Gadgetory

welcome back to harbor unboxed as you probably noticed the Computex coverage has ended Tim did give me a few days off so that was nice Monday and Tuesday he took care of the video so you would have seen his mouth review and then his phone review slow growth very good but anyway in that time I wasn't exactly taking time off I was doing quite a lot of benchmarking for what's probably been one of the most requested videos probably in the last year and that is of course the revisit of the geforce gtx 780 here one of the most powerful GPUs that existed roughly four years ago that's not why so many of you have been asking for the test though or at least it's not the main reason there's been a huge amount of controversy surrounding in videos GeForce 700 series which is often referred to by its codename Kepler and for those of you wondering the Kepler architecture actually made its debut with the GeForce 600 series the geforce gtx 680 was the most powerful GPU on the 600 series packing 1536 cuticles and a 294 millimeter squared die the gtx 680 was later refreshed as the gtx 770 with higher clocked gddr5 memory however shortly before that happened in video led with the gtx 780 a brand new bit of silicon the 780 boosted the core count by whopping 50% taking the die size to 561 millimeters squared that wasn't the full silicon known as the gtx 780 Ti followed six months later with all 2880 CUDA cores enabled at the time these big Kepler parts were mighty impressive for example a GTX 780 landed in May of 2013 and back then it proved to be on average 24 percent faster than the GTX 680 in my test and 16 percent faster than the Radeon HD 7970 gigahertz Edition so as I said the GTX 780 was king of the hill for six months till the GTX 780 Ti arrived however it was AMD's Radeon r9 290 series that were the real issue and the arrival of the 294 sim video into some rather hefty price cuts slashing the GTX 780 from its initial MSRP of $650 to $500 u.s. so even here it was a rather weak proposition against the cheaper and fast r9 290 according to my own testing conducted back in November of 2013 the r9 290 was slightly faster in battlefield 3 Crysis 3 Far Cry 3 Medal of Honor Warfighter Metro last light and BioShock Infinite meanwhile the r9 290 was a good bit faster in battlefield 4 dirt 3 Max Payne 3 sleeping dogs and hitman absolution in fact the only game with the gtx 780 came out on top who was Tomb Raider so the GTX 780 started on the back foot and the r9 290 was always as faster often slightly faster the problem a lot of gamers have is that over the past you use kepler based graphics cards such as the gtx 780 have continued to fall away whereas the r9 290 and it's reincarnation the r9 390 are still able to hold their ground today it said that the gtx 780 has fallen a heap and as a result struggles against modern day entry-level GPUs so to find out what's going on I've taken 22 new titles and tested them at 1080p and 1440p to see how the once-mighty geforce gtx 780 compares to the more modern GPUs in place of the r9 290 r9 390 will be stepping in and while I'm sure many of you would have liked to have seen the Unown 290 in this battle let's be honest clock for clock there's little to no difference between the 290 and the 390 also included is the gtx 970 and the gtx 1050 Ti so it'll be interesting to see where the gtx 780 slots into that picture towards the end of the video i will be showing some side-by-side gameplay footage as well and finally all testing was conducted using our core i7 7700 k test system clocked at 4.9 gigahertz and of course the latest AMD atom video display drivers available the timer testing were used so let's jump into the benchmarks kicking things off we have Rises the Tomb Raider and here the three gigabyte gtx 780 struggles with the minimum frame rate only managing to edge ahead of the gtx 1050 i buy a few frames an average frame rate of 72 FPS at TP isn't bad though this does only position the 780 between the 1050 Ti and rx 470 / r9 390 the 1440p results are much the same though the minimum frame rate looks much better in comparison to the RX 470 and r93 only now that said the average framerate is still quite a bit off the pace at 46 FPS to the r9 390 s 55 FPS the GTX 780 isn't a great deal slower than the 970 and far cry primal at 1080p and this meant it was 25% faster than gtx 750ti that said it was 17% slow in the r9 390 which was good for an average of 63 fps the margins grew ever so slightly at 1440p here the GTX 780 was 20% slower than the r9 390 and still a few frames behind the RX 470 still the GTX 780 is now almost 30% faster than the GTX 1050 TI this time testing with Tom Clancy's the division the GTX 780 finds itself situated right between the gtx 1050 TI and gtx 970 this man at 1080p it was 20% slower than the iron 390 moving to 1440p the remoter remains much the same the GTX 780 was 24% faster than the 1050 TI and 14% slower than the 970 and this puts it well off the pace of the r9 390 as well as the current generation mid-range contenders well the hitman results are very interesting whereas the GTX 780 has previously been found somewhere between the 1050 Ti and 970 it's pretty much on par with the 1050 TI this time making it one of the slowest GPUs tested of course this is an AMD sponsored title but still the r9 390 was 74% faster the unknown 390 is now 82% faster at 1440p and again the GTX 780 is only able to match the GTX 1050 TI hit man's the most recently released game we've tested so far so she'll be interesting to see how things develop through the next 18 games well this is rather unexpected just as we saw the GTX 780 get completely obliterated and hitman we now see it pulling away from the GTX 970 and quantum break it's also not a great deal sold in the r9 390 at least when compared to the previous titles the 780 does drop off the pace at 1440p though it's still able to match the GTX 970 so that's certainly not a poor result the GTX 780 also performs reasonably well overwatch at 1080p with an average of 149 fps and that places at roughly on par with the r9 3 in fact it was just 4% swallow the GTX 780 remains strong at 1440p as it turns in a rather strong minimum frame rate when looking at the average frame rate it was able to match the RX 470 while it wasn't too much lower than the r9 390 term was never going to be gentle with the gtx 780 and here we see a very large dip in the minimum frame rate please be aware the minimum frame rate is based on an average of three runs so this isn't some kind of one-off dip in performance although the GTX 780 did keep the frame rate above 60fps at all times we see that frame rates did fluctuate quite a bit here moving a 1440p the variance between the minimum and average frame rate isn't as extreme but even so overall the gtx 780 didn't look particularly impressive in Doom especially when compared to the gtx 970 and r9 390 for total war Warhammer the GTX 780 was tested using DirectX 11 as it doesn't support DX 12 in this style even so performance was excellent as the 780 match 210 63 gigabyte and the GTX 970 at 1080p moving to 1440p the 780 dropped off the pace ever so slightly though for the most part provided comparable performance to the GTX 970 1063 gig about an Rx 470 it was also significantly faster than the GTX 1050 to I hear testing with Mirror's Edge catalyst shows fairly consistent performance across the mid-range GPUs along with the Titans of ESD such as the GTX 780 and r9 390 in fact give the GTX 780 and r9 390 are quite evenly matched though the radio and did offer slightly better minimum frame rate performance jumping to 1440p the GTX 780 slips away a little and is now roughly on par with the RX 470 this isn't a bad result for the 780 and frankly this is where I would expect to see it in relation to the r9 390 and here we are back to very mediocre performance the GTX 780 turned out just 55 FPS at stereo P in f1 2016 and this positioned it between the 1063 gigabyte and 1050 Ti that made it much slower than the GTX 970 and r9 390 here at 1440p the GTX 780 really did know better as it trailed the r9 390 by a 22 percent margin with average frame rate of just 42 FPS the GTX 780 also sucked when it came time to play Deus Ex mankind divided averaging just 38 fps at 1080p to the r9 390 s 56 fps this time that was found sitting between the gtx 750ti & GTX 970 the 1440p resolution crushes the midfield in this title and despite providing completely unplayable performance the GTX 780 wasn't much slower than the three gigabyte 1060 here we see the GTX 780 wasn't able to average just over 60 FPS at turning P in battlefield 1 which is of course playable performance despite being much slower than the GTX 970 and r9 390 1440 Peter hammered the GTX 780 and now is just 6 FPS fast and the gtx 750ti and a lot slower than everything else tested well mark III doesn't exactly play well with current generation hardware so I wasn't expecting the GTX 780 to deliver much that said it was able to match the RX 470 albeit with an average of just 38 fps much the same we're seen at 1440p though here the GTX 780 did match the r9 390 though again both averaged under 30fps so it's not really a noteworthy result the GTX 780 struggles with Gears of War 4 and is well down on the GTX 970 and r9 390 in fact the 780 sat closest to the GTX 1050 to a 1080p with an average of just 56 fps jumping to 1440p slaughters the GTX 780 and now it's seen delivering 1050 TI light performance positioning at miles behind the pack despite offering a reasonably smooth 60fps at all times the GTX 780 was still the slowest graphics card tested and titanfall 2 the GTX 1052 is surprisingly fast in this title as a result the GTX 780 came in last place moving to 1440p allowed the 780 to claw its way out of last place if only just still here the performance was very competitive across most of the graphics cards tested the GTX 780 completely tanked in Civilization 6 at least when compared to the competition here it was slower than even the GTX 1050 Ti with an average of 53 FPS at EP moving to 1440p the modes remain much the same here the GTX 780 was roughly on par with the 1050 - I'm making at the slowest GPU tested Call of Duty infinite warfare soar the 780 just be able to deliver acceptable performance at 1080p with an average of 60 fps that made it 13% slower than the GTX 970 and 18% slower than the r9 390 surprisingly though the 780 actually closed in this time at 1440p or at least it did on the GTX 970 anyway it was still 18 percent slower than the Radeon r9 390 the watchdogs 2 performance was quite typical the GTX 780 was 18% fast and the 1050 TI TEP but it was also 15% slower than the r9 390 so margin is reduced at 1440p and now the GTX 780 is just 11% slower than the r9 390 that said though the minimum frame rate is quite low and this is something we've seen quite a bit from the GTX 780 the Resident Evil 7 biohazard results look fairly typical here the GTX 780 finds itself situated between the gtx 1050 TI and the 1063 gigabyte though it was a good bit slower than the RX 470 the 780 also trailed the r9 390 by 42% margin so this is another title where we see the kepler based GPU aging very poorly the margins are much the same at 1440p and here once again the mighty GTX 780 struggles to and deliver playable performance with an average of just 39 FPS furada isn't a hugely demanding title this is evident by the GTX 780 performance as it managed to match the RX 470 with almost 70 FPS at 1080p this placed the GTX 780 within striking distance of the GTX 970 then even at 1440p we find similar results and here the mid-range graphics cards are all quite similar a very competitive performance scene and the GTX 780 was well in the mix praised are very well optimized title of GTX 780 had no trouble delivering highly playable framerates at 1080p in fact it wasn't a great deal slower than the RX 470 though it did trail the GTX 970 and r9 390 by over 10 FPS moving to 1440p we once again find similar results and even at this resolution the GTX 780 was able to provide smooth gameplay finally they have Dawn of War three and well these the results that we've pretty much come to expect by this point the GTX 780 was found sitting between the GTX 1050 TI and GTX 10 63 gigabyte making it around 20% slower than the r9 390 as we've found quite a few times the GTX 780 is able to catch up at 1440p though that said this resolution has pretty much broken this GPU more than a few times anyway here at average 47 fps placing that alongside the GTX 10 63 gigabyte and that meant it was just a single frame slower than the GTX 970 and RX 470 so two weeks ago I revisited the r9 390 and plenty of you were pretty keen to give it a hard time over power consumption well I get to the GTX 780 is technically an older GPU but still it consumes quite a lot more power increasing total system consumption by 11 percent over the r9 390 the GTX 780 wasn't a great deal faster than 1050 turn a lot of the games tested yet it increased total system consumption by almost 140 percent for those running a 780 you will require a 500 watt power supply to avoid running into any problems ok so that's all 22 games in the bag and yet we do still have a few more results to look at in a moment but before we do that let's have a look at the average performance from all the games just tested at 1080p and 1440p then just briefly we will see how the GTX 780 compares to GPU such as the r9 390 and gtx 750ti in a few older titles so first up let's check out those averages here we see that on average the GTX 780 was 23% faster than the GTX 1050 Ti verse 15 % slower than the RX 470 and GTX 970 not only that but when compared to the r9 390 it was 20% slower now on launch day for the r9 290 it was just a few percent faster than the GTX 780 then the r9 390 arrives and it delivered around 10 percent more performance than the 290 on average so it seems over the years the margin has basically doubled for the margins to have remained much the same we would expect to see the GTX 780 averaging around 70 fps TEP and not the 60fps that we see out of interest I thought let's take a look back at a few older games starting with Metro last light here we see even today using modern drivers the GTX 780 and r9 390 provide very similar or basically the same performance what's also interesting to note here is that while the GTX 780 was just 20% faster than the 1052 iron modern games it's almost 50% faster he when looking at the average frame rate the same is true for the r9 390 whereas it was on average 7% faster than the RX 470 in modern titles it's 20% faster here to quickly verify the Metro last light results I quickly ran the sleeping dogs benchmark again the r9 390 and GTX 780 were pretty much neck-and-neck there was just a slight variation in the minimum frame rate meanwhile the GTX 780 was almost 30% faster than 1050 Ti and 20% faster than the rx 470 before wrapping things up here's three minutes worth of gameplay footage comparing the GTX 780 GTX 1050 TI and r9 390 side-by-side I don't know you guys like seeing the footage side by side so I thought I'd include this towards the end but for those of you who prefer the graphs aren't really interested in watching the gameplay footage then you can skip ahead there will be a video index in the description to show you where the conclusion starts you so maybe it's quite hard to believe that the geforce gtx 780 is roughly four years old now i guess that says though it really used to having a show at age a 780 was just 23% faster than the 1050 TI that's pretty crazy given the GPU is physically four times larger packs more than twice as many transistors and consumes well over twice as much power when compared to the r9 390 the gtx 780 hazlit further behind it's no secret that the kepler architecture just hasn't aged that well it's either down to the architecture itself or nvidia neglecting driver development or perhaps a bit of both either way we've never seen in video architecture fall away like Kepler has I don't expect the same to happen to the Maxwell based GPUs any time soon but of course I'll keep my eye on performance for those of you considering picking up a GTX 780 to try and save some money my advice would be don't bother I currently the performance is sketchy at best some tiles are okay while others were just horrible so like I said sketchy at best but if you're willing to tweak the visual settings at 1080p then you can achieve smooth playable performance in pretty much all titles but again keep in mind that power consumption still going to be very ugly especially when compared to similar performance current generation GPUs pricing for the GTX 780 graphics cards online is surprisingly high people are still asking over $100 us for these things most of listed on eBay for between 120 and 150 dollars us giving you can pick up a GTX 1052 i4 around $130 us this would be my preferred option it might be a slow graphics card but it's also world's more efficient and therefore it will run cooler and quieter right now AMD graphics cards are pretty much out of the question thanks to - tapping them all up I would have suggested the rx 470 or rx 570 but good luck finding one of them right now anyway that's going to do it for this one I'm your host Steve see you again soon guys