Total War: Rome 2

The second strategy game in our benchmark suite, Total War: Rome 2 is the latest game in the Total War franchise. Total War games have traditionally been a mix of CPU and GPU bottlenecks, so it takes a good system on both ends of the equation to do well here. In this case the game comes with a built-in benchmark that plays out over a forested area with a large number of units, definitely stressing the GPU in particular.
For this game in particular we’ve also gone and turned down the shadows to medium. Rome’s shadows are extremely CPU intensive (as opposed to GPU intensive), so this keeps us from CPU bottlenecking nearly as easily.

Total War: Rome 2 is another AFR-unfriendly game, and consequently a game where the fastest single-GPU setup is going to be the fastest setup overall. To that end the GTX 780 Ti once again wins at 2560, beating the 290X by 17% and coming up a fraction of a frame short of averaging 50fps. In this case Rome has something of an appetite for memory bandwidth, playing well into the GTX 780 Ti’s design due to the upgrade to 7GHz GDDR5. Consequently the GTX 780 also takes a larger than normal lead over the GTX Titan and GTX 780, beating the two cards by 11% and 24% respectively.

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  • mohammadm5 - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link

    http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Wholesale-Price-GeF...

    thats the wholesale price its not nvidia that charges so much is the resellers. the profit nvidia makes per gpu is very low but the reseller make alot of money, also the new amd r9 290 is going for $255 per unit at wholesale price and the r9 280x is going for $160 dollar per unit. you have to also remember thats the distributer price not the manufacturer price,witch should be alot lower. i know the gtx 780 at manufacturer price sells from $200 to $280 depending on brand.

    so remember this is america were they sell you something made in china for 1 dollar for 10 dollars
  • UpSpin - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link

    While those numbers are interesting, your conclusion is wrong. The $700 are what NVidia wants the customer to pay for the card, not what the reseller wants:
    http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/Releases/NVIDIA-Unvei...
    "Pricing is expected to start at $699"

    So it's not the seller who makes 100% profit, it's NVidia.
  • polaco - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link

    remember that the reseller has to buy the card, pay import taxes, transportation and others, try to sell it and if the card goes unsold they have to sell it in a few month at discounts prices. Also in the case of psychical stores they have to keep building costs, employees, more taxes, etc. So what you are describing happens in every industry. Also and maybe in first place where are you getting those numbers from?
  • Wade_Jensen - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link

    OK, so either Brian has lost his Nexus 5 or its benchmark boosting, cause something has to be going on here.
  • beck2448 - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link

    Wow oc results are impressive. Where are the Lightning and Windforce versions?
  • r13j13r13 - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link

    la ventaja frente a una 290x es mínima pero la diferencias de precio no cuando se mejore la refrigeración de la 290x, al fin y al cabo la competencia nos beneficia a todos
  • jukkie - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link

    HD7990 can be gotten for as low as £400 in the UK at the moment (or £480 with a PSU or a M/B), so anyone wanting the ultimate in single CARD performance would bet better off buying that anyway.

    Obviously noise and heat will still be an issue, but if you're going to ignore the GTX 780 Ti's price, we can ignore those factors (thankfully microstuttering is mostly a non-issue these days since frame pacing has resolved that in everything except DX9 for now).

    If the price of the 780 Ti were to drop 10-20%, I'd consider buying one, but as it is I simply can't justify it, even if affording it isn't a problem.
  • arjunp2085 - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link

    Anand / Ryan

    I would love to see a comparison of the 290 , 290x 780, 780 Ti with water coolers working efficiently. I believe that anyone spending $600 on a Gfx card would be able to spend an additional 100-200$ for a cool setup.

    Further i would love to see if there is any performance increase due to increased cooling( With respect to boost states both Nv and AMD.

    Any comments please let me know

    Thanks,
    Arjun
  • GUNN3R - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link

    Is there an update in scores with latest drivers?
  • Hrel - Sunday, January 12, 2014 - link

    I really wish you guys had included useful resolutions. You realize the VAST majority of people, even enthusiasts, have 1080p screens right?

    You can do ur uber testing for your own personal concerns but it should be standing policy to include 1080p testing for everything. That's the resolution of screen that people have.

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