NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Review: The New High End
by Ryan Smith on May 23, 2013 9:00 AM ESTDiRT: Showdown
As always, starting off our benchmark collection is our racing benchmark, DiRT: Showdown. DiRT: Showdown is based on the latest iteration of Codemasters’ EGO engine, which has continually evolved over the years to add more advanced rendering features. It was one of the first games to implement tessellation, and also one of the first games to implement a DirectCompute based forward-rendering compatible lighting system. At the same time as Codemasters is by far the most prevalent PC racing developers, it’s also a good proxy for some of the other racing games on the market like F1 and GRID.
DiRT: Showdown’s lighting system continues to befuddle us at times. Though GK10x Kepler parts generally have mediocre compute performance in pure compute tasks, NVIDIA’s DirectCompute performance has otherwise proven to be appropriately fast, except in the case of DiRT. The fact of the matter is that DiRT is easy enough to run even with its advanced lighting system that there’s no reason not to use it on a card like the GTX 780 at any single-monitor resolution, but doing so does put the GTX 780 in a bad light relative to AMD’s best cards. Nor does this put GK110 in a particularly good light, as its compute enhancements don’t bring it much of an advantage here beyond what the larger number of shaders affords.
Like Titan before it, the GTX 780 falls slightly behind AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, the only such benchmark where this occurs. The end result being that the GTX 780 trails the 7970GE by about 7%, and the GTX Titan by 6%. Otherwise we’ve seen Titan (and will see GTX 780) do much better in virtually every other benchmark.
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formulav8 - Friday, May 24, 2013 - link
AMD is competing just fine unless I looked over something? It seems this card and price wouldn't have AMD worried.i_max2k2 - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
This is a big request, but could we please, please add GTX 580 SLI results in there too. I have that setup and I feel, its more then enough for something like a Full HD to 2560x1600 resolution monitor, for most recent games.gonks - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
What about bitcoin mining? it's the same as the GTX TITAN?Daeros - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
"...of a casted aluminum..."Seriously?! Casted? That made it through proof and spell-check and anyone over the age of six?
Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
Noted and fixed. Thank you. And I'd note at 5am in the morning, a six year old is about where my mental capacity is at...Daeros - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
and I may have been a bit harsh, apologiesjust4U - Friday, May 24, 2013 - link
I understood what he meant... and sadly I am not sure why it's a spelling mistake.. (without checking haha..) Im 44! but I do lack grammer skills.Ryan Smith - Friday, May 24, 2013 - link
Nah, there's no need to apologize. You were spot-on.Nfarce - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
Okay so when are 680 prices going to drop so I can get a second one for my new 2560x1440 monitor?Airjarhead - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
When is the Gigabyte Windforce coming out? I can't find it on Newegg, TD, or Amazon.BTW, I was at work when the 780 hit the stores, so I probably missed it, but did Amazon have any 780's in stock? By the time I looked they said they were out of stock of every brand. Newegg still has reference boards available, but I want the Windforce or ACX cooler.