Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti Review: GK110, Fully Unlocked

[grumpytrooper]

So AMD did send out "Golden Samples" to all the review sites after all, the difference between the "press" and the "retail" is quite a lot.The 780Ti is looking pretty good only being beaten occasionally by the dual gpu cards. I'll just be sticking with my Titan thanks as it gives me the best bang for buck I've ever had.

I was going to wait for the comments on how wrong I am but I'll save you the trouble, I won my Titan in a competition so it was free 😀.

 

[logainofhades]

So AMD did send out "Golden Samples" to all the review sites after all, the difference between the "press" and the "retail" is quite a lot.The 780Ti is looking pretty good only being beaten occasionally by the dual gpu cards. I'll just be sticking with my Titan thanks as it gives me the best bang for buck I've ever had.

I was going to wait for the comments on how wrong I am but I'll save you the trouble, I won my Titan in a competition so it was free 😀.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-driver-fix,3666.html

 

[I3lood Eagle]

So AMD did send out "Golden Samples" to all the review sites after all, the difference between the "press" and the "retail" is quite a lot.The 780Ti is looking pretty good only being beaten occasionally by the dual gpu cards. I'll just be sticking with my Titan thanks as it gives me the best bang for buck I've ever had.

I was going to wait for the comments on how wrong I am but I'll save you the trouble, I won my Titan in a competition so it was free 😀.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-driver-fix,3666.html

lol...

Just because they were golden samples doesn't mean you yourself can't get one you just gotta get lucky

 

[somebodyspecial]

Is it just me or is anyone else suspicious of the way that ATI and nVidia's GPUs are consistently always within a gnats cock of each other performance wise?
I find it hard to believe that 2 entirely separate companies with entirely different GPU architectures could always be so close without carefully managing it behind the scenes.
To me, it very much suggests that each company mut get early knowledge of the other's next-gen products, or at least collude to mutually agree what will be the next generation of cards performance. With such consistent patterns, it can't not be happening.

I have to think this is what's happening. This is the danger of having only two real players in any market. They cover themselves when it comes to a monopoly and only have to arrange prices with one other competitor. It is the loophole that keeps two choices king and is complete bull. Other players can enter the market, but I'm sure both of the big boys (AMD and Nvidia) will work together to squeeze them out early in their lives.

The manufacture date stamp on the original GTX 780 chips was August 2012. They had working production models ready to go about a year before they felt a need to release them. And the Tesla versions were out long before even that.

Not quite concrete evidence, but interesting.
Any idea how large that batch was?

Not sure about the first 780 run, but Titan was 100K first batch. Considering 780TI is the B revision only (and bad ones filtering into titan/old 780 models), I don't think they had enough good cores to put out a 780TI until this rev. The 780 ti's are still in pretty good stock everywhere so they must get a pretty good yield at this point as they couldn't keep Titan in stock at $1000 for months.

 

[Retaliator]

All this power is very nice on paper, but where are the games that can actually use it?
As far as I can see, there really aren't any games out there that justify this kind of card, especially for single monitor 1920x1080 setups which is what I'm guessing many if not most of us actually have.

I'm actually still content with my 3 yr old GTX 580. I haven't even found a game (that I actually want to play) that maxxes even that out yet.

I think this review is misleading to some extent, in particular value for money. I will explain. Here in Australia the actual/market cost of Gigabyte GTX 780 Ti is $849 an the cost of Gigabyte 7990 is $699. That a diffierence of AU $150 (saving if you purchase a 7990 as opposed to 780 Ti). In addition, the 7990 has 6 GB ram and the performance of 7990 is superior in many games to 780 Ti. So I ask the what choice would you make if your in the market to purchase a new top of the line gaming card. The answer is obvious, especially since AMD has fixed the crossfire driver issues and the card is not hot or noisy. But Tom's conclusion does not even mention the 7990 in the value for money argument.

The reason 7990 is so cheap is because its still has issues like MicroStuttering and heat problems and in alot of games you only get 1 gpu working so yeah. And according to multiple sources the Crossfire isnt fixed its just not as bad as before.

 

[redeemer]

The companies buy competing product and test it, and probably actually do read these reviews. Nvidia had a good while to test 290x and determine what was necessary for the 780ti to beat it. Titan and the GTX 780 have been out for months, giving AMD plenty of test time. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a refresh of Hawaii in the coming few months.

That's only relevant for software changes, any hardware changes would take months so the 780Ti has always been better than the 290X! :lol:

I don't disagree with that possibility. Won't truly know till 290x can fully stretch its legs under proper cooling.

The 290X is based on AMD's new arch but the 780Ti is Nvidia's older Kepler arch and is the flagship GPU that Nvidia never released because they didn't have to.

Remember this? http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/25712-nvidia-not-impressed-with-hd-7900-series

LOL dude listen the GK110 would have never been ready round the time GK104 was released. Nvidia had major issues with GK110 fabrication for the longest time.

Right now Hawaii is faster than GK110 per clock. Hawaii is brand new with tons of headroom, and GK110 has gone as far as its going to go.

If Nvidia rushed a castrated Maxwell on a 28nm it will be a disaster.

 

[littleleo]

No reason for Nvidia to rush they still out sell AMD on very segment.

 

[grumpytrooper]

So AMD did send out "Golden Samples" to all the review sites after all, the difference between the "press" and the "retail" is quite a lot.The 780Ti is looking pretty good only being beaten occasionally by the dual gpu cards. I'll just be sticking with my Titan thanks as it gives me the best bang for buck I've ever had.

I was going to wait for the comments on how wrong I am but I'll save you the trouble, I won my Titan in a competition so it was free 😀.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-driver-fix,3666.html

no look at the name of the cards reviewed, one was called (retail) and the other was called (press) indicating that one card was bought and one card was sent out to be reviewed. the press card performed significantly better than the retail one, this was evident in all reviews of the R9 290X not just on here.

 

[logainofhades]

The driver update fixed the issue for the huge inconsistency. It is apparent you didn't read the article at all.

 

[ikoslog]

I'm not a "fanboy" of any brand.. I've just gone through experience with building more systems than I remember for my own use and for clients, be it business or pleasure clientele.

The bottom line is Nvidia (and Intel) are just hands down worth the extra money in the long run. I've done plenty of AMD/ATI builds and Intel/Nvidia builds.. and even mixed them. I was ALWAYS disappointed in AMD/ATI whether it be noise, driver issues, bios issues, compatibility issues, etc. With Nvidia I've yet to be disappointed. Nvidia simply , for me and my experiences, has won every single time.

Even if AMD has a card out that is 10% faster, I'll still pick Nvidia.. whatever you buy today that may be the "best" will NOT be the best in 6 months or so.. it will always be that way. Some people use that as reason to buy a considerably cheaper card/hardware. I think the "wisest" decision is to buy the model of card JUST under the latest and greatest.

IE: If the 780 is $500 ,, and the 770 is $320-330 or so.. Go with the 770, the improvements just aren't worth $150+ . That said, I'm in the middle of a complete new build for myself, where I research for weeks on every detail of every component down to the case and psu.. and I'm about 80% sure I will pull the trigger on a $499 Nvidia 780 this time.

Why?

Most of the time I wouldn't, I would definitely get the 770 for $300-350... but, the 780 is not just a "faster" card.. It has a 384bit BUS,.. while the 770 is running on 256bit.. The 780 has 2880 (or 2304 in some models) CUDA cores.. It's a BIG gap and different technology.

I really wish the 770 was running on a 384Bit BUS and that would be enough to save me from going with a 500 dollar video card.

I am looking at the AMD cards and they look great, as they always do , due to price for performance in contrast to Nvidia -- but I remember the dozens of AMD cards I've purchased in the past that have disappointed... and when I get done with a build I don't want some annoyance or disappointment to bug me from day 1..

I could always wait 6 months and the prices would fall.. but at that point I can wait another 6 months.. then the 800 series is out.. but that just keeps going.

I run in my own system a 560Ti Fermi (IIRC) .. still a great card, but when doing a completely new build I want something that is 2-3 year minimum future proof for gaming.. I've come to really like Silent hardware,.. and Nvidia brings that to the table as well.

For all who go with AMD cards.. great, they are well made hardware and for the money almost always the best bang for the buck, you can't argue with that.

I'm just glad AMD stayed in the game and can still compete with Nvidia, and to a lesser extent Intel lately.. or prices would really be extreme.

 

[grumpytrooper]

The driver update fixed the issue for the huge inconsistency. It is apparent you didn't read the article at all.

I did read the article, and re-read it after your comment, the fact that the fan speeds had to be ramped up to match the press cards performance (it's still 3.5% variance though) speaks volumes to me about the retail versions of this card as apposed to the "golden samples" that were sent out. I suggest you re-read the article as the update hasn't fixed the issue it has just raised the fan speeds to cover up the problem.

 

[logainofhades]

The fan speeds from the retail boards were slow. It wasn't a cover up at all. AMD stated 3.5% is to be expected. You are not going to get the same performance out of every GPU. There will always be a variance.

 

[slartibartfast00]

Strange that many of the cards seem to be hitting a framerate cap for Crysis 3 at 1080p resolution. You mention that you think it might be v-sync related, but that wouldn't explain why two AMD cards also seem to be hitting a cap. I thought that perhaps there was a cap implemented by Crytek within the software, but there are other benchmarks around which report these cards getting higher framerates (with AA off atleast, maybe there's an issue there somehow). It wouldn't make sense for the VRAM to be limiting things either, since several cards with different amounts of VRAM are hitting the same cap. It therefore seems that IF the bottleneck is hardware related, it's either the processor or the system memory. I've seen other benchmarks which seem to suggest that the CPU can create a bottleneck when playing Crysis 3 at medium settings, but I'd be a bit surprised if this were the case with a 3970X at the high settings you were benchmarking at. So maybe it's the system memory, specifically the speed? Again, a little hard to believe given that your RAM is pretty zippy, but maybe a possibility. Who knows, maybe there is some issue with the anti-aliasing...

 

[grumpytrooper]

The fan speeds from the retail boards were slow. It wasn't a cover up at all. AMD stated 3.5% is to be expected. You are not going to get the same performance out of every GPU. There will always be a variance.

No, it was 3.5% AFTER the fix which is acceptable, but before the fix the press cards were much better than the retail cards.

 

[booyaah]

My only big gripe with AMD is no 3D support (and don't try and tell me using tridef and trying to find a pair of glasses is anywhere near what Nvidia provides). If they partner with a vendor to made shades and add 3D setup into CC, then I'd be all on-board.

 

[Novuake]

My only big gripe with AMD is no 3D support (and don't try and tell me using tridef and trying to find a pair of glasses is anywhere near what Nvidia provides). If they partner with a vendor to made shades and add 3D setup into CC, then I'd be all on-board.

I agree. But then again Nvidia guts you for their 3D gear, not to mention you need very limited monitors for it. Hell those monitor are so damn expensive and hard to find where I am from that I just didn't bother with 3D at all.

 

[I3lood Eagle]

the fact of the matter is physx.. gimmick, 3D... gimmick, astoundsound... gimmick, truevision... gimmick... etc, etc...

Buy a graphics card for it's performance not it's sideshow features, price should be important in the equation as well

 

[grumpytrooper]

My only big gripe with AMD is no 3D support (and don't try and tell me using tridef and trying to find a pair of glasses is anywhere near what Nvidia provides). If they partner with a vendor to made shades and add 3D setup into CC, then I'd be all on-board.

Agreed , I love my 3D Vision ,whether it's X-ray moves on Mortal Kombat or Sniper Elite V2, or watching great 3D movies or viewing 3D pictures. I think the kits are a little pricey normally but I was lucky enough to find one bundled with my monitor so saved around £60 on separate purchase prices.

I must admit I'm team Green all the way and it would take some pretty amazing hardware+software to make me change to team Red.

 

[iatemyelf]

Buy a graphics card for it's performance not it's sideshow features, price should be important in the equation as well

...who are you to tell others what they can spend their money on?

 

[littleleo]

My only big gripe with AMD is no 3D support (and don't try and tell me using tridef and trying to find a pair of glasses is anywhere near what Nvidia provides). If they partner with a vendor to made shades and add 3D setup into CC, then I'd be all on-board.

I agree. But then again Nvidia guts you for their 3D gear, not to mention you need very limited monitors for it. Hell those monitor are so damn expensive and hard to find where I am from that I just didn't bother with 3D at all.

Your not missing anything, I agree it's just a gimmick to charge you money. I have yet to see a gaming rig setup or a movie for that mater that impresses me enough to even consider 3D.

That being said if you want to spend the money to get a 3D Rig and 3D Monitor God bless you, and do you want fries with that?

 

[I3lood Eagle]

Buy a graphics card for it's performance not it's sideshow features, price should be important in the equation as well

...who are you to tell others what they can spend their money on?

I am I3lood Eagle knower of many things...

 

[SessouXFX]

Back to the 780 Ti....

Wouldn't it be more worth the money to just buy the EVGA 780 Classified over the Ti? You can pretty much flog the bejeeuz out of the Classified and save the money for something else. I'm not convinced the performance of the Ti is worth it right now....

 

[nikoli707]

Back to the 780 Ti....

Wouldn't it be more worth the money to just buy the EVGA 780 Classified over the Ti? You can pretty much flog the bejeeuz out of the Classified and save the money for something else. I'm not convinced the performance of the Ti is worth it right now....

i look at these cards like this... i have to voltmod it.. that costs something... and i have to waterblock it... that costs something too. if i dont have a nice radiator system ready for the card(this radiator also cools my cpu too)... that costs something too. but the cost of at least the cheap voltmod and the expensive block... how much percentage wise is the difference between the two? its a tough question... i personally would never spend much over $300 for any graphics card. so i will wait until either the 290/780+ drop in price to that range and make a decision if im happy with what i have or think the upgrade is worth it. meh vs mehh

i personally wouldn't recommend a classy, hof, or lightning to anyone who isn't planing on voltmodding or waterblocking.

 

[ericjohn004]

I keep seeing people say stuff like "well if the 290x had a water cooler slapped on it, THEN it'll be faster than the 780 Ti", or "once the aftermarket versions come out, THEN it'll be just as fast as the 780 Ti". The problem with that is that the 780 Ti can ALSO be water cooled, and the 780 Ti ALSO has aftermarket versions. Hell, aftermarket 780's beat Titans and come close to 780 Ti's. What do you think an aftermarket 780 Ti will do? Obviously it'll be a lot faster. And if you water cool it, it'll be even faster.

Every site I've read says the 780 Ti is the fastest single GPU in the world for gaming right now. It will NOT change if you compare them both with aftermarket coolers.

I also keep seeing stuff like this "well, just buy 2 290's and CF them and you'll be faster than a 780 TI for only 100$ more". PROBLEM with that is that AMD cards in CF simply SUCK.

I'm not a fan of AMD or Nvidia. I have a system with an FX6300 in it. It's the best 115$ CPU money can buy. I also own a 3570k and a GTX 780 in my main rig. I could have got the 290x OR 290. But I chose the GTX 780 with it's awesome looking factory cooler. And my house must be a LOT cooler than Tom's because it never comes close to reaching 80c. And I have the SC EVGA version AND I added 110Mhz to that.

I do not see how some of you people can say these things and not realize what I just pointed out. It's obvious that you let emotion decide what you say instead of intelligence.

 

[ericjohn004]

Some of you people WANT AMD to win so bad you'll say anything. AMD "won" last year. The 7970 Ghz Edition is a good amount better than the GTX 680, if all your going to ever use is one GPU. The new R9 280x is a helluva great GPU too. It's the same thing as 7970.

I don't hate AMD, I really like the x300 series CPU's. Like my FX6300. I like the FX8350 too. And once they come out with a new version next year, it's going to go in my next rig for sure. I buy what's best, I do NOT buy who I "pull" for.

I buy Nvidia GPU's for the following reasons:

1. I love my PhysX, I own Batman series, Borderlands 2, Metro- Last Light, and a few others and the game wouldn't be the same without PhysX.

2. Nvidia's control center is simple, and a lot easier to deal with than AMD's. Nvidia has Shadow Play so I can record my games with little loss of FPS.

3. I have an Nvidia Shield, so I can stream all my PC games to my Shield while playing on my couch.

4. I'm absolutely in love with those aluminum and glass stock coolers for the Titan's, 780's, 770's, and 780 Ti's. They also have green LED's on them that Nvidia let's you control.

4. And most importantly, Nvidia has a higher quality product. Why would I buy a GPU from a company who can't get Crossfire to work? Why would I buy a GPU from a company that has a CRAP cooler on it? Why would I buy a GPU from a company that only puts out drivers every once in a while? Simply put, Nvidia is of a lot higher quality than AMD when it comes to GPU's.

Don't you see? This is why Nvidia has to charge a little more. It's because they put in the effort to make your product FLAWLESS. While AMD is left in the dust with bad coolers, suck crossfire performance, and distant driver updates.

If AMD had the best graphics cards, I'd buy from them. But they don't. Simple as that.

Let me also just say that it is VERY important to have competition. For example. Look at the CPU market right now. Intel has NO competition. So they offer incremental upgrades. Nothing ground breaking. Nvidia HAS competition, and look at all the high performance we are getting. Once AMD really steps it up in the CPU division we'll get better parts and better prices.