NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Review & Benchmarks

Updated: November 7, 2013

Performance, Benchmarks & Temps

Performance between the two cards as can be seen was determined with the NVIDIA card tested at its default state with its boost speeds coming naturally from the card while gaming. We tested the AMD R9 290X in its “UBER” state and not its “QUIET” mode, as we feel no AMD gamers worth his salt would not do this and we did not want AMD having their pants pulled down even further so in fairness to AMD we kept the card running at “UBER” speeds and it helped their scores quite a bit in the performance arena. NVIDIA’s GTX 780Ti wins at almost everything across the board even with the AMD R9 290X running in “UBER” mode.

We did not have ample time to test the 780 Ti manually overclocked, but I feel that if we maxed the fan speeds out and made it as loud and hot as the AMD R9 290X by way of extreme boosting the GTX 780Ti would be much faster than the 290X. Water-cooling may help the AMD solution, but when a card is already running at almost 100 degrees Celsius out of the box room for overclocking is still diminished, as the threshold for more heat is just not there.

The one gaming benchmark we want to highlight is Battlefield 4 as we only had time to test the GTX 780 Ti head on against the R9 290X, the rest all have a handful of cards to reference. For now the GTX 780 Ti beats out the R9 290X in Battlefield 4 but it should be interesting how Mantle plays a part once that is ready.

Battlefield 4 – GTX 780 Ti vs R9 290X

Performance Benchmarks

Temperatures

This is an area where many users do not really agree as some people blatantly state they could care less about noise, but I am hard pressed to actually believe as noise sucks as does heat, especially when one is talking video cards. We all know and if you have seen our video the AMD R9 290X, in its reference state can be one loud and proud video card that fills a room with an amazing hum. The GTX 780 Ti on the other hand when runs at the same performance levels and please pay attention to that fact, performance levels, not fan speed levels as AMD’s 290X when ran in quiet mode is quiet, but it also gets its ass kicked in the performance area at those same fan levels.

At the same performance levels the (Reference) AMD R9 290X ran under full loads at 94C in “UBER” mode, which is the only mode capable of competing with the 780 Ti and the card was also load as a lawnmower on crack J AMD may fix this by way of aftermarket or liquid cooling, but these tests are reference versus reference. The NVIDIA GTX 780Ti however ran at 82C at default clock speeds and was very quiet throughout the testing phase, as normal boost clocks do not take the fans up as load as the 290X and yet is still able to win in the performance arena. We will take the NVIDIA GeForce 780 Ti card and clock it up and increase the fans speed to 75% like the AMD card and match the cards up sonically and see where the tests go, but for now these are the temperatures the cards are running at in their out of the box state when matched for performance as much as applicable.

Continue Reading: Final Thoughts & Conclusion

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Wifekiler23

I always loved Nvidia and this is why! man what GPU!!!
One question what happened to the r9 290 giveway!
Interrogator

#rekt
Νίκος Γκίρης

is it worth to buy this card instead of r9 290x?
- http://techrodd.webs.com/ Jento Pieters
  
  well, its less loud
  - Νίκος Γκίρης
    
    hahahah . sure . but is going to release r9 290x non reference card…
    - Mike DeGeorge
      
      There are always non-reference cards, unless the company says no(like NVIDIA with their TITAN).
      - Νίκος Γκίρης
        
        i know. but my question is the same… is it worth to buy gtx 780ti? keep in mind of mantle
      - emsi93
        
        i have 290x and would never pay 150pounds more to get 780ti aint worth it!
        
        also it’s not loud ppl say that cause it’s better than nvidias so they hate….
      - GH0ST_SE7EN
        
        It’s loud. Really loud. And runs hotter, way hotter.
      - Aŋŏnyṁoṹs Ħaķĉeŗ
        
        40dbA, yeah, really loud!!!
      - Yaz Akiera
        
        Temps are very dependent on your case airflow, most of users have compact cases and the card will get too hot which in turn will be very loud. incase you have a full tower case with good airflow, i think it wont exceed 80 which will reduce the noise.
      - Mike DeGeorge
        
        Mantle isn’t necessarily going to be revolutionary.
- Nick
  
  Well based on the ToT benchmarks, it depends on if you think the average fps gain of 6 frames is worth $150 extra
  - Elric Phares
    
    Good answer Mr, thanks.
DavidtheDuke

Nvidia is obviously holding back at this point. They waited for the numbers on the 290x and released a card just a bit better than it. Very telling.
- GH0ST_SE7EN
  
  You do realize there is nothing else to open on the GK110 right? What else can they be holding back? This is their last high end before Maxwell, except for possibly a 760 Ti or 770 Ti.
  - Yaz Akiera
    
    right, i guess we will see the Titan Ultra which will be based on Maxwell but not fully unlocked, then the same story goes again with the 880 Ti which will bring a fully unlocked Maxwell.
  - DavidtheDuke
    
    Okay, might be possible. Just seems odd how fast Nvidia reacted, then again, they probably know the details of their rivals card releases months in advance
    - GH0ST_SE7EN
      
      Its because the 780 Ti was supposed to be the 780, Titan (with less compute units) the 770, and the 780 the 760 Ti. The only reason they didn’t release it before was because they didn’t need to because AMD fumbled the ball with Tahiti. The 290x finally made them do it.
      - DavidtheDuke
        
        Cool, for competition’s sake I really hope so because like with Intel and AMD’s current competition, Intel basically is king and it has to hurt progress in the long run
WTF

Here in Norway the cheapest R9 290x is priced at $685 whereas the 780Ti set you back $907 .. not an unsignificant difference.
- Guest
  
  Lol wtf is up with Norway?
  - LaurentiuCristian
    
    In my country these cards are not available… maybe after official release 290x and 780ti will be priced… and after some days available..
- Fukkireta_Pasteldechoclo
  
  here in chile the cheapest 290x cost $850 and the 780 (not ti) cost $900
  
  ._.
  - RaketeN
    
    in denmark the 290x is 708$ and the GTX780ti is 934$
    - Brajiru-kun
      
      Brazil:
      290x $950
      780Ti $1350
      We have them expensive shitz! Deal with it!
      - GH0ST_SE7EN
        
        That’s because of your import/export policy. Blame your politicians. Lol PS4 are $1850. THAT’S messed up.
      - Brajiru-kun
        
        Totally agree with you! ‘Muricans complain about their politicians being corrup and all, but you really doesn’t know how hard it is living here… and please don’t try to use “arguments” like: ‘go play soccer or sumthing’ (I’m not saying you would). Minimum wage is less then U$300, and I think an average monthly pay would be U$ 380… by the way, Wii U was just announced here, guess what?! U$ 833!! they are basicaly giving it away! [insert sad emoji here]
      - Alio
        
        Yeah, I sei about isso, cara.
      - Peou Richard Kovit
        
        due to exchange rate or including with taxes ?
- Peou Richard Kovit
  
  I can understand that… quite far and its hard to get some stuff like pc stuff and etc ?
- Izzy
  
  I feel your pain, Portugal is b*tch with prices too. They’re selling GTX 780Ti at $957,92 here. Q^Q’
Alio

Oh, the competition…so beautiful…
Alex Lee

What the heck is Luxmark and is that score alone significant for the 290X? Because that 290X Destroys all of those cards but in only that category and I’m curious?
Tomas Cabral

Nice pics, detailed review. Keep up the good job guys!
Guest

Elric, you should mention that the 780 Ti also has more room for overclocking (lower temps helps too) + the R9 290x is hard to get a good performance increase
- Alio
  
  “Where the AMD R9 290X has a very low threshold for overclocking due to its high temperatures, the GTX 780 Ti has loads of headroom for tinkering and overclocking…”
Moinaldo

Definitely 290x best bang for the buck hands down.
- Yaz Akiera
  
  Nope, the R9 290 is the best bang for the buck, just for 400$ you get a card slower than the 290x by 3%-6% and its not loud and hot compared to the 290x.
  - Moinaldo
    
    Yes you are right. It’s just like the 7950 from last series.
Iuri Svera

…It’s funny watching everyone talking about 780 (Ti) vs the 290x when AMD trolled everyone with a new release of just a R9-290 at $400 … more overclocking room … by far and well it beats the 290x … so woohooo
- Elric Phares
  
  You think the 290 will beat the 290X? What planet are you on bro, the 290 is a lower speed card and slower than a 290X.
  - Iuri Svera
    
    Well I remember posting something and then it got removed I guess but oh hey .. here is some proof? LinusTech group got a nice overclock on the card so hey why not spend $400 on a R9-290 and get some water cooling while at it? 0.o
    - LotLP
      
      He himself claimed the 290x they got sent was a terrible overclocker, and they’ll be replacing it by one from asus with a custom cooler. (at least I think it’ll be a CC).
      
      Silicon fuckin’ lottery man.
      - Iuri Svera
        
        I know that… I watch the videos and read. But hey …If we’re talking money wise .. why not get 2x R9-280x for $400 …0.o
      - LotLP
        
        Because Crossfire (and by extension SLI) are absolutely terrible.
      - Iuri Svera
        
        Is there any proof of the R9-290 or R9-280x crossfire being anywhere bad? I know that they use different methods but hey … I think the PCI-e 3.0 x16 could handle the power not to mention it’s only recommended… PCI-e 2.0 is said to work just fine.
      - LotLP
        
        1: Not everyone is looking for the best bang for buck. I do not, and never will. I’m not building on a budget.
        2: I need the most power out of a SINGLE CARD WITH A SINGLE GPU.
        3: I have experience with SLI and Crossfire, and optimization/frametimes/microstutter seems to have not gotten significantly better over time for both manufacturers.
      - Iuri Svera
        
        Well there ya go. I’m simply stating a fact that he 290 can overclock more than the 290x .. But for you it seems like the 780 Ti would be a good buy.
      - Moinaldo
        
        It’s ok if you are not building on a budget, but for multi-gpu system on single 4k monitor, AMD has the lead. Hawaii GPUs scale almost a 100% per gpu and the microstutter did get significantly better on single monitor setup… but anyway, for a single gpu, 780ti got the crown, if one doesn’t care paying almost extra 30% to get roughly 5-10% extra performance
      - LotLP
        
        5-10% extra *before* overclocking. And from what I’ve seen, the 780TI is a better overclocker because the 290X is already pushed really far. if I was going to go for anything cost effective, I would not look at a 290X anyway.
        
        Also it’s going to be a fair while before 4K or 4K gaming is going to matter – by the time 4K IPS monitors are affordable, I’ll just upgrade to something else.
      - Moinaldo
        
        Hmm in the review, with both cards at stock settings, the 290x came ahead in one game, and the average between both cards (actual games not including firestike, heaven, luxmark), the 780ti is just 4% faster at 1080p… If we assume you can get 10% extra performance over stock when overclocking the 780ti, then it would be something like (1.04*1.10=1.144) the 780ti oc’d would be 14.4% faster than the stock 290x, so you would be paying 30% more money to get roughly 15% extra performance… It’d be interesting to get some reviews about overclocked non-reference models from both cards.
        
        I said 4k because I thought anyone going multi-gpu with these cards, was going to go high resolution, or maybe 1080p 144mhz. My point is that when going multigpu and using a single monitor, AMD scales a lot better now, with Hawaii scaling almost a 100% per gpu, and that is at any resolution.
    - Aŋŏnyṁoṹs Ħaķĉeŗ
      
      Dude, these are overclocked results, if you’re looking at stock benchmarks, the R9-290X is better than the R9-290.
      - Iuri Svera
        
        Did you even read what I said before the picture? All cards on that chart are overclocked … At least that’s what Linus said 0.o so there ya go … $400 with watercooling on top of it should make a decent build. =P
Okky Saputra

so, this is the TITAN killer??
- Pierre-Luc Meunier
  
  Technically the Titan stays best for sli than that gpu But for single gpu the 780ti is better.
- Aŋŏnyṁoṹs Ħaķĉeŗ
  
  As shown in most of these benchmarks, the R9-290X is a titan killer itself.
  - Seth Hoke
    
    And this kills both lol, AMD can’t stay ahead of Nvidia in their current state lol. Sad. Least I got that price cut on my 780 though.
Iuri Svera

Gotta say this 780 Ti has some firepower to it. Wonder what the benchmarks will look like for the 790. =P
John Kirby

“TITAN” killer?
Grisou13

can we do an SLI with a normale gtx 780?