GTX 780 Ti to GTX 980

[Face2Face]

Your talking about a classified edition that is likely months out. Maybe it can hit super high clocks. Would love to see it. Price will be another 100-150 higher. That will start to get pricy just to make a small improvement over a year old card.

Actually I think 1600Mhz+ is feasible on the reference PCB with a stout air cooler, but we'll have to wait an see. In you case, a 1300Mhz GTX 780Ti is still a bruiser, so upgrading for increased performance would be pointless. If you don't need any of the other features, then wait until Big Maxwell arrives.

 

[Sohaltang]

Actually I think 1600Mhz+ is feasible on the reference PCB with a stout air cooler, but we'll have to wait an see. In you case, a 1300Mhz GTX 780Ti is still a bruiser, so upgrading for increased performance would be pointless. If you don't need any of the other features, then wait until Big Maxwell arrives.

I pulled the SLI classified's a couple weeks ago when I found a 295x2 open box for 850$. Sold one and have not parted with the faster of the two. I can return the 295x2 for another week if something else catches my attention. Will likely get a 980 just to bench for a week or two.

Have many options and that is fun. If the 780ti used value crashes I can go back to SLI or even 3 way for pretty cheap. Loving the 295x2 as its cool, quiet and pretty fast. Sucks its not very tweaker friendly as I know it has more potential. Single GPU games like world of tanks has taken a pretty steep FPS hit. If the 980 can offer me superior performance I will SLI a pair. Not going to be out of pocket much with any option.

 

[rickon66]

I am looking to get a 980 to replace my EVGA 780Ti OC ACX not for the extra performance, but to get HDMI 2.0 for use on a Samsung 40" 4k TV as a monitor. Then I'll be selling the 780 and maybe my Dell 30". Now to find one in stock.

 

[sxr7171]

Right now this situation is confusing. My 780ti only gets to about 1243MHz stable in all games. Will have to see overclocked benchmark comparisons on both to decide.

Also with Watch Dogs supposedly using more than 3GB VRAM I haven't seen anyone say that using a 6GB card stopped their stuttering.

 

[sxr7171]

Any thoughts yet on whether this "upgrade" is worth it?

 

[Grooveriding]

Any thoughts yet on whether this "upgrade" is worth it?

It's not. In many cases it's not even an upgrade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2Qp...6Xw-yeJA0Tunw&feature=player_detailpage#t=530

 

[Franzi]

My 780ti only gets to about 1243MHz stable in all games.

Only? If this is without voltage/bios mods its exceptional. Many 780ti's cap around 1100 with newer nvidia drivers. I would keep it and wait for GM200 or whatever chip they will release as big Maxwell.

 

[sxr7171]

Only? If this is without voltage/bios mods its exceptional. Many 780ti's cap around 1100 with newer nvidia drivers. I would keep it and wait for GM200 or whatever chip they will release as big Maxwell.

I shouldn't complain. But this is with skynet bios. I do manually set the fan on 80% to keep it cool though and that is audible in moments without gameplay sound. But I suppose I should sit tight with what I have.

 

[sxr7171]

It's not. In many cases it's not even an upgrade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2Qp...6Xw-yeJA0Tunw&feature=player_detailpage#t=530

Watched it to learn that in my understanding that it was inconclusive. They didn't really overclock the 980GTX. I still haven't seen any good overclocked to overclocked comparisons.

One thing that is clear to me is that crysis 3 favors the 780ti and given it still is the most gpu intensive game that I know of it shows the power of the 780ti. However I see with everything else the 980gtx has a shot at being faster. Given that my biggest question is whether it runs watch dogs without stuttering. So far the owners thread has no useful information on this. Another question is how high the resolution scaling in bf4 can be cranked up while keep 60fps for the most part.

Not sure if any site has touched upon these practical aspects of performance.

 

[Grooveriding]

The 980 was overclocked, he mentions the clock at some point in the video. I believe it was 14XX core. GK110 does seem to excel at certain gaming conditions over gm204. Crysis 3 and Unigine Valley perform significantly better on a 780ti. My guess would be the shader count and memory bandwidth.

I've been looking at the overclock.net benchmark threads and the only benchmark the 980 out does the 780ti in is Firestrike.

If you just want a new toy to play with, why overthink it, just get the 980. I wouldn't mind to mess with them, but I mostly just play games with my main PC and the 980s won't change anything for me. I did get a 970 for another machine though.

 

[Franzi]

I shouldn't complain. But this is with skynet bios. I do manually set the fan on 80% to keep it cool though and that is audible in moments without gameplay sound. But I suppose I should sit tight with what I have.

Mine is still running with the stock bios, 1.189v and 1124Mhz default boost. I can't go higher than 1202Mhz in Tomb Raider benchmark, Metro Redux is crashing even at stock, I need to use a negative offset of -26 to get stable, probably not well binned factory OC by EVGA.

Here is a side by side comparsion of the 780ti and the 980 both forced to run at 1200Mhz:

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...leich-mit-der-geforce-gtx-780-ti.html?start=1

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...taktvergleich-mit-der-geforce-gtx-780-ti.html

 

[Sohaltang]

Mine is still running with the stock bios, 1.189v and 1124Mhz default boost. I can't go higher than 1202Mhz in Tomb Raider benchmark, Metro Redux is crashing even at stock, I need to use a negative offset of -26 to get stable, probably not well binned factory OC by EVGA.

Here is a side by side comparsion of the 780ti and the 980 both forced to run at 1200Mhz:

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...leich-mit-der-geforce-gtx-780-ti.html?start=1

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...taktvergleich-mit-der-geforce-gtx-780-ti.html

You need more voltage. If your getting 1124 on 1.18 volts that is not too bad. Find a bios and open that baby up.

 

[Face2Face]

Watched it to learn that in my understanding that it was inconclusive. They didn't really overclock the 980GTX. I still haven't seen any good overclocked to overclocked comparisons.

SLICK did overclock the GTX 980 to 1493-1503MHz range. I'm not sure about the memory clock though?

I PM'd SLICK and told him to put the overclocks on the benchmarks graphs. He said " It would make the graphs too crowded" While that may be true, reading the OC document is like sorting through ancient hieroglyphics...

 

[sxr7171]

Mine is still running with the stock bios, 1.189v and 1124Mhz default boost. I can't go higher than 1202Mhz in Tomb Raider benchmark, Metro Redux is crashing even at stock, I need to use a negative offset of -26 to get stable, probably not well binned factory OC by EVGA.

Here is a side by side comparsion of the 780ti and the 980 both forced to run at 1200Mhz:

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...leich-mit-der-geforce-gtx-780-ti.html?start=1

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...taktvergleich-mit-der-geforce-gtx-780-ti.html

For me Tomb Raider is the most sensitive to overclock. It crashes around 1200MHz. I don't have Metro Redux.

 

[MTDEW]

SLICK did overclock the GTX 980 to 1493-1503MHz range. I'm not sure about the memory clock though?

I PM'd SLICK and told him to put the overclocks on the benchmarks graphs. He said " It would make the graphs too crowded" While that may be true, reading the OC document is like sorting through ancient hieroglyphics...

All I see when viewing their Graphics card overclocking master sheet is several different versions of each GPU all clocked to different speeds.
And NOTHING saying which cards and clock speeds are actually used for their benchmark comparison.

Admittedly I don't faithfully follow Linus's reviews, so i may just be missing the info needed interpret the doc and determine which speeds are used for the benchmarks.
Do they just use the highest overclocked version of each GPU?
If so, then why include several different versions and clock speeds of each card in the doc?

But I agree it would be a lot nicer to just add the OC speeds to the graphs.

 

[RussianSensation]

The problem with keeping the 780TI is its resale value will start eroding much faster than the 980's because 980 is the cool card now. For example, brand new PNY 780Ti with a game is $420 USD, while Zotac AMP! 780Ti is $430. Since there are a lot of PC gamers who do not follow the GPU market religiously, you may be able to offload the 780Ti for $500 USD. At that point grabbing a 980 is worth it for 4GB of VRAM and the fact that until GM200 drops, it's unlikely to lose much in value while 780Ti will continue depreciating.

The other thing is, you can go 970 SLI for a bit more after reselling your 780Ti and that would be a huge upgrade in performance as 970 SLI hardly up gives much against even 980 SLI in performance. Even if SLI doesn't work, an after-market card such as Gigabyte G1 970 is nearly as fast as a 780Ti. It's a win-win unless you are running a watercooled card in which case getting a 980/970 SLI + waterblocks would be more costly.

 

[Dave3000]

The problem with keeping the 780TI is its resale value will start eroding much faster than the 980's because 980 is the cool card now. For example, brand new PNY 780Ti with a game is $420 USD, while Zotac AMP! 780Ti is $430. Since there are a lot of PC gamers who do not follow the GPU market religiously, you may be able to offload the 780Ti for $500 USD. At that point grabbing a 980 is worth it for 4GB of VRAM and the fact that until GM200 drops, it's unlikely to lose much in value while 780Ti will continue depreciating.

The other thing is, you can go 970 SLI for a bit more after reselling your 780Ti and that would be a huge upgrade in performance as 970 SLI hardly up gives much against even 980 SLI in performance. Even if SLI doesn't work, an after-market card such as Gigabyte G1 970 is nearly as fast as a 780Ti. It's a win-win unless you are running a watercooled card in which case getting a 980/970 SLI + waterblocks would be more costly.

Isn't the reference cooler better for SLI because of less heat inside the case? You can also buy factory-overclocked 980's. I don't feel like downgrading to a GTX 970 even if I can get a factory-overclocked one. Sure, a factory-overclocked 970 is very close to a 780 Ti but you can buy factory-overclocked 980's as well. Also I prefer single-GPU setups.

 

[RussianSensation]

Isn't the reference cooler better for SLI because of less heat inside the case? You can also buy factory-overclocked 980's. I don't feel like downgrading to a GTX 970 even if I can get a factory-overclocked one. Sure, a factory-overclocked 970 is very close to a 780 Ti but you can buy factory-overclocked 980's as well. Also I prefer single-GPU setups.

If you have a cramped case, and the mobo doesn't have a lot of space between 2 cards, it's better to get reference. Also, it's easier to get waterblocks for reference design PCB. If you have a properly ventilated case, aren't watercooling, after-market cards are better since they run 15-20C lower and overclock better than the reference card. The Titan cooler gets killed by the 600W Windforce. Now imagine that Windforce cooler on an overclocked 980.