GTX700 series reviews thread

[3DVagabond]

What's the point of releasing a card that matches the performance of a year and half old card at the same price? NV must be kidding!

Because it says 780 instead of 680. The sheeple will flock (pun intended ) to it.

 

[Lonbjerg]

If you know better feel free to correct them.

Mission impossible...to many people post FUD with no foundation in facts, try and correct them, they start the fallacy show...waste of time...other than telling people they don't know what they are talking about.

GPU Boost 1.0 vs GPU Boost 2.0 makes comparing temps and performance between GTX680 and GTX770 useless...you know the whole volt/temp thingy....but as you can read here...people post like 1.0 and 2.0 is the same...making it easy to discard their posts.

Link to oeple not getting GPU 2.0:
http://bit.ly/12ljvaS

 

[poohbear]

I cant imagine enthusiasts jumping on the 770 when it only has 2gb. Skyrim with mods easily pushes past 2gb @ 1080p

 

[Lonbjerg]

I cant imagine enthusiasts jumping on the 770 when it only has 2gb. Skyrim with mods easily pushes past 2gb @ 1080p

A single game dosn't rule the world.
My Titan will never run Skyrim...

 

[Carfax83]

I cant imagine enthusiasts jumping on the 770 when it only has 2gb. Skyrim with mods easily pushes past 2gb @ 1080p

People keep bringing up Skyrim, but like I told one guy earlier, that's not a good measuring stick if you're trying to decide how much VRAM is enough.

Skyrim is DX9 with a very inefficient engine plus a ton of mods, so yeah, it's going to use a lot more VRAM than it should.

The next generation engines like CryEngine 3, Unreal Engine 4 and Frostbite 3, will have native DX11 support, so games made with them will be very memory efficient and use less VRAM due to DX11's higher texture compression.

I can play Crysis 3 comfortably on my 580s at 1440p very high quality even though my 580s only have 1.5GB VRAM. And Crysis 3 uses 16K textures if I'm not mistaken..

 

[Erenhardt]

People keep bringing up Skyrim, but like I told one guy earlier, that's not a good measuring stick if you're trying to decide how much VRAM is enough.

Skyrim is DX9 with a very inefficient engine plus a ton of mods, so yeah, it's going to use a lot more VRAM than it should.

The next generation engines like CryEngine 3, Unreal Engine 4 and Frostbite 3, will have native DX11 support, so games made with them will be very memory efficient and use less VRAM due to DX11's higher texture compression.

I can play Crysis 3 comfortably on my 580s at 1440p very high quality even though my 580s only have 1.5GB VRAM. And Crysis 3 uses 16K textures if I'm not mistaken..

But the next gen games will be targeted at the xbone which will have about 4-5GB memory for gpu. If the rumor is true and next gen consoles will run @720p then I imagine desktop taking even more vram when scaled up to 1080p and beyond.

 

[skipsneeky2]

This 700 series has been a temptation for me to upgrade my 7850,but i think i will wait either for crossfire to be fixed to crossfire my 7850,gtx780 performance to retail for $500 or till games push me to drop my gaming resolution below 1680x1050 which is the lowest resolution my u2412m even looks good at still.

 

[toyota]

People keep bringing up Skyrim, but like I told one guy earlier, that's not a good measuring stick if you're trying to decide how much VRAM is enough.

Skyrim is DX9 with a very inefficient engine plus a ton of mods, so yeah, it's going to use a lot more VRAM than it should.

The next generation engines like CryEngine 3, Unreal Engine 4 and Frostbite 3, will have native DX11 support, so games made with them will be very memory efficient and use less VRAM due to DX11's higher texture compression.

I can play Crysis 3 comfortably on my 580s at 1440p very high quality even though my 580s only have 1.5GB VRAM. And Crysis 3 uses 16K textures if I'm not mistaken..

um at 2560, a gtx780 barely cracks 30 fps on very high settings even with only smaaa so how in the heck is 580 sli playing that smoothly?

and I would guess that the next gen engines would offer settings that use more vram so just because they are more efficient may not mean anything.

 

[Carfax83]

But the next gen games will be targeted at the xbone which will have about 4-5GB memory for gpu. If the rumor is true and next gen consoles will run @720p then I imagine desktop taking even more vram when scaled up to 1080p and beyond.

Yes, and how much system memory do we have? In my new machine that I just ordered, I will have 16GB of memory with quad channel access..

All VRAM is, is a buffer. The brunt of the data is always held in system memory. And given that the 770 has very high memory bandwidth and the next generation engines in combination with DX11 will be highly efficient at handling memory transactions (if Crysis 3 is to be used as an example), I doubt VRAM usage is going to balloon all of a sudden to the point where gamers will "need" more than 2GB.

 

[Carfax83]

um at 2560, a gtx780 barely cracks 30 fps on very high settings even with only smaaa so how in the heck is 580 sli playing that smoothly?

GTX 580 (depending on the model) SLI is roughly equal to one Titan, and I have mine overclocked to 900/1800/4400 so they're pretty fast.

and I would guess that the next gen engines would offer settings that use more vram so just because they are more efficient may not mean anything.

You don't need to wait for next gen engines if you want settings that will use more VRAM. You can use your graphics card control panel and override a game to 16xMSAA or greater (or SSAAx4), with high rez and all settings turned on and you will use up your VRAM real fast, even if you have a 6GB Titan.

The point is, there's always going to be settings that push your hardware. As gamers, we have to find the right combination of settings that allow the best IQ to performance ratio.

 

[Erenhardt]

Yes, and how much system memory do we have? In my new machine that I just ordered, I will have 16GB of memory with quad channel access..

All VRAM is, is a buffer. The brunt of the data is always held in system memory. And given that the 770 has very high memory bandwidth and the next generation engines in combination with DX11 will be highly efficient at handling memory transactions (if Crysis 3 is to be used as an example), I doubt VRAM usage is going to balloon all of a sudden to the point where gamers will "need" more than 2GB.

If you will have to push data from system memory to VRAM on GPU you will experience sweet swapping and 1-2,5 fps average. GPU memory bandwidth is measurement of data transfer between GPU core and Video card RAM. System memory is too slow and once you have not enough "buffer" you are going to struggle with 20GB/s system memory bandwidth.

I expect that first games for next games consoles will not require much more VRAM, simply because developers target last gen aswell (360, ps3). It is not impossible that game will have two sets of assets - one for next gen and PC, the other for last gen and slower pc dx.9 compatible.

Once games drop 360/ps3 support, I can imagine games making use of all the memory there is (6GB for XO and 7 for PS4?) where most is consumed by GPU.
System memory usage:

 

[Carfax83]

If you will have to push data from system memory to VRAM on GPU you will experience sweet swapping and 1-2,5 fps average. GPU memory bandwidth is measurement of data transfer between GPU core and Video card RAM. System memory is too slow and once you have not enough "buffer" you are going to struggle with 20GB/s system memory bandwidth.

I think you're confused a bit, or maybe I am. Data is always being swapped out between the hard drive, system memory and VRAM (in that order) with the CPU controlling everything.

Modern graphics engines stream or access data constantly in the background from the hard drive/SSD to system memory, and finally to VRAM so the GPU can render it.

As long as everything is balanced and you're not playing at settings that are too high for your system, there should never be a time where you run out of frame buffer.

Of course, there's been times where an engine or API can be horribly inefficient when it comes to memory usage, but game engines nowadays are much better at doing that now that there's DX11 and the techniques are better.

The effect is the same when you don't have enough system memory for a game, even though you have enough VRAM.. Instead of pulling data from the system memory which if WAY faster than the hard drive/SSD and moving it to VRAM, the CPU has to access the hard drive directly which slows everything down to a crawl..

System memory usage:

Those graphs prove what I've been saying more than anything. Modern games have very efficient memory access/usage algorithms that STREAM data constantly, which reduces the overall memory footprint. (I don't think those graphs measure system memory either, but VRAM)

Normally this level of detail would require many gigabytes of system memory and GPU VRAM, but thanks to a fairly efficient streaming system Last Light’s world uses less than 4GB of system memory, and here's a shocker, less than 2GB of VRAM, even at 2560x1440 with every setting enabled and maxed out. We had a hard time topping even 1 GB of VRAM usage

 

[tidy]

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[Erenhardt]

I think you're confused a bit, or maybe I am. Data is always being swapped out between the hard drive, system memory and VRAM (in that order) with the CPU controlling everything.

It is not swapped. It is just transferred. For example if you load next level every game asset of this level (there are tricks to read later parts on the fly) needs to be wrote into system memory. Then the part of that data (part which is for rendering purposes) is copied to video ram on graphics card using DMA which put CPU out of the loop. All that data is waiting in VRAM to be processed by GPU. For example compressed textures are stored in video ram and are decompressed by GPU for every frame they are needed. Part of that VRAM is frame buffer, where every pixel of every pre-rendered frame is stored. There may be some other thing like PhysX data, etc.

Modern graphics engines stream or access data constantly in the background from the hard drive/SSD to system memory, and finally to VRAM so the GPU can render it.

Yes, but that is buffering data before it is needed. This trick is to decrease loading times by not having to read whole world for hdd. Later parts are first buffered to RAM and then to VRAM. For example if you have a boss fight at the end of the level, there is no need to read all the boss stuff from HDD when you are entering the level. This may be loaded during your play in mid-level. But as soon as the boss needs to be rendered, all the data needs to be already in video RAM.

Those graphs prove what I've been saying more than anything. Modern games have very efficient memory access/usage algorithms that STREAM data constantly, which reduces the overall memory footprint. (I don't think those graphs measure system memory either, but VRAM)

Graphs in review you linked show video memory usage. You need to remember that Metro LL is 360/PS3 port. Both consoles have 256MB system memory and 256 video memory. The graphs linked by me are system memory usage.
Here is Video memory usage:

New game engines will be more efficient but new hardware possibilities will allow usage of more game assets in higher quality and less recycling which in the end will increase vram usage.

You can't be serious?

No, but that is what PC enthusiasts believe and I don't want to be flamed here. Just go look in PS4 thread:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2316133&page=65

 

[blackened23]

Mission impossible...to many people post FUD with no foundation in facts, try and correct them, they start the fallacy show...waste of time...other than telling people they don't know what they are talking about.

GPU Boost 1.0 vs GPU Boost 2.0 makes comparing temps and performance between GTX680 and GTX770 useless...you know the whole volt/temp thingy....but as you can read here...people post like 1.0 and 2.0 is the same...making it easy to discard their posts.

Link to oeple not getting GPU 2.0:
http://bit.ly/12ljvaS

dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot

 

[ICDP]

I'm quite impressed by what GTX770 brings to the consumer. Not in a strictly technical way, it is afterall a GTX680 rebadged with some VRAM tweaks. What I am impressed with is the fact it has come in at the GTX670 original price level and gives a significant ~20% improvement in performance out of the box. It has also resulted in a further price reduction of GTX670 and GTX680 which has been a long time coming.

My fear was that given the ridiculous GTX780 and Titan pricing the GTX770 was going to come in at the original GTX680 price. Thankfully this hasn't happened but this presents the problem that Nvidia now have a very large price gap between GTX770 and GTX780. GTX770 to GTX780 has ~15-20% performance increase and a $250 or 63% price increase.

We are essentially being asked by Nvidia to pay a very, very hefty premium for only a minor increase in performance. Strangely most of the Nvidia fans seem to accept this as the new norm. Nvidia's marketing department should be congratulated for how easily they dupped their fans into accepting the new massive premium for the top end GPUs.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Wild guess here but i wonder if nvidia is gonna have these prices for their gtx870 and gtx880 cards as well as a new norm?

Maybe the days of $500 gtx880 and gtx980 cards at launch are over and the new entry price is about $650?

 

[Zanovar]

What's the point of releasing a card that matches the performance of a year and half old card at the same price? NV must be kidding!

nvm

 

[Lonbjerg]

I pay the price.
I also paided the price for my i7 990X.

Some people want ultra high end performance for mid-range price.
The rest of us live in the real world.

Fun blasts from the past (NOT adjusted for inflation)

AMD Athlon 64 FX-74: MSRP $999
Radeon X850 XT PE: MSRP $549

People have soooooo selective memories...and the most of hte people whning...are people that will never buy the hardware anyways *sigh*

 

[Zanovar]

I pay the price.
I also paided the price for my i7 990X.

Some people want ultra high end performance for mid-range price.
The rest of us live in the real world.

Fun blasts from the past (NOT adjusted for inflation)

AMD Athlon 64 FX-74: MSRP $999
Radeon X850 XT PE: MSRP $549

People have soooooo selective memories...and the most of hte people whning...are people that will never buy the hardware anyways *sigh*

Lol lonbjerg,you keep on telling us this,maybe put it in your sig?less typing for you im guessing.and for me hahah.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I pay the price.
I also paided the price for my i7 990X.

Some people want ultra high end performance for mid-range price.
The rest of us live in the real world.

Fun blasts from the past (NOT adjusted for inflation)

AMD Athlon 64 FX-74: MSRP $999
Radeon X850 XT PE: MSRP $549

People have soooooo selective memories...and the most of hte people whning...are people that will never buy the hardware anyways *sigh*

Selective memory my ass,$500 gtx480,$500 gtx580 1.5gb,$500 gtx680 and all of a sudden its $650 for a gtx780?

Since the 400 series,the high end single gpu is usually $500 which we are all used to and they did try $650 with the gtx280 but the cheaper 4870 raped it.:awe:

 

[Lonbjerg]

Selective memory my ass,$500 gtx480,$500 gtx580 1.5gb,$500 gtx680 and all of a sudden its $650 for a gtx780?

Since the 400 series,the high end single gpu is usually $500 which we are all used to and they did try $650 with the gtx280 but the cheaper 4870 raped it.:awe:

You are comparing the price of GK104 vs GK110...
And I love your "since the 400 series"...

I have bought GPU's since the beginning (Geforce 256) and can only laugh at your assertion that a "trend" is established via a generation, the refresh and a new generation.

Nice fallacy...but let me guess

Besides...I doubt you are in the market for a GK110...you just like to whine about products out side you pricerange...right?

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

So 770 is just a bios update? lol. I guess the price drop was nice but we're still paying way too much considering these price/performance ratios have been around this for quite a while.

 

[Zanovar]

So 770 is just a bios update? lol. I guess the price drop was nice but we're still paying way too much considering these price/performance ratios have been around this for quite a while.

will be interesting how the prices rearrange and readjust in the next few weeks.

 

[skipsneeky2]

You are comparing the price of GK104 vs GK110...
And I love your "since the 400 series"...

I have bought GPU's since the beginning (Geforce 256) and can only laugh at your assertion that a "trend" is established via a generation, the refresh and a new generation.

Nice fallacy...but let me guess

Besides...I doubt you are in the market for a GK110...you just like to whine about products out side you pricerange...right?

Actually half way in between considering such a card or crossfiring my 7850,just waiting to see if the rumored amd drivers for the 7000 series crossfire fix come out before making up my mind.

Guess if the gtx880 comes out at $800 and is nearly as fast as the titan,the issue wouldn't be nvidia pricing but the fact we are all whiners for expecting such a card to retail for $500-$700?