EVGA GTX 780 Superclocked w/ ACX Cooler 3 GB review from techpowerup

Ya, thought about it real hard last night and came to the same conclusion. Titan when I get paid this week.
 
RangerXML said:
Ya, thought about it real hard last night and came to the same conclusion. Titan when I get paid this week.
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If you aren't in a super hurry, I would bet we will see 6gb 780's within a month or so at around $749...
 
Tgrove said:
Titans are for you (vram), I run surround myself and I wouldn't shortchange myself like that with 3gb vram
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There are a small number of new games that can be pushed past 3gb needed in surround now, but they won't be doing so with the power of one titan/780 anyway. So the vram becomes irrelevant unless you are going sli...
 
GoldenTiger said:
There are a small number of new games that can be pushed past 3gb needed in surround now, but they won't be doing so with the power of one titan/780 anyway. So the vram becomes irrelevant unless you are going sli...
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Yes, though I'd imagine most people with surround setups are going SLI.
 
We won't ever see 6GB 780s. Those are called Titans.

As far as 3GB for 5760x1080p, it's completely fine unless you're planning 3-4 Titans which will give you the horsepower to turn up the VRAM eating settings and exceed 3GB. If running 2 or less and requiring near 120 FPS you won't be using 3GB for the next 12 months because you won't have the ponies to turn up AA and swallow more than 3GB and maintain that frame rate.
 
thebski said:
As far as 3GB for 5760x1080p, it's completely fine unless you're planning 3-4 Titans which will give you the horsepower to turn up the VRAM eating settings and exceed 3GB. If running 2 or less and requiring near 120 FPS you won't be using 3GB for the next 12 months because you won't have the ponies to turn up AA and swallow more than 3GB and maintain that frame rate.
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Here's hoping we can with the near-term release CPUs like IB-E and Haswell. If not, it's a real problem for those of us at tri-SLI and higher...CPUs haven't changed enough over the past 2 years between SB, IB to give us enough juice! 8-core IB-E would be awesome but then again, games don't necessarily utilize the cores and it will probably mean the OC won't go as high due to the higher core count! :-/
 
I prefer the reference cooler by far. The amount of heat this card kicks out is ridiculous....it makes my 680 seem like an air conditioner. With stock cooler and just a slightly higher fan speed setting, I'm barely breaking 65 on full load with my core at 1150 (still have more headroom, just going slow)

The reason for the 80C temps is because Nvidia feels that's fine for this card, so fan profiles are set to run very low even though the temp is high. You can kick the fan profile up a bit, hardly affecting noise at all, while significantly lowering temps. With the stock cooler. Nothing against the ACX, it's nice, but I don't get the excitement over it as it really isn't needed and like I said, the refernce cooler is designed better to get the hot air out of your case.

My point is the reference cooler does the job and then some, my EVGA SC with stock cooler is running with low temps and high overclocks and never throttling. All I did was bump my fan up slightly and I it's practically silent still.

Again the heat that the 780 blows out is pretty intense, I would NOT want that cycled around inside my case. Not to mention the reference cooler has LED green letters....it's just cool. :D
 
Another point, the 780 ACX card actually has BIOS enhancements that allow it to run boost states for longer periods of time without throttling, so it will throttle significantly less than the reference card while providing more silent operation. Additionally, nvidia is allowing all approved aftermarket 780s to have higher stock voltage (by 37mV) than the reference. This is the case with the ACX, it has higher stock voltage than the reference card. So the cooler isn't the only difference with the ACX - there are other reasons (as mentioned above) that make it better. As far as heat in the case, it really depends on what type of case you have. Generally if you have a full ATX case it's a non-issue; i've run aftermarket cards for many years and it's not really a problem until you run SLI. When you run SLI, it's a bit trickier but still doable, yet I would say that reference is probably easier and more hassle free than aftermarket for SLI.

Anyway, i'm not disagreeing with you - your opinion is perfectly valid, there are VERY GOOD reasons to choose reference. They both serve a niche - I would say reference is clearly better for smaller cases or SLI, while aftermarket cards can be very nice for their secondary benefits if you have a case with excellent air flow. Personally, i'm very much a fan of aftermarket! ;)

BTW, how are you enjoying your card? ACX sounds like a killer card! :p
 
Ferris23 said:
I prefer the reference cooler by far. The amount of heat this card kicks out is ridiculous....it makes my 680 seem like an air conditioner. With stock cooler and just a slightly higher fan speed setting, I'm barely breaking 65 on full load with my core at 1150 (still have more headroom, just going slow)

The reason for the 80C temps is because Nvidia feels that's fine for this card, so fan profiles are set to run very low even though the temp is high. You can kick the fan profile up a bit, hardly affecting noise at all, while significantly lowering temps. With the stock cooler. Nothing against the ACX, it's nice, but I don't get the excitement over it as it really isn't needed and like I said, the refernce cooler is designed better to get the hot air out of your case.

My point is the reference cooler does the job and then some, my EVGA SC with stock cooler is running with low temps and high overclocks and never throttling. All I did was bump my fan up slightly and I it's practically silent still.

Again the heat that the 780 blows out is pretty intense, I would NOT want that cycled around inside my case. Not to mention the reference cooler has LED green letters....it's just cool. :D
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I've heard the reference gets pretty noisy when overclocking at all, 60-70% is about the threshold where most people (somewhere in that range) start to think it's loud, and that's not even what's generally needed to hold down a good OC.

xoleras said:
Another point, the 780 ACX card actually has BIOS enhancements that allow it to run boost states for longer periods of time without throttling, so it will throttle significantly less than the reference card while providing more silent operation. Additionally, nvidia is allowing all approved aftermarket 780s to have higher stock voltage (by 37mV) than the reference. This is the case with the ACX, it has higher stock voltage than the reference card. So the cooler isn't the only difference with the ACX - there are other reasons (as mentioned above) that make it better. As far as heat in the case, it really depends on what type of case you have. Generally if you have a full ATX case it's a non-issue; i've run aftermarket cards for many years and it's not really a problem until you run SLI. When you run SLI, it's a bit trickier but still doable, yet I would say that reference is probably easier and more hassle free than aftermarket for SLI.

Anyway, i'm not disagreeing with you - your opinion is perfectly valid, there are VERY GOOD reasons to choose reference. They both serve a niche - I would say reference is clearly better for smaller cases or SLI, while aftermarket cards can be very nice for their secondary benefits if you have a case with excellent air flow. Personally, i'm very much a fan of aftermarket! ;)

BTW, how are you enjoying your card? ACX sounds like a killer card! :p
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Good post. As far as airflow, I'm using a Fractal Define R3 (ATX) with undervolted fans all around (including the cpu heatsink's) and one of the top exhausts covered with the noise absorption foam panel... I would be surprised if the ACX hurt my CPU oc at all, since the GTX 670 WindForce 3 I had barely affected its temps, and when I briefly had two of them it had only a small effect. You'd have to have pretty poor airflow or a tiny case for the heat coming off the cards to really impact your settings, in my opinion.

That is interesting to hear on the SC ACX voltage/throttling, do you have any linkage about it? I was going to toss the TI bios (made from a reference 780) onto it once mine arrived, but I'm wondering if I should see about having the ACX one modded instead of even trying that... EDIT: Saw a result with the TI bios saying it is an improvement over the stock ACX one, so... guess I'll be using it when my card arrives.
 
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Does anyone know how long these cards stay out of stock normally? I want to order one how long was the wait last year when 680's and other cards were out of stock?
 
GoldenTiger said:
. EDIT: Saw a result with the TI bios saying it is an improvement over the stock ACX one, so... guess I'll be using it when my card arrives.
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Can you point me to where I can read about this? TI bios? Bios flashing? Can any 780 run any current 780 bios?

Any information would be appreciated.
 
xoleras said:
Another point, the 780 ACX card actually has BIOS enhancements that allow it to run boost states for longer periods of time without throttling, so it will throttle significantly less than the reference card while providing more silent operation. Additionally, nvidia is allowing all approved aftermarket 780s to have higher stock voltage (by 37mV) than the reference. This is the case with the ACX, it has higher stock voltage than the reference card. So the cooler isn't the only difference with the ACX - there are other reasons (as mentioned above) that make it better. As far as heat in the case, it really depends on what type of case you have. Generally if you have a full ATX case it's a non-issue; i've run aftermarket cards for many years and it's not really a problem until you run SLI. When you run SLI, it's a bit trickier but still doable, yet I would say that reference is probably easier and more hassle free than aftermarket for SLI.

Anyway, i'm not disagreeing with you - your opinion is perfectly valid, there are VERY GOOD reasons to choose reference. They both serve a niche - I would say reference is clearly better for smaller cases or SLI, while aftermarket cards can be very nice for their secondary benefits if you have a case with excellent air flow. Personally, i'm very much a fan of aftermarket! ;)

BTW, how are you enjoying your card? ACX sounds like a killer card! :p
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where are you getting all that info from? the review shows the same max voltage for the ACX card as it did for the reference 780.
 
Ferris23 said:
Can you point me to where I can read about this? TI bios? Bios flashing? Can any 780 run any current 780 bios?

Any information would be appreciated.
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TechInferno has the BIOS, it has only been tested by one person so far however that has posted at least. If you're skittish, wait a few days and there should be more people with the cards trying it out, including myself :).
 
sk3tch said:
Here's hoping we can with the near-term release CPUs like IB-E and Haswell. If not, it's a real problem for those of us at tri-SLI and higher...CPUs haven't changed enough over the past 2 years between SB, IB to give us enough juice! 8-core IB-E would be awesome but then again, games don't necessarily utilize the cores and it will probably mean the OC won't go as high due to the higher core count! :-/
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I agree with you that faster CPUs are needed for what we are trying to do, but I don't have much confidence that the upcoming CPUs will be all that much faster. If they are it is because they OC to the moon. I would love a 5 Ghz Ivy 6 core.
 
cannondale06 said:
where are you getting all that info from? the review shows the same max voltage for the ACX card as it did for the reference 780.
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Agreed. I doubt any cards come with 1.2V standard. And even if they do, others can be set there easily while the factory 1.2V cards would be maxed already. I am pretty sure all cards, including factory OC'ed models, will be standard 1.162V with the option to go as high as 1.2V.
 
yes if cpus dont hurry up and get a real generational jump we are going to be laughably limited with high end cards. heck a 2500k at 4.4 cannot even maintain 60 fps in some cases which even if rare is still sad. we should be at a point now where high end cpus should never drop below 120 fps if using a gpu setup capable of maintaining that.
 
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