Introduction
Nvidia’s GTX 780 Ti graphics card popped up unexpectedly by Nvidia’s normal standards of meticulous planning, very much in a similar way to the arrival of the GTX 650 Ti Boost. The GTX 780 Ti was announced around the buzz of AMD’s R9 290X graphics card release, as a direct response, much like the GTX 650 Ti Boost was released at short notice to fend off competition from the HD 7790. The GTX 780 Ti we have here today certainly isn’t a modest GPU by any stretch of the imagination with Nvidia boldly claiming the title of “the fastest GPU in the world”. Let’s be frank though, for a price of $699, compared to the $549 AMD charges for its R9 290X, you’d certainly hope that the GTX 780 Ti was the fastest GPU in the world because you are paying top dollar for it – 27% more by my calculations. Nvidia’s GTX 780 Ti is hoping to encapsulate all the latest cutting edge features and technologies from Nvidia including GPU Boost 2.0, G-Sync support, 4K capability, GeForce experience, the GameWorks program, Nvidia ShadowPlay and much more.
First let’s start off with the raw specifications and straight away we can see the GTX 780 Ti is set to be a stronger performer than the GTX Titan. It features more of everything with the entire GK110 GPU enabled – yes that’s right every single SMX unit on the GK110 die is enabled allowing for the maximum 2880 CUDA cores giving the GTX 780 Ti some crazy performance potential. It also boasts higher clocks than the GTX Titan and so we can expect to see it be a much stronger performer than the GTX Titan, the only reason you’d buy a GTX Titan now is because it is the only consumer grade graphics card that comes with 6GB of VRAM as standard – that said you can pick up 6GB versions of AMD’s HD 7970/ R9 280X (like Sapphire’s Toxic variant) but of course the HD 7970 has nowhere near the power of the GTX Titan or the GTX 780 Ti. Looking back at speculation we saw earlier this year the GTX 780 Ti is essentially the GTX Titan Ultra that everyone was expecting to see.
Just to recap those specifications again with a little look in GPU-Z and you can see 2880 shaders, 336 GB/s of memory bandwidth, 48 ROPs, 240 TMUs, 3GB of GDDR5 across a 384 bit memory interface, a 42 GPixel/s fill rate and a 210.2 GTexel/s fill rate.
Just in case you needed to see those figures again but with some added “marketing spice”, here you can see it all below. Those 2880 CUDA cores equate to 25% more than the GTX 780.
Like AMD’s “Gaming Evolved” program Nvidia’s answer to that is its “GameWorks” program which includes some top tier titles like Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag and Call of Duty Ghosts.
Nvidia is continuing to push its GeForce experience which is being revamped daily as Nvidia’s software engineers improve the software with a wider range of hardware settings and new games that automatically optimise for your particular hardware configuration.
Nvidia are also pushing their rather unique Shadow Play feature which uses the built-in H.264 video encoder in the Kepler GPU to record 1080p footage at 60 frames per second.
its looks like for a price AMD R9 290X FTW
+150 $ for + 5fps on 1080p?? no thx. And for 4K still 290X better. Game bundles (3) really, thats the only idea ?? pff
Well that’s not really all is it? Stock vs stock you’re talking about 5-10% more performance for a 780ti over a 290x. Its also quieter, runs cooler and consumes less power. The game bundle is also a nice inclusion. “290X still better at 4K”…, where’s the evidence of that? (that’s not doubting you I’ve just yet to see it myself) Obviously the 290X is a way better value solution but the 780Ti is a more refined overall package in terms of the card itself. Of course AMD and Nvidia both have their unique advantages so I won’t even go into those. However, I think you’re oversimplifying things a bit too much.
Power draw is pretty much the same so that rules that out. 699 $ was a okay price for me seeing I needed the games anyway.
It really isn’t. I have to refer to TechPowerUp on this occasion as they have a great power draw results – http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_780_Ti/25.html
Under super heavy loads they are virtually the same but the average PC owner spends more time outside of games than they do in games. The GTX 780Ti excels in low power consumption during all “normal” day to day activities and in heavy gaming still consumes marginally less while offering more performance. The GTX 780 Ti consumes both less power and is more power efficient – no question about it. Again I want to refer to techpowerup with their performance per watt results –
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_780_Ti/28.html
Yeah, I’m not getting a 780 Ti for 699 $ to worry about power consumption or not overclocking the thing with 1.3+mV..
“290X still better at 4K”…, where’s the evidence of that?
The AMD R9-290x would be better at 4K gaming, because it was developed for 4K.
The 4GB vram and 512-bit memory bandwidth means it can create more pixels per second than for e.g. 312-bit 3GB memory. But still though the Nvidia GTX780ti is a beast of a card. So In my opinion the GTX780ti is the best 1080p card and the AMD R9-290x is the best 4k card
More RAM doesn’t always mean better performance. The GTX 780Ti has more memory bandwidth and memory bandwidth is just as important. Our testing showed the GTX Titan at 4K was about 10% slower than the GTX 780Ti. I reckon the GTX 780Ti will be on par with the R9 290X or possibly better. We will definitely be getting in a 4K monitor again to test this and bring you guys some more results.
Actually in this review on 5 out of the 7 games the GTX 780 Ti performed better on 4K than the 290X…
We didn’t test 4K in this review?
Oh crap sorry (face palm) read the resolutions wrong 😛
im still going for the R9-290X due the price performance ratio also i have more amd optimized games, both this cards are beatyfull, its really nice that the 2 companies always compete like this so we can have great choices
I have been so gung-ho for the R9 290x for a while now. I’m beginning to build in a little under three weeks and I found out about the R9 series of cards have a “black screen” problem. Really sucks. I wanted the 290x for the VRAM and wide memory bus, seems more future proof than the 3gb and 384bit of the 780 ti. I was going to get a 27″ 1440p monitor and the 290x, but now I’m thinking I’ll get a 24″ 1080p and a 780 ti.
Yeah it’s quite an impressive piece of hardware.
And Nvidia does it again ( a great card but quite expensive). We as consumers need a third or forth GPU manufacturer to enter the market and really push these companies to produce better cards for less money.