Out with the Old:

Before I knew it, November came around and I was still using my dated ASUS nVidia GTX 770. This tiny monster overclocker of a card has served me well for 2 years straight, but a new trend in gaming peaked over the horizon. 4K-VR-READY-60FPS-STAND-BACK-PESANTS gaming is upon us and with this came the need for insane VRAM buffers.

While being a crazy overclocker, the beastly affordable nVidia GTX 770 was a little ways-away with its measly 2GB VRAM buffer. Brilliant at pure processing power but lacked the memory that the latest triple-A titles demand. I found myself turning down shaders and textures to play my favorite games.

Enter the Strix:

After some debate over bottlenecks, pricing and budget. I decided to buy the ASUS Strix nVidia GTX 1070.

This card has a decent 8GB of VRAM compared to the GTX 770’s 2GB, along with a lower power input and effective frame rate boost of up to 64%. This gives me the option of going 4K (not really recommending that), but also VR if I choose to.

Photos:

And here it is all installed and lit up: