nVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Pro Reviews

The AMD Radeon R9 290X reference card is a beast and was able take on an overclocked GeForce GTX 780 at 4K and come out victorious!

We are highly impressed by what GeForce GTX 780 SLI is able to deliver in NV Surround. At high resolutions, in a 3-display setup, we are able to run every game at its "maxed out" graphics settings. That is, we are able to run with the highest quality, highest tessellation, and highest graphics settings. We do not have to skimp or sacrifice any quality settings with GTX 780 SLI at 5760x1200. GeForce GTX 780 SLI offers a real value over GeForce GTX TITAN SLI. Though GTX TITAN is the fastest card out there, and two of these together is faster than two GTX 780 cards together, it isn't worth the small performance improvement given the large $700 price difference. GeForce GTX 780 SLI is very close to TITAN SLI performance. Unless you need the large 6GB framebuffer for something specific, GeForce GTX 780 SLI is the better deal. You won't be disappointed by what GeForce GTX 780 SLI has to offer. Even compared to three GPUs from AMD, it delivers better overall consistency, smoothness, and a better gameplay experience. If you want the absolute best for gaming, GeForce GTX 780 SLI is what you want in your rig. We will of course be seeing if this changes any time soon.

Don't be confused with the GeForce GTX 780; it is a downscaling of GK110, taking the awesome GTX TITAN technology and bringing it down to a more affordable price for a much wider audience. If you currently own a GeForce GTX 680, and are looking upgrade, a better choice value-wise might be to get another GTX 680 for SLI, and there are still plenty of GTX 680 cards for sale below the $450 mark. However, if you have a previous generation video card, such as a GeForce GTX 580 series, then the GTX 780 is a very worthy upgrade from that generation. If you have a Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, the GTX 780 might be right for you seeing how we still have a hard time suggesting CrossFire currently. However, if you are coming from a previous generation AMD GPU, then GTX 780 should be very much worth your consideration.

A GeForce GTX Titan in all but name, GTX 780 is the one to go for if you're after a truly high-end card that retains a modicum of value. Big, beefy but brutishly fast, it replaces the Titan as our favourite enthusiast card.

Let’s get straight to the point—we really dig the GeForce GTX 780. As much as we love ultra high-end hardware like the GeForce GTX Titan, its 6GB frame buffer was major overkill and would do little for most gamers except increase the card’s cost. By bringing the card’s memory down to 3GB and harvesting GK110 GPUs with a couple of functional blocks disabled, NVIDIA is able to offer a card in the GeForce GTX 780 that performs very much like a Titan, but at a much lower cost. That’s good stuff if you ask us. Of course, “lower cost” is a relative term. The GeForce GTX 780 is still a premium product, and as such, it commands a premium price. MSRP for the GeForce GTX 780 is $649—about $350 bucks less than the Titan or $110 - $220 more than a GeForce GTX 680. That’s not cheap, but enthusiasts that want the highest performing products have always had to pay-to-play. EVGA's GeForce GTX 780 is currently shipping on Amazon at this price. Do we wish the GeForce GTX 780 was more affordable? Absolutely. But this is an awesome graphics card regardless. The GeForce GTX 780 offers killer performance, it runs super quiet, it’s easily overclockable, and it supports NVIDIA’s latest features, like GPU Boost 2.0 and Display Overclocking. Throw the GeForce Experience utility into the mix and there’s even more to like. If you’ve got the funds for a product like the GeForce GTX 780, by all means treat yourself. This is a great graphics card.

NVIDIA is primarily pitching the GeForce GTX 780 as the next step in their high-end x80 line of video cards, a role it fits into well. At the same time however I can’t help but to keep going back to GTX Titan comparisons due to the fact that the GTX 780 is by every metric a cut-down GTX Titan card. Whether this is a good thing or not is open to debate, but with NVIDIA’s emergence into the prosumer market with GTX Titan and the fact that there’s now a single-GPU video card above the traditionally top-tier x80 card, this complicates things as compared to past x80 card launches. Anyhow, we’ll start with the obvious: the GeForce GTX 780 is a filler card whose most prominent role will be filling the game between sub-$500 cards and this odd prosumer/luxury/ultra-enthusiast market that has taken root above $500. If there’s to be a $1000 single-GPU card in NVIDIA’s product stack then it’s simply good business to have something between that and the sub-$500 market, and that something is the GTX 780.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 fills in the performance gap between the GeForce GTX 680 and GeForce GTX Titan, but does not bring any new technologies or features to the table that weren't already available on the GeForce GTX Titan.

At $650, the GeForce GTX 780 is designed to make GTX TITAN owners want to kick themselves. At $1,300, for just 30% more than a TITAN, the GTX 780 SLI scores a healthy performance lead that makes spending the extra $299 worthwhile. The SLI setup scales in most of our games and does so well in some of the more popular ones, which is expected of NVIDIA as it enjoys a better reputation with multi-GPU software support. The company aggressively ships out SLI profiles and beta driver updates whenever a major game faces SLI issues. Our testing shows that any display setup below 2560x1600 (or 2560x1440) won't do justice to the GeForce GTX 780 SLI configuration. The setup makes sure your frame rates stay high at 2560x1600 comfortably, even letting you crank up anti-aliasing. It's with the triple-monitor 5760x1080 (3D Vision Surround), where the GTX 780 SLI really shines, as the second card provides a performance cushion that doesn't allow frame-rates to drop below playable levels on some of the more visually intense titles, such as Crysis 3, Battlefield 3, etc. This alone should solidify GTX 780 SLI's credentials for upcoming 4K Ultra HD display setups. At the moment, most Ultra HD displays cap out at a 30 Hz refresh-rate due to limitation of the HDMI interface, but that should change this year. In all, the $650 pricing of the single card, which isn't much slower, and the $1,300 pricing of a pair of them, which is significantly faster, should be enough to cannibalize the GTX TITAN. Our heartfelt condolences if you bought one recently.

NVIDIA's first GTX 700 Series graphics card introduces the new lineup with impressive results. Built on the same GK110 graphics processor as the GeForce GTX Titan, it represents the best GPU technology NVIDIA has to offer at this time. Compared to the GTX Titan, the differences are relatively slim; NVIDIA disabled another streaming multiprocessor (SMX), which reduces the CUDA core count from 2688 to 2304. Also, the GTX 780 comes with 3 GB GDDR5 memory whereas the GTX Titan has 6 GB, and that's pretty much where the differences end. When looking at performance, we see the GTX 780 not too far behind the GTX Titan; the difference is 7% when averaged out over our benchmarks. Compared to last-generation's GTX 680, the performance improvement is a respectable 16%. The red camp really has nothing to counter the GTX 780 as AMD's HD 7970 GHz is seriously lagging behind, being almost 20% slower. While AMD wants to put the HD 7990 on the performance throne, our own review shows that it is just not competitive enough, and too expensive with $1049. The GeForce GTX 780's base clock is a modest 863 MHz, which suggests that the card has some nice OC potential. Our testing shows great overclocking potential with the card topping out at around 22% with 1050 MHz. Memory overclocks very well, reaching 1865 MHz, which is on the upper-end of the spectrum too. As a result, the GTX 780 gains a 17.8% real-life performance boost in our testing from overclocking alone, without any additional tweaking. Additional tweaking options exist in the form of the power limit and temperature target, but such advanced options might overcomplicate things for many. Nevertheless, the observed performance gain lifted the card beyond stock GTX Titan performance levels, at lower pricing.

GeForce GTX 780 is essentially GTX TITAN Jr. NVIDIA's GeForce GTX TITAN was already a huge problem for the AMD Radeon series, since there's nothing to complete with it until much later in the year. Now GeForce GTX 780 arrives, and creates an additional layer of trouble for them when their technology finally catches up. Of course, just because GTX 780 gets a free pass doesn't mean it will be an instant winner. Gamers must have a reason to spend $650 on a video card, especially with so many other platform options coming to market soon. But for those who can pay the asking price, their reward is quite sweet indeed. GeForce GTX 780 delivers performance beyond expectations, and challenges game developers to build even more realism into their titles.

And yet again Nvidia dresses to impress with an amazing card with huge capability. This by far is the best sub-800 dollar single GPU card on the market today and even comes close to the $1000 GTX TITAN which is quite a feat alone. This shows that Nvidia knows what gamers wants and is willing to deliver in one awesome package with teh intro of the GK110 into the consumer lineup things just got really interesting. Add to this the idle low load power efficiency and the GTX 780 is set to be the new rockstar of high end gamers everywhere as AMD still is having a tough time pulling such numbers from their side of the fence although admittedly we have not seen the 8000 series crop up yet so we will have to just wait and see on that one. The overclocking potential of the GK110 is very good to begin with, and with the introduction of GPU Boost 2.0, it gets even better. Add to this the new fan profiling used to maximize a smooth fan control without the constant jumping we have seen previously and it also adds to being a very quiet solution as the fan ramping is simply not as noticeable. The ability to hit over 1200MHz on the care with a thermal target of 85C and only seeing 82C max loaded temps is something that still to this very moment amazes me. We are also very excited to see what other manufacturers will do with their custom designs.

While not the cheapest GPU on the block, NVIDIA brings a player to the market that takes the strengths of the GK110 Kepler core DNA and packages them in a more affordable package.

Almost as fast as a GTX Titan but it’s much cheaper, making it a better buy

All in all, the GTX 780 is exactly the card NVIDIA needed to release at this juncture. They have effectively bridged the gap between the GTX 680 and TITAN with a card that thoroughly outperforms the former and retails for significantly less than the latter. While its value ratio against lower end cards may not perfectly line up with everyone’s expectations, the GTX 780’s proximity to TITAN ensures enthusiasts can now get bleeding edge performance without having to shell out a thousand bucks.

The GeForce GTX 780 is a sexy piece of graphics hardware built on top of an impossibly-complex 7.1 billion-transistor GPU. It’s very fast, very quiet, and includes several other attractive features. But, I’m going to wait a week before deciding what I’d spend my money on in the high-end graphics market. You’d be wise to do the same…

Nvidia seems to be downplaying the importance of game bundles. An Nvidia representative told us that game prices often drop quickly after launch, making their value fleeting, while a graphics card is an investment you’ll enjoy for years. That’s certainly a fair point. But when we invest more than $500 in a graphics card, it’s certainly nice to have something new to play without spending even more money.

At $650 the GTX 780 is 35% cheaper than the GTX Titan but 38% more than the GTX 680, which can be easily found selling for $470. Since the GTX 780 was only 20 - 24% faster than the GTX 680 based on our frame rate and frame time results, that doesn’t make it a candidate for any value awards. Forgoing percentage comparisons, the GTX 780 could be seen as a Titan-esque GPU that happens to be several hundreds cheaper. On the other hand, looking back into history those $500 GPUs were already considered expensive and usually reserved for a select group of hardcore gamers. Under those terms, the GTX 780 is hardly exciting news for the vast majority of gamers as the $650 price tag makes this new GPU unobtainable and it'll do nothing to drive prices of previous generation cards down. Perhaps next week’s launch of the GTX 770 will be a little more meaningful for the gaming community.

This is a tough review for me. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 isn't the fastest single GPU graphics card on the planet, the GTX Titan is. It isn't the best value in terms of frames per dollar either, that belongs to the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. Instead the GTX 780 sits firmly in between being the best value option and the "best" option so I find it hard to decide who should actually buy it. With a $650 price tag, it doesn't quite hit the "ludicrous" rate of the GTX Titan, GTX 690 and the HD 7990 but the price hike from the GTX 680 and the HD 7970 is not insignificant.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 graphics card retains most of the GTX Titan's performance but at almost half its price tag.