The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on November 7, 2013 9:01 AM ESTMeet The GeForce GTX 780 Ti
When it comes to the physical design and functionality of the GTX 780 Ti, to no surprise NVIDIA is sticking with what works. The design of the GTX Titan and its associated cooler have proven themselves twice over now between the GTX Titan and the GTX 780, so with only the slightest of changes this is what NVIDIA is going with for GTX 780 Ti, too. Consequently there’s very little new material to cover here, but we’ll quickly hit the high points before recapping the general design of what has now become the GTX 780 series.
The biggest change here is that GTX 780 Ti is the first NVIDIA launch product to feature the new B1 revision of their GK110 GPU. B1 has already been shipping for a couple of months now, so GTX 780 Ti isn’t the first card to get this new GPU. However while GTX Titan and GTX 780 products currently contain a mix of the old and new revisions as NVIDIA completes the change-over, GTX 780 Ti will be B1 (and only B1) right out the door.
As for what’s new for B1, NVIDIA is telling us that it’s a fairly tame revision of GK110. NVIDIA hasn’t made any significant changes to the GPU, rather they’ve merely gone in and fixed some errata that were in the earlier revision of GK110, and in the meantime tightened up the design and leakage just a bit to nudge power usage down, the latter of which is helpful for countering the greater power draw from lighting up the 15th and final SMX. Otherwise B1 doesn’t have any feature changes nor significant changes in its power characteristics relative to the previous revision, so it should be a fairly small footnote compared to GTX 780.
The other notable change coming with GTX 780 Ti is that NVIDIA has slightly adjusted the default temperature throttle point, increasing it from 80C to 83C. The difference in cooling efficiency itself will be trivial, but since NVIDIA is using the exact same fan curve on the GTX 780 Ti as they did the GTX 780, the higher temperature throttle effectively increases the card’s equilibrium point, and therefore the average fan speed under load. Or put another way, but letting it get a bit warmer the GTX 780 Ti will ramp up its fan a bit more and throttle a bit less, which should help offset the card’s increased power consumption while also keeping thermal throttling minimized.
| GeForce GTX 780 Series Temperature Targets | ||||
| GTX 780 Ti Temp Target | GTX 780 Temp Target | GTX Titan Temp Target | ||
| 83C | 80C | 80C | ||
Moving on, since the design of the GTX 780 Ti is a near carbon copy of GTX 780, we’re essentially looking at GTX 780 with better specs and new trimmings. NVIDIA’s very effective (and still quite unique) metallic GTX Titan cooler is back, this time featuring black lettering and a black tinted window. As such GTX 780 Ti remains a 10.5” long card composed of a cast aluminum housing, a nickel-tipped heatsink, an aluminum baseplate, and a vapor chamber providing heat transfer between the GPU and the heatsink. The end result is the GTX 780 Ti is a quiet card despite the fact that it’s a 250W blower design, while still maintaining the solid feel and eye-catching design that NVIDIA has opted for with this generation of cards.
Drilling down, the PCB is also a re-use from GTX 780. It’s the same GK110 GPU mounted on the same PCB with the same 6+2 phase power design. This being despite the fact that GTX 780 Ti features faster 7GHz memory, indicating that NVIDIA was able to hit their higher memory speed targets without making any obvious changes to the PCB or memory trace layouts. Meanwhile the reuse of the power delivery subsystem is a reflection of the fact that GTX 780 Ti has the same 250W TDP limit as GTX 780 and GTX Titan, though unlike those two cards GTX 780 Ti will have the least headroom to spare and will come the closest to hitting it, due to the general uptick in power requirements from having 15 active SMXes. Finally, using the same PCB also means that GTX 780 has the same 6pin + 8pin power requirement and the same display I/O configuration of 2x DL-DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort 1.2.
On a final note, for custom cards NVIDIA won’t be allowing custom cards right off the bat – everything today will be a reference card – but with NVIDIA’s partners having already put together their custom GK110 designs for GTX 780, custom designs for GTX 780 Ti will come very quickly. Consequently, expect most (if not all of them) to be variants of their existing custom GTX 780 designs.
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Kamus - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
I wouldn't buy that aftermarket cooler just yet.... I was about to buy one when I read that it's not cooling the VRM properly. Some guy bought 2 of them for his crossfire setup and started hearing whine from both cards. He concluded it was the crappy heatsinks that they provide for the VRM aren't up to the task.The VRM was exceeding 100 degrees. This resulted in games crashing and the loud whine I mentioned earlier. In the end, he put the regular AMD heatsinks back on, and that fixed the problem. Then he sold both cards and now he says he might just get regular 290's when they ship with custom coolers. Which isn't a bad idea at all, since those will probably outperform the reference 290x easily, for a lot less cash.
Margalus - Friday, November 8, 2013 - link
so in other words, you have to spend another $100 for an aftermarket cooler to make the 290 a reasonable card?milli - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
All you need is an Accelero Xtreme III. It proves that as soon as companies like HIS release better versions, the R9 cards will be silent, fast and cheap. I have a HIS HD 7950, a supposed loud card, that is completely silent.http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/20...
Sivar - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
I gather from the link that you natively speak German. Please note that, in English, "silent" means "absolutely no sound". I think the word you are looking for is "quiet". :)HisDivineOrder - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
True, when custom cooled cards come out, that'll be great. None are announced and as far as I know no one's seen any. So you're waving your hands right now and saying, "When better cards come out, they'll be better!"You're talking about unannounced things you expect will come and save the day. I could easily say that overclocked variants of the 780 Ti are going to come and make everything better. Or that the GHZ editions of the 780 (non-Ti) are going to show up and magically make the price point logical again.
But you know what? I'm waiting until what I think MIGHT happen actually DOES happen. Rather than daydreaming about HIS coolers or MSI coolers or Gigabyte Windforce coolers on the R9 series when they haven't shown anyone a sign of such a card yet. Are they coming? Sure, yeah, someday. Are they coming in 2013?
...No one's seen one yet. Hell, there's more evidence of GHZ versions of the standard 780 than there are of custom-cooled R9 290/290x cards...
OverclockedCeleron - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
... and your point is? You are happy with a 700-dollar-card, then good for you. I was only speaking up because I have noticed a significant rise of anti-AMD trolls (i.e. Nvidia PR Reps). Just read the first comment to this article and tell me you don't see anything wrong with it.So you like logic and you think you got it all sorted? Well, how about this: Try to judge the silicon and not the fan, i.e., install equally superior GPU air-based coolers, and then Overclock each card to the maximum stable overclock, and re-run the benchmarks. I know who will win, but I am not here to preach or daydream like you said.
The point is, just because I realize the *actual* and *real* potential of something doesn't mean I am a daydreamer, it just means I appreciate that piece of silicon (i.e. R290X) and I realize that it is superior to the 780 Ti if it was not for that cheap heatsink.
TheJian - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
You're wrong unless you're saying NV will win after both are equipped with equal cooling and also, Superclocked 780TI has already been announced :)http://videocardz.com/47777/evga-launches-geforce-...
https://www.evga.com/articles/00795/#2884
1006/1072 out of the box. Dual classified has yet to be clocked. But would have to be faster than ACX version and they already have announce the water block model :)
03G-P4-2889-KR GTX 780 Ti Dual Classified w/ EVGA Hydro Copper
Currently you void your warranty pulling this on 290x or 290 right? Sure seems like OEM's have no trouble modding NV. I'm guessing AMD has to sort out this variance stuff before the OEM's can jump on board.
Realizing AMD is getting beaten doesn't make you an NV PR troll...LOL. This doesn't mean AMD's silicon is junk, just it's beaten. I for one am glad they released it forcing NV's full SMX hand. That means we can all look forward to even better 20nm chips as they now have a much higher bar to beat on both sides. I own a radeon 5850 BTW, because I realized it was the best silicon when I bought it (8800GT before that). I go wherever the SILICON/features tells me. The 8800GT is still serving my dad's pc from 2007 (over 6yrs old!). I'm wondering if these 95C chips can make it that long ;) My 5850 will be serving him the second I get my hands on 20nm maxwell (if only for gsync unless NV's chip totally sucks).
Galidou - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
No need to be a genius to KNOW that the custom cooled cards will be WORLDS above this even if they are not out. If you did not realise how crappy that cooler is, it was crappy for 7970 cards and it's the sAme... Comon, a little more than 90 IQ is necessary to find out about that...Toxicsix - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
More for less you say... Let's look at that. The 290X excels at 4K gaming and that's what AMD keeps cramming down our throat, how superior there product is at the highest resolutions. So If your looking at price performance you need to pair that 290X with a 4K display. Now let's look at some simple numbers shall we. 290X $5-600 + 4K Display $3k+ so your sitting at about $3500+ to get that top end performance. On the other hand you can spend $700 on a 780 Ti and pair it with an amazing 1080p monitor for well under 1k and the 780ti will stop all over Your 290X. Now your probably thinking that this isn't a "fair" comparison but you have to consider that the resolution is where these companies are going to try convince you that there card is superior. As it stands the 780 Ti is the King of 1080p gaming and it pisses me off big time that anadtech didn't even include 1080p benchmarks as this is where the majority of gamers are. If you want the best gameplay possible I would recommend getting the sweetest 1080p monitor you can find that will give you great refresh rates, low input lag and 3D capabilities if that's your thing and pair it with the fastest 1080p gaming card you can find which is now Nvidia's 780Ti. AMD has a great card in the 290X but we can't just look at price/performance based on the card alone we have to consider what were playing it into and look at the complete package as one.Fan_Atic - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
I hate to say it but most of your points are completely moot. The reason no one runs 1080p benchmarks in these reviews is that it doesn't stress a modern card. Anything above the $200 price point can pull 60 FPS at max settings any more. No one in their right mind would spend $700 for a graphics card to play at 1080p when a $250 can provide a 60fps experience with the same settings. 1440p 1600p and 4k are the only things that remotely stress modern mid to high end graphics cards.