Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti WindForce 3X OC review - Introduction

GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB - Going once, going twice.. going 3X.

In this review we test the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti WindForce 3X OC, with a new revision 450W WindForce X3 cooler and a factory overclock this thing is fast 'n cool ! NVIDIA unlocked the GPU completely meaning all 2880 Shader processors are available. That combined with increased core and memory clock frequencies and nice overclock potential will make this the top 699 USD flagship product to purchase for the Christmas holiday season. So yeah, this means it is based on the GK110 revision B GPU and has an whopping 7.1 Billion transistors. That makes it a nice one of the fastest graphics cards available on the market today. We test the product with the hottest games like Metro: Last light, Battlefield 4, Medal of Honor Warfighter, Hitman Absolution and many more.The GeForce GTX 780 Ti is NVIDIA's all new high-end graphics card based off the same chip that is the GeForce GTX Titan. However, NVIDIA probably figured, save the best for last as NVIDIA unlocked the GPU completely meaning all 2880 Shader processors are available. That combined with increased core and memory clock frequencies and nice overclock potential will make this the top 699 USD flagship product to purchase for the Christmas holiday season. So yeah, this means it is based on the GK110 revision B GPU and has an whopping 7.1 Billion transistors. That makes it a nice one of the fastest graphics cards available on the market today. We test the product with the hottest games like Metro: Last Light, Battlefield 4, Medal of Honor Warfighter, Hitman Absolution and many more.

Just like Titan, the GTX 780 Ti is based on the GK110 GPU with the distinctions that the Titan has a GK110-300 GPU and the GeForce GTX 780 a revision B GK110 GPU. Same stuff, yet with some changed. The recipe for the GTX 780 Ti is fantastic though, as the product has the full 15 Streaming clusters thus 2880 Shader Processing Units enabled. That's 240 TMUs and 48 ROPs on a 384-bit memory interface of fast GDDR5. So yeah, NVIDIA in a nutshell that is a 45 mm × 45 mm 2397-pin S-FCBGA GK110b GPU with 2880 shader/stream/CUDA processors. But wait Dave, there's more. Memory wise NVIDIA equipped the GeForce GTX 780 Ti with 7Gbps memory, the fastest GDDR5 memory you can find on a graphics card today. The GeForce GTX 780 Ti ships with 3GB of this memory, providing up to 336GB/sec of peak memory bandwidth. That is still huge (12 pieces of 64M ×16 GDDR5 SDRAM) of memory (384-bit) on there and started designing a bunch of new tricks at BIOS and driver level. Combined with GPU Boost 2.0 you will see this product boosting towards the 1000~1050 MHz range once you tweak it. The reference clock is 875 MHz with a boost clock of 928 MHz. Looking at the specs you must think that this product must consume heaps of power, well it's not great, but definitely not bad at all. Another improvement that Nvidia implemented to the GeForce GTX 780 Ti is a new power balancing feature that’s been made so enthusiasts can get the most out of their overclock. Typically GPU gets its power from three sources: the 6-pin and 8-pin power connectors, and the PCI Express interface. Under normal conditions, the power sent to the GPU is balanced across these three sources, but when a user overclocks their graphics card they can unbalance the power delivery and draw more power from one source than the others, potentially maxing it out. With this new feature we can steer power from one input to another, so if you max out one power source, you can draw more power from the others to make up the difference.

The maximum allowed board design power draw is 250 Watt, which considering what this product is, is good. NVIDIA also is focusing strongly at gaming in Ultra High Definition (UHD), so this will be a focus in our review as well. Will we be able to play the hottest games at that whopping 8.2 Mpixels at a 3840x2160 resolution @ 60 Hz? So yeah dude, head over to the next page where we'll start-up the technology overview first, but not before you have seen the product though.

But meet the GeForce GTX 780 Ti WindForce 3X OC edition from Gigabyte, this is the 3GB WindForce 3X OC edition that comes factory clocked for you at 1020 MHz (Ref 875) with a Boost clock of 1085 MHz (Ref 1085). Compared to the reference 6-phase design , the GV-N78TOC-3GD provides a some stable voltage output while having the MOSFET working at lower temperatures. Moreover, temperature protection and load balance to each MOSFET can effectively extend the card life. Next to that, the GTX 780 Ti series memory clock has been increased as well, at an effective data-rate of 7 Gbps. Say yeah, let me show you what we'll talk about in this review and then head on over to the next page please.