The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on November 7, 2013 9:01 AM ESTMeet The GeForce GTX 780 Ti
When it comes to the physical design and functionality of the GTX 780 Ti, to no surprise NVIDIA is sticking with what works. The design of the GTX Titan and its associated cooler have proven themselves twice over now between the GTX Titan and the GTX 780, so with only the slightest of changes this is what NVIDIA is going with for GTX 780 Ti, too. Consequently there’s very little new material to cover here, but we’ll quickly hit the high points before recapping the general design of what has now become the GTX 780 series.
The biggest change here is that GTX 780 Ti is the first NVIDIA launch product to feature the new B1 revision of their GK110 GPU. B1 has already been shipping for a couple of months now, so GTX 780 Ti isn’t the first card to get this new GPU. However while GTX Titan and GTX 780 products currently contain a mix of the old and new revisions as NVIDIA completes the change-over, GTX 780 Ti will be B1 (and only B1) right out the door.
As for what’s new for B1, NVIDIA is telling us that it’s a fairly tame revision of GK110. NVIDIA hasn’t made any significant changes to the GPU, rather they’ve merely gone in and fixed some errata that were in the earlier revision of GK110, and in the meantime tightened up the design and leakage just a bit to nudge power usage down, the latter of which is helpful for countering the greater power draw from lighting up the 15th and final SMX. Otherwise B1 doesn’t have any feature changes nor significant changes in its power characteristics relative to the previous revision, so it should be a fairly small footnote compared to GTX 780.
The other notable change coming with GTX 780 Ti is that NVIDIA has slightly adjusted the default temperature throttle point, increasing it from 80C to 83C. The difference in cooling efficiency itself will be trivial, but since NVIDIA is using the exact same fan curve on the GTX 780 Ti as they did the GTX 780, the higher temperature throttle effectively increases the card’s equilibrium point, and therefore the average fan speed under load. Or put another way, but letting it get a bit warmer the GTX 780 Ti will ramp up its fan a bit more and throttle a bit less, which should help offset the card’s increased power consumption while also keeping thermal throttling minimized.
| GeForce GTX 780 Series Temperature Targets | ||||
| GTX 780 Ti Temp Target | GTX 780 Temp Target | GTX Titan Temp Target | ||
| 83C | 80C | 80C | ||
Moving on, since the design of the GTX 780 Ti is a near carbon copy of GTX 780, we’re essentially looking at GTX 780 with better specs and new trimmings. NVIDIA’s very effective (and still quite unique) metallic GTX Titan cooler is back, this time featuring black lettering and a black tinted window. As such GTX 780 Ti remains a 10.5” long card composed of a cast aluminum housing, a nickel-tipped heatsink, an aluminum baseplate, and a vapor chamber providing heat transfer between the GPU and the heatsink. The end result is the GTX 780 Ti is a quiet card despite the fact that it’s a 250W blower design, while still maintaining the solid feel and eye-catching design that NVIDIA has opted for with this generation of cards.
Drilling down, the PCB is also a re-use from GTX 780. It’s the same GK110 GPU mounted on the same PCB with the same 6+2 phase power design. This being despite the fact that GTX 780 Ti features faster 7GHz memory, indicating that NVIDIA was able to hit their higher memory speed targets without making any obvious changes to the PCB or memory trace layouts. Meanwhile the reuse of the power delivery subsystem is a reflection of the fact that GTX 780 Ti has the same 250W TDP limit as GTX 780 and GTX Titan, though unlike those two cards GTX 780 Ti will have the least headroom to spare and will come the closest to hitting it, due to the general uptick in power requirements from having 15 active SMXes. Finally, using the same PCB also means that GTX 780 has the same 6pin + 8pin power requirement and the same display I/O configuration of 2x DL-DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort 1.2.
On a final note, for custom cards NVIDIA won’t be allowing custom cards right off the bat – everything today will be a reference card – but with NVIDIA’s partners having already put together their custom GK110 designs for GTX 780, custom designs for GTX 780 Ti will come very quickly. Consequently, expect most (if not all of them) to be variants of their existing custom GTX 780 designs.
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chizow - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Figured Nvidia would not let the crown rest with AMD when they still had their trump card to play (full 2880SP GK110), so this is not unexpected at all.I still feel Nvidia comes out of this with a black eye however, while AMD started the price escalation with Tahiti for 28nm, Nvidia took this greed to a new level with 690/Titan pricing. $699 is what the high-end GK110 SKU should have sold for, max, and it should've arrived this time last year. The fact AMD had to undercut Nvidia pricing so badly with the 290/290X will be something Nvidia will have a difficult time living down for years to come.
The fact we will have 3 SKUs launched in such a short time since Titan released that outperform it at a fraction of the cost is an absolute slap in the fact to some of Nvidia's most loyal and spendy customers. Lesson learned for Nvidia, and certainly a lesson learned for many of their customers.
TheJian - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Let me know when EITHER side makes more than they have in the last 10yrs. For NV that was ~800mil in 2007 (Q1 2008 TTM). For AMD it's ~500mil.http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/financi...
http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/financi...
http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?fe...
A year ago 209mil for NV this Q. This year, 119m. Get the point? That's far worse than a year ago right? Lessons for Nvidia? Charge more every chance you get...LOL. Don't forget how much R&D etc costs. They are on Tegra4 now, and they haven't made a DIME on them yet total. Until they break 1Billion in Tegra sales it will continue to lose money robbing gpus cash. I highly doubt AMD's will break even for a while either once it hits. Also note it only took another 150mil or so in revenue to make 209mil last year. So basically they are selling the same crap for less right? 1.2B in revenue last year making 209mil. 1.05B revenue now, making 119.
Anyone thinking either side is ripping them off needs to learn how to read balance sheets. Start expecting slower release schedules, worse drivers, an less perf jumps until profits go back up.
hero4hire - Sunday, November 10, 2013 - link
Hail corporate!Price is just the price. If you feel safer with profits, branding, and fatter balance sheets as persuasive then look no further than the 80's American auto manufacturers as the greatest product around.
Hail corporate!
just4U - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
From the Article: "And though GTX Titan is falling off of our radar, we’re glad to see that NVIDIA has kept around Titan’s second most endearing design element, the Titan cooler"---
I am not in the market for a card yet. Quite happy with my 7870 from His... but overall, that cooler is the most interesting thing to come out of this generation of video cards. (Amd needs to take note of that to..)
You see people going the aftermarket route in regards to reference coolers that simply can't cut it. So it's about damn time NVidia got off their butts and designed something special. Both companies have been guilty of neglect with their shitty coolers.. leaving partners to think outside the box and fix the problem. That's helped to set them apart from each other but it doesn't address the fact that we get flooded with the sub par that sticks around as a lemon thru-out the life of each card.
just4U - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Oh.. forgot to mention..I'd be more interested in this generation if they'd get temperatures under control. Not interested in any card hitting 80C+ under load... been there done that, and it can take it's toll out on your other hardware over time.
tomc100 - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
I will stick to my Radeon 7970 for now since my room gets pretty hot in the summer time so neither gpu is going to perform well for me in the summer even with the air conditioner turned on. Also, I'm hoping mantle will provide another 25-50% increase in performance in some games.Conduit - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Thanks but no thanks. Who the hell pays $700 for a video card? I have a $200 card that plays all my games on ULTRA with AA at 60 fps.If I ever go for a high end card it will be a custom cooled R9 290.
nsiboro - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
2 thumbs up + 2 big-toe up !Trenzik - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
I have to admit $700 is a lot for a GPU, but its more of an enthusiast thing. You get obsessed with specs and frames :). I enjoy it.Makaveli - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
lol conduit,You mean at 1680x1050 right?