GTX 670 FTW to GTX 780 SC Upgrade - A User Perspective

Termie

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
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Hey all - a few weeks ago, forum user Face2Face posted an excellent thread discussing his upgrade from an OC'd HD 7950 to a GTX 780. You can read it here: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2354937

As I was putting together benchmarks for a review of the GTX 780, I also put together a number of charts just for you guys, following on Face2Face's example of maximum overclock to maximum overclock. The irony here is that both my GTX 670 and GTX 780 reach exactly the same maximum overclock (1215/6800), so this is also a clock-to-clock comparison. Given that the GTX 780 reference clocks are much lower, however, this represents a bigger overclock on the GTX 780 than it does on the GTX 670. For comparison's sake, I also underclocked both cards to reference speeds (GTX 670@1084/6000 and GTX 780@1006/6000) as a baseline. Generally speaking, the GTX 780 is 45% faster than the GTX 670 at reference speeds, the delta remains at factory-overclocked speeds, and at maximum overclock, the GTX 780 is 50% faster, right about what I'd consider a legitimate upgrade.

Note that all clockspeeds shown in the graphs are actual in-game clocks, and I made sure they were constant throughout the runs by keeping the cards under their throttle temp and by upping the power limit when overclocking. Only the GTX 670 FTW as shipped throttled at all, and this is because its default clock speed exceeds the power limit regularly. The maximum overclock of 1215/6800 was achieved using the sky-high 145% power limit, which never led to a throttle.

I even included my HD 7870 in the 3DMark bench for a little extra fun! Anyone catch the VRAM bottleneck on the GTX670? How about the game with the huge CPU bottleneck at 1080p, despite using an i7-4770K@4.4?

Enjoy and discuss!

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Face2Face

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2001
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Hey Termie great job putting this all together. I definitely appreciate all of time you put into this :thumbsup: Nice seeing the 1440P numbers as well ;)
 
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Termie

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
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Hey Termie great job putting this all together. I definitely appreciate all of time you put into this :thumbsup: Nice seeing the 1440P numbers as well ;)

Hey, thanks for the inspiration!

So, just looking at the five games (excluding 3DMark), at 1080p, the advantage was 41% for the 780 clock-for-clock. At 1440p, the advantage was 56%. Keep in mind that at 1080p, two games were at least partially CPU-bottlenecked, so I'd consider the 1440p number the more significant one.

Edit: Ha, I'm replying to a question you ninja edited out!
 

Face2Face

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2001
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Hey, thanks for the inspiration!

So, just looking at the five games (excluding 3DMark), at 1080p, the advantage was 41% for the 780 clock-for-clock. At 1440p, the advantage was 56%. Keep in mind that at 1080p, two games were at least partially CPU-bottlenecked, so I'd consider the 1440p number the more significant one.

Edit: Ha, I'm replying to a question you ninja edited out!

:D Yeah, I read your post earlier, but didn't get a chance to respond. So when I typed the question and posted it, I then noticed you had revised the OP and listed the clock per clock percentages. I will more than likely be going to 1440P soon, and it's nice to see some overclocked 780 numbers at that resolution. It looks like a single 780 overclocked holds it's own @ 1440P and does pretty good. Again, thanks for doing this.
 
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Rvenger

Elite Member <br> Super Moderator <br> Video Cards
Apr 6, 2004
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Wasn't that 670FTW mine at one point in time? Love the results Termie. I wish we could somehow get an R9 290 in that mix at some point.
 

guskline

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2006
5,338
476
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Rvenger: How is that R9 290 treating you? I'm still toying with the idea of replacing my 2 EVGA 670FTWs in sli with a single water cooled R9 290. Your thoughts on that?
 

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
10,635
3,095
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Rvenger: How is that R9 290 treating you? I'm still toying with the idea of replacing my 2 EVGA 670FTWs in sli with a single water cooled R9 290. Your thoughts on that?

I'll tell you my thoughts on it. Sounds pretty good!
 

Termie

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
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Wasn't that 670FTW mine at one point in time? Love the results Termie. I wish we could somehow get an R9 290 in that mix at some point.

Yes it was. Still running strong!

I wish I could get a 290 in there...where are the aftermarket coolers, heck, where are all the 290s period?
 

MrK6

Diamond Member
Aug 9, 2004
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That's a very professional and informative presentation, strong work!