Test Setup

For those who've been following our reviews, take note that we've replaced our old test rig with a brand new one for 2013. Here are the new specs we'll be running with:

Intel Core i7-3960X (3.3GHz)
ASUS P9X79 Pro (Intel X79 chipset) Motherboard
4 x 2GB DDR3-1600 G.Skill Ripjaws Memory
Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive (OS)
Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM 1TB SATA hard drive (Benchmarks + Games)
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Here's the list of cards we'll be testing.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 320.18)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan 6GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 314.09)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 310.90)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 310.90)
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3GB GDDR5 (AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta) - OC BIOS

Note 1: There's a slight discrepancy in driver versions used across all the cards, but bear with us updating of benchmarks is an ongoing process, especially on our new test rig. Despite this, the differences shoudn't be alarming as they are fairly recent releases and still paint a reasonably accurate expectation of where the new card stands among the competition.

Note 2: In our performance testing, we left the default temperature ceiling at 80 degrees Celsius as most users would leave it as default. Only at our overclocking exercise did we increase the power target at 104 per cent and our temperature target was automatically increased to 89 degree Celsius.

Here's a look at how the GTX 780 stacks up against its competition:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 and competitive SKUs compared
	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780	NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 (Reference Card)	AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3GB DDR5	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 (reference card)

Core Code	GK110	GK110	GK104	Tahiti XT	GK104
GPU Transistor Count	7.1 billion	7.1 billion	3.54 billion	4300 million	7080 million
Manufacturing Process	28nm	28nm	28nm	28nm	28nm
Core Clock	863MHz	836MHz	1006MHz	1050MHz	915MHz
Stream Processors	2304	2688	1536 CUDA cores	2048 Stream processing units	3072
Stream Processor Clock	863MHz	836MHz	1006MHz	1050MHz	915MHz
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs)	192	224	128	128	256
Raster Operator units (ROP)	48	48	32	32	256
Memory Clock (DDR)	6008MHz	6008MHz	6008MHz	6000MHz DDR (GDDR5)	6008MHz DDR
Memory Bus width	384-bit	384-bit	256-bit	384-bit	256-bit
Memory Bandwidth	288.4 GB/s	288.4 GB/s	192.3GB/s	288GB/s	384.4 GB/s (192.2 GB/s per GPU)
PCI Express Interface	PCI Express 3.0	PCI Express 3.0	PCIe ver 3.0 x16	PCIe ver 3.0 x16	PCIe v3.0 x16
Power Connectors	1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin	1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin	2 x 6-pin	1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin	2 x 8-pin
Multi GPU Technology	SLI	SLI	SLI	CrossFireX	SLI
DVI Outputs	2	2	2	1 x Dual-Link	3 x Dual-Link
HDMI Outputs	1	1	1	1	—
DisplayPort Outputs	1	1	1	2 (version 1.2 HBR2)	1 x Mini-DisplayPort
HDCP Output Support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes