I recently got a bunch of amazon credit, and figured an upgrade was in order. It seemed like a GTX 770 was good and in my price range, but wanted some advice on specifics. For instance, I don't know what the difference between this and this is. There's also a couple of different brands and 2GB vs. 4GB that I'm not sure how much they really MATTER.

in this case id say the first one there is better and cheaper eventhough its got better specs. just open both pages in two tabs and switch back and fourth. the first one has a higher list price and better numbers but it costs less via amazons crazy ass pricing. go for that one...

I would go for the cheaper one. The 2nd (more expensive) one if basically a factory overclocked version, but the cheaper one has a better cooler, allowing for better overclocking anyway. I would go for that one.

@epidehl: Go for a 4 gig card for sure. That "extra" memory will go a long way in preparing for this gen.

If you live near a microcenter/fry's or something of that nature, I was able to pick up an R9 290 for 389, which will blow both of those cards out of the water. However, they are hard to find right now at all, and places that have them online want a lot more than they are worth for them.

Out of the two, I would go for the first one. Better cooler, cheaper, and the same company. More than 2GB doesn't make a big difference, at least not now, for much of anything below 4K, and I don't know that that GPU would even be powerful enough to completely fill 2GB. The 780 Ti used all of its 3GB in some 4k benchmarking, but below that it didn't make a difference. And that GPU is capable of using a lot more memory bus than the 770 is.