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MSI GTX 780 Ti Gaming 3 GB Review

Name: MSI GTX 780 Ti Gaming 3 GB
Brand: MSI

W1zzard

on Jan 7th, 2014,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: MSI

(121 Comments) »

Introduction

NVIDIA's latest addition to their lineup is the GeForce GTX 780 Ti. Built around a fully unlocked GK110 Kepler GPU, it comes with 2880 shaders, which boosts the card's performance beyond that of the GTX Titan. Unlike the GTX Titan, which has 6 GB, the GTX 780 Ti comes with 3 GB, but that difference won't have an effect on even the latest titles.

The GeForce GTX 780 Ti is designed to be a gamer's card throughout. It has all the muscle any game could possibly need and has another thing going its way: better thermals. Despite the "GK110" featuring more transistors than "Hawaii" (7.08 billion vs. 6.20 billion) and, hence, a bigger die (561 mm² vs. 438 mm²), GK110-based products are inherently cooler because of higher "Kepler" micro-architecture performance-per-watt figures than AMD's "Graphics CoreNext," which translates into lower thermal density and, in turn, lower temperatures and less noise. Energy efficiency and fan noise are really the only tethers NVIDIA's high-end pricing is holding on to.

The MSI's GTX 780 Ti GAMING in this review is built using MSI's famous TwinFrozr thermal solution and comes with a large clock speed increase out of the box for maximum performance. Like other MSI Gaming products, it promises to be very quiet, which is something I'm looking forward to after seeing less than impressive noise results from GTX 780 Ti cards we reviewed earlier.

With a retail price of $710, it is also reasonably priced, just $10 more than the reference design and around $20 cheaper than the more "premium" custom GTX 780 Ti models on the market by other manufacturers.

GeForce GTX 780 Ti Market Segment Analysis
	GeForce GTX 680	GeForce GTX 780	Radeon R9 290	Radeon R9 290X	Radeon HD 7990	GeForce GTX Titan	GeForce GTX 780 Ti	MSI GTX 780 Ti GAMING	GeForce GTX 690
Shader Units	1536	2304	2560	2816	2x 2048	2688	2880	2880	2x 1536
ROPs	32	48	64	64	2x 32	48	48	48	2x 32
Graphics Processor	GK104	GK110	Hawaii	Hawaii	2x Tahiti	GK110	GK110	GK110	2x GK104
Transistors	3500M	7100M	6200M	6200M	2x 4310M	7100M	7100M	7100M	2x 3500M
Memory Size	2048 MB	3072 MB	4096 MB	4096 MB	2x 3072 MB	6144 MB	3072 MB	3072 MB	2x 2048 MB
Memory Bus Width	256 bit	384 bit	512 bit	512 bit	2x 384 bit	384 bit	384 bit	384 bit	2x 256 bit
Core Clock	1006 MHz+	863 MHz+	947 MHz	1000 MHz	1000 MHz	837 MHz+	876 MHz+	1020 MHz+	915 MHz+
Memory Clock	1502 MHz	1502 MHz	1250 MHz	1250 MHz	1500 MHz	1502 MHz	1750 MHz	1750 MHz	1502 MHz
Price	$390	$500	$500	$600	$770	$1000	$700	$710	$1000

Packaging

You will receive:

Graphics card
Driver CD + documentation
2x PCI-Express power cable
DVI adapter

The Card

As expected, MSI's latest graphics card uses the company's TwinFrozr dual-fan cooler, which has produced great results in the past. Dimensions of the card are 27 x 13 cm.

Installation requires two slots in your system.

Display connectivity options include two DVI ports, one DisplayPort, and one HDMI port. You may use all outputs at the same time, so triple-monitor surround gaming is possible with one card.

The GPU also includes an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 1.4a compatible, which includes HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies support.