Gaming Benchmarks Continued
I opted to use Battlefield 3 in benchmarking instead of Battlefield 4 which may need a patch before I’m convinced it’s ready for the lab. At any rate, the GTX 780 Ti ran quite well on a fresh OS install. The Titan again remains right on its heels. Ultra settings really give the game character.
I was excited to check this game out even though it’s on an older Unreal 2.5 game engine. The game site screenshots almost don’t do the game justice. The details are especially visible on the GTX 780 Ti and Titan. Honestly, any of the cards look amazing and show a lot amazing detail.
Finally, Metro: Last Light is a lot like the Heaven Demo in that the amazing details, textures, and shadows can slap a GPU silly. The GTX 780 Ti stands on top again which essentially proves that this card is the fastest on the planet. But most surprisingly, it ISN’T the most expensive card, knocking out its Titan brother in the process. Which has been the theme for the entire suite of synthetic and real world benchmarks.
Acoustics and Power Consumption
Video card noise was recorded with a trusty sound meter with the CPU fans forced to very low RPMs to eliminate them as a variable. Only auto fan settings were used since they’re set by the card manufacturers. Noise was recorded running just graphically intense benchmarks. Keep in mind that only a very hot room, or extremely poorly ventilated computer enclosures will result in higher than normal RPMs.
Here’s how the cards handled the job of cooling and staying quiet…
As you can see, I had a problem detecting any noise from the NVIDIA cards mainly because the sound meter couldn’t go any lower. Basically, this equates to a soft whisper at idle and was completely undetectable inside a computer enclosure. At a good real world load, the cards become a bit more audible, but any good enclosure will block about 8-10 decibels. Again, this was while pulling full 3D load and nothing artificial. During testing, the card never consumed a full 250 Watts but a more realistic 220 to 235 Watts.
Given that these cards all tend to rock, it’s thumbs up everywhere for PC gamers looking for silence and performance from the newly minted GTX 780 Ti.
Final Thoughts
It’s truly impressive that Kepler has undergone so many revisions offering unrivaled gaming performance and even compiling performance for those that love CUDA processing power. The fact that you can get the newer Warner Brothers and Ubisoft games with your Kepler based video card as well a discount on NVIDIA’s Shield is proof that NVIDIA continues to hear the voices of gamers around the world (and fight hard against its competitors). Ultimately, this benefits consumers and that’s what we love to hear. We hope that the trend for bundling new games as opposed to lackluster older titles is a continuing trend from either party.
The NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti has proven itself to be one of the best high performance gaming video cards to date that even rivals the epic Titan, both in performance and pricing. Both regular and 3D gaming experience is one of the smoothest yet which is really all any real enthusiast wants. The card doesn’t get any louder than the GTX 780. In fact, it is even less noticeable when in a worthy computer enclosure, dropping noise levels further. Essentially, the GTX 780 Ti is the optimal choice when you need a worthy companion on the battlefield, quest, and mission. Second best has really become the best when it comes to gaming performance in our testing.
Again, the NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti will come in at $699 US MSRP. However, you can expect partners to offer very similar priced cards with nicer cooling solutions at most likely for the same price. And, don’t forget, the GPU has driven prices down on all the other cards in the NVIDIA deck. So even if the GTX 780 Ti isn’t the one for you, the GTX 780, which may not have been affordable at the previous price point, may be affordable today.
Either way, it’s a win for you and a win for NVIDIA if you pick up one of their capable GPUs today. But if you do pick the GTX 780 Ti, you are guaranteed total high performance gaming today, surpassing even its own higher end brethren.
Pros
- Impressive Kepler architecture
- Extreme high performance
- Increased GPU and memory frequencies plus GPU Boost 2.0
- Supports 4 displays easily
- Performance enough for three displays
- Supports 3D NVISION 2 extremely well
- Great Warner Brothers and Ubisoft game bundle!
Cons
- $699 can’t please everyone
 Overall Rating: 9.5 / 10.0
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