What gtx 780 brand do you recommend for overclocking?

[AjAlien]

Would it be better to buy a card like EVGA overclocked with a ACX cooler or the ASUS DirectCU II OC.  Or would you recommend a reference card

with the stock cooler.

You could get an EVGA EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Hydro Copper for liquid cooling. If you want air cooling try a Gigabyte Windforce 3X 780 ( GV-N780OC-3GD ) or possibly one of the Asus liquid or air cooled ones which are coming out very soon.

[Saan Koneri]

Asus DirectCU II at stock is as silent/loud (depends which is loud to you) as reference cooler but it runs about 14 celsius cooler so overclock the s*** out of it and create your own fan profile that let the temps hit about 75-80 celsius and BINGO you have super silent winner. ;)

[Tredien]

But the EVGA ACX seems to be getting better results both in OC and benchmarks than the DCU II. :|

[Saan Koneri]

But the EVGA ACX seems to be getting better results both in OC and benchmarks than the DCU II. :|

Some ACX will overclock better than DCII and vice versa, "silicon lottery", though it keeps the GK 110 chip very cool too so you can't go wrong between ACX and DCII.

[AraSarkisyan]

msi

[VincentVolaju]

Ive recently used an Asus GTX 670 DC2, and it was beyond my expectations.  It was ridiculously silent and ran much much muchhhh cooler then my old reference gtx 570.  My 570 reference would idle at around 50-55degrees, and under load it would go upwards to 85-90degree, no overclocking at all, just a very hot room T_T.  Also when it got that hot, the fans would go into berserk mode and start sounding like a jet was getting ready to take off in my PC.  I replaced it with a DC2 version of the 670, and couldnt believe the difference.  I know they are 2 different cards all together, a 570 vs a 670, but the difference in temps and acoustics was just amazing.  I couldnt even hear the DC2 670 in my case, even under full load the fans in my case were louder then the ones on the graphics card, I pretty much never heard the card at all.  And the idling temps I was getting on the DC2 was around 20-25degrees, then under full load playing Planetside 2 on Ultra everything, the hottest the card ever got was around 65-67degrees.  The only experience I have with an Asus non reference card is just amazing, they made a huge fan out of me, and personally I plan on getting an Asus GTX 780 DC2 when they become available on newegg, 110%.  Because the great experience I had with there card, I am also leaning towards getting one of there ROG Mobos for my future Haswell build.

[Darell3]

ASUS

[Tredien]

No word from MSI so...

[Gnrl Kitty]

No word from MSI so...

So go with the DirectCU II.  Worst case scenario is that you payed maybe $50 extra for a card that you very likely won't see any noticeable benefit from if you try to upgrade to whatever is apparently better than it.  Since it has been mentioned that you'll probably be running this without water cooling, you'll also have a pretty nice heat sink on it too.  Although maybe you like the reference card heat sinks more.  Unless you're really worried about getting the maximum overclock possible out of this card, you really don't need to worry about something being much better because it won't be.  If you were running an extreme overclocking water cooled build, then you might want to put some considerable thought into the possibility that something is ever so slightly better.  Since you're not... This is the card for you.

[Shrubpig]

I'd go with the Gigabyte card, it has the best frames of all the 780 cards and has a boss cooler, so it can be overclocked right out of the box.

[Tredien]

But the voltage is still locked right? So it's about the same as all the others. :|

[Tredien]

So go with the DirectCU II.  Worst case scenario is that you payed maybe $50 extra for a card that you very likely won't see any noticeable benefit from if you try to upgrade to whatever is apparently better than it.  Since it has been mentioned that you'll probably be running this without water cooling, you'll also have a pretty nice heat sink on it too.  Although maybe you like the reference card heat sinks more.  Unless you're really worried about getting the maximum overclock possible out of this card, you really don't need to worry about something being much better because it won't be.  If you were running an extreme overclocking water cooled build, then you might want to put some considerable thought into the possibility that something is ever so slightly better.  Since you're not... This is the card for you.

Well I do have a gtx580 dcu ii, which works pretty well, and the msi tf I had before died within 5 days of getting it (hence getting the asus one) so you might have a point there. The EVGA one just looks so good, but EVGA doesn't really have many resellers here.

[Gnrl Kitty]

Well I do have a gtx580 dcu ii, which works pretty well, and the msi tf I had before died within 5 days of getting it (hence getting the asus one) so you might have a point there. The EVGA one just looks so good, but EVGA doesn't really have many resellers here.

Resellers are a concern depending on where you are.  I didn't think of that.  EVGA is my favorite reference design cooler (I assume you meant the reference EVGA card).  If you can't get a hold of any EVGA cards, then just a reference ASUS card should be just as good.

[zeiferlance]

Wait for MSI to release their 780, MSI has always made the best overclocking GPU's

^ this. 

i'm one of those waiting for it as well. 

[Tredien]

Resellers are a concern depending on where you are.  I didn't think of that.  EVGA is my favorite reference design cooler (I assume you meant the reference EVGA card).  If you can't get a hold of any EVGA cards, then just a reference ASUS card should be just as good.

Nop, ACX and DCU II ones.