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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bronopoly - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Who plays at 60 fps? Surely not people playing games competitively.Tetracycloide - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
They don't include 1080p because they assumed no one would be stupid enough to buy a $700 card for 1080p gaming. I guess you showed them...Ryan Smith - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
We actually have the 1080p data, however we didn't publish it since it's not a resolution we're really expecting this card to be used with. When GPU Bench 14 goes live, that data will be available alongside everything else.bronopoly - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
I need 120 fps for my games when I'm using lightboost or 144 fps when I'm not using it. A lot of people aren't satisfied with 60 fps on good settings. When I go from a high framerate to something as awful as 60 fps, I usually restart my computer because I think something is wrong.Mondozai - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
The vast majority of people play at 60 fps. Including most people buying a high-end card. And the move is towards 4K over the next few years. You'll probably be stuck at 1080p for a long time if you insist on 120-144 fps while we will get 4K monitors next year for relatively affordable prices and even more so in 2015.That's your right. But cards like these are not going to be tailored towards people who want as high a fps as possible as opposed to as high a graphics fidelity as possible where 60 fps is the acceptable threshold. You can whine and bitch about it as much as you want. Won't make a difference.
HisDivineOrder - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Where are these "properly-cooled 'GHZ' Editions of the R290X?" If they existed, you might have an argument, but they don't. So talk about what exists.Even HardOCP--between ignoring the ear-piercing sound of the 290X at 55% fanspeed--admitted they had seen and heard nothing of custom coolers for the R9 290/290X yet and that doesn't bode well.
So if you're waiting for a custom cooler to show up and save the R9 series, it looks like they're far, far away...
Tetracycloide - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
"Let's all pretend we suffer from a crippling lack of foresight!"OverclockedCeleron - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
1) Everyone knows what comes after a GPU announcement [hint: an avalanche of custom GPUs based on that GPU].2) Many reviewing sites have said that AMD is preventing their partners from producing custom R290X gpus until 780 Ti is released. Can you guess why ;-)?
bronopoly - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Can I just make stuff up too?3) Insert wild speculation and conspiracy
Mondozai - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Someone's got an NV card and wants to defend it to death :D