MSI GeForce GTX 780 Gaming review - Introduction

MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB Gaming Edition gets a review

We test and review the MSI GeForce GTX 780 Gaming edition. The graphics card comes with a nice factory overclock and the very lovely TwinFrozr IV cooler that has two silent 90mm fans. Overall the card is almost as fast as a GeForce GTX Titan, 100% cool and extraordinary silent. We test the product with the hottest games like Grid 2, Metro: Last light, Battlefield 3, Sleeping Dogs, Far Cry 3, Medal of Honor Warfighter, Hitman Absolution and many more. Now who doesn't like that with a card based on the chip that is embedded in the GeForce GTX titan, eh?

The GeForce GTX 780 is NVIDIAs all new high-end graphics card based in their Flagship product, the GTX Titan. This means it is based on the GK110 GPU and has an whopping 7.1 Billion transistors. That makes it a nice chunk faster opposed to the GeForce GTX 680 GPU. Just like Titan, the GTX 780 is based on the GK110 GPU with the distinctions that the Titan has a GK110-300 GPU and the GeForce GTX 780 a GK110-400 GPU. Same stuff, yet with some things disabled. But we are a bit surprized to see NVIDIA move forward with GK110. See, the GK110 chip is BIG, and that makes it a difficult chip to bake, its recipe is refined though as the product has 2304 Shader Processing Units, 192 TMUs and 32 ROPs on a 384-bit memory interface of fast GDDR5. So yeah, NVIDIA trimmed down that that 45 mm × 45 mm 2397-pin S-FCBGA Titian with its 2688 shader/stream/CUDA processors a bit.

Memory wise you are looking at 3GB to over 6GB, that is still a huge amount of memory (384-bit) on there. Combined with GPU Boost 2.0 you will see this product boosting towards the 1100~1150 MHz range once you tweak it. The reference clock is 863 MHz with a boost clock of 900 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. The maximum allowed board design power draw is roughly 250 Watt, which considering what this product is, is good.

But let's say hello to Titan's little brother first, the GeForce GTX 780 from MSI, in a black and red themed Gaming edition flavor. This is the 3GB model that comes factory clocked for you at 902 MHz (Ref 863) with a Boost clock of 954 MHz (Ref 900). However, MSI increased the power limits a little as it seems, as the during monitoring the card ran steady at 1100+ MHz.

But have a peek at the product we test today and then head onwards into to review.