The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on November 7, 2013 9:01 AM ESTMetro: Last Light
As always, kicking off our look at performance is 4A Games’ latest entry in their Metro series of subterranean shooters, Metro: Last Light. The original Metro: 2033 was a graphically punishing game for its time and Metro: Last Light is in its own right too. On the other hand it scales well with resolution and quality settings, so it’s still playable on lower end hardware.
For the bulk of our analysis we’re going to be focusing on our 2560x1440 results, as monitors at this resolution will be what we expect a single GTX 780 Ti to be primarily used with. A single card does have the necessary horsepower to drive a 4K monitor on its own, but only at lower quality settings. Even as powerful as GTX 780 Ti is, a pair of them will be needed to get good framerates out of most games if using 4K at high quality settings.
Looking at our Metro: Last Light results then, it’s the start of what’s going to be a fairly consistent streak for the GTX 780 Ti. Though it doesn’t improve on GTX Titan or GTX 780’s gaming performance by leaps and bounds, the additional SMX and increased clockspeeds means that it has little trouble pulling away from those cards and from AMD’s 290 series. As a result the GTX 780 Ti beats the GTX Titan by 11%, GTX 780 by 19%, and though it’s closer than normal, the lead over the 290X stands at 6%.
To that end in Metro it leads the pack of single-GPU cards, though it does come up just short of being able to average 60 frames per second at 2560. Anything over 60fps will require multiple GPUs; and even then GTX 780 Ti is fast enough that sometimes even a pair of GPUs (GTX 770 SLI) isn’t going to be appreciably faster.
Meanwhile looking at GTX 780 Ti SLI performance, the SLI setup tops the charts at 2560 for everything short of the 290X in uber mode, though in this case (like most cases) two high-end GPUs is on the verge of being overkill even at 2560. Otherwise looking at 4K, NVIDIA’s poor 4K scaling on Metro once again makes itself present here, with NVIDIA’s performance only minimally benefitting from the second card. In the case of Metro at 4K, the 290X CF is going to be by far the faster option.
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NewCardNeeded - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Even the R9 280X crossfire beats the GTX 780 Ti in SLI in several cases !!!!!!!! Note that I do mean the 280, it's not a typo. The 290X Crossfire *SLAUGHTERS* the 780 Ti in SLI AND it's a fraction of the price.austinsguitar - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
okay okay...lets tell this guy about what happens after a new nvidia graphics card comes out shall we...first 2 weeks a card comes out (ALWAYS UN OPTIMIZED FOR SLI) 2 weeks later (ABSOLUTE SCALING WITH THE NEXT AVAILABLE DRIVER) happens every time dude. That little guy will be better in two weeks, just trust meNewCardNeeded - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
I'm not so sure this time. Nvidia have held back the 780 Ti for months until AMD released their new cards. They've had plenty of time to optimize for SLI. Expect small gains yes, but nothing more.Let's see what happens when mantle comes out...
austinsguitar - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Temperature, power (wattage), noise....This beats the 290x bad....Think about this....95 degrees and the ungodly noise coming from the 290x is ABSOLUTELY "UN"ACCEPTABLE... The card is cheap yes, but after 2 years of game playing your energy bill will determine that factor. I do realize that amd's drivers are getting better, but come on people....mantle?
NewCardNeeded - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Have you never heard of a "third party cooler"?Coming this way soon !
NewCardNeeded - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Read the article again without your green tinted glasses on!Full load on Crysis 3:
Power (W):
780 Ti = 372
290X = 375
Does it really beat the 290X bad?
austinsguitar - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
oh im sorry i was speaking about crossfire and sli configurations when putting into account the power draw... and everyone knows that when nvidia plays its games at 60 it clocks things lower, and power draw is very impressive...odds are these cards will never see below 60 for a while now, and nvidia's power draw at medium loads are phenomenal.Kutark - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Jesus Christ, i've been reading the comments. The AMD fanbois are starting to get worse than Biodrones were during the release of TORtanic. Granted there is some definite Nvidia fanboism going on but the reality is this. Nvidia is on a 9 month old architecture and is able to put out a card that beats AMD's brand new architecture's top dawg by roughly 10%, running at a significantly lower temperature, and significantly quieter.Does that justify a $200 price gap? Well thats up to the consumer to decide. But to try to suggest this is a "Tie" or anything other than Nvidia reclaiming the fastest single card crown is just being ridiculous.
I just find it hilarious some of these AMD people sitting here spouting off these very specific scenarios where the AMD card comes out on top and acts like that means anything. Ok, so crossfire 290x (only a thousand dollars!) beats sli 780ti's in several cases, whoopety do. This will affect all of the 1/10th of 1% of people who will pay that kind of money for a graphical solution on their gaming rigs.
The other thing is, Nvidia's architecture is 9 months old for shits sake. You dont think they will have something else out in a few months thats going just crap all over AMD's new
Kutark - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Gah, stupid IE9 (im on a computer i can't install a good browser on). Anyways, i was just saying, Nvidia will likely release something early to mid 2014 which will probably blow any current gen cards out of the water and then where is AMD? Same spot they've been in?I'm glad AMD released the 290x, it is overall a HUGE step forward for them and im glad nvidia has some real competition. That is only a good thing for the consumer. But overblowing this 290x as something it isnt is not doing any favors. We need to stop blowing smoke up AMD's ass so they actually keep pushing themselves and come out with a proper Nvidia smasher, and then nvidia will be in a position that they cant keep charging 400-800 dollars for cards that should be 250-400 dollars.
UpSpin - Friday, November 8, 2013 - link
I don't get your comment and I'm no GPU fanboy at all (even though I only bought NVidia GPUs in the past), because I barely game high end games and find such high prices (both AMD and NVidia) for a GPU ridiculous. But I'm interested in tech and consider buying a mid-tie GPU because my Nvidia GTX 560 TI starts acting strange.What matters is what NVIDIA or AMD sells now and what it costs now. It's a fact, that the 290X beats in half of the benchmarks the 780 Ti. The other half the 780 Ti wins. It's a fact, that the power draw between both single cards is identical. And it's a fact that the newly released 780 Ti is $150 more expensive than the newly released 290X.
Of course is the 290X too loud, but that's not a issue of the GPU (same power draw), more of the cooler, which should be fixed with a third party cooler implemented by ASUS, ... The NVidia reference coolers were always superb (that's why I own a reference EVGA 560 Ti, because it was really silent compared to the similar priced alternatives).
We live here and now and we can only buy the current stuff. So I don't care if Nvidia might release in the near or far future an even better card (at the time AMD might release a new card, too). And if you want to buy a GPU now, the Nvidia is, regarding the price, a complete rip off compared to the AMD.
As an excuse for the 'poor' performance of the Nvidia card you said, it's 9 month technology. So let me get this straight:
NVidia sells you 9 month old technology for $150 more than AMD asks you for the latest bleeding edge technolgy they can offer? And you defend this? Are you serious? Nvidia sold the Titan for even more during the last months. So be damn happy that AMD released such a great card at such a low price point, else you would get ripped off by NVidia the following months, too.