Power Consumption and Sound Levels
Even though we have been impressed with the performance of the GTX 780 Ti so far, NVIDIA didn't get this added benefit without some sacrifice. This includes some extra power; the GTX 780 Ti is using 50 watts more power than the GTX 780 and 43 watts more than the GTX TITAN (that has twice the memory to deal with). In fact, the power consumption comes pretty damn close to that of the R9 290X, a card we dubbed as "power hungry" in our previous review.
Based on our SLI/CrossFire power testing, the second GTX 780 Ti uses 175 watts of power while the second R9 290X is pulling 191 watts!
This extra power draw also makes the GTX 780 Ti noticeably louder than previous reference designs from NVIDIA. While not as loud as the R9 290X (and keep in mind we are testing the R9 290X in its "Quiet mode"), the GTX 780 Ti definitely made me notice it more than the previous GeForce flagships. Which in this particular test, isn't a good thing.
Early on in our testing, NVIDIA informed us that to help improve performance (and consistent performance) they were going to take the full GK110 GPU and beef up its maximum thermal limit a bit. While only a 3C delta, this no doubt allows NVIDIA to reach higher base clocks and higher typical boost clocks over the GTX TITAN even though it has an additional SMX enabled. The R9 290X sits out there all on its own with the 95C level.
Keep in mind, in regards to power, noise and temperature, this is all a balancing act for AMD and NVIDIA. Could NVIDIA have allowed its GPU to hit 90C, get louder and improve performance? I think that obvious answer is yes and some consumers will choose to do that after the fact. But AMD has made the decision for gamers and really pushed the envelope a bit to make sure they squeezed every last frame out of the Hawaii GPU as possible.
I still rather but the Titan.
I still rather but the Titan. I use 3 monitors and with the Titan you only need 1 card. It seems that the 780 ti you would need 2 cards. So the titan is cheaper. Am I wrong?
Why do you guys insist on
Why do you guys insist on using that Skyrim sequence to benchmark GPUs. You could have barely chosen a more ill suited location. All that effort wasted because you run a GPU benchmark in a thoroughly CPU limited area, when there are actually plenty of GPU limited areas to choose from in the game.
What game/test is used to
What game/test is used to determine total power usage of the entire system? How is this number identified?
780ti is capable of way more
780ti is capable of way more , cooler don’t like it tho .so now all those engineering need to be sent to cooling a computer 101 if they hope to gain more performance in the future .cause clearly .both nvidia and AMD have reached or are very close to have reached a plateau .
ryan
why are the exact
ryan
why are the exact settings for crysis 3 not shown as they are for BF3 or Metro LL. this is an inconsistency you should eliminate.
also did you run R9 290X with uber fan speed. because otherwise the throttling is quite severe for R9 290X CF. there is 10 – 20% perf loss at the lower fan speed.
http://anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review/7
people who spend USD 550 are definitely going to try and get the best performance possible. since AMD supports uber mode with a BIOS switch there is every reason to test it since its guaranteed by AMD to work and they back it with their warranty.
I am getting pretty tired of
I am getting pretty tired of benchmarks like these, not comparing a new flagship card with the previous title holder on resolutions where they matter. Sure, You give me the most common, such as 1920*1080 and 2560*1440, but nothing for multi-monitor support, and even your 4K resolution review excludes the previous title holder, the GTX Titan.