NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Video Card Review @ [H]

What an awesome last couple of weeks for major video card reviews! It's been quite a while since the competition has been this fierce between AMD (ATI) and nVidia. Now I'm gonna have to go hop on a plane just to go buy Kyle and Brent the beers that they deserve for these reviews!
 
b14z3 said:
if your variables (distance, objects surrounding, background noise levels) are listed/given then it should be directly related to the sound profile, no? maybe you can enlighten me further... I'm just having a hard time swallowing 'it's not loud enough to bother us' and use that as justification for my new computer I'm buying soon

edit: maybe you're also referring to varying pitch over just 'loudness' that dB would measure, that I could understand and I suppose that would take quite a bit more work to get it right in the review without pushing bad/mis-information on people.
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You can have the exact same dBA from two different noise sources. However, one could drive you completely insane (a child screaming) and the other might make you relax with pleasure (Kyle talking dirty to you).

This goes to the same methodology as the H uses for testing games.
 
Great, honest review as always. Shame it was pretty much right on par with what some of us were saying when the comparisons against the 780 > Titan were made. If anyone was expecting much I feel sorry for them. They should have just let AMD take the lead for 6 months until there next-gen like we're accustomed. Not dealing with tiny percent leads and huge markup prices.
 
Thx for the review.

After reading the 290x, 290, and 780ti reviews; I'm a bit torn between the 290(NON X) and the 780 NON TI cards like the (MSI lightning people mentioned). I'll sacrifice a few % performance for a large chunk off in price as I'm not running bleeding edge anymore.

I wish AMD and Nvidia would allow more features to be shared such as G synch, psychics, mantle etc... well I guess AMD will but Nvidia likes to hold it's features hostage which I guess I would too if I was them. Anyway, yeah the AMD cards are louder and not as efficient, big whop! Cry more if it bothers you, as I'd wait for a better cooling solution from MSI, Gigabyte etc... before buying anyway. I'm not in a huge hurry anyway as my whole PC is down from another SSD crash/death, and my internet(rural area) is beyond usable for anything other than MILD surfing :(. Hoping the rectify the later, and the former will be addressed as I get time and $.

Anyway, for people saying camp a or b are running away with the title of best is deluding themselves. Each person has their criteria they value most. Some want certain features, some want pure performance, some want lowest watts/noise etc.... Personally, I find a lot of that just the gamesmanship of convincing yourself to buy something, but whatever, it's your choice! What I find funny and tragic too, is the rabid fan boyism that allows people to become so divisive as if someone who buys the other card is the devil or something lol. Each work well, just chose what you want and let the other person choose what they like. It won't kill your dog if someone buys Nvidia instead of AMD or vice versa.

However, I do find it quite amusing that the Nvidia camp seems to justify so many shortcomings or price differences with their rabid devotion and rationalizations. More power too you if you love your cards, as I said everyone deserves their choice, but don't beat me and everyone here over the head if we happen to disagree. The AMD camp I think is just happy to have something that doesn't get trounced in performance and price this go around and actually IMO comes out on top in price/performance. so that's where I'll probably lean towards.

anyway this all kind of reminds me of the back and forth AMD and Intel had during the P4 vs A64 and later the A64 vs Core2. Intel fans defended the P4 against the AMD chips despite their shortcomings, but once Core 2 came about they took every argument AMD guys had about the A64 and used it to justify why the Core2 was better(which is was for most practical purposes). Anyway, the hypocrisy of these arguments is funny and people just don't seem to get it.

In the end I want to support the continued competition of these brands. I buy what I feel is the best value for my $, and try not to get too wrapped up in the fan wars, although as a human I'm sure I do at times. I may even get an AMD cpu again lol, as I've had so many problems with my Intel rigs over the past 2-3 years that I'm just tired of problems. That said, I know that Intel is in general more reliable historically with better boards, drivers etc... but my experiences have not been that way and I'm just tired of issues and I guess tbh want to try something different.

peace all and hope everyone can relax a bit and just enjoy the competition.
 
I wonder if $599 would have scored a gold award. I've been watching stock at TD ... only 1 sold in 2 hours ...
 
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So nvidia comes out with a new card that pulls almost the same power as the 290x every one was complaining about pulling to much power hmmm..I still give it that the 290x has a crappy cooler and runs to hot.. But you can pick up a 290x and water block for less then a 780ti.. Or get a 290 non x with waterblock for over 150 less then a 780ti. If your getting 2 cards you could build you a full water cooling system with 290 non X for less then 2 780ti's.. The 780ti's really needed to come in at 599..
 
I don't mid paying for a "Ferrari" but when the Competition has a car of equal performance with similar bells and whistles why pay more? I'll do Nvidia a solid and email Mr Huang a link to this review because I'm not sure they got the memo. Arrogance is great but only if your shit is locked on.
 
I expected higher performance than this.
They'll either have to do that or REALLY drop the price, just like they did on the GTX780.
Just goes to show how overpriced all these cards are compared to something like the R9 290.
 
I have a 780 so i see no need to upgrade now, but this review is a little scary. Nvidia with a design that is 1 year older, just released a card that is as fast, more efficient and cooler than the new redsign that AMD just released.

That does not bode well for competition in the future.
 
I Agree with those saying the 780 TI needed to release at $599 hell even $625 would have been better.

Those who complain about the power draw of the 780 TI.. Look at its temps and power. It's still well better off then the 290X with its super high draw and 95'C that they say is fine. O.O

ikarinokami said:
I have a 780 so i see no need to upgrade now, but this review is a little scary. Nvidia with a design that is 1 year older, just released a card that is as fast, more efficient and cooler than the new redsign that AMD just released.

That does not bode well for competition in the future.
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This to.. the R9 290X is a new architecture and barely can out gun Kepler which has been out for a year almost. Quick to forget that 1yr old hardware can still compete with hardware just released by the AMD Camp.. what's the next line from the green team going to do to AMD then? If you look at it this way R9 is suppose to be the answer to nVidia's 800 series.. which isn't even out and it can barely hold off and out gun the 700 series to me is quite alarming. However with all this said and done, I'm going to hang onto my 660 GTX Ti as its a beast till I get a higher res monitor.. i'm stuck @ 1680x1050.
 
IMO, this card needs to be dropped in price (629?.) Especially knowing what's coming ahead when these cards are tested with higher resolutions (including dual card configurations.) On one hand I see why NVidia is focusing on gaming features (Shadow Play), on the other I feel disappointed.

The 290X (and the 290 to some degree or more) are really going to come into their stride with custom cooling. I was hoping for more with 780 TI though I'm not sure if it was warranted. Just the idea of a full blown GK110 was exciting with 6GB and that amazing cooler. I figure the pricing would reflect that. Maybe it was just all the tech talk.

I'm happy with my 780, I paid for the privilege to have its performance early. I believe there is no good reason to get the 780 TI compared to AMD's offerings or the 780 custom cards. The 780 TI has more in some areas where it doesn't make much of a difference (compute units) and more in some areas where shouldn't be (price.) Never mind the area where NVidia failed to have more of (memory.)

Squall_Rinoa89 said:
This to.. the R9 290X is a new architecture and barely can out gun Kepler which has been out for a year almost.
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I don't believe this is correct. The 290X is GCN1.1 with more computing units. The equivalent of 770 -> 780 (7970 -> 290) The 7790 is same architecture (GCN1.1) with a smudge of computing units.
 
Boy the green team still doesn't get it do they? not a whole lot of worries though.im sure some green team lover will pick a couple of these up.;)

Just a side thought.for $699 -$719 they could've at least included 6gb ram.i mean come on the 290's have 4gb which will help on the draw distance in gta 5 and others.
 
A worthy effort by nVidia, but a nightmare on the price tag compared to the fresh releases from the competition. Missed the bullseye by quite a bit, imo.

Thanks for another awesome review, [H]!
 
Exactly what I expected from nVidia, an overpriced fully enabled kepler. Allows them to keep running around trumpeting the fact that they have the fastest stock card out there and pretending that allows them to charge $150 more. Frankly the 290 is where its all at right now, it makes spending the extra $150 for the 290X seem a bit silly, let alone $300 more for the 780Ti. Better air cooling will make the noise factor pretty much moot.
 
Squall_Rinoa89 said:
This to.. the R9 290X is a new architecture and barely can out gun Kepler which has been out for a year almost.
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On the other hand you might look at the driver improvements that came to the 7970 and 7950 and consider that the 290X is a brand new architecture with immature drivers which we can expect to improve against the 780 Ti which has mature drivers which are already mostly optimised and will see little improvement.

And yes, I expect Nvidia have something new they'll be releasing in 6-9 months.
 
are the GHz edition 780s supposed to be the ones priced equal, with equal performance to R290X? with Ti coming in at a premium for the small performance advantage?

price of Titan doesn't seem to have adjusted much, I guess because it has 6GB?

and what of the Ti Black edition? was that a made up rumour or will that effectively become the new Titan i.e. an ultra premium 'limited edition' with a pricetag to match?
 
Great review, fast card too.

It's crazy how competitive Nvidia is on the Tablet front (Tegra note for $199) but so out of it on the GPU Front, or it could be that these cards are just too expensive to produce.


The one thing that REALLY stuck out is how Nvidia spun the "bigger die" being better with "less Watts per mm^2" big LOL to that one :)

edit: the price is a bit easier to swallow when you consider the 3 game bundle, AMD seems to have made a good marketing choice in the price, even if it had to get rid of the game bundle @ That price. It makes NV look bad when you look at the price tag and forget to factor in the 3 games.
 
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NickJames said:
And yet people complained that the 290X is too hot and loud. Ironic isn't it?
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ondaedg said:
I think Nvidia is pricing it this way because it is a better card. The noise levels on the 290x are an annoyance and they ran the 290x in Uber mode in this review which means LOUD. And the heat and power draw are a little scary for my tastes.

I would like to hear a side by side comparison of the noise levels with the same exact setup. And for those of you who are saying that power, temp, and noise mean nothing, your fanboyism is getting in the way of your objectivity. I once had a loud PC and I'll never go back to it.

Edit: I would like to see the price on this card lower. Nvidia may have had to bin the chips to ship these and they may not have the quantity to supply that many if they were priced at $550.
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Fanboyism isn't in my vocabulary. I have Tri SLI GTX670's right now, and have gone red and green from time to time. I have no favorite. I choose where my money goes, not the brand. And I do mean power, temp and noise is irrellevant to me as we don't pay a shit load for electricity here and the other 2 are dealt with these.



I'm sure the same conversation was discussed when the GTX480 came out with the same issues.
 
Squall_Rinoa89 said:
This to.. the R9 290X is a new architecture and barely can out gun Kepler which has been out for a year almost. Quick to forget that 1yr old hardware can still compete with hardware just released by the AMD Camp.. what's the next line from the green team going to do to AMD then? If you look at it this way R9 is suppose to be the answer to nVidia's 800 series.. which isn't even out and it can barely hold off and out gun the 700 series to me is quite alarming. However with all this said and done, I'm going to hang onto my 660 GTX Ti as its a beast till I get a higher res monitor.. i'm stuck @ 1680x1050.
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290x isn't new architecture, it's just like the 780, second generation 28Nm part.

R9 isn't supposed to compete with the next generation stuff at all.

You could look at it another way, the R9 290x on immature drivers and a less than stellar cooling solution is keeping up with a flagship card, the 780ti, which has had a long time to develope so they are getting every last bit of performance out of it.
 
Its not that bad value as it seems. Faster than 290x. More usable in real life, more quiet with less heat and more OC headroom. 3 games in bundle. 3gb of Vram is only real weak point in future.

It more or less OC monster when I look at some reviews. Dont know why [H] dont do OC test anymore.
 
All these new video cards are still overpriced. I remember when top end cards were around $400 or less. WTF is going on here? My friends are telling me I'm crazy because you can buy a whole console for less than half of the GTX780ti and will play games for 10 yrs. LOL

In this case I might pick up a R9 290 once the aftermarket cooling comes to the market. Seems to be the best bang for the buck while still achieving next gen status. ;)
 
The 290X really pwned nvidia. 780Ti is a dud. $150 more expensive just to equal the peformance of a 290X? Really, that's their answer?
 
I'm gonna sit back and have these two sides fight over the top spot, then in a month make progressive price reductions to also fight over the lower priced market as well. Then I'll pick up a new card when I have the time and money, and it'll have mature drivers to boot, whatever the hell I pick up.

It's great to see both manufacturers fighting over a FPS difference of just 4 to 5%. It usually is followed by some really nice deals for those that need to budget.
 
This is Nvidia's master plan.

Release the 780 Ti around $700'ish.

Then another 780/ final keplar product line that comes out months later, beating or coming close to the 780 ti, with a 23% slashed priced tag.

Trust me, I have a feeling it's gonna happen. As much of a Nvidia fanboi i may sound, these guys are penny savages, and will do just about anything to squeeze every dollar out of you if you're not careful.

They know they can't get much from the Titan, and they know not many people will spend 7 and up for marginal performance boost. Nvidia got something up their sleeve, I'm tellin ya
 
HamHB said:
This is Nvidia's master plan.

Release the 780 Ti around $700'ish.

Then another 780/ final keplar product line that comes out months later, beating or coming close to the 780 ti, with a 23% slashed priced tag.

Trust me, I have a feeling it's gonna happen. As much of a Nvidia fanboi i may sound, these guys are penny savages, and will do just about anything to squeeze every dollar out of you if you're not careful.

They know they can't get much from the Titan, and they know not many people will spend 7 and up for marginal performance boost. Nvidia got something up their sleeve, I'm tellin ya
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3gb Titan?
 
HamHB said:
This is Nvidia's master plan.

Release the 780 Ti around $700'ish.

Then another 780/ final keplar product line that comes out months later, beating or coming close to the 780 ti, with a 23% slashed priced tag.

Trust me, I have a feeling it's gonna happen. As much of a Nvidia fanboi i may sound, these guys are penny savages, and will do just about anything to squeeze every dollar out of you if you're not careful.

They know they can't get much from the Titan, and they know not many people will spend 7 and up for marginal performance boost. Nvidia got something up their sleeve, I'm tellin ya
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lol, no more 28nm cards are hitting the shelves from either AMD or Nv unless they're dual gpu and I doubt that.
 
maybe AMD has an 290XTX coming, and price it the same as 290x is now.
 
IanM said:
what was that Black edition 780 rumoured on wccftech? pure invented rumour? or genuinely a faster Ti with black cooler and 6Gb or 12GB is coming?
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I could see a 6GB version coming, but nothing with really faster clocks. I believe they are now pushing the limits of the stock cooler, 63% fan speed, it might actually get loud if it goes much higher =p
 
hdgamer said:
All these new video cards are still overpriced. I remember when top end cards were around $400 or less. WTF is going on here? My friends are telling me I'm crazy because you can buy a whole console for less than half of the GTX780ti and will play games for 10 yrs. LOL

In this case I might pick up a R9 290 once the aftermarket cooling comes to the market. Seems to be the best bang for the buck while still achieving next gen status. ;)
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Really? Back in the day, I remember when I spent $750~ on my Creative Annihilator 2 Ultra (GeForce 2 Ultra).
 
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