NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Review

GTX 780, 290X, TITAN or the new GTX 780 Ti? If you are stuck on this decision then read our take on NVIDIA’s latest graphics card, the GeForce GTX 780 Ti…

Product on Review: GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB GDDR5
Manufacturer and Sponsor: NVIDIA
Price: £559 MRSP

NVIDIA have historically been very good with their strategic marketing. The GTX TITAN came at a time when graphics card releases were going through an interim, barren period. They grabbed the limelight with that release and even charged a huge premium. Few thought the TITAN would be a success at such an inflated price yet many have were sold to those looking for the best of the best. AMD’s most recent answer is the R9-290X, itself a very fast card that threatened the GTX TITAN’s grasp to the performance throne. Now it is time for NVIDIA to show its hand and unleash the full power of the GK110 core.

There were questions left unanswered with the TITAN, namely the mystery surrounding the missing SMX. The GTX TITAN had 14 out of a possible 15, much the same as the pro grade Tesla K20 the TITAN is based upon. Whether this was due to yield issues or NVIDIA rationing power we cannot say but the GK110 has to date always shipped with one SMX disabled. This has changed with the GTX 780 Ti because it serves up a full complement of SMX making the GTX 780 Ti a ‘full fat’ GK110.

There can be no denying that the GTX 780 Ti was held back by NVIDIA to keep a firm grasp on the performance crown. NVIDIA tactically waited until AMD we about to release their R9 series and even during the hype surrounding AMD’s latest and greatest, NVIDIA grabbed a large chunk of the hype by announcing the GTX 780 Ti. NVIDIA made aggressive cuts to the GTX 780 prior to the R9-290X release and to add further pressure on AMD, NVIDIA have today unleashed a card that has the makings to be faster than not only the 290X but NVIDIA’s own flagship card, the mighty GTX TITAN. If it manages to do that then the GTX TITAN will soon become obsolete but this won’t concern NVIDIA because all that matters is producing the fastest GPU on the market. This sells not only the card on review today but affects sales of those other cards from the same family because if NVIDIA are seen as the fastest, it can be interpreted by many that their entire range are faster, whether that be true or not.

So we have three cards at a stand off. The older, wiser (it has the most memory after all) GTX TITAN? The hot headed red power house from AMD or the new kid on the block? Let’s find out…

About NVIDIA

Founded in 1993, NVIDIA has continuously reinvented itself to delight users and shape the industry. From our beginnings in PC graphics, we expanded into professional graphics to become the standard bearer in visual computing. We later harnessed the parallel computing capabilities of the GPU to advance high-performance computing. Our move into mobile put us at the centre of one of the industry’s fastest-growing segments. With the invention of the virtual GPU, we’re accelerating cloud computing for consumers and enterprises.

Specification

The first thing to note is that the GTX 780 Ti model has the largest number of stream processors, closely followed by the AMD R9-290X. The TITAN closely follows these models with the standard GTX 780 bringing up the rear. The green team far outweighs the 290X in terms of texture units however the 290X does have 16 more ROPs than all the NVIDIA cards who have 48 each. Memory speed goes to the GTX780 Ti with a huge 1750MHz (7000MHz effective GDDR5) while the TITAN has the most memory (6GB) with the 290X having the higher bus width of 512bit. Both the GTX780 Ti and TITAN have a faster fill rate than the 290X while the 290X has the faster Pixel fillrate. All four cards are based on the 28nm process.

The R9-290X also uses more power at peak vs. the GTX780 Ti. The 290X has to work harder at dissipating this heat because of a smaller die size (455 square mm). Because of this higher thermal density the 290X runs hotter and therefore needs an efficient cooler be that a very fast fan speed (noise) or huge heatsink (cost). While AMD are to be applauded for cramming so much into such a small sliver of silicon, the NVIDIA method results in a more efficient design from a cooling perspective. Because the chip is cooler, less heat dissipation is required and therefore ultimately it can utilise lower speed fans which in turn equate to less noise (see our acoustic testing section). The R9-290X has a nominal operating temperature of 95c which is much higher than the GTX 780 Ti’s of 83c.

Here is a full breakdown of the GeForce GTX 780 Ti specification:

Graphics Processing Clusters: 5
Streaming Multiprocessors: 15
CUDA Cores (single precision): 2880
CUDA Cores (double precision): 960
Texture Units: 240
ROP Units: 48
Base Clock: 875MHz
Boost Clock: 928 MHz
Memory Clock (Data rate): 7000 MHz
L2 Cache Size: 1536K
Total Video Memory: 3072MB GDDR5
Memory Interface: 384-bit
Total Memory Bandwidth: 336 GB/s
Texture Filtering Rate (Bilinear): 210 GigaTexels/sec
Fabrication Process: 28 nm
Transistor Count: 7.1 Billion
Connectors: 2 x Dual-Link DVI 1 x HDMI 1 x DisplayPort
Form Factor: Dual Slot
Power Connectors: One 8-pin and one 6-pin
Recommended Power Supply: 600 Watts
Thermal Design Power (TDP): 250 Watts
Thermal Threshold: 95° C

So, on paper the GTX780 Ti appears to have the slight advantage over both the TITAN and the AMD R9-290X. All three cards however have advantages in different areas so it is going to be a very close run race.

Architecture

The architecture of the NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti core, the GK110 is an evolution of the GTX680’s GK104. Both cores are based on Kepler architecture and both 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 in the AMD HD7970. The CUDA core count has also been increased to a ‘full fat’ 2880 from the 2688 used on the GTX TITAN and from 1536 of the GTX680.

The GK110 has an additional GPC to the four found on the GK104 and also and additional SMX in each GPC making 15 compared to the GTX 680’s 8. There are 6 64-bit memory controllers (384bit) controlling the huge 6GB of GDDR5 which is yet another massive hike over the 256bit controller found on the GK104.

Above we can see a breakdown of an individual SMX.

NVIDIA’s CUDA core count on the GTX 780 Ti weighs in at an astonishing 2880. This is a huge undertaking as every SMX needs to be perfect. Previously at least a single SMX would be disabled and thus the silicon would then be ‘binned’ as either a GTX TITAN (14 SMX – 2688 CUDA cores) or GTX780 (12 SMX – 2304 CUDA cores). The GTX 780Ti uses all 15 SMX so understandably, this will be an expensive card to produce.

To combat this, NVIDIA have made the wise decision to reduce the amount of on-board GDDR5 to 3GB. The GTX TITAN has 6GB of on board memory and while this amount can be utilised under certain scenarios, 2-3GB is more than enough for the vast majority of uses. That said, while we can see the wisdom in reducing the memory size, we would still have preferred to see a 290X equalling 4GB AND a higher memory bus width which remains 384bit as opposed to the 290X 512bit. The raw grunt of the extra cores should however ensure that the GTX 780 Ti is a very capable graphics card not only for today’s games but also for future titles too.

Features

3D Vision Surround
NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround expands your field of view across three 3D monitors for breathtaking panoramic gaming. At an ultra-wide resolution of 5760 x 1080, games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 have to be played to be believed.

SLI
NVIDIA SLI technology links multiple GeForce GPUs together for dramatically improved graphics performance. With over 1,000 supported applications and used by over 94% of multi-GPU PCs on Steam, SLI is the technology of choice for gamers who demand the very best.

DirectX 11
Microsoft DirectX is the graphics technology powering all of today’s hottest games. The latest version— DirectX 11—features tessellation for film-like geometric detail, compute shaders for custom graphics effects, and improved multithreading for better hardware utilization.

CUDA
CUDA is NVIDIA’s parallel computing architecture that enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of the GPU to speed up the most demanding tasks you run on your PC.

3D Vision
NVIDIA 3D Vision® technology delivers stereoscopic 3D images for gamers, movie-lovers and photo enthusiasts when configured with NVIDIA GPUs, NVIDIA 3D Vision active shutter glasses, and 3D Vision-Ready display/projector. Only NVIDIA 3D Vision supports the richest array of 3D content available – more than 600 3D games, Blu-ray 3D movies, 3D photos and streaming YouTube 3D videos.

PhysX
Without accurate physics simulations, even the most beautiful game feels static and lifeless. PhysX taps into the GPU for complex physics calculations. Used by popular games such as Alice: Madness Returns, PhysX brings games to life with dynamic destruction, particle based fluids, and life-like animation.

Adaptive VSync
NVIDIA Adaptive VSync makes your gaming experience smoother and more responsive by eliminating frame rate stuttering and screen tearing. To learn more check out the Technology tab.

TXAA
TXAA anti-aliasing creates a smoother, clearer image than any other anti-aliasing solution by combining high-quality MSAA multisample anti-aliasing, post processes, and NVIDIA-designed temporal filters.

GPU Boost 2.0
GPU Boost 2.0 extracts every ounce of computing power from graphics cards, maximizing frame rates in each and every game. Compared to the original GPU Boost, GPU Boost 2.0 is faster and more flexible, giving users more control over its configuration.

G-SYNC
NVIDIA G-SYNC monitors feature revolutionary NVIDIA technology that eliminates screen tearing and VSync input lag, and enhances the capabilities of existing monitor panels, resulting in the smoothest, fastest, most responsive gaming experience ever seen. The result: Scenes appear instantly. Objects are sharper. Game play is smoother. Every time.

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.

GeForce Shadowplay

Most gamers have that ‘golden time’ when everything in-game seems to be going right. You’re getting headshots galore, ‘noobs’ accusing you of hacking and you finish the map top of the leaderboard. You then sit back in your chair with a satisfying grin on your face soaking up the victory and pure domination you have just laid down. Sadly, those moments are short-lived because no sooner do you have a good round, the very next round could be a nightmare where you get spawn raped, reducing your kill/death ratio to that resembling the Italian infantry. What if you could savour your ‘golden time’? What if you could wallow in your glory time and again? Perhaps you made a sick acrobatic move in a chopper or had some fun with a ‘knives only’ round? Whatever your preference, you can relive these moments for all eternity thanks to the wealth of recording devices available…should you remember to hit record that is.

This is where NVIDIA’s ShadowPlay comes in. ShadowPlay will shadow up to the last 20 minutes (10 minutes in Windows 7) of game play. While it can be used like any other recording software, it is the ‘Shadow’ feature which makes this utility special. All you have to do is hit a hotkey and the utility will save a predetermined amount of minutes for you to view later. The great thing about ShadowPlay is you can record AFTER the event has taken place. As long as ShadowPlay is activated before you begin gaming it will continue to save the previous 10 minutes then when you want to ‘replay’ the last section of your gaming, hit the predefined hotkey of your choice to save and view later. This can be repeated infinitely (depending on the amount of hard drive space available) without you having to come out of game.

The console is simplicity itself however it is part of the GeForce Experience utility so you must also have this installed. There are few options to configure. Simply assign hotkeys (or use the predefined ones) and designate where you would like the overlay which is a very small icon and not intrusive. Next you can configure the quality. We recommend high but this setting will take up sizable chunks of hard drive space. That’s all there is to it.

Below is the sequence we use from Battlefield 3 for benchmarking a graphics card. The actual resolution was at the time 2560×1600 however ShadowPlay will always default to 1920×1080 but it will give you an idea of the quality you can expect:

There are other recording utilities that can record in real-time however these require you to commence recording BEFORE or during your gaming session. ShadowPlay allows you to record the event after it has taken place as long as you hit the hotkey. Better still, the recording has minimal impact on the game (between 5 and 10%).

GeForce ShadowPlay is capable of recording at 1080p by using H.264 encoding and has quality settings of 15, 22 and 50Mbps depending on the quality level set (low, medium or high). 1 minute of recording at the highest level uses around 450MB of hard drive space. Lower levels will obviously use much less.

We certainly like this feature and so will those who want to relive those special moments of game play to be treasured and replayed at a later date. With more and more people uploading there favourite moments to YouTube we can expect some ‘ownage’ examples along with those hilarious moments that would otherwise be lost because you weren’t recording at the time.

First Look

The GTX 780 Ti features the very same heatsink/cooler design of both GTX TITAN and the reference GTX 780. Not that this is a bad thing of course because as we have repeatedly said, the current NVIDIA reference cooler is the best we have seen and even better than some custom designs. The only difference with this cooler is the engraved GTX 780Ti logo near the cooler which also happens to be coloured gun metal grey rather than the same silver as the shroud.

There is no back plate with the 780 Ti as rumoured but ample space for a further 3GB GDDR5 to match that of the GTX TITAN should NVIDIA need to refresh this sample once more. If you intend on watercooling this card you will need a small Torx driver as the majority of screws are of this design.

The same illuminated GeForce logo is found along the leading edge of the GPU. When we first saw this feature we thought it would look a little tacky but it has actually grown on us and looks quite good in-situ, especially if you have a stack of cards next to each other!

The I/O area is as familiar as ever with DVI-D, DVI-I, HDMI and DisplayPort socket types all catered for.

With 4K displays entering the market, you may need a little more GPU grunt so NVIDIA have wisely furnished the GTX 780Ti with twin SLI tabs allowing for a multiple card configuration.

Finally we see that the 780Ti retains the same power design of the GTX780 and GTX TITAN by having both 6pin and 8pin PCIe power sockets. We would recommend the same 600W PSU required to power a reference GTX 780 or GTX TITAN.

Let’s take the lid of the 780 Ti to see if there are any further differences beneath that gorgeous cooling design.

Closer Look

The underside of the cooler shows us that the 12 memory chips, voltage regulation and GPU core are all actively cooled. Note the two wired plugs: We normally only see one which will dynamically control the fan speed according to temperature. The second, smaller plug provides power to the lighting effect of the fan shroud.

Here we can see the GTX 780 Ti in all its glory. While the PCB looks near identical to both the GTX TITAN and reference GTX 780 there are some minor differences which may prevent you from utilising an existing waterblock. While they are in the same position, the GTX 780 Ti has a larger number of MOSFETs resulting in a slightly larger surface area needed to be cooled (highlighted green see below).

NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti / NVIDIA GTX 780

The next thing to note is the position of the Solid capacitors (highlighted red) which are slightly misaligned on the 780Ti. This may affect fitment of a waterblock. If not, we see no reason why an existing GTX780 full cover waterblock wouldn’t fit but the issue is likely to be inadequate surface area cooling for the MOSFETs. For this reason it is unlikely that a GTX 780 waterblock will adequately cool a GTX 780 Ti. The flat capacitors used on the TITAN and reference GTX 780 cards are stacked horizontally while the GTX 780 Ti has them paired up and stacked vertically, there are also a few more on the 780 Ti. While this will not affect the fitment of a waterblock, it does show us that the GTX 780 Ti will likely have a cleaner, more stable power delivery possibly resulting in higher clockspeeds.

Here we can see a closer view of the VRM area. NVIDIA have introduced a new power balancing feature here to allow for greater overclocks. In this example the graphics card gets it’s power from three source, the main PCIe interface and both 6 and 8 pin power connectors. When overclocking, power can be drawn more from one source, potentially maxing out that power source and unbalancing the power draw. This new feature balances the power draw from all three sources potentially allowing greater overclocks than previously available.

We are thrilled to see NVIDIA use the same high overclocking HYNIX memory chips we have seen on other NVIDIA examples that gave us some great memory overclocking results. For reference these chips carry the H5GQ2H24AFR R2C product code.

Finally we reach the core of the GPU, the GK110.
With the full amount of SMX complete with 2880 cores we can see this card surpassing the performance of the GTX TITAN despite the fact it has 3GB less memory.

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:

NVIDIA GTX 780 TI 3GB GDDR5

(Forceware 331.70)
AMD RADEON R9-290X 4GB GDDR5(CAT 13.11 Beta v5)
ASUS R9 280X DirectCU II 3GB GDDR5(CAT 13.11 Beta v1)
ASUS GTX760 DirectCU Mini OC 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
Inno3D iChill GTX 780 HerculeZ X3 Ultra 3GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
ASUS GTX770 DIRECT II CU OC 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
MSI GTX760 Twin Frozr Gaming 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
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.

Despite our fears, the GTX 780 Ti consumed on average around the same as the GTX TITAN and 290X.

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.

The AMD R9-290X created massive debate over the 95c temperature ceiling. Thankfully there will be no such furore over the GTX 780 Ti as while it did run hot, it was by no means anywhere near the R9-290X.

Acoustics

We have covered the reference cooler a few times previously so we won’t go into detail here other than to state it is as quiet on this card as it is on the GTX TITAN and GTX 780. It also MUCH quieter than the R9-290X.

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

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, ASUS’ own GPU Tweak is equally good.

Above is a screenshot of GPU-Z showing the reference clock speeds and reference boost clocks. We have also included the ASIC rating of our sample. The ASIC rating basically tells us how good the overclock will be. The higher the ASIC rating, the better the overclock is likely to be, particularly on air cooling at a given voltage. Average ASIC readings for our GTX 770s range from 70% to 80%. As you can see from the screenshot above, today’s sample is very much within that average.

In truth, we are still dubious as to the real value of this reading but time will tell. As we have been asked on numerous occasions to include it in our reviews we felt it only right to show it although please take any of these values with a pinch of salt until we can confirm whether it does actually mean a higher or lower overclock will be achieved.

We didn’t expect massive overclocks on the GTX 780 Ti simply because of the increase in SMXs. The GTX TITAN never overclocked as well as the GTX 780 we believe because of this however, we are happy to report the GTX 780 Ti appears to overclock just as well as a regular GTX 780! With a little tweaking we managed an excellent 300MHz on the core which was suitable for benching however it did prove unstable during extended game play so we dropped back the clockspeed until the card would run gaming sessions and benchmarks without issue. We finished up with a very respectable 255MHz on the core which equates to a Boost speed of 1274MHz! Add to this the blisteringly fast memory which we also overclock by a further 225MHz and NVIDIA have perhaps the fastest single graphics card on the market.

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)

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.

[fullimage=24390]

Overall Performance

Here we take a look at the overall performance of each card on review within each game. The FPS reading is taken across an average of all four settings and resolutions used.

Conclusion

The GeForce GTX 780 Ti is one of those cards that just make you grin from ear to ear. From the outset, we were impressed by the performance and even though this is a reference design, it is both cool and quiet and in a side-by-side comparison with the R9-290X, looks so much cleaner, better engineered and an all round more ‘professional grade’ graphics card.

Everything about the NVIDIA product screams professional from the top of the company down to the product itself. To be fair to AMD, they too have an excellent product on their hands but sadly the presentation both to the media and public was found to be wanting. Aesthetically and acoustically, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti is miles ahead of the R9-290X. But which graphics card is fastest? We found the GTX 780 Ti to be on average faster, cooler and much quieter than the R9-290X. Not only that but it betters the GTX TITAN and overclocked examples of the GTX 780. NVIDIA have played a very good tactical game by allowing AMD to grasp a taste of glory only to unleash the Ti version of the formidable GTX 780 to douse any aspirations of grandeur the AMD 290X may have had. The one stumbling block, as always with most flagship cards is the price.

Weighing in at £559 it is much cheaper than the GTX TITAN. At this price the TITAN just doesn’t make any sense at all so you could be forgiven in thinking NVIDIA have shot themselves in the foot here. Of course we would agree that for anyone to buy a GTX TITAN now would need their heads examining because the GTX 780 Ti is both faster and a lot cheaper. The GTX 780 Ti does however prove to be over £100 more expensive than the AMD R9-290X. Is this price justified? We think so, just. While we would have preferred to have seen the price drop below £500 we are happy it is sub £600. Were the 290X not so aggressively priced the GTX 780 Ti would actually seem quite reasonable compared to both the TITAN and overclocked GTX 780 variants. The simple facts are that the GTX 780 Ti is faster, cooler and quieter than AMD’s flagship card. You don’t buy a flagship GPU to save money, you buy one because it is the fastest money can buy and there can be no arguing that at the time of writing, the GTX 780 Ti is simply that: The fastest single core GPU available today.

In summary, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti is faster than both the AMD R9-290X and the GTX TITAN. It currently stands as the fastest single core graphics card on the planet bar none. Go buy it!

Pros
+ Fastest single core card on the market
+ Very quiet
+ Efficient cooling
+ Great looking

Cons
– £100 more expensive than the AMD R9-290X