PNY GeForce GTX 780 Ti XLR8 OC Review

The PNY GTX 780 Ti XLR8 OC is an overclocked version of the already powerful Nvidia GTX 780 Ti graphics card, with the PNY graphics processor’s base clock speed increased to 1.01GHz from 876MHz and the memory clock speed increased to 1.8GHz from 1.75GHz.

The design of the PNY GTX 780 Ti XLR8 OC is also different to that of the reference GTX 780 Ti, with the PNY using three fans to cool the GTX 780 Ti’s Kepler GK110 graphics processor rather than one. We have to say that the card was extremely quiet during our testing. In other respects, it’s the same as the reference model, with the card retaining the same 3GBs of graphics memory, 384-bit memory interface and 2,880 CUDA cores.

BENCHMARKS

The PNY GTX 780 Ti XLR8 OC performed well in our graphics benchmarks, typically outshining the stock card. However, we didn’t have the stock card available to test side by side with the PNY, and therefore can’t say that the PNY’s better frame rates aren’t due to more effective drivers. The benchmark results we’ll list for the stock GTX 780 Ti are the ones produced at the time of our original review.

Even so, the PNY GTX 780 Ti XLR8 OC produced and average frame rate of 123.9fps in Dirt Showdown at a resolution of 1,920×1,080 with 4x anti-aliasing and graphics quality set to Ultra, compared to the stock card’s 111fps. This is a fantastic result.

The card impressed us in our more challenging Crysis 3 benchmark too, producing an average 58.3fps with a maximum frame rate of 62fps and a minimum 43fps. This is with 4x anti-aliasing, High graphics quality and the game running at a resolution of 1,920×1,080. The only card to produce a higher average frame rate is the £1,080 AMD Radeon R9 295X2, with a 72.6fps average, 104fps maximum and 72.3fps minimum.

ULTRA HD

Of course, Full HD gaming is standard now, and a true test of a graphics card performance is how it handles gaming in Ultra HD (3,840×2,160). With Crysis 3 running at 3,840×2,160 with High graphics quality and 4x anti-aliasing, the GTX 780 Ti XLR8 OC produced an average frame rate of 28.3fps, with a maximum frame rate of 31fps and minimum 23fps. You might get away with Crysis 3 at that frame rate, but may want to reduce the resolution to experience a smoother frame rate.

The PNY GeForce GTX 780 Ti XLR8 OC is the most powerful single-GPU graphics card we’ve ever tested. The two-GPU AMD Radeon R9 295X2 proved better for Ultra HD gaming in our tests, but it costs twice as much as the PNY card and we think the PNY GeForce GTX 780 Ti XLR8 OC is the better buy.