770 with that same cooler on it and can vouch for the quality of the product.

 

[littleleo]

I'm not a big fan of card that exhaust hot air inside my case whether the motherboard is mounted upside down, sideways, or backwards, heat is the enemy of any system. Last time a friend of mine and I purchased VGA cards the same week. We both got GTX 560 Ti models the same brand in fact. I got the one with the exhaust fan and he got the model with 3 fans. We have identical setups except I have a SSD boot drive. He has had to RMA his VGA card 3 times do to fan issues. Mine is still running flawlessly. So I'd say get a model with a single exhaust Fan and over clock the card yourself. More fans the greater chance for a fan to break down or fail completely.

http://www.evga.com/products/Product.aspx?pn=02G-P4-2761-KR

http://www3.pny.com/GeForcePDFs/PNY-GeForce-GTX-760-2GB.pdf

If you have to have a overclocked model

http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=02G-P4-2762-KR

 

[bdiddytampa]

I've had nothing but multi-fan coolers, and never had a problem with any of them, as long as you have good airflow in your case, where it exhausts the heat doesn't matter. Most aftermarket coolers run a lot cooler than reference designs as well.

 

[TidusJames]

Ive got two twin frozr 560 ti 2GB editions in my case, and they cool amazingly. After a 4 hour stress test, they were still sitting at under 60C.

(then again, that might be because Ive got 13 fans... but i LOVE the cooling those cards have either way.

 

[OcelotRex]

After reading through the threads and doing a lot more research by reading all the reviews that are out there here's my findings:

EGVA GTX760 with ACX Cooling

This card seems to post the highest actual framerates of the 4 non-reference cards in most reviews I read or was near the top. Even with EVGA's downdraft cooler though the ACX solution was the loudest of all of them and had the highest temperatures at load. It handled a sizable overclock in most reviews, though not the highest.

Gigabyte Winforce 3x GTX 760

This was at the top of all the cards with the supplied overclock and was near the top of all the benchmarks out of the box. In most reviews this seemed to be one of the top overclockers as well. It was a good overall performer in temperatures and noise as well, though not the best.

ASUS GTX 760 With DirectCU II cooling

The shortest card on the list only required one 8-Pin PCI express power cord to power the whole card; the other three required an 8-Pin and a 6-Pin power cord. It also lagged behind the other cards as much as 5-7% in many reviews I saw that compared these cards out of the box. The temperatures were towards the bottom of the pack and overclocking was as well.

MSI GTX760 with Twin Frozer Cooling

This cards "stock" framerates out of the box were towards the bottom of the benchmarks from most reviews, though a little higher than the ASUS. However, this card in almost all reviews was the coolest and quietest. In fact, at load this card in most reviews was quiter than other cards at idle like the EVGA and cooler.

Conclusion

After reading all the reviews on the GTX 760 and watching as many 760 videos on youtube - including the 22 minute ASUS video for their card that goes way deeper than I ever wanted to - it became apparent that the cooler the card is the longer it will stay at the Boost Clock rate. The EVGA offering is too loud and runs too hot for my micro-atx case. The ASUS card was my first choice prior to research to brand match my M/B with my GPU however the power setup worries me that there would be issues with getting the best overclock. It also isn't as strong in cooling or noise as the last 2 options.

That leaves me with the Gygabite and the MSI. The Gigabyte has the edge out of the box with their overclock and seems to be one of the best overclocking cards of the bunch. Where it falls behind to the MSI card though is in cooling and noise where the MSI is the best of the group. For my money I am choosing the MSI with Twin Frozer Cooling for the low temps and noise which I feel would fit perfectly to my Micro-ATX case.