Long-term analysis of 680, 780, Titan, etc.

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singe_101

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These cards are still going, seasoned veterans. Or say they perished, and name the OEM. But they are at their plateau instead of ascending.

Did you wait with an old card for Kepler, or the 780 Ti? Or was it from 580 to 680, etc.?

Did anyone fold on the Titan? How much better was it than other cards?

The Titan can do more than game but what does it mean that the 970 is so similar for gaming but the Sept. 2014 MSRP was $349, right? That wasn't that much later than 2013 launches.
 
???

I think I need stronger coffee because that made no sense.
 
Okay. What is the final review of 2013 GTX level video cards? Did they correspond with 1440p adoption?

I kind of stopped paying attention since 4/13, until a month ago.

AMD discussion is muddled due to the mining inflation and I don't really care. Or the 280 and 280X are just there in benchmarks year after year, enough said.
 
singe_101 said:
Okay. What is the final review of 2013 GTX level video cards? Did they correspond with 1440p adoption?

I kind of stopped paying attention since 4/13, until a month ago.

AMD discussion is muddled due to the mining inflation and I don't really care. Or the 280 and 280X are just there in benchmarks year after year, enough said.
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Trying really to hard to follow what you're typing here..

You're asking if the 780 was a great card? Yes I still use them in my rig.

At 1440p my SLI 780s are great but the 3GB VRAM is showing its limitations on newer games at which point the Titan starts to show its true colors.
 
Fireworks are pretty and can go round and round.
But then cannonballs dont float.
So what is the price of fish?
 
I'm still running dual 680's 4gb cards in SLI and have no incentive to upgrade any time soon. It runs all my games fine and on max as well.

Maybe when nvidia releases a card around $400 with the performance equal or better then that of the Titan X then I may be tempted.
 
Hehe...yea, i waited for others response because of the weird way you constructed your question. I figured as much what you were hinting toward though.

Some @ 1440p say they are happy with a 780ti. A 780/titan will probably satisfy as well. If you want the max performance grab a 980ti. A 970 will work with 1440p also.

If you want to buy low now and wait for pascal, find a used 970 or 780ti. Some titans still go for a high price in comparison to what you can get in the 900 series price/performance.
 
singe_101 said:
Did you have the 1440p monitor first, or the cards? OC'd?
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I had a 680, then got the 1440p monitor. 2GB of VRAM wasn't enough so I went with the 780s SC'd. Good cards but once again the VRAM limitation presents itself. I am not a fan of OCing so I'll just keep doing a straight upgrade. I had a good run though. Plan on upgrading next year.
 
EVGA sometimes goes crazy with some b-stock sales on Kepler, but very briefly and then OOS.

Hopefully Titans are getting work done, beasts of burden until they truly expire.
 
I'm still sporting a pair of 680's, but I'm also running 1200p and don't game as much as I used to. I'll probably be hanging on to these for at least another year, if not two.
 
My last rig was using 1080p with a GTX 570. When I built that rig, I actually just gave a broadline of what I wanted and had someone else spec it for me.

Didn't do much research into any GPU's until just after the release of 970 and 980. I first upgraded to 970 and then rebuilt my rig and went 970 SLI with 1440p adoption at the same time.

However I will freely admit I never even considered 700 series at the time, as my general rule of thumb is, get the newest, unless newest is outmatched by an older version. It wasn't the case for 700 series (780ti was far too expensive compared to 970 at the time, and had less VRAM, not to mention not supporting MFAA, though this point is completely moot as SLI breaks MFAA).

After my experiences with SLI however, I will also admit that I will no longer consider anything below non-Titan class flagship cards.
 
The oddity I've seen in the past couple years is massive increases in VRAM usage at highest settings for many games but not necessarily requiring a corresponding large increase in GPU power. Granted, the more power the better at these resolutions, but people's interpretation of "playable" framerates allows this judgment to be very broad. This probably has a lot to do with 1440p and higher res monitors dropping in price drastically in recent years as well as the fact that many of the more recent popular games have open world environments. It may also have to do with the consoles getting shared RAM setups where the GPU has access to large pools of memory and game developers finally taking advantage of it.

For example, a 680 4GB is still very relevant today but a 680 2GB might struggle in many of the same use cases on resolutions greater than 1080p for a lot of the top tier games.
 
Its not really an oddity.
Its natural to see VRam use increase with gaming resolution and with hardware capability.

More VRam, faster VRam and faster PCI-E speed make it feasible to use more VRam in the same timeframe.
 
I recall that was happening and penalizing 1GB 7870s, etc. Or maybe skipping AA.

Was Metro: Last Light really forcing the issue? Far Cry 3? Other games were Borderlands 2, BF3, Skyrim, not as demanding though mods can change that.
 
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I didn't write very well, but thought it was a good time to analyze Kepler since Maxwell is also mature, for comparison. And the monitor prices for 1440p fell, that or 1600p was a major investment in 2013 unless I'm completely wrong.

And once in a blue moon there's an EVGA b-stock 780 or even 780 Ti for an incredibly cheap price, which speaks to the used market and they aren't decrepit cards nearing complete failure. Not too hot, either.
 
I understood the OP fine.

I'm still rocking a 2GB Asus 770 (a re-branded 680). When I RMA'd my old 7950 in Feb. 2014, a replacement AMD card was out of the question due to their high value during the bitcoin bubble. I could have either waited for Maxwell or purchased a Kepler-based GPU. I chose the latter. I love the card, it's the quietest GPU I have ever owned and performs great.

Given the games I play and the resolution I play at (1080p on the TV/1200p on the monitor), the 770 suits me just fine. There were a few games to be released this year that I was interested in that I thought may force me to upgrade, Dying Light and GTAV. Both of those games run great on my machine so I didn't feel the need to get a 970. Now, The Witcher 3 and Arkham Knight I am very interested in, but my Steam backlog is so damn big, I decided to forgo them for now. If that wasn't the case, I probably would have upgraded for those games.

No, the 770 doesn't have a lot of VRAM. But I've only run into a few cases of VRAM starvation affecting gameplay. In those situations I simply turn down some settings.

So, the 2GB 680/770 is still a great card for gaming at 1080p'ish. At this point, barring any Black Friday deals on 970's, I will most likely wait for Pascal.
 
singe_101 said:
I recall that was happening and penalizing 1GB 7870s, etc. Or maybe skipping AA.

Was Metro: Last Light really forcing the issue? Far Cry 3? Other games were Borderlands 2, BF3, Skyrim, not as demanding though mods can change that.
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I don't believe they ever produced a 1GB 7870. I think only some of the 7850 were sold in 1GB flavor.

Nvm, quick Google search returns some 7870s actually castrated to 1GB. Wow what a waste.

OP, I know it's not Nvidia but my 7950 (280) with 3GB VRAM is still very capable with today's games @1080P at least. I ran the Battlefront Beta at max everything 1080P no issues at 60FPS.
 
My two 680s in SLI have been holding up fine. I have a 1080P 120hz monitor that I don't plan to part with any time soon and so the 680s don't really give me any vram issues. In fact, i'm probably just going to pick up a 3rd 680 for cheap to hold me over for a while since I can do 3-way SLI with my current board.
 
Yes I had the 570 until September and now a 970, so I'm caught up for five years. Hypothetical 780 Ti to 970 would just be lateral.

And I bought Crysis just last summer, old stuff like that. Finally maxed with cool temps under 75 and not too much fan speed.
 
GotNoRice said:
My two 680s in SLI have been holding up fine. I have a 1080P 120hz monitor that I don't plan to part with any time soon and so the 680s don't really give me any vram issues. In fact, i'm probably just going to pick up a 3rd 680 for cheap to hold me over for a while since I can do 3-way SLI with my current board.
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Don't do it. Not only is 3-way SLI scaling horrible more often then not, but you ARE running into VRAM issues. I am with my 680's at 1080p in several newer games, unless of course you have the 4GB variants.
 
Pretty much anything Fermi and older is antiquated for AA+ games that have released in the past 4-5 years.

I was running a single GTX 570 1.25GB when GTA IV and FC3 were in their heyday and it struggled with those at 1080p.

Moved to a GTX 780 3GB and now I could play those games with max settings.
Applied a 2nd GTX 780 to my system and moved to 1080p 144 Hz, and games such as FC4 were running very well. Depending on the Kepler model, resolution, and game(s) being played, the 700 series can be quite adequate.

Recently dumped the 780 SLI setup for a 980 Ti and I'm very happy with the transition. It performs about the same (or better with games that don't have good multi-GPU scaling), draws way less power, and doesn't cook the inside of my chassis. Maxwell 2.0 should be relevant for a while yet.

I skipped Kepler, but see a lot of folks still running 680s and seemingly happy with what they do.

Pascal and Arctic Islands should be interesting. I'm anxious to find out how the die shrink will affect power draw and heat output in real-world usage. I think the challenge is going to be keeping the thermals under control at given clock speeds (especially looking at you, AMD) adequate enough to provide acceptable performance gains over the last gen due to the higher die density (much the same as < 32nm Intel processors run quite hotter than their predecessors). As long as we continue to get a single new flagship (not a Halo, e.g.- Titan) that performs in the ballpark that two previous upper-tier cards provided (780 SLI to 980 Ti), then I will take that as adequate forward progress.
 
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I am late to the party but GTA V looks great, and I didn't save afterburner logs but IIRC the top temp was 68 with boost to 1482 MHz and +500 memory. Not that 78 or 82 would be a huge problem, the few blower 970s would probably get there, but it was good and the fan didn't even need that much power, maybe 55%. So that's also a good sign for buying a used 780.

I used the 570 for Saints Row 3. Off brand "GTA" and it was smooth. heh
 
I was using my 2013 Titan for 2560x1600 until June this year when I picked up two 980ti's and a 4k screen.

It served me well at 2560x1600. Some titles struggled a tiny bit, but overall it worked just fine at 60fps.

It's the longest I've ever used any GPU, and probably was possible due to both Nvidia and AMD being stuck at 28nm for so long. It was expensive, but I feel I got my money's worth.

Now the Titan is sitting in a box waiting to replace the GTX 460 768mb in my stepsons rig.

Since he is at 1080p, it should be more than enough for the foreseeable future for him.
 
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If your 1440p monitor is still functional give it to your stepson!
 
my gtx780 classified is still going strong. I am playing TW3 at High settings, 1440p with framerates in the upper 40s-low 50s. It's playable for me, given that it's not a twitch shooter.
Obviously more frames would be better, but i'ts not work the money to upgrade just go get an additional 5 fps
 
I've been using a gtx 780 for about a year and a half and don't think I'll be needing to upgrade anytime soon. I game at 1080p so I should be good for a while. I'm happy with it.
 
crusty_juggler said:
I understood the OP fine.

I'm still rocking a 2GB Asus 770 (a re-branded 680). When I RMA'd my old 7950 in Feb. 2014, a replacement AMD card was out of the question due to their high value during the bitcoin bubble. I could have either waited for Maxwell or purchased a Kepler-based GPU. I chose the latter. I love the card, it's the quietest GPU I have ever owned and performs great.

Given the games I play and the resolution I play at (1080p on the TV/1200p on the monitor), the 770 suits me just fine. There were a few games to be released this year that I was interested in that I thought may force me to upgrade, Dying Light and GTAV. Both of those games run great on my machine so I didn't feel the need to get a 970. Now, The Witcher 3 and Arkham Knight I am very interested in, but my Steam backlog is so damn big, I decided to forgo them for now. If that wasn't the case, I probably would have upgraded for those games.

No, the 770 doesn't have a lot of VRAM. But I've only run into a few cases of VRAM starvation affecting gameplay. In those situations I simply turn down some settings.

So, the 2GB 680/770 is still a great card for gaming at 1080p'ish. At this point, barring any Black Friday deals on 970's, I will most likely wait for Pascal.
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Was thinking about grabbing today's MSI 980TI deal when you basically talked me off the ledge. Only difference here is I've just systematically burned through most of my backlog over the last couple of months (except basically Arkham Origins+Blackgate and Skyrim). That means I could be looking at much different gaming landscape in 2016. That being said, my 770 has chewed through everything and honestly shows no signs of slowing down at 1080p.

A 980 TI would be one hell of a last hurrah for my 2500K...except then I see my 770 will be fine in Fallout 4 too. LOL.
 
My SLI Titans have been going pretty damn strong to be honest.
Only taxing thing was Witcher 3 @ 3440x1440p with everything maxed out. Even then, though I would be in the upper 50's.

I feel like the next gen of cards might make me switch.
 
Wade88 said:
If your 1440p monitor is still functional give it to your stepson!
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My bad, I had a brain far, it was actually 2560x1600, not 1440p.

And I am using it at work now for large spreadsheets!

My stepson is only just turning 8 this month, so I think he'll be fine with 1080p for now. Can't give him everything at 8. Won't have anything left to give him when he gets older :p
 
When I had my 2 Titans in SLI some 2 and half years ago, it seemed to be an overkill and I was able to max out every damn games at 1600p with a solid 60FPS. I remember gamers were laughing at Titans users because they were expensive and 6GB was thought to be unnecessary.
Currently I am no longer able to max out every games. I will need to tune down graphical settings such as AA or hairworks in games like Witcher 3, GTA5 in order to get 60FPS or close to it. 6GB VRAM seems to be just nice and I can see how some users of 4GB card are seeing their entire VRAM being used up. Still, A pair of titans are still relevant today and I am able to max out Fallout 4 with 60FPS except I need to tune down GodRay from ultra to High.
I will probably upgrade when Pascal come out though. My plan to is to get 2 high end Pascal in SLI and retain 1 Titan for physX. I am seeing more and more games are being getting pounded in framerate due to physics such as hairworks, smoke-work or whatever shit Nvidia is encouraging developers to add in their games.
 
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