GIGABYTE GTX 780 OC Windforce x3 (Rev 2.0) Review

Custom cooled, factory overclocked GTX780, the GIGABYTE Windforce x3 OC looks set to take the high end performance crown…

Product on Review: GV-N780OC-3GD
Manufacturer and Sponsor: GIGABYTE
Street Price: £599.99

The reference cooled NVIDIA GTX 780 which features the TITAN cooler is held in very high regard here at Vortez. Any attempt at a custom cooler needs to push the envelope that little bit further than before because what was once an easy performance gain, the new reference cooler makes distinguishing performance of both acoustics and cooling prowess so much more difficult, such is the excellent NVIDIA design.

The GTX780 isn’t a particularly hot GPU but thanks to the dynamic overclocking incorporated with GPU BOOST 2.0, in which temperature is a major factor, the lower the temperature is kept, the higher the theoretical dynamic overclock will be. It therefore makes sense to keep the GPU as cool as possible to obtain the very best performance from it. Step forward the Windforce cooling design.

We have seen GIGABYTE’s fantastic Windforce cooler in many guises before, including the current Windforce x3 in our GTX770 Windoforce x3 OC review so we know all too well how good the cooling design from GIGABYTE is. We have lauded over this cooler in the past but the competition just got sterner with other manufacturers employing similar techniques and designs making it harder for GIGABYTE to stand out from the crowd. It could be argued that you don’t change what isn’t broken however another popular proverb tells us that a rolling stone gathers no moss. Which category the GIGABYTE falls in we will examine throughout the review.

About GIGABYTE

GIGABYTE was founded in 1986, establishing our uncontested position in continuous technological innovation. By focusing on key technologies and achieving strict quality standards, GIGABYTE has been regarded as an innovative and trusted motherboard leader in the globe. To keep pace in a rapidly changing world, we have offered a comprehensive product line covering Motherboards, Graphics Cards, PC Components, PC Peripherals, Laptops, Slate Devices, Desktop PCs, Network Communications, Servers and Mobile Phones. We are dedicated to building up a full-range digital life, responding promptly and sonorously to consumer needs and desires.

Specification

Chipset GeForce GTX 780
Memory Clock 6008 MHz
Core Clock Base / Boost clock：954 / 1006 MHz
Process Technology 28 nm
Memory Size 3072 MB
Memory Bus 384 bit
Card Bus PCI-E 3.0
Memory Type GDDR5
DirectX 11.1
OpenGL 4.3
PCB Form ATX
Digital max resolution 4096 X 2160(via a single HDMI connector and not supported with two DVI connectors)
Analog max resolution 2048 x 1536
Multi-view 4
I/O DVI-I*1, DVI-D*1, DisplayPort*1, HDMI*1
Card size L=292mm, W=129mm, H=43mm
Power requirement 600W (with one 6-pin and one 8-pin external power connectors)

As you can see from the specifications above, the GTX780 has an increase of SMXs over the GTX680 from 8 to 12, 2 less that of the GTX TITANs 14 SMXs (1 less than the ‘full fat’ 15 (5×3) available on GK110). We also see a 50% increase in CUDA cores over the GTX680 to 2304 which sees the texture unit total rise to 192. Raster Operations are also enhanced by a third to 48, again matching the GTX TITAN. Interestingly the GTX780 is clocked slightly higher than the GTX TITAN but this isn’t quite enough to enable the GTX780 to match the TITANs 187.5 GT/s count although 165.7 GT/s is well above the GTX680’s 128.8.

The GTX780 also ‘makes do’ with half the memory of the GTX TITAN but still 1GB more than the GTX680. The good news however is that the GTX780 has inherited the 384-bit memory interface (6x64bit) which gives the GTX780 a healthy memory bandwidth of 288.4 GB/s.

The architecture of the NVIDIA GTX GTX780 core; the GK110, is an evolution of the GTX680’s GK104 Kepler core but is trimmed back from the GTX TITAN’s GK110, losing 2xSMX. So doing the math 2688-384 = 2304 Cuda Cores. All cores are based on Kepler architecture and all are built upon the 28nm ASIC. However the GK110 features 7.1 billion transistors compared to the 3.54 billion found in the GTX680 and the 4.4 billion of the AMD HD7970.

Above we can see a breakdown of an individual SMX. We were happy to see NVIDIA increasing the memory size to 3GB of GDDR5 along with the 384-bit memory controller. This gives a healthy boost over the 2GB found on the GTX680. 3GB is plenty for todays gaming however with games becomming increasingly demanding, we would have liked to have seen 4GB of GDDR5 which would have positioned the GTX780 neatly between the outgoing and flagship models.

New Features

Kepler GPU Architecture
NVIDIA’s Kepler GPU architecture has been designed from the ground up not just for maximum performance in the latest DirectX 11 games, but optimal performance per watt. The new SMX streaming multiprocessor is twice as efficient as the prior generation and the new geometry engine draws triangles twice as fast. The result is world-class performance and the highest image quality in an elegant and power efficient graphics card.

NVIDIA GPU Boost 2.0
This brand new technology allows gamers to push PC performance to the maximum with precise controls. GPU Boost 2.0 intelligently monitors work with even more advanced controls like GPU temperature target, overclocking, and overvoltage to ensure the GPU works at the ultimate performance.

GeForce Experience™
The easiest way to optimise your games and keep your drivers up to date, The GeForce Experience application automatically notifies you of new driver releases from NVIDIA. With a single click, you’ll be able to update the driver directly, without leaving your desktop.

Two New Anti-aliasing Modes: FXAA and TXAA
Anti-aliasing smoothes out “jaggies” (jagged edges) but can be demanding on framerates. Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA) is a new antialiasing technology that produces beautiful smooth lines with minimal performance impact. And with Kepler based GPUs, you’ll be able to enable FXAA in hundreds of game titles through the NVIDIA Control Panel.

The second mode, Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TXAA), is an in-game option that combines Multisample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA), temporal filtering, and post processing for even higher visual fidelity.

NVIDIA SLI Technology
Used by the most demanding gamers worldwide, SLI technology lets you link up to three GeForce GTX 780s together for astounding performance. And with NVIDIA’s track record for fast and frequent software updates, you’ll not only get the best performance in existing games, but future games too.

NVIDIA PhysX Technology
Full support for NVIDIA PhysX technology, enabling a totally new class of physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic experience with GeForce.

NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready
NVIDIA 3D Vision brings a fully immersive, stereoscopic 3D experience to the PC. A combination of high-tech wireless glasses and advanced software, 3D Vision transforms hundreds of PC games into full stereoscopic 3D. Get up to 2x monitor and keyboard brightness with NVIDIA 3D LightBoost technology. In addition, you can enjoy 3D movies and 3D digital photographs from 3DVisionLive.com in eye popping, crystal-clear quality.

NVIDIA Surround with Up To Four Monitors
Nothing is as breathtaking as playing your favorite games across three monitors. At 5760 x 1080, the expanded field of view fully engages human peripheral vision and provides for the most immersive experience in racing and flight simulators. Add in a fourth display to keep tabs on chat, email or web while you are gaming.

NVIDIA Adaptive Vertical Sync
Nothing is more distracting than framerate stuttering and screen tearing. The first tends to occur when framerates are low, the second when framerates are high. Adaptive V-Sync is a smarter way to render frames. At high framerates, V-sync is enabled to eliminate tearing, at low frame rates, it’s disabled to minimise stuttering. It gets rid of distractions so you can get on with gaming.

NEW WINDFORCE 3X 2 SLOT 450W cooling system
Keeping the same 450W Cooling capacity using only 2 slots, the New WINDFORCE 3X 450W cooling system is equipped with two 8mm and four 6mm cooper heat-pipes , inclined fans, and GIGABYTE “Triangle Cool” technology. This not only provides an effective heat dissipation capacity but GPU Boost 2.0 technology also enables higher performance due to a lower temperature.

OC GURU ll
Brand-new instinctive user interface, easier to monitoring and adjusting all important settings. Users can set up MONITORING, GPU CLOCK, MEMORY CLOCK, FAN, GPU VOLTAGE, Memory VOLTAGE, OSD, ONLINE SUPPORT and update driver, BIOS directly.

Up to 4 displays on a Single Card
In the Kepler architecture, support up to four displays on a single card. Satisfy your multi-screen setup, high definition and extreme gaming experience.

GPU Boost 2.0

GPU Boost caused a bit of a stir when it was first introduced because it did away with the traditional ‘absolute’ method of dictating MHz. Rather it worked by overclocking the card by different means. To achieve an overclock using GPU Boost, one increased the MHz and Voltage as per usual however the card would then ‘Boost’ when placed under load. So rather than having a fixed clockpseed, the GPU adjusts the clockspeed depending on load, ensuring the power is there when you need it rather than it being full on all of the time, thus saving power consumption and heat production by having the card overclock dynamically.

GPU Boost 2.0 is an evolution of this idea. The techs at NVIDIA have determined that GPU power was unnecessarily limiting performance when GPU temperatures was low. Instead of boosting GPU performance based on a power target, it is now based upon temperature with this temperature threshold being 80 degrees Celsius.

Because the boosting is now determined by temperature, noise levels are also reduced as NVIDIA claim the GTX TITAN delivers a better acoustic profile.

So to summarise, overclocking the card using GPU boost 2.0 means adjusting the temperature threshold, for example from 80c to 85c. The GPU clockspeed will then gradually increase until it reaches this new temperature and will be dynamically adjusted on-the-fly to stay within this threshold. Because of this it is much more difficult to claim one GPU is faster than another without having both working under precisely the same operating conditions.

It therefore should go without saying (but we will say it anyway) that the colder your card runs, the faster it should theoretically operate as a colder card allows overvolting and thus even higher clockspeeds.

GPU Boost 2.0 also features overvoltage control. NVIDIA make no bones that enabling this function will damage the long term operability of the graphics card and as with AMD’s overdrive, you have to acknowledge this fact before you can unlock the cards voltage control. We applaud NVIDIA for this because they have acknowledged that enthusiasts, like us here at Vortez, like to push hardware to the max and without voltage control, the whole process becomes so much more uninteresting and much more difficult.

So, because GTX780’s boost clock and voltage level are now tied to the GPU’s temperature, the voltage can be dialled higher which in turn will allow the GPU to attain higher clockspeed values. Obviously, increasingly board voltage, as with most other products, will gradually degrade the GPU through electron migration causing a premature death of the GPU. Voltage support will be offered on a board partner by partner basis however, we would be extremely surprised if it wasn’t enabled in every GTX780’s VBIOS.

We will see how GPU Boost 2.0 performs in our overclocking section later in the review.

GeForce Experience

GeForce Experience is a new application from NVIDIA that optimizes your PC in two key ways. First, it maximizes your game performance and game compatibility by automatically downloading the latest GeForce Game Ready drivers. Second, GeForce Experience intelligently optimizes graphics settings for all your favorite games based on your hardware configuration.

Some enthusiasts will view (excuse the pun) altering settings to get the very best from a game one of the ‘fun’ elements of owning a powerful graphics card. Others just want to play their game of choice without the endless testing and benchmarking to determine what settings work best. Many don’t have the inclination or indeed the time to learn what effect each setting has upon the games visual elements.It soon becomes a bind when upon a new driver release those settings which were great before can be bettered (or lowered) for a better gaming experience. FXAA, TSAA, MMAA or simply AA. Low, medium, high, ultra texture settings along with overall visual settings can be all too confusing when configuring a games visuals and while it would be easy to just crank everything up to maximum and hoping for the best, this all too often results in choppy, unplayable gaming ruining the gaming experience.

NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience removes much of the guess work when configuring a game thereby giving users the means to jump straight into the game with the best optimised settings for there hardware.

This handy utility will also keep your GPU updated with the latest driver that can be set to automatically download, ready to be installed as soon as they are available and also it gives you access to the beta drivers.

How does it work?
GeForce experience requires an internet connection which, once connected to the NVIDIA Cloud datacenter will download optimal game settings that are tailored to your PC based upon CPU, GPU and monitor resolution.

Low end hardware will have the visuals reduced to improve framerates while high end hardware will inevitably have higher settings assigned. This is all done with a click of a button which ensures that the game not only looks great but perhaps more importantly, plays smoothly.

Testing of the settings are done by NVIDIA themselves who benchmark the game, set a framerate target to ensure smooth gameplay then adjust the settings to ensure both framerate and smooth gameplay are optimised.

In our own tests, the utility worked well and is great for those who want to jump straight into the game with the minimal of fuss and furore of adjusting GPU settings.

Our one complaint is that the supported games list requires expanding. While most of the popular games are supported, many, especially some older but very popular titles are not.

First Look

The GIGABYTE GTX780 Windforce x3 OC is a stunner of a card of that there can be no doubt. The smoked translucent fans with a glossy finish contrast well with the matt black steel shroud which features the Windforce moniker. Beneath the fans we can see a glimmer of copper heatpipe atop of twin aluminium heatsinks which bodes well for the cooling performance.

We love black PCBs here at Vortez and the GIGABYTE does not disappoint. We are glad they have chosen to stop using the blue PCBs of old as while black may seem a little duller than a coloured PCB, black is more appealing as it simply goes with the vast majority of colour schemes and themes.

From this angle we can see that GIGABYTE have improved things slightly from the GTX770 cooling design in that the fan cables are the correct side (the one we can’t see when installed). This makes for a much more appealing visual experience as the product looks so much neater without unsightly cables stretching across the length of the card.

The raised fans and heavily embossed shroud look excellent on a card of this stature. Measuring just short of 30cm at 292MM you will need a fair sized PC enclosure to house the card as it will overhang a standard ATX sized motherboard by 4cm.

The I/O area features DVI-I, DVI-D, DisplayPort and a HDMI port which is standard for the GTX780.

As this is a high end card you would expect full SLI capabilities and this is precisely what GIGABYTE give us with twin SLI tabs meaning this card can be linked up to as many other GPUs from the same family as your motherboard will allow.

The revision 2.0 card requires 2x8pin PCIe power cables rather than the standard 8+6 required for the both reference and Rev.1 cards. GIGABYTE recommend a 600W PSU which we think is about right, if somewhat a little overestimated in our opinion however you are unlikely to get twin 8pin power connectors on a PSU below the 600w recommendation anyway.

Closer Look

The 450W cooling capacity heatsink design is, as suspected, split into two heatsink arrays which are joined ‘at the hip’ by 5 copper heatpipes. Each heatpipe is soldered to a large copper baseplate and framed by an aluminium memory heatsink sink.

The soldering on the heatpipes was a little messy in truth but as you can’t actually see this area it isn’t a major concern as there was no signs of cracking which meant a good solid fit to the fins, in turn meaning heat transfer would be very good.

The copper baseplate was not a shiny polished affair; rather it had a dull sheen thanks to the rough, slightly buffed surface. GPU core contact was however excellent so there is no reason to remove the heatsink yourself unless you have a preference for your own GPU/CPU TIM.

The VRM area features an 8+2 phase design and incorporates solid state capacitors and ferrite core chokes. the 8-phase design, as opposed to the 6 phases found on the revision 1 design, will deliver more stable power while keeping the MOSFETs cooler thereby extending the life of the GPU.

The memory hails from Samsung and carries the product code of K4G203255FD FC03. We know this is some seriously fast memory if past tests are anything to go by.

The core of the GTX780 is essentially the same GK110 used in the TITAN with a couple of SMX’s disabled.

Test Setup & Methodology

How we test graphics cards

Testing a graphics card is an extremely lengthy process. We sometimes see reviews where a graphic card has been tested using out of date equipment, out of date games and out of date drivers. While the latter can be excused due to the sheer amount of driver updates making a thorough review impossible we will however notify the reader when we have used a different driver to the normal for example a pre-release driver. For the most part however we will always use the same hardware and where possible the same drivers unless a newer driver rectifies an issue we have encountered or significantly improves performance to such an extent that continuing with an outdated driver is not feasible.

Frame Time Analysis
We have also seen the emergence of frame time analysis. We covered this in a separate article here: GPU Reviews: Why Frame Time Analysis is important so we won’t go into the reasoning again but to summarise, our testing comprises both FPS testing and perhaps arguably more importantly, frame time analysis. We also look at overall performance by equating averages across the games and finally before concluding our review we take a look at value for money.

HardwareWith the latest Intel chipset release we decided to update our ageing X58 setup to the new X79 chipset. Not only that but we will be using the flagship Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor clocked to 4.5GHz to ensure we have no CPU bottlenecks. With 16GB of ram on board there should be minimal paging so the benchmarks we run today will hopefully give a true reflection of the graphics card’s performance.

High End Graphics cards on test:

GIGABYTE GTX780 Windforce x3 OC 3GB GDDR5
(Forceware 320.49)
GAINWARD GTX780 PHANTOM ‘GLH’ 3GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
INNO3D GTX760 ICHILL HERCULEZ 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
GIGABYTE GTX770 WINDFORCE 3X OC 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
ZOTAC GTX760 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.39)
NVIDIA GTX760 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.39)
]NVIDIA GTX760 2GB GDDR5 SLI(Forceware 320.39)
SAPPHIRE DUAL-X HD7950 3GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 13.6 beta)
CLUB 3D HD7970 royalAce 3GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 13.6 beta)
GAINWARD PHANTOM GTX 770 2GB GDDR5 (Forceware 320.18)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 2GB GDDR5 (Forceware 320.18)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB GDDR5 (Forceware 320.18)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 6GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN SLI 12GB(2x6GB) GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GTX680 2GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
AMD HD7970 3GB GDDR5 (AMD CAT 13.3 beta)

Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 Pro
CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition @ 4.5GHz
RAM – 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair Vengeance (Red) DDR3 @ 1866MHz 9-10-9-27
Power Supply – Thortech Thunderbolt Plus 1200W
Hard Drive – Kingston HyperX 240GB
Cooler – Corsair H100

Benchmarks
If you are a regular reader of our reviews you will know we like to test the latest hardware with the latest games and benchmarks on the market. Here are the games we have chosen:

Battlefield 3
Crysis 3
Far Cry 3
BioShock Infinite
DiRT: Showdown
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

We also take into consideration the benchmarkers out there so have included 3 of the more popular synthetic benchmarks available:

Unigine: Valley
Unigine: Heaven 4
Futuremark 3DMark Firestrike

Let’s see how today’s graphics card performed…

Temperature, Acoustics and Power Consumption

Power Consumption

To test for power consumption we use the included iPower Meter found with our Thortech PSU. As system load figures obviously differ from idle it is extremely difficult to get an accurate figure of system draw and then simply take this figure away from the overall amount because each game will generate varying levels of CPU and hard drive activity. Dynamic power adjustments which fluctuate in game will also affect accurate power figures thus rendering any such power consumption calculations redundant at worst and approximate at best.

We will therefore take our system readings averaged over a benchmark run of Tessmark (100% load) and after 20 minutes of being idle in Windows 7. These can then be used as a comparison to other graphics cards to determine how much more or less power you can expect a GPU to consume.

Power consumption was on a par with the other custom cooled GTX780 on test which in turn consumes a little more power than the reference design, most likely due to the additional overclock and fans.

Temperature

To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests, we would normally run Furmark for 20 minutes, taking the absolute maximum temperature attained however we found that this throttled the card and resulted in spurious results. So we set Heaven running continuously for 20 minutes and used this as a temperature result as the card did not throttle with this application.

As with all the latest NVIDIA card temperature tests, the graph above can appear a little misleading because the way GPU BOOST 2.0 sets the temperature threshold. With our sample set to 80c, the card will keep increasing the ‘boost’ speed until either temperature or power limits are breached. So, even though our sample reached 80c, it should not be interpreted as being a hot card.

Acoustics

As with the GTX770 Windforce, the 780 version was extremely quiet even under the highest load. While all sound is subjective to how sensitive your hearing may be, we would wage you would struggle to hear this GPU over average case fans.

Let’s see how the card performs in our suite of benchmarks…

Futuremark 3DMark Fire Strike (Synthetic)

Fire Strike is the new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is Futuremark’s most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today.

Unigine: Heaven 4 (Synthetic)

Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system’s potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms.

Unigine: Valley (Synthetic)

Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.

Battlefield 3 (FPS)

Battlefield 3 leaps ahead of its time with the power of Frostbite™ 2, the next installment of DICE’s cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built, delivering enhanced visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and incredibly lifelike character animations. As bullets whiz by, walls crumble, and explosions throw you to the ground, the battlefield feels more alive and interactive than ever before. In Battlefield 3, players step into the role of the elite U.S. Marines where they will experience heart-pounding missions across diverse locations including Paris, Tehran and New York.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the parking lot scene on Operation Sword Breaker. High and Ultra presets were loaded at both resolutions.

Crysis 3 (FPS)

Crysis 3 from Electronic Arts is the fourth instalment of the Crysis franchise and sequel to Crysis 2. It uses the CryEngine 3 gaming engine which is perhaps the most advanced gaming engine to date and therefore the most demanding. The meme ‘Can it run Crysis’ has never been so apparent…

Far Cry 3 (FPS)

Far Cry 3 is a tropical survival shooter video game from Ubisoft Montreal and Massive studios. It’s open world design has similar traits to it’s forbear Far Cry 2 but it does it all so much better. With stunning visuals and settings to bring a PC to it’s knee’s, this game is so much more than the ‘just another console port’ it was reported to be.

BioShock Infinite (FPS)

Set in 1912 during the growth of American exceptionalism, BioShock Infinite is a thrid person shooter developed by Irrational games and published by 2K Games. It is the third instalment of the BioShock franchise. the game utilises the Unreal Engine 3, modifying it with their own lighting engine to present a visually stunning experience like no other.

DiRT: Showdown (FPS)

DiRT Showdown is the new arcade racing game from the team that brought you the award-winning DiRT series, uncaged in 2012. Pick up and play controls combine with electrifying events, frenzied crowds and stunning graphics to deliver high octane, dive in and drive thrills from event one.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (FPS)

Skyrim is not a direct successor to the very popular Oblivion. Instead it takes place 200 years after the events of Oblivion. The non-linear playing that made the Elder Scrolls such a popular series does however make a return along with the beautiful scenery the encompasses the world of Skyrim.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the drop down passage to Riverwood. V-sync was disabled to allow fluctuating (higher the 60) FPS for these runs. It is however recommended that v-sync is left enabled during normal gameplay due to the games dynamics.

Value For Money

We make a simple calculation for this set of results. For each game we add all of the resulting FPS totals together and then divide by the four sets to give us an overall performance figure. While the figures alone do not give you an accurate picture of how the card will perform in any given scenario, they do tell you, when averaged, which GPU is the more capable across all of the benchmarks and settings tested.

Gaming Experience (Frame Time Analysis)

Here we take a look at both average (black) and 99th Percentile (coloured) response times of the graphics cards. It is highly unlikely a user will notice any micro stutter (also incorrectly referred to as lag but the effect can be interpreted to be similar) at anything below 30ms but every gamers perception differs.

Comment

The graphs above may appear very daunting however, what you want to see is a smooth line (not fuzzy) with very few peaks and troughs. While you are unlikely to notice peaks and troughs below 30ms, any peak above 30ms may be seen as a stutter during gameplay. This will however depend greatly on your own perceptions. Multi card setups are more likely to show frame lag due to the nature of cross communicating to render frames.

Average and 99th Percentile response times (Frame Time Analysis)

Overclocking (GPU BOOST 2.0)

For overclocking our NVIDIA cards we will be using EVGA’s Precision too (ver. 4.1) as this gives us all of the options we require. Should you desire, then GIGABYTE’s own GURU II is equally good.

Above is a screenshot of GPU-Z showing the reference (factory overclocked) speeds and reference boost clocks

Overclocking a card which is already overclocked from the factory usually limits the amount of overclocking headroom remaining. Not so with the GIGABYTE GTX780 Windforce x3 OC as we managed a further 115MHz on the core resulting in a blistering 1201MHz GPU BOOST clockspeed. Couple this with the stupidly high memory overclock and you can’t help but wonder why GIGABYTE were so conservative with the factory overclocks.

Both core and memory could be pushed further separately but produced instability when clocked together.

After settling on our stable clockspeed which was verified by multiple runs of Unigine Heaven and 3DMark we benchmarked the overclock and compared it to stock results with Unigine Heaven 4.0 to evaluate the benefits of overclocking the GPU.

Conclusion

The NVIDIA GTX780 is a class leading GPU at present. Making this card better is a tough feat to pull off but GIGABYTE have managed just that. Improving on the reference design cooler, as good as it is, was never going to be easy but the Windforce cooler is really good. It’s everything a good cooler should be, pleasing to the eye, quiet and of course powerful. The Windforce x3 hits all the right spots. The metal shroud is an improvement over the older plastic design which while robust, never gave you that confidence that it wouldn’t break if handled too roughly. The new steel design feels like it could be thrown against a wall and suffer no ill effects but at £600, we won’t be putting that to the test!

The factory overclock is a welcome one but we feel that there was too much left in the tank because for the price premium you are paying for the factory overclock, it could easily have been clocked higher, particularly the memory. Perhaps GIGABYTE have a ‘SOC’ version lurking in the background which will be clocked to the extreme levels this card is capable of? Regardless, having that little bit extra to play with added to the fun of owning such a powerful card. The two extra phases of power on this revision (rev 2.0) have likely added to this extra overclocking headroom too.

As for awards, its hard not recommend the GIGABYTE GTX780 Windofrce 3x OC. Its blisteringly fast, super cool and clocks very well indeed. Backed up by the excellent support GIGABYTE provide, should you buy this card you will be left wanting for nothing. A Golden graphics card if ever we saw one. Go buy it!

To summarise:
Factory overclocked, custom cooled with sublime aesthetics. If you are looking for a range topping GPU then the GIGABYTE Windforce x3 OC demands close inspection.

Pros
+ Blisteringly fast
+ Quiet
+ Factory overclocked
+ Great looking

Cons
– Expensive