A Look Back at the GeForce GTX 780 in 2017

[Julio Franco]

Breaking from our usual benchmarking of new graphics cards, today we're revisiting one of the most powerful GPUs you could've purchased four years ago. The GeForce GTX 780 launched in May 2013 with a mighty impressive showing. At launch, the GTX 780 was ~24% faster than the GTX 680 and 16% faster than the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1418-geforce-gtx-780-four-years-later/

 

[VitalyT]

Wow, that's unexpected to see a retrospective on the very card I've been using for the last 4 years.

I'm using MSI GTX-780, with monitor DELL U3014, and 4 years later I still find these two utterly satisfying for everything, barring games, of which I only play SC-2.

 

[Evernessince]

I can't really blame Nvidia for not wanting to optimize for Kepler as it has similar problems to that of AMD's Fury X and R9 390. The scheduler just isn't able to squeeze the most out of the chip as possible.

https://devblogs.nvidia.com/paralle...ould-know-about-new-maxwell-gpu-architecture/


AMD's R9 390 is able to do better here because the architecture was very forward looking. GCN came way before it's time with compute performance no game could take advantage of. Only recently are we starting to see games use compute and that's the only way you are going to see excellent utilization on the top end 200, 300, and Fury series cards. Otherwise I expect the increased emphasis on geometry performance with Vega and the improved scheduler to make it a much more balanced card.

 

[Fobus]

I can't really blame Nvidia for not wanting to optimize for Kepler as it has similar problems to that of AMD's Fury X and R9 390. The scheduler just isn't able to squeeze the most out of the chip as possible.

https://devblogs.nvidia.com/paralle...ould-know-about-new-maxwell-gpu-architecture/


AMD's R9 390 is able to do better here because the architecture was very forward looking. GCN came way before it's time with compute performance no game could take advantage of. Only recently are we starting to see games use compute and that's the only way you are going to see excellent utilization on the top end 200, 300, and Fury series cards. Otherwise I expect the increased emphasis on geometry performance with Vega and the improved scheduler to make it a much more balanced card.

Yeah, from certain perspective it's great that AMD was so farward looking. But in the end, the result was that people had to wait several years to reap rewards, by which point many have already replaced or are looking to replace their cards.

It seems with CPUs, AMD is on the right track, GPUs.... 1070 still have no competition a year after... What is AMD thinking.

 

[JaredTheDragon]

[QUOTE="It seems with CPUs, AMD is on the right track, GPUs.... 1070 still have no competition a year after... What is AMD thinking."[/QUOTE]

I imagine they're banking on the Vega architecture. I'm a pretty big fan of their CPUs, but have never seen any reason to choose their GPUs over the Nvidia ones. It doesn't mean they aren't good, just they aren't as good generally. I do a lot of gaming but also a lot of CGI, and in Maya (the best example, ever) AMD GPUs suffer tremendously. It's not a viable option. We saw this heavily in the Mac "Pros", which were completely crippled by forced AMD GPU usage. In any creative content pipeline they were pretty much useless. I'd love to see them be competitive AND stable again, but it's gonna take a serious overhaul to make that happen.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

"It's no secret that the Kepler architecture hasn't aged as well".
Don't remember the FX 5800/5900/5950 cards with the NV35 architecture then? Those cards were a disgrace as opposed to ATi's competing offerings. The NV architecture was a dead loss from the start and aged so savagely within months that it almost makes the Kepler architecture look brilliant and future proof.
What really amuses me are the air headed schmucks that happily drop a grand or more on a Titan card or two these days.

 

[Capaill]

I'm also delighted to see this article. It confirms what I have experienced - the card was good but can no longer handle the latest games. Then again, I'm reluctant to commit to any of the latest games after so many buggy releases, so I'm contenting myself with replaying games released in the last few years. I'll probably upgrade around Christmas, probably to a 1080 or whatever else is out by then.
But there is no denying that the 780 was the right card to buy at the time - it was a great combination of price and performance while being both quieter and much cooler than the AMD cards. And it still hits an average at high quality settings of 60fps in 1080p and 40fps in 1440p which are playable framerates.

 

[Rockstarrrr]

Bear in mind that 780 was already slower and overall is slower just as it was back in 2013. R9 390/390 are, like another 5% faster than R9 290/290X. Its 780-Ti that was actually FASTER than those Radeons. So no big loss here for GTX 780. Yes, there is no optimizations for Keplers which is a shame, but its still usable.

 

[misor]

I play games but not really a hard core gamer so I only read reviews about high-end gpus but have no longing to even dream/buy one... how about NVidia entry level GTX 650 of the yesteryears vs today's el cheapo GT 1030?

 

[mbrowne5061]

You can still turn a profit mining with AMD hardware? I thought ASIC hardware mining killed GPU mining.

But if you think a 780 is bad, I'm still using a 760. If you drop all the setting to as low as they will go, you can still get 55-60fps on Overwatch at 1080p. For the briefest, most glorious of moments, I was the proud owner of a EVGA 1080ti SC2 Hybrid... but I lost the silicon lottery. Kept getting LOS within seconds of nVidia drivers loading every time windows booted. It was great for half-a-day, and then the dreaded black screen showed up in the middle of a game. Had to return it. Now I'm waiting for either the SC2 Hybrids to come back in stock, or the Hybrid FTW3.

 

[kapital98]

I love these articles from Techspot. It's a really great history lesson but it's also really great for people looking at second hand cards. These articles are hard to come by (not much incentive for journalists) but are greatly welcome.

The 1050ti seems to be the superior choice. Even a used 970 is almost the same price. That's assuming you can't get an AMD equivalent.

Thanks!

 

[Trillionsin]

Still have two 780's in my old PC. Yup, my old PC.... Wife uses it for gaming once in awhile. lol

Paid $150 for both of them, too. At a pawn shop!

Edit: Recently had to RMA them. Yup, they allowed it. Both failed recently, and I RMA'd both for refurbished replacements, running great still!

 

[DAOWAce]

A look back?

I was using 2x 780's for a few years, finally upgrading to a 1080 Ti when AIB cards came out not too long ago.

Still totally fine cards for running.. most games at high settings at 1080p. At least, in SLI.

If only NVIDIA weren't twats and shafted us by releasing the 780 Ti later on..

 

[evolucion8]

I can't really blame Nvidia for not wanting to optimize for Kepler as it has similar problems to that of AMD's Fury X and R9 390. The scheduler just isn't able to squeeze the most out of the chip as possible.

https://devblogs.nvidia.com/paralle...ould-know-about-new-maxwell-gpu-architecture/


AMD's R9 390 is able to do better here because the architecture was very forward looking. GCN came way before it's time with compute performance no game could take advantage of. Only recently are we starting to see games use compute and that's the only way you are going to see excellent utilization on the top end 200, 300, and Fury series cards. Otherwise I expect the increased emphasis on geometry performance with Vega and the improved scheduler to make it a much more balanced card.

Maxwell does not deviate a lot from Kepler, is just a more efficient implementation of static software scheduling by exploiting Instruction Level Parallelism. Maxwell had been aging too but not as bad as Kepler. That is why a GTX 970, back then when it was launched, was able to either match and outperform the 290X more often than not, now with current games, can't distance itself from the 290 as you saw on these benchmarks. And with recent games this year like Prey, Dirt 4 etc, its direct incarnation, the 390X had been even outperforming the GTX 980 more often than not. A testament of a very round and powerful GCN architecture that suffered from underutilization when first introduced.

 

[CaptainTom]

I can't really blame Nvidia for not wanting to optimize for Kepler as it has similar problems to that of AMD's Fury X and R9 390. The scheduler just isn't able to squeeze the most out of the chip as possible.

https://devblogs.nvidia.com/paralle...ould-know-about-new-maxwell-gpu-architecture/


AMD's R9 390 is able to do better here because the architecture was very forward looking. GCN came way before it's time with compute performance no game could take advantage of. Only recently are we starting to see games use compute and that's the only way you are going to see excellent utilization on the top end 200, 300, and Fury series cards. Otherwise I expect the increased emphasis on geometry performance with Vega and the improved scheduler to make it a much more balanced card.

Yeah, from certain perspective it's great that AMD was so farward looking. But in the end, the result was that people had to wait several years to reap rewards, by which point many have already replaced or are looking to replace their cards.

It seems with CPUs, AMD is on the right track, GPUs.... 1070 still have no competition a year after... What is AMD thinking.

Not really. Even at launch the GTX 780 was only around 20% stronger than 7970 GHz while costing 50% more! It didn't even have more VRAM.


The entire Kepler series was really of dubious value from start to finish. But Nvidia's marketing always picks up the slack

 

[ddferrari]

A look back?

I was using 2x 780's for a few years, finally upgrading to a 1080 Ti when AIB cards came out not too long ago.

Still totally fine cards for running.. most games at high settings at 1080p. At least, in SLI.

If only NVIDIA weren't twats and shafted us by releasing the 780 Ti later on..

Nobody's getting "shafted". If you don't know by now that Nvidia commonly releases Ti versions of many of their series every generation, you're not paying attention. Even the GeForce2 series eventually got a Ti version in 2001. Yes, you read that right: 2001.

 

[darkzelda]

In my experience, if you plan to have a gpu for more than 2 years, buy AMD, otherwise, both are ok. I own a GTX 970 and I wish a have bought a R9 390.

 

[slamscaper]

In my experience, if you plan to have a gpu for more than 2 years, buy AMD, otherwise, both are ok. I own a GTX 970 and I wish a have bought a R9 390.

Well considering the R390 came out seven and a half months after the 970, it's to be expected that it would be a bit faster. But given that it's that much newer (7 months is a long time when it comes to GPU's as we all know), it's really not all that much faster than the 970. In fact, most of these cards perform very similarly, save for the 780 and lower and of course the mighty 1070 that's crushing them all. The 780 would have more value if Pascal wasn't the powerhouse it is right now.

I don't know if you bought your 970 well after it was launched, but either way I wouldn't feel bad with it. I have two of the Nvidia made 970's and they perform great in SLI. I've been more than happy with them. It stings a bit to see Pascal doing so well but when I upgraded to the 970's I had been running 670's in SLI, so the jump was substantial.

 

[Rockstarrrr]

In my experience, if you plan to have a gpu for more than 2 years, buy AMD, otherwise, both are ok. I own a GTX 970 and I wish a have bought a R9 390.

Well considering the R390 came out seven and a half months after the 970, it's to be expected that it would be a bit faster. But given that it's that much newer (7 months is a long time when it comes to GPU's as we all know), it's really not all that much faster than the 970.

R9 390 is rebraned R9 290, so its older than 970.

 

[harm9963]

In my experience, if you plan to have a gpu for more than 2 years, buy AMD, otherwise, both are ok. I own a GTX 970 and I wish a have bought a R9 390.

Well considering the R390 came out seven and a half months after the 970, it's to be expected that it would be a bit faster. But given that it's that much newer (7 months is a long time when it comes to GPU's as we all know), it's really not all that much faster than the 970.

R9 390 is rebraned R9 290, so its older than 970.

My 290x CFX is holding up fine ,DX/HM are good examples.
My rig
AMD 290x CFX
8370e 4.5
Ram 32Gb

 

[DAOWAce]

Nobody's getting "shafted". If you don't know by now that Nvidia commonly releases Ti versions of many of their series every generation, you're not paying attention.

Talking our your bum, mate.

They never released a Ti version of any card over the x60 class card until the 700 series.

So yes, they did shaft us.

 

[slamscaper]

R9 390 is rebraned R9 290, so its older than 970.

It's a "refresh" not a "rebrand." The 390 is more powerful (has higher clocks, more memory bandwidth, wider memory interface, etc...). A rebrand is a DIRECT re-release of the same hardware with no changes.

 

[ddferrari]

Talking our your bum, mate.

They never released a Ti version of any card over the x60 class card until the 700 series.

So yes, they did shaft us.

What I said, mate, is that many models have had Ti versions before the 7 series. I never specified which ones. You assumed that they would never extend the Ti range to higher models. You were wrong. It's 2017.

Was your angry letter to Nvidia something like this?

Dear Nvidia, you lured me into the sack and shafted me real good. You promised me you'd "go out on top" and close your doors forever after the 780; that I would forever be known as 'that guy with the best gpu in the world'.

I just pray that no one else goes through the trauma of buying something, only to have a better product emerge down the road. My 780 non-Ti has given up- what man would want her now? I was getting 45 fps in Crysis, but after the 780 Ti was released she couldn't even launch the game. I firmly believe your Ti smacked her around and took half her cuda cores.

You just made my list, NGreedia.

Sound about right?

 

[harm9963]

It's a "refresh" not a "rebrand." The 390 is more powerful (has higher clocks, more memory bandwidth, wider memory interface, etc...). A rebrand is a DIRECT re-release of the same hardware with no changes.[/QUOT
Both 290x and 390x perform close enough to each other, that's why I am very happy with my 290x CFX ,DXMD with one card ,at 1440/very high DX12 ,43.2 fps avg_that's only 5 frames away from 1070gtx .