Overclock That GeForce! Gigabyte GTX 780 Ti OC & GTX 780 GHz Review

Julio Franco

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[newwindow=https://www.techspot.com/review/738-gigabyte-geforce-gtx-780-ti-ghz/]https://www.techspot.com/review/738-gigabyte-geforce-gtx-780-ti-ghz/[/newwindow]

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Just water cool at R290 or R290x and have a money shower with all the left over cash.
 
I bought a 780 lightning not long ago...
I am annoyed.
Live and learn...

Don't beat yourself up about it, this stuff is impossible to predict. Hell AMD and Nvidia have little idea what they are releasing half the time and the pricing is made up almost on the spot.
 
Thanks for the very comprehensive review Steve
Just water cool at R290 or R290x and have a money shower with all the left over cash.
Well, if you don't already have a watercooling loop then you'll have to factor in a pump, radiator, reservoir/T-line, tubing, fittings, and fans. An AIO might be cheaper - but substantially less effective...and at $100 your money shower might be a loose-change-down-the-back-of-the-sofa shower. Probably better off waiting for the vendor boards with proprietary air cooling since they will only be fractionally more expensive (if at all) than the reference cooler.

Or you could buy the reference card, stick one of these on it, and sell the reference blower/shroud to an orchardist looking for a cheap bird scarer - you might break even on the deal.
 
How can a card that performs 10-20% faster than $500 less models achieve a "90 points outstanding" review? This seems way contradictory
 
Sorry my bad, I rephrased the comment incorrectly. 100 bucks more for 10% extra performance?
"Cons: Pricey, pricier and priciest they are, too. At $500+ or more, you can expect to pay a serious premium over AMD's $400 Radeon R9 290, which is often similarly fast".
 
I agree with you there, the 780 with a heavy overclock performs just a little above an 290 and right around a 290X where as the 780ti with its ghz edition cooler is a nice step up from its stock version and performs really well for a strong single GPU card (Ironically in Crysis 3 it was the best). My favorite part of the review was reading the GTX 780ti OC (Overclocked) part, seemed funny reading that it was an overclocked card that was overclocked :p.

I bought a 780 lightning not long ago...
I am annoyed.
Live and learn...
Meh, just overclock the life out of it, you've got an excellent performing card that will overclock with ease. Honestly no one saw this coming, I mean they slaughtered one of their own cards priced 350 bucks higher on a whim.

Sorry my bad, I rephrased the comment incorrectly. 100 bucks more for 10% extra performance?
"Cons: Pricey, pricier and priciest they are, too. At $500+ or more, you can expect to pay a serious premium over AMD's $400 Radeon R9 290, which is often similarly fast".
Well you have to look at it this way, the card is the "Single Fastest GPU Money can buy" at the moment. With that overclocked GHz version and cooler, its a very fair amount of power and performs beyond well in most games. Yea a 290X is a significantly better price point card and performed close to it without being overclocked, but its still not as fast as a 290X. The price point will of course scare most people off because its such a premium, most people if they want a single GPU and read benchmarks will probably grab a 290 and like stated above grab an aftermarket cooler for some overclocking headroom and a much more silent run.

This windforce edition cooler is so nice, its probably in my top 3 favorite coolers (Air) for years now because it has such a nice cooling system and allows for such robust overclocks. Great review as always.

Edit: You know, thinking about this more and more, you know what coolers I miss seeing These Bad Boys, I mean I had 2 of these and man were they great. I wish PNY would do some of these on some of the 780ti. I was able to get 980mhz core clock on both cards and still maintain a very cool card (Though I hate letting a card run warm and told the fans to spin up to 100% at either I think 65 or 70 Celcius. Even though I Went back to custom loops, I felt cards like this were just a great idea for those who wanted serious overclocking without having to go to extremes.
 
How can a card that performs 10-20% faster than $500 less models achieve a "90 points outstanding" review? This seems way contradictory
What $200 card is 10-20% slower than the GTX 780 Ti ?

:mathfail:
So, AMD has the killer price point and except for the hot operation (improved cooling solutions on production should solve that) they are the best value in the high-end segment by far.

In scoring the Gigabyte GTX 780 cards we didn't just consider the GPU positioning as we would on a day-one NDA release, but also considered what makes the Gigabyte cards special. We loved their cooling design and performance boosts were achieved with no sacrifice on that department (or noise). Besides, when you see the whole picture, if the Titan was a great uber expensive solution a few months back, why not give props to the GTX 780 Ti that overcomes it at a discount, even more so when overclocked.
 
I have a EVGA 780 Ti arriving from Amazon tomorrow. Some crazy individual bought my 780 on eBay for $550. ;-)
 
I don't like how values percentages as card x/ card y. A video card cannot be operated in a vacuum. I would prefer the percentage be computer system x / computer system y. For example, computer x with a R9 290 would cost 1400 vs computer y with a 770 ti would cost 1700- only an 18% difference.
 
I bought a 780 lightning not long ago...
I am annoyed.
Live and learn...

You should feel bad, it's justified.

Paying as much for a single GPU is the reason Nvidia keeps gettings us naked.

Um, 290X buyers have a LOT more to pissed about. They paid $150 more than a 290 for ~5fps. There is NO reason to buy a 290X now. Unless you really really really like the letter X.

Dat 780 Ti OC doe! O-M-G!
 
Steve said:
The graphics card market has experienced some amazing turns lately even though AMD and Nvidia haven't made serious architectural changes in 2013.
I'm with you that nVidia has not made any serious architectural changes 2013 but how can you say that about AMD? Hawaii XT has 6.2billion transistors vs 4.3Billion of it's predecessor, the die is 438mm vs 352mm with a 512bit memory interface?
 
Um, 290X buyers have a LOT more to pissed about. They paid $150 more than a 290 for ~5fps. There is NO reason to buy a 290X now. Unless you really really really like the letter X.

Dat 780 Ti OC doe! O-M-G!
If your going to make that argument, lets say the same for the rough gain of a 780 vs a 780ti, the limited increase in FPS mixed with the 200 dollar price hike when you can easily bump the clocks on a 780 to match it with ease does the exact same thing. The 290 to 290X argument can be viewed as the same thing, however even at that, the price to performance ratio is still significantly better for the 290x.
 
I'm with you that nVidia has not made any serious architectural changes 2013 but how can you say that about AMD? Hawaii XT has 6.2billion transistors vs 4.3Billion of it's predecessor, the die is 438mm vs 352mm with a 512bit memory interface?
Architecture is the underlying IP of the GPU. In effect, Hawaii is a tweaked version of Bonaire (GCN 1.1) and Tahiti (GCN 1.0) - and why AMD don't make a big song and dance about the differences in Southern Islands, Sea Islands, and Volcanic Island families. GCN 2.0 is a tweaked 1.1 which is a mildly tweaked 1.0. Principle differences are just an internal realignment of logic blocks ( 4 geometry processors rather than 2, flat address instruction added etc).
Architecture typically refers to the core (shaders, pipelining, command process) while memory controllers are "uncore" and largely of fixed function.The uncore ( memory controllers, GDDR5 interface, I/O, thread dispatch) having a lower transistor density than the core takes up a fairly large part of the GPU area (typically ~50%), so increasing the memory controller count and memory interface by 33% ( from 6 to 8 IMC's) accounts for a big chunk of the increased die area.
If your going to make that argument, lets say the same for the rough gain of a 780 vs a 780ti, the limited increase in FPS mixed with the 200 dollar price hike when you can easily bump the clocks on a 780 to match it with ease does the exact same thing. The 290 to 290X argument can be viewed as the same thing, however even at that, the price to performance ratio is still significantly better for the 290x.
Except that the price /performance ratio is basically meaningless at this level of expenditure. The target market is performance with pricing a somewhat distant consideration. You can say that the 780/290 is within shouting distance of the 780Ti/290X when overclocked, but it still doesn't negate the fact that the 780Ti/290X can in turn be overclocked - and in the 780Ti's case, very significantly for little downside.
perf_oc.gif

If you simply must have the highest performing card then you will be paying for that privilege. Price-to-performance actually makes little sense once you get past the $200 market segment. Once you get into the $400+ market the justifications are largely artificial.
 
Lolz I have a friend who is selling his 2 Titans and waterblocks for 2 of these xD.


Would the 13.11 beta 9.2 driver effect much in this benchmark?
 
Would the 13.11 beta 9.2 driver effect much in this benchmark?
Depends what your definition of "much" is
59790.png
59791.png
59792.png

The driver just adds fan speed to mitigate the vagaries of the variance found in the PWM implementation. Some cards throttle worse than others. Chassis airflow and ambient temps are also going to play a part. Quiet mode isn't that much of an issue since I doubt that many would be using it in practice. In Uber mode you're still better off manually setting the fan higher to eliminate throttling issues...or taking matters a little further
 
Except that the price /performance ratio is basically meaningless at this level of expenditure. The target market is performance with pricing a somewhat distant consideration. You can say that the 780/290 is within shouting distance of the 780Ti/290X when overclocked, but it still doesn't negate the fact that the 780Ti/290X can in turn be overclocked - and in the 780Ti's case, very significantly for little downside.
perf_oc.gif

If you simply must have the highest performing card then you will be paying for that privilege. Price-to-performance actually makes little sense once you get past the $200 market segment. Once you get into the $400+ market the justifications are largely artificial.

As I recall didnt you just give an argument regarding people being foolish for spending an extra 150 in the 290-290X case or the likes on the 290 review or something along the lines of devaluing the card immediatly?

On one you even posted before linking showing the results of BF4 with OC on 780ti, 780, 290, and 290x showed up to 4FPS I believe at max overclocks on stock coolers (I believe around 1250mhz for the 780ti and 290x was 1150)? I dissagree with your argument however on price to performance past 400 bucks, but at the same time your right as in going for the top of the market, many people find little concern about spending the money because they want the top tier card. Hence why im looking at the 290X vs the 780ti, it just takes alot more to justify a minimum for me of 1600 dollars with waterblocks versus spending around 1300 for 290X with blocks.

In this regard, im waitng for some Dual 8 Pin MSI or Asus Variants of the 290X and 780ti to come out for better voltage control to see how they perform with heavy clocking (Though the 780ti versions are already out it would seem) because thats what I shoot for when looking at a single GPU card.

Edit:...Did I really just spend time reading that some guy cut part of his card off to improve airflow...Thats not going to void warranty or anything lol.
 
As I recall didnt you just give an argument regarding people being foolish for spending an extra 150 in the 290-290X case or the likes on the 290 review or something along the lines of devaluing the card immediatly?
Yes.That is my personal opinion.
What you quoted referred not to my personal opinion but the reality of "the target market". The market that says a 290X is worth $150 more than the 290, and a 780 Ti is worth the same price difference over the 780.

I'm also well aware that my personal opinion and the reality of the market don't necessarily coincide. If they did then there would be no market for the 290X and 780Ti. There is obviously a market since they are being purchased.
You might also note that the 780Ti OC OC'ed post you're referring to was in reply to Burty117's musings about purchasing the card. As a responsible person I should point out the general foolishness of performance at any cost...as an enthusiast I couldn't be happier if someone's desire to turn up the dial to 11 outweighs economic sense.

Having said that, I might well buy a GTX 780 Ti Classified if it overclocks like a maniac. Why? because the absolute fun of tinkering with it will probably outweigh the expenditure downside.
I have a pretty good idea of what the price will be and how much it will devalue as soon as a 4000 core Maxwell (or Pirate Islands) show its head, so that doesn't factor into my equation. What does factor in is the enjoyment of trying squeeze as much out the hardware as possible and a non-reference power delivery system capable of effecting that. Being stuck with a mid range GTX 670 OC paired with a 2560x1440 screen for the past year has ably demonstrated that I'm not throwing enough money into my passion. I don't apply my personal motivation to the vast number of graphics card buyers.
 
Yes.That is my personal opinion.
What you quoted referred not to my personal opinion but the reality of "the target market". The market that says a 290X is worth $150 more than the 290, and a 780 Ti is worth the same price difference over the 780.

I'm also well aware that my personal opinion and the reality of the market don't necessarily coincide. If they did then there would be no market for the 290X and 780Ti. There is obviously a market since they are being purchased.

Having said that, I might well buy a GTX 780 Ti Classified if it overclocks like a maniac. Why? because the absolute fun of tinkering with it will probably outweigh the expenditure downside.
I have a pretty good idea of what the price will be and how much it will devalue as soon as a 4000 core Maxwell (or Pirate Islands) show its head, so that doesn't factor into my equation. What does factor in is the enjoyment of trying squeeze as much out the hardware as possible and a power delivery system capable of effecting that. Being stuck with a mid range GTX 670 OC paired with a 2560x1440 screen for the past year has ably demonstrated that I'm not throwing enough money into my passion. I don't apply my personal motivation to the vast number of graphics card buyers.
Never said anything devaluing your opinion, just mentioned that you stated something along those lines.

Your right, we can justify our price expenditure on either card because when someone looks at the top card, they are looking at the top card, not so much the price. Every buyer is differnt and will view their purchase ideals differently, I have been ridiculed at LAN events for buying 2 Dual GPU cards in my machine by people with one GTX 670, HD 7970, or something like that wondering why I would spend the money. Most of the time, my response is &%$# you thats why to them.

If the classified cards do overclock further than some of the ones ive seen by a significant margin, ill probably join you in that regard because then I could justify buying a card, putting blocks on it and getting the core to 1300-1350mhz (1400 if lucky) like that.
 
^ :popcorn:
Lol.

Anyways, love the Windforce cooler, excellent GPU selection.
I have a GK-104 Windforce 3X and its as good as it gets for air cooled.
 
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