780Ti - gets $50 price cut out the door

Ridelynn · November 2013

$700 MSRP for reference, with no first-party cards until December.

The good news: this is the full Kepler chip, nothing disabled. Even Titan had a few Stream Processors and Texture Units disabled to increase yields. Slightly faster clocks than Titan, and a much better memory clock allowing it to have (slightly) more memory bandwith than even the 290X on a 512b bus. TDP stays at an "Official" 250W (more on this below). Just on the unlocked SPs and clock boost, it should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 7-10% faster than Titan (and that would have it beating a 290X).

The bad news: you lose the double precision speed, but that's really only necessary in pro cards for high-precision stuff (Titan retains it, keeping the distinction). Even with another price cut it's still $700 US. It "only" has 3Gb of VRAM, as opposed to Titan's 6 or 290X's 4.

The reality:
A lot of people will probably gloss over this, but if you look at Anand's power consumption: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review/16
Once you unlock the clocks and compare a 780Ti to the 290X "Uber" - they are nearly identical in power draw. nVidia has a much better reference cooler, so you see lower noise and temps, but the power is right there with the 290X, which is getting crucified for it right now.

You could take it back to stock and throw all the caps back on, and compare it to the stock 290X, and there we see the 780Ti coming in consistantly under the 290X (but only just) - and that test is more a function of whatever the default power/temp caps are rather than what the actual architecture is capable of doing.

Once again, I'll fall back to the HardOCP review:

In this evaluation, there are three video cards that are performing very similar to each other. These three video cards are delivering the same gameplay experience, and you would not be able to tell these apart in a "Pepsi Challenge" scenario. Those are the GTX 780 Ti, GTX TITAN, and R9 290X.

And the important part, which is what I've been saying:

Everything we said above now has to be translated into pricing and value. Since the GTX 780 Ti, GTX TITAN, and R9 290X perform similarly, and deliver the same experience, it all comes down to pricing and which one gives you that performance for the cheapest price. As MSRPs go, the GTX 780 Ti is $699, the GTX TITAN is $999, and the R9 290X is $549.
It is clear from this breakdown that the AMD Radeon R9 290X is the better value in terms of performance by a long shot. It is $150 cheaper than the GeForce GTX 780 Ti, but delivers the same gameplay experience and very near the same framerate performance. A performance difference that makes little or no real difference. The $150 price difference is a much larger difference than the performance difference.
The GeForce GTX TITAN has been fully neutered by the GTX 780 Ti. There is now no point what-so-ever in buying a GeForce GTX TITAN for gaming. It is $300 more expensive than the GTX 780 Ti, and doesn't perform as well in games. The GeForce GTX TITAN should only be purchased for those that need the double precision support for compute applications.

The 780Ti is great. At $550 or maybe even $600 I would agree nVidia has something. But they kept the price too high. 780Ti does beat the 290X most of the time (they are back and forth, but the 780Ti edges out the 290X more often than not), but not by a huge margin, and we could very well see that margin erode or disappear completely when first-party cooling comes out for the 290X (and we can get past the thermal cap on many games).

I would say the 290X and 780Ti are roughly equal when it comes to performance One isn't clearly dominate over the other in performance. One is quieter and cooler than the other, it also surely costs a lot more than the other. And we haven't seen first-party cooling on either card yet.

Smikis · November 2013

overclocked 290x, beats overlocked 780ti, in both performance and power consumption, and is considerably cheaper

Both cards are bleh as one is completely old architecture and another is half old and this is probably worst time to upgrade considering that new consoles launching soon and you are probably better off waiting for next generation and evaluating performance all those parts produce for ported console games ( we all know those are usually poor ports ), if you are playing just mmorpgs there is even less need to upgrade and if you have to go with 280x or 290 ( 290x is different card )

ps i own nvidia and never had ati so there is no fanboism, just that ati have better cards now

wizyy · November 2013

AMD drops the bomb again:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2013/11/05/amd-disrupts-gpu-market-again-with-399-radeon-r9-290/

$399 for R9 290 (without the "X" but almost the same performance with some noise problems, solvable with a custom cooler)

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-19.html

SavageHorizon · November 2013

Originally posted by Smikis
overclocked 290x, beats overlocked 780ti, in both performance and power consumption, and is considerably cheaper

Both cards are bleh as one is completely old architecture and another is half old and this is probably worst time to upgrade considering that new consoles launching soon and you are probably better off waiting for next generation and evaluating performance all those parts produce for ported console games ( we all know those are usually poor ports ), if you are playing just mmorpgs there is even less need to upgrade and if you have to go with 280x or 290 ( 290x is different card )

ps i own nvidia and never had ati so there is no fanboism, just that ati have better cards now

I prefer ATi as well, these are the first Nvidia cards i've had since the 8800gtx. I didn't pay a penny for my system(lucky enough to put system through family company) so it didn't matter how much the cards cost. I'll be buying a PS4 and might sell the two cards i have now for a seriously knocked down price and go back to ATi xfire.

Classicstar · November 2013

290X 4GB better xfire then sli and performs superb in 4k resolution better then 780ti
PRICE IS ALSO alot BETTER 650 euros nvidia 780ti over 450 euros AMD 290x.

2x 290 in xfire(which is improved alot scaled much better then sli with 290 series) beats 780ti by a big margin 2x 290s COST 700 EUROS 1 780 ti 650euros.

XFIRE with new AMD approach is an option again so with 2x 290 you have a kick ass system for only 700euros 2X 780TI COST YOU 1300 EUROS seems NO BRAINER.

Its offcorse matter of taste but varage joe can afford 290 faster then the 700$ nvidia card.

Big setback for 290x is offocorse noise and heat which is alot better with 780ti.

I still go for 290x also becouse of 4gb vram and future, but its difficult choice 780ti or 2x 290 in xfire which is very good now.

Classicstar · November 2013

Originally posted by Ridelynn
$700 MSRP for reference, with no first-party cards until December.The good news: this is the full Kepler chip, nothing disabled. Even Titan had a few Stream Processors and Texture Units disabled to increase yields. Slightly faster clocks than Titan, and a much better memory clock allowing it to have (slightly) more memory bandwith than even the 290X on a 512b bus. TDP stays at an "Official" 250W (more on this below). Just on the unlocked SPs and clock boost, it should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 7-10% faster than Titan (and that would have it beating a 290X).The bad news: you lose the double precision speed, but that's really only necessary in pro cards for high-precision stuff (Titan retains it, keeping the distinction). Even with another price cut it's still $700 US. It "only" has 3Gb of VRAM, as opposed to Titan's 6 or 290X's 4.The reality:
A lot of people will probably gloss over this, but if you look at Anand's power consumption: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review/16
Once you unlock the clocks and compare a 780Ti to the 290X "Uber" - they are nearly identical in power draw. nVidia has a much better reference cooler, so you see lower noise and temps, but the power is right there with the 290X, which is getting crucified for it right now.You could take it back to stock and throw all the caps back on, and compare it to the stock 290X, and there we see the 780Ti coming in consistantly under the 290X (but only just) - and that test is more a function of whatever the default power/temp caps are rather than what the actual architecture is capable of doing.Once again, I'll fall back to the HardOCP review:
In this evaluation, there are three video cards that are performing very similar to each other. These three video cards are delivering the same gameplay experience, and you would not be able to tell these apart in a "Pepsi Challenge" scenario. Those are the GTX 780 Ti, GTX TITAN, and R9 290X. And the important part, which is what I've been saying:
Everything we said above now has to be translated into pricing and value. Since the GTX 780 Ti, GTX TITAN, and R9 290X perform similarly, and deliver the same experience, it all comes down to pricing and which one gives you that performance for the cheapest price. As MSRPs go, the GTX 780 Ti is $699, the GTX TITAN is $999, and the R9 290X is $549.It is clear from this breakdown that the AMD Radeon R9 290X is the better value in terms of performance by a long shot. It is $150 cheaper than the GeForce GTX 780 Ti, but delivers the same gameplay experience and very near the same framerate performance. A performance difference that makes little or no real difference. The $150 price difference is a much larger difference than the performance difference.The GeForce GTX TITAN has been fully neutered by the GTX 780 Ti. There is now no point what-so-ever in buying a GeForce GTX TITAN for gaming. It is $300 more expensive than the GTX 780 Ti, and doesn't perform as well in games. The GeForce GTX TITAN should only be purchased for those that need the double precision support for compute applications.

The 780Ti is great. At $550 or maybe even $600 I would agree nVidia has something. But they kept the price too high. 780Ti does beat the 290X most of the time (they are back and forth, but the 780Ti edges out the 290X more often than not), but not by a huge margin, and we could very well see that margin erode or disappear completely when first-party cooling comes out for the 290X (and we can get past the thermal cap on many games).

I would say the 290X and 780Ti are roughly equal when it comes to performance One isn't clearly dominate over the other in performance. One is quieter and cooler than the other, it also surely costs a lot more than the other. And we haven't seen first-party cooling on either card yet.

780TI don't perform better if it comes to xfire and scaling on 290 cards vs sli and 4k resolution 290x is a league on its own, also for future games 4gb vram is importend edge.
And that all for much lower price.

Only heat/noise can be difference buying a nvidia or a AMD.

I'll take some noise heat is np with my system.

Quizzical · November 2013

Originally posted by Ridelynn
The 780Ti is great. At $550 or maybe even $600 I would agree nVidia has something. But they kept the price too high. 780Ti does beat the 290X most of the time (they are back and forth, but the 780Ti edges out the 290X more often than not), but not by a huge margin, and we could very well see that margin erode or disappear completely when first-party cooling comes out for the 290X (and we can get past the thermal cap on many games).

Nvidia always does that with their top card, as they set the specs high enough that not very many GPU chips can meet it. Charge an extra 50% in price tag for an extra 15% in performance and you get most people to go for a lower bin instead, as necessary when far more of your chips have to go in the lower bin than can fit the higher one. See, for example, the GeForce GTX 680, GTX 580, GTX 480, GTX 285, GTX 280, etc.

Ridelynn · November 2013

Once upon a time, a "top tier" card went for around $550, give or take a little bit.

Every generation, pretty much, the top tier single GPU was around $550 (give or take a bit), and then we dropped to around $400-$350 for the next step down, upper $200, lower $200, and then 2-3 cards inbetween $100-$200, and some value junk in the <$100 category that only vaguely qualified to game on.

Until Titan.

And $700 for the 780Ti doesn't really return to that older model. It's prety much like they intentionally blew the roof on the price ceiling with Titan, just so they could come back with a $300 price drop and make it seem like a bargain, despite the fact that it's still $200 over what they used to charge. That's my beef with nVidia right now. You pay a whole lot more for a brand name, and the privilege of running accelerated PhysX.

At least with the Apple Tax you also get a tailored OS "that just works" (for the most part), premium tech support, and the cool factor when you whip it out at Starbucks.

nVidia just gets you nerd cred points.

You are probably right though - the pricing probably has more to do with mathematical buyer models/sales at price points versus supply/yields rather than anything to really do with production costs. Which, if that's the case, it could be that they have been saving the primo GK110 chips for months now just waiting for this day, and supplies are limited; hence the crazy price tag.

Howdy, Stranger!

780Ti - gets $50 price cut out the door

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

780Ti - gets $50 price cut out the door

Comments