The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on November 7, 2013 9:01 AM ESTMetro: Last Light
As always, kicking off our look at performance is 4A Games’ latest entry in their Metro series of subterranean shooters, Metro: Last Light. The original Metro: 2033 was a graphically punishing game for its time and Metro: Last Light is in its own right too. On the other hand it scales well with resolution and quality settings, so it’s still playable on lower end hardware.
For the bulk of our analysis we’re going to be focusing on our 2560x1440 results, as monitors at this resolution will be what we expect a single GTX 780 Ti to be primarily used with. A single card does have the necessary horsepower to drive a 4K monitor on its own, but only at lower quality settings. Even as powerful as GTX 780 Ti is, a pair of them will be needed to get good framerates out of most games if using 4K at high quality settings.
Looking at our Metro: Last Light results then, it’s the start of what’s going to be a fairly consistent streak for the GTX 780 Ti. Though it doesn’t improve on GTX Titan or GTX 780’s gaming performance by leaps and bounds, the additional SMX and increased clockspeeds means that it has little trouble pulling away from those cards and from AMD’s 290 series. As a result the GTX 780 Ti beats the GTX Titan by 11%, GTX 780 by 19%, and though it’s closer than normal, the lead over the 290X stands at 6%.
To that end in Metro it leads the pack of single-GPU cards, though it does come up just short of being able to average 60 frames per second at 2560. Anything over 60fps will require multiple GPUs; and even then GTX 780 Ti is fast enough that sometimes even a pair of GPUs (GTX 770 SLI) isn’t going to be appreciably faster.
Meanwhile looking at GTX 780 Ti SLI performance, the SLI setup tops the charts at 2560 for everything short of the 290X in uber mode, though in this case (like most cases) two high-end GPUs is on the verge of being overkill even at 2560. Otherwise looking at 4K, NVIDIA’s poor 4K scaling on Metro once again makes itself present here, with NVIDIA’s performance only minimally benefitting from the second card. In the case of Metro at 4K, the 290X CF is going to be by far the faster option.
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TheJian - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Not sure you're correct. If NV set 780TI at 95 degrees default how fast would it be going out of the box? 1200mhz-1300mhz (that's 30% free!) judging by Ocing with stock fans already as I noted in the previous post with all the site links and it never goes above 83 doing it. They overclock them and don't hit uber noise. So you can get all the perf from overclocking and SMASH the 290/290x but still be more quiet. I don't call that keeping up. AMD put out a good card, but it has lots of issues (heat/noise and blown away by stock overclocks from NV that won't drive you crazy with noise).From the highest clock I saw so far (1304 at overclockers):
"On the GTX 780 Ti with the fan spinning at 100% locked in a chassis its not bad and will not wake your "neighbors" compared too the R9 290X."
So even at 100% nothing like 290x. :) I call that not competing too ;) How crappy is your fan/heatsink combo if you can't compare to a guy running 100%? Out of the box buyers for ref will be much happier with NV, not to mention all the features they have over AMD and 3 AAA games etc. You release a new card, while your competition just turns on some stuff they've disabled for a year waiting for you to catch them...LOL. On top, your card has "Variance" issues you are admitting you need to fix. You're running so close to crapout, they have been clocked at 669 in QUIET. That's UGLY right? Overclockers got 669 dips on quiet. How usable is that?
Da W - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
You done masturbating yet?DMCalloway - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
I think you under estimate just how 'happy' early gtx 780 adopters are with current pricing. For what they paid at launch they should've received a fully enabled chip. 7970ghz to r290x is a larger jump forward than gtx 780 to gtx 780Ti. We all remember what happened when AMD pushed their 7970 to the ghz. version in relation to the gtx 680. It's all relative except IMO Nvidia profits more for brand loyalty.Galidou - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
If nvidia would have enabled a full chip at 780 launch, imagine titan early adopter... We would have heard their anger far away in space...Margalus - Friday, November 8, 2013 - link
people got exactly what they paid for when they bought it. There is no reason to be upset because a better card is no available.Nevk - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Nvidia fanboyz erererergrayson360 - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Its so sad. I have a 780 and I basically only buy nvidia but that doesn't mean hate the competition. Any competition is good competition :DOverclockedCeleron - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Trolls be damned. 290X = Bulldozer? Really? I am growing sick of these PR reps who troll tech sites. And for the record, a properly-cooled "GHz" edition of the R290X will probably beat GTX 780 Ti in many scenarios and still be over $100 cheaper. Enjoy paying more for less :-).1Angelreloaded - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Probably not in this case, unless the 290x is fitted with a waterblock I don't see it happening. The problem is we will probably see triple slot vapor coolers like HOF galaxy which basically lends to the fact that multi GPU is a non possibility depending on your motherboard. Another thing is I would not put a 290x stock in a 350D or any other itx/matx solution case, between the thermals and the noise of the stock unit. I'm kinda excited for what Hawaii is, but also disappointed that this should have come out during the release of Nvidias 600 series not the end of 700 series cycle.PsiAmp - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
tomshardware tested Accelero Xtreme III with R9 290 and it made it nearly silent and very cool. Aslo had better performance.