GTX 780 Ti -- buy reference or wait for aftermarket?

[Am*]

A friend of mine has offered me a discount on a new 780 TI and I'm considering getting the reference version with 24 months warranty and the usual 3 game voucher bundle. I have a few concerns before I buy it though, which are:

• will it throttle due to lack of power on the board? I've seen lots of posts with 780/Titan owners getting throttled by power limits on the boards. Does the 780 Ti have better/higher rated VRM components compared to Titan and 780? Some sites seem to disagree from last time I read the reviews. If it does throttle then I will just wait for aftermarket ones to arrive.
  
• does the framerate target and adaptive VSYNC actually work? I've owned 2 Kepler cards and have strangely enough never tried it myself. Am a bit worried that this card is too fast for my most played games (MP3, L4D2, old Unreal games like Chivalry etc) and will clock down in DX9 games, which I still spend way more time in than DX11 games

If any 780/Titan owners can post up some screenshots and comments on how it has worked for them, I'd really appreciate it. My resolution is 1080p @ 120Hz, (I have a 1440p monitor which is only for movies/work related stuff). Battlefield 4 is the last game I'm upgrading this PC for, everything else I will play in 3D Vision occasionally and 2D most of the time.

 

[the54thvoid]

Worse case scenario on my Titan was throttling at about 1123MHz down to 1097MHz (albeit under water). The 6GB memory takes more power too. I think the Ti's will generally run with a boost at above 1100MHz without problems. The chip revision is better than the Titan/780 version and the 3GB of memory makes it a lower power usage option than Titan. They've also revamped the power draw mapping so that the Ti version takes power very evenly without causing problems to the board.

The only reason to go for a custom model would be noise reduction. All the Ti chips are better. I think only a very few rare examples (EVGA Classifieds) will be even better binned. I game at clocks that give me about 10500 in Firestrike. I see the Ti's going past that with some voltage (but then again, there will be the power limit).

If you don't need it, save your cash though. Nvidia are really good at getting people to part with cash right before they release something better

 

[Am*]

Would you by any chance, remember what your clocks were like on stock cooling? I'm not really planning on water cooling this rig, so I'm a bit worried the stock cooler is going to sound like a jet (haven't owned a blower style card for ages, only one I have left like that now is an old BFG 9800 GTX+).

 

[radrok]

GK110 B1 has a better bin, it produces less heat at the same voltage compared to earlier A1.

You'll be fine, I have one titan which is not underwater and it boosts at 1046 Mhz while doing no noise at 50% fan.

 

[qubit]

A friend of mine has offered me a discount on a new 780 TI and I'm considering getting the reference version with 24 months warranty and the usual 3 game voucher bundle. I have a few concerns before I buy it though, which are:

• will it throttle due to lack of power on the board? I've seen lots of posts with 780/Titan owners getting throttled by power limits on the boards. Does the 780 Ti have better/higher rated VRM components compared to Titan and 780? Some sites seem to disagree from last time I read the reviews. If it does throttle then I will just wait for aftermarket ones to arrive.
  
• does the framerate target and adaptive VSYNC actually work? I've owned 2 Kepler cards and have strangely enough never tried it myself. Am a bit worried that this card is too fast for my most played games (MP3, L4D2, old Unreal games like Chivalry etc) and will clock down in DX9 games, which I still spend way more time in than DX11 games

If any 780/Titan owners can post up some screenshots and comments on how it has worked for them, I'd really appreciate it. My resolution is 1080p @ 120Hz, (I have a 1440p monitor which is only for movies/work related stuff). Battlefield 4 is the last game I'm upgrading this PC for, everything else I will play in 3D Vision occasionally and 2D most of the time.

First of all, how much are you paying for this reference card and what brand is it?

Now, there's no 100% right or wrong here to getting it, but the performance improvement over your 460 is absolutely massive - 3 to 5 times better off the top of my head, maybe more. I take it you no longer own those Kepler cards then? Which models?

A custom cooler would boost speed and make less noise generally than the reference one, although it's pretty quiet already. How much that's worth to you depends a lot on how much more expensive it is than what you can get now, hence my question about the price.

- It won't throttle significantly and its got the improvements described above. There's always a way to make it throttle regardless of reference or non reference if you really try hard enough. Think of a heavy overclock and then running Furmark for example. In any "normal" scenario however, you won't see it throttle, especially if vsync is turned on.

- Of course framerate target and adative vsync work! And a golden rule is that you can never have too much power for running your games, as like storage space, something will always come along to soak it up and cause stutters. You certainly can't have too much power for DX11 and 3D Vision - I know, because I've got it. Just turn on vsync and those old games will run at the monitor refresh rate for perfect smoothness, 120Hz in yours and my cases instead of Stupid FPS(tm)

So, definitely get the 780 Ti, but which version depends on a few things, as I've outlined above. Your CPU is good enough to drive it.

 

[Am*]

First of all, how much are you paying for this reference card and what brand is it?

Now, there's no 100% right or wrong here to getting it, but the performance improvement over your 460 is absolutely massive - 3 to 5 times better off the top of my head, maybe more. I take it you no longer own those Kepler cards then? Which models?

A custom cooler would boost speed and make less noise generally than the reference one, although it's pretty quiet already. How much that's worth to you depends a lot on how much more expensive it is than what you can get now, hence my question about the price.

- It won't throttle significantly and its got the improvements described above. There's always a way to make it throttle regardless of reference or non reference if you really try hard enough. Think of a heavy overclock and then running Furmark for example. In any "normal" scenario however, you won't see it throttle, especially if vsync is turned on.

- Of course framerate target and adative vsync work! And a golden rule is that you can never have too much power for running your games, as like storage space, something will always come along to soak it up and cause stutters. You certainly can't have too much power for DX11 and 3D Vision - I know, because I've got it. Just turn on vsync and those old games will run at the monitor refresh rate for perfect smoothness, 120Hz in yours and my cases instead of Stupid FPS(tm)

So, definitely get the 780 Ti, but which version depends on a few things, as I've outlined above. Your CPU is good enough to drive it.

It's a Gainward GTX 780 Ti @ around £478 after the discount.

The cards I had before were both MSIs -- one GTX 660 and the other was a GTX 680. 660 I had for about 2 months, 680 for about 3 weeks (this was in Spring this year, so a while ago).


I'm just a bit worried the reference one will not hold its clocks. I've seen the Gigabyte GHz edition with 2x 8 pin power connectors and the even more insane 2x 8+6pin Kingpin Classified one that was here in the news section earlier. To put it in perspective, my GTX 680 had 2x 8 pin connectors so I'm a bit skeptical that a reference 780 Ti with less has enough power to run without throttling.

 

[radrok]

You are completely getting the throttling issue wrong.

The card's throttling (provided it's gonna even throttle) is going to be caused by either BIOS or temperature, not by PCB components.

That can be easily fixed with a higher fan speed profile (temp) or a BIOS flash if you reach the max TDP.

Remember I can push 500W+ from Titans which they are 8 pin + 6 pin cards

Reference is good up to about 1.35v and if you are going to stay on air cooling then you shouldn't even go above 1.212v so you don't need to worry about kingpin or any other custom cards.

You'd only benefit from them with watercooling or more

 

[Chetkigaming]

I think asus 780 ti non-ref would be okay.

 

[M0rt]

I just read that Maxwell will be shipping Q1 2014. Source

Could be BS designed to give non-reference 290 buyers pause, but thought I'd pass it along nonetheless.

 

[qubit]

It's a Gainward GTX 780 Ti @ around £478 after the discount.

The cards I had before were both MSIs -- one GTX 660 and the other was a GTX 680. 660 I had for about 2 months, 680 for about 3 weeks (this was in Spring this year, so a while ago).


I'm just a bit worried the reference one will not hold its clocks. I've seen the Gigabyte GHz edition with 2x 8 pin power connectors and the even more insane 2x 8+6pin Kingpin Classified one that was here in the news section earlier. To put it in perspective, my GTX 680 had 2x 8 pin connectors so I'm a bit skeptical that a reference 780 Ti with less has enough power to run without throttling.

Ok, it's cheaper than you could get it online for the cheapest ones, but not markedly so. Scan have it for £515 at the moment and we know the price will inevitably drop, especially when the 290x with non-reference cooler is released Real Soon Now. Therefore, I'd hang on a bit before buying anything. Also, getting it off this friend, will you have the same support as getting it from an online retailer like Scan or Amazon. This is really important, especially for expensive items, which is why I usually don't make deals like this just to save a few bucks.

As far as throttling goes, it won't slow down unless you push it to the max like I described. Check out TPU's review of it which should give you more confidence. In particular, it's an overclocking monster even with the stock cooler and no voltage increase, therefore throttling just won't happen without an abnormal load on it. In particular, playing even the most demanding games with vsync on will significantly reduce its heat output, as the GPU gets a "rest" of several milliseconds between each frame, eliminating the chance of throttling.

Here's the bit of the review about overclocking. Also, the EVGA one with the non-reference cooler was even better, unsurprisingly. Don't let the 6+8 power connectors put you off, either.

That Classified one should obviously overclock significantly better and really fly, but then you'll be paying north of £600 for it, which I don't think you want to do.

 

[swirl09]

It's a Gainward GTX 780 Ti @ around £478 after the discount.

Ive just ordered the gigabyte OC version, not the brand I would have ideally gone for, but Irish sites are extremely slow at listing things and I very much wanted non-ref & from an Irish site (dont ask, if ur smart u'll get it)

The price your being offered isnt that amazing tbh and for your own needs I wonder do you need it at all. It looks like your buying it for one game, which is fine if thats your pleasure, but there will be a string of non-ref cards out come Jan and ofc theres always something better around the corner.

Bottom line, I dont think you will kick urself if you pass up the offer. That said, I dont think you have much to worry about with the concerns you have raised as the newer revision cards have been given glowing reports anywhere Ive read. I personally dont like ref - I like cooler and quieter and an OC done for me.

 

[Am*]

Thanks a lot for your advice folks. Gonna be a hard one for me to decide now, as I do like the look of the reference cooler but I'm not too certain it will hold its clocks during summer time especially (and my case does have very good airflow). Will think about it some more and see if I can visit a store with one of these cards running and give it some testing.

 

[Aithos]

I went with a couple EVGA 780ti superclocked, but I went with the reference cooler version because I didn't want the heat in my case (or having the top card run hotter in the SLI setup). Honestly, I like the reference cooler but if you plan to overclock a single card heavily then an aftermarket cooled one is better. I'm running at 1050mhz core clock on both of mine currently (+179 over reference speeds) but I haven't tried to go any higher yet and having two makes it a bit tougher to overclock since they sync to whatever the lower overclock is. That's the stock speed, not the boost. They stay at 82-83 degrees and are both quiet, I haven't noticed throttling at all. I'm running 1440p at 110hz and easily getting fps that high...