Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti review

No sooner had we declared the AMD Radeon R9 290X the best gaming graphics card, Nvidia released the GeForce GTX 780 Ti in an unexpected bid to reclaim the gaming crown.

Like the original Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 and the excellent Nvidia GTX Titan, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti uses Nvidia’s GK110 graphics processor to deliver images to your monitor. However, the GTX 780 Ti makes use of 2,880 CUDA cores, which is 576 more CUDA cores than the original GTX 780 and 192 more cores than the GTX Titan.

The GTX 780 Ti’s clock speeds have also increased to a 876MHz base clock speed and 928MHz boost clock speed from the original’s 863MHz base clock speed and 900MHz boost clock speed. The amount of graphics memory available to the card remains the same at 3GB. The GTX 780 Ti also has higher memory bandwidth than the GTX 780 and GTX Titan, at 336GB/s as opposed to 288GB/s.

To power the GTX 780 Ti you’ll need two PCI-E power adaptors: one 6-pin and one 8-pin. At 270mm in length, you’ll also need to make sure there’s enough room in your PC case to accommodate the GTX 780 Ti. As is common with high-end graphics cards, the GeForce GTX 780 Ti provides four of the most common graphics outputs: two dual-link DVI, one HDMI and one DisplayPort. You can also configure the GTX 780 Ti to output to three monitors with Nvidia’s Surround mode, which is great if you enjoy multi-monitor gaming.

Like most other current Nvidia cards, this one supports Nvidia’s new G-Sync technology. Built into a compatible monitor, it allows the screen to match the card’s frame rate output for a smoother gaming experience. It’s early days for the technology, but it’s a potential bonus you might want to take advantage of next time you buy a new monitor. For a full blow-by-blow of the technology see our sibling site BitTech’s Nvidia G-Sync Review.

IMMENSE POWER, LOW NOISE
In use, the GeForce GTX 780 Ti is very quiet. It was almost silent when we used desktop applications and emitted a soft purr when we ran games, so soft that it was quickly forgotten almost as soon as the game had loaded.

We first tested the GTX 780 Ti with our Dirt Showdown benchmark at a resolution of 2,560×1,440 with graphics quality set to Ultra. The GTX 780 Ti produced an average frame rate of 86fps, which was lower than the AMD Radeon R9 290X’s average frame rate of 95 in the same test. We repeated the test and got the same result within one or two frames per second.

However, the GTX 780 Ti beat the Radeon R9 290X in all our other single-monitor Dirt Showdown tests. The GTX 780 Ti produced an average frame rate of 130fps at a resolution of 1,920×1,080 with graphics quality set to High, for example, whereas the Radeon R9 290X produced 111.5fps in the same test.

However, the GTX 780 Ti proved much faster in all conditions of our Crysis 3 benchmark test. At a resolution of 1,920×1,080 with graphics quality options set to Very High, the GTX 780 Ti produced an average frame rate of 46.4fps, whereas the Radeon R9 290X produced an average frame rate of 32fps in the same test. The difference in frame rates was still considerable when we increased the resolution to 2,560×1,440, with the GTX 780 Ti producing an average frame rate of 31.5fps compared to the Radeon 290X’s 22.6fps.