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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Kutark - Friday, November 8, 2013 - link
The argument was never whether one or the other was a better value but rather which is the better card. Thats what this discussion is about. Anybody with their head not firmly planted in their ass can see the 290x is a good value. The problem is value changes from person to person. Some people don't care how noisy their video card is. Some people don't care how hot it runs under load. Those people would find that card to be an excellent value. Other people do care. For them it might be worth it to pay extra for a quieter card that runs 8-10c cooler. Just like some people don't give 2 shits about having leather seats in their car, and don't think a $2000 option for leather would be a good value. Others think its great.Secondly, the Ti only loses to the 290x at 4k resolution which is a complete non point as there is all of 1 4k monitor out right now and it costs 2x of what most people spend on their computer. Lets not also mention that to get decent framerates you need a minimum of 2x of the 780/Ti's or the 290/Xs, So we're talking about a 5k investment outside of the rest of your shit to play at 4k? Id be willing to bet less than 1 in million PC gamers have that much money into their rigs
Mondozai - Friday, December 13, 2013 - link
AMD fucked up with their reference cooler, and they fucked up with not providing data early enough to OEMs for aftermarket coolers. But comparing stock 290/290X to the GTX 780 Ti is misleading. You have to compare both cards when there are aftermarket coolers to both of them.But you don't do that. Why? Because you know an aftermarket cooler isn't going to be a big difference to 780 Ti, but it will make a massive difference to 290/290X.
Stock versions of both cards with aftermarket cooler from the same OEM will show very little variance in performance at higher(1440p and above) resolutions. Except that 780 Ti will remain completely overpriced.
Price to performance ratio isn't just about budget and middle segment cards. You can do the same to high-end cards. A 290X with an aftermarket cooler is simply going to beat out 780 Ti in anybody's but a fanboy's eyes. Sorry, but you're fanboying.
And I am saying that as an Nvidia card owner myself, but the fact remains that Nvidia has been able to rape the wallets of a lot of people for so long, and I blame AMD for this, that some people like you have internalized the raping and come to defend it.
I can only look at you with pity.
Owls - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Ryan I'm sorry but the video card reviews as of late have been very poor in quality and objectivity. Stop rushing to be the first. I don't go to Anand to read a crappy review, that's what HardOCP is for.That said your testing is flawed with old games and comparing the Ti to be faster than a 290x that is in silent mode is disingenuous. We all expect better from this site.
ol1bit - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
First, Fantastic Review as always!As a side note, it's amazing to me that AMD can't get the performance with the same heat output as Nivida. After all they are a semi-big chip company, what gives?
FuriousPop - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
wow! as a current AMD owner, i must say it is impressive. Temps and noise great! - power consumption not as much as expected, but hey a good card indeed. Now if only we could see the benchmarks in the higher areas of 1600p+. If your going to make a comment of overkill at 1440p with SLi of these, then why not show 1600p then and see how it really matches up!?i know that it in the past has been AMD for >1440p and Nvid for 1080< but as of late, we are starting to see that change dramatically.
Can we please see some 1600p and 1600p+ res being tested on benchmarks! if there were already those benchmarks out and showed impressive results at higher resos i prob would of gone out and bought 2x of these ASAP. however will have to wait and see...
AnotherGuy - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
So Ryan, you made the R9 290 as a total disappointment because it had a little higher noise than the rest at the time, but now when you see the 780 getting close at 52dB this is a little high but ok for nVidia and they won...That is not fair.You need to control those emotions, think many times and then finally find the right words to describe a product, not let your first thought into the final conclusion of a review.
Ma Deuce - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
You need to control those emotions. Think many times and then finally find the right words to criticize a review, not let your first thought into the comment...290 is loud and hot and he didn't recommend it. Sorry man, it's not the end of the world though. You can buy it without their expressed written consent.
sf101 - Friday, November 8, 2013 - link
Anotherguy your right though on the 290x review they made it sound like the end of the world over the noise /temp and power use levels.Yet when Nvidia does it its ok.
And everyone just does a point in other direction look its super man type thing and pretends it didn't happen.
If your going to be nit picky about noise and heat then at-least be consistent from what I've seen both the 290 and 780ti are fairly close in wattage use now so there goes your TDP arguments.
And just because Nvidia has a better reference cooler doesn't change the fact that it still is using similar wattage to the 290/290x the only difference is Nvidia's cooler deals with it a bit better.
just finding the review a tad bias ,,,,,,,
Morawka - Friday, November 8, 2013 - link
the 290 got up to 62 dbformulav8 - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link
Ryan's reviews has stunk for awhile now. I used to defend him and anand on appearing bias and such. But there does seem to be something. And the thing is that if it is true, they could care less. Literally