GeForce GTX 780 Unboxing & Performance Review

[RaVenBelgium]

UNBOXING

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The GTX 780 from NVIDIA brings the technology and honestly most of the performance from the GTX Titan to the "numbered" series. In no particular order, here are the things I think are most important and special about this card.

 

 

GPU Boost 2.0

 

I covered this in detail in my GTX Titan overclocking guide, so I'm not going to say too much other than that it's way better than GPU Boost 1.0. You can set a target clock speed, an allowed voltage, and a target temperature and the graphics card basically does the work for you.

 

 

 

GeForce Experience and ShadowPlay

 

The GeForce Experience, which keeps your graphics drivers up to date and recommends settings to run your games at for the most optimal possible experience is now out of BETA. NVIDIA is not only leading the charge here on helping gamers get the most out of the expensive hardware they just bought, but they are also looking to continue to improve the services offered by adding something called ShadowPlay, which is going to make use of the onboard H.264 encoding hardware in the graphics chip to record gameplay videos.

 

The system overhead will much lower than solutions like FRAPS and the files will be compressed on the fly making them much smaller. Not only that, but NVIDIA is claiming only about a 5% performance hit to just have it running all the time. You can set a buffer time up to 20 minutes, which will allow you to "set & forget" then when something epic happens, go back and retrieve it. Very cool.

 

 

Quiet Operation

 

The GTX 780 has the dubious honour of following the GTX Titan, which was an ambitious card when it came to thermals and acoustics. It achieved its goal of super quiet operation while keeping thermals under control largely due to GPU Boost 2.0. The good news is the 780 has that too and it also has a new fan profile that aims to prevent unnecessary ramping up and down of the fan making for a less distracting gaming performance. It's noticeable and it works.

 

 

A Smooth Multi-GPU Experience

 

Multi-GPU micro stuttering and performance anomalies have always been the elephant in the room for these solutions, and it's for that reason that people like the one writing this article (that's me) usually recommend to use a single card solution whenever possible. Lately, however, there's been a lot of evidence coming to light that suggets that NVIDIA's SLI experience comes much closer to the single GPU user experience than the competition. Something to think about if you view SLI as an upgrade path. 

 

 

Performance

 

TLDR: It's really really fast.

 

Here's our test bed:

 

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I'll let the graphs and the videos do the talking here. First 1080p

 

 

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And now 2560x1440

 

 

 

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Conclusion

 

It's been a while since I could recommend a GTX *80 card. 480 & 470, 580 & 570, and 680 & 660 Ti all performed so close that it was hard to recommend the higher end card. Now I think we're about to see a big change. GTX 780 due to its "Titan DNA" dominates the single GPU performance charts and from a price to performance ratio actually makes much more sense than a GTX Titan. I guess all that remains to be seen is how the rest of the GTX 700 series gets fleshed out by NVIDIA and whether that recommendation remains in the coming weeks and months...

Let us know when you release the 5760x1080 performance specs! ;)

[SirReallySam]

OOOOhhhooohhooooo Looks GOOD!

[Guest Gazzer96]

Dose anyone know why linus lets his 780 and titan run at 90^o?

To get better performance.

[Guest Gazzer96]

So the Titan was a questionable decision from Nvidia. Seems like they have kind of exploited the enthusiasts. Little shady in my opinion.

 

Also Nvidia are still having a hard time with the AMD focus titles. They still cant run Metro. 1440p anyway

 

 

Hahahahah lol at all the morons that bought a titan xD 

They wouldn't care because they have 6GB of VRAM and is better for video editing, 3D rendering, etc.

 

Didn't mean to quote Dav1257's comment.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Gazzer96

[MegaDave91]

Should be about 40-50% faster than my GTX 580 i guess... 

But i feel bad about the thought of replacing my 580 which i just (like 2 months ago) got a new cooler for :D

Maybe an 880 or if i get a cheap used card. 

 

I hate myself for always wanting better hardware :D

I think it's faster than that. Isn't the 680 40% faster than the 580? And, the 780 is around 35% faster than the 680, so I think it makes it a lot faster than 40%-50% faster.

[Lolo]

I just can't sell my GTX 580 SLI so I can get this one :(

[sr7olsniper]

Linus or Slick or anyone that could help me out for the matter. I am in the market for a 780 but I don't know what to buy. I am looking at the EVGA line up and they have the stock or Super Clocked editions with a 10 dollar difference, but If I wait a few more weeks I am pretty sure they will release a classified version as well. I have never over clocked a card because my first and last attempt to do it with a geforce 9800x2 fried my card and since then I have been scared to death of fucking up my GPUs. However Linus does bring a valid point in his video that if you are buying a 780 and not overclocking it then I fail at life. I was wondering if you guys can give me a few tips or even give me a quick guide/rundown to how i can go about overclocking a 780. 

 

Regards

 

 

PS, My current system which is subject to change when AMD release AM4 or the the 1090 chipset is 
Asus Crosshair Formula IV

1090t Phenom 4 x6
8Gb Ram DDr3 Ripjaws

Win 7 ultimate

on a HAF X

[Skops]

This is really good. I've finally decided I will save up for this card.

 

Shame UK buyers get shafted in price. It's about £550-600 here.

[DeViLzzz]

I need a monitor that supports 1440p or more so I can complain that my computer can't run games well at these higher resolutions ?  Uh no.  No way am I going to buy something that supports more than 1080p anytime in the near future after seeing these benchmarks.

[Taipeek]

I dont want to be cheap but the price of 780 in my country is higher than our average salary.... sorry for not sharing your exitement :(

[cheNga]

Mean fps pumping machine ! :D

[TheRisingMyth]

Waouh, excellent way of looking at benchmarks, i might actually look for the forum post when things are interesting...

[WorldDominator]

I need to find a way to get a 780 :O

[I'm Batman]

those performance numbers are are way better now due to new drivers and stuff. i really regret not goins single 1440p monitor with 780 intead triple monitors with the titans X.X

[NickTheMajin]

I need a monitor that supports 1440p or more so I can complain that my computer can't run games well at these higher resolutions ?  Uh no.  No way am I going to buy something that supports more than 1080p anytime in the near future after seeing these benchmarks.

 

1440p is just so much more beautiful. You rarely need much anti aliasing at that point which is something to consider. 

[BoRnY]

Linus... I have a GTX 780 and i haven't overclocked it.

[BoRnY]

I have a 780 and i haven't even tried overclocked it. Umad Linus? 

[BoRnY]

i have already said that.. well im dumb