Introduction

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 ASUS GTX 780

Ti DC II OC 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+ 954 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 $730 $1000

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.ASUS not only revamped the GTX 780 Ti board design, but also placed the latest variant of their dual-fan DirectCU cooler on the card. The ASUS GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II is also overclocked to a base clock of 954 MHz out of the box, which is a good increase over stock, but not the highest we've seen on custom GTX 780 Ti cards.At $730, Asus's card is priced just a little bit higher than the reference design, which makes it an interesting option compared to a pure reference design card, while still being cheaper than more expensive custom variants.