- Feb 12, 2013
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http://www.bytemedev.com/the-gtx-780-ti-sli-end-of-life-driver-performance-analysis/
Conclusion (as of 7/3/2015):
The transitioning into 35x.xx family has caused a certain amount of performance penalty to some Kepler users, for example a loss of 4.05% in GPU score in Fire Strike, and 3.88% Fire Strike Extreme. A loss though should be read in context. The loss in performance since at least driver 347.25. I dont think there is a huge conspiracy to withhold performance as people speculate, but there is enough data to merit a review by nVidia. I dont expect major performance gains any more, now that we are EOL, but we shouldnt be going down in performance in a benchmark that even pre-dates this video card.
The best driver currently for Kepler, in terms of 3DMark performance I have tested thus far is 347.25. If you must use a 35x.xx driver, I highly recommend the 350.12 or the 352.86. I have updated the charts and added the actual numbers.
Update:
The numbers since 340.52 only show a lost of 3.96% loss of performance in the GPU score, or 2.09% in overall score in Fire Strike. The latest hotfix driver 353.38 seems to be that nVidia is taking the issues serious and managed to resolve not only the performance issues but the vast majority of TDR crashing that was occurring.
Anecdotal Comments:
I have greatly enjoyed my time with the GTX 780 Tis, even though they are not good overclockers. Out of all my nVidia experiences, they have been my favorite cards. nVidia driver stability has been usually good for me, that being said, the 353.30 is the worst driver I have ever used from nVidia and I have had Quad SLI and GTX 590s before.
I have been using the 780 Tis since November 2013. I did my testing in my configuration because this has been my experience with Kepler GPUs in SLI. To me there hasnt been a mass reduction in performance, I have never felt this crushing ominous crippling of performance that so many people are claiming is happening. I dont doubt there are issues, issues which seem to vary based on each users configuration (including driver issues) but as far as I can tell no one has taken the time to prove many of these claims. I recommend everyone, if they can, to use the 347.25 driver, it is a solid performer and very stable. Maxwell also predates this driver which refutes the whole nerfing Kepler to make Maxwell shine theory. Looking at the trend up to the 347.25 driver, performance has been consistent. I personally do not have the TDR bug in Windows 8.1, I did have it in Windows 10, it does look like they are working on a fix finally though.
The tests here are for a narrow premise and not all encompassing, I realize that. Again the point of this article is encourage neutral fact based discussion but also provide a reference to repeatable and reproducible tests. All my test results are under the user RagingCain at 3DMark Results, if you want/need that extra proof.