[H]GALAXY GeForce GTX 780 HOF Edition Review

[Grooveriding]

If they were 100% flawless chips they'd be Titans.

Not even Titan.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7166/nvidia-announces-quadro-k6000

Titan is cut down once, 780 twice.

 

[SiliconWars]

Yeah, was gonna change that to Quadro and Tesla lol.

For sure 780's are nowhere near the best chips.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

If they were 100% flawless chips they'd be Titans.

Wouldn't they be workstation cards, following those cookie crumbs at least?

 

[TheMasterNoob]

Here is a pic of my overclock. Hopefully this will convince you that I am not a liar. http://www.overclock.net/t/1393791/official-nvidia-gtx-780-owners-club/7560

 

[Nomanor]

Here is a pic of my overclock. Hopefully this will convince you that I am not a liar. http://www.overclock.net/t/1393791/official-nvidia-gtx-780-owners-club/7560

this proves nothing

run some benches / stability tests

 

[toyota]

Not even Titan.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7166/nvidia-announces-quadro-k6000

Titan is cut down once, 780 twice.

actually 780 3 times not twice

 

[Piklar]

Very impressive. Though no reason to bite yet until the 9970 comes out or the 2880 Core GTX 785?.. might as well wait at this point. Damn sexy card though..

Agreed! Gotta say Im liking the glowing "Hall of Fame" logo along the side, would look great with two of these vertically mounted in a windowed FT02 or Raven..

 

[Keysplayr]

If they were 100% flawless chips they'd be Titans.

Why? Titans aren't 100% enabled either.

I think the context is, "perfect for it's intended use" as in lowest voltage highest clocks etc. etc.

 

[Xed]

Someone talk me out of ordering one. =) I've about convinced myself to go for it and just eat the restocking fee if it turns out to not live up to reviews.

My concern is that the initial batch will be top quality and they will gradually drop the standards a bit to get more product out (I have no proof on this it is simply my assumption, especially if demand kicks up). Amazon received less than 20 in their initial shipment.

 

[Grooveriding]

When is the Lightning releasing ? It seems the 780 classified is only available direct via evga and is oos. Sold my Titans and will be cardless until I can replace them.

 

[tviceman]

When is the Lightning releasing ? It seems the 780 classified is only available direct via evga and is oos. Sold my Titans and will be cardless until I can replace them.

Damn already? I guess it was better to cash in on the high resale value now.... if you can hold out until Hawaii is released, there might be some concrete rumors of a 15 SMX Geforce card (non-Titan, meaning DP handicapped) heavily swirling by then. If not, then I guess you'll be able to have your choice between cream of the crop 780's or the 8970.

EDIT: I know you are a big overclocker, but I honestly just don't feel like the lightnings are worth the premium with Kepler since there is little ability to adjust voltage. They're all voltage locked to begin with, and as an owner of several past power edition and hawk based MSI cards, I am starting to believe they don't bin GPU's. My gtx560ti hawk came with a factory default HUGE over-volt (which turned out was needed for the shipping clock speed) and my power edition gtx670 isn't particularly special with regards to clock speeds vs. other vendors that use open-air coolers. If what the galaxy rep said is truly accurate in regards to their binning for HOF cards, I'd go with them.

 

[Grooveriding]

I was guessing you could overvolt the lightning like you can the 780 classified. I will grab either if they both offer it. Those cards are as fast or slightly faster than my OC Titans and I come out a few hundred ahead. Still took a decent loss between used sale price vs what I paid plus taxes, but much less than I will in a few months I expect. Titans are just a disastrous buy, last time I spend that much on a single card.

 

[blackened23]

Tviceman, that is technically no longer the case; over voltage is now allowed but the AIB must still presumably get their cards cleared through nvidia. Maybe the warranty is "on them" so to speak, I don't know - the Classified 780 has software voltage up to 1.35V, as will the lightning from what I understand. Also, the Classified 780 allows 1.5V with extreme cooling and EV Bot (50$ addon).

Nvidia is more flexible with over-voltage with GK110, but only two cards will be offering over voltage beyond 1.2V - the lightning and classified. I don't know what the deal with the Lightning is, the release date is purported to be the 28th which is far too late. MSI definitely missed their window of opportunity since the classified has been out for a while now and should be the best 780 (right now) since it allows software voltage to 1.35V. As far as I can tell the HOF card only allows 1.2V which isn't over voltage - every 780 offers 1.2V. Maybe their hyper boost feature does something behind the scenes with voltage that isn't explicitly reported though (ie going above 1.2V), I don't know.

 

[Xed]

When is the Lightning releasing ? It seems the 780 classified is only available direct via evga and is oos. Sold my Titans and will be cardless until I can replace them.

Msi promised they would be out August 8th via reps and a promotional video. Instead they launched a new video detailing the release of the 760 hawk and trolled people waiting on the lightning now saying to check back on the 28th.

This caused some uproar and Msi promised clarification on the 10th, then they posted the same troll video from the 8th.

Long story short maybe the 28th or maybe after the 9970 lightning is out.

I originally wanted lightnings but the trolling plus how they handled it afterwards really irritated me.

As for the classifieds, Newegg has them in and out of stock. I placed an order for them on Amazon but there is still no eta which is why the Hoff is tempting me. =)

 

[blackened23]

Here is a pic of my overclock. Hopefully this will convince you that I am not a liar. http://www.overclock.net/t/1393791/official-nvidia-gtx-780-owners-club/7560

Er, that isn't how it works. Idling on the desktop doesn't prove anything with a GPU overclock, you can practically do an idle on the desktop overclock with any GTX 780. Nearly every 780 can idle on the desktop at 1319mhz. Not saying you're being dishonest, but a run through of unigene for 10 to 15 rounds is generally the go to practice of proving GPU stability at a specific clock...much like CPU overclocks are tested with multiple hours of prime95. Idling on the desktop with a CPU or GPU overclock doesn't really mean anything.

 

[Grooveriding]

Msi promised they would be out August 8th via reps and a promotional video. Instead they launched a new video detailing the release of the 760 hawk and trolled people waiting on the lightning now saying to check back on the 28th.

This caused some uproar and Msi promised clarification on the 10th, then they posted the same troll video from the 8th.

Long story short maybe the 28th or maybe after the 9970 lightning is out.

I originally wanted lightnings but the trolling plus how they handled it afterwards really irritated me.

As for the classifieds, Newegg has them in and out of stock. I placed an order for them on Amazon but there is still no eta which is why the Hoff is tempting me. =)

I would wait on the classified. This HOF has no voltage control so I don't think you'll get the sort of overclocking results you will on the classified.

My one concern is I am hearing they are starting to use cheaper Elpida memory on 780s now. I wonder if they will keep the higher quality Samsung memory on these custom 780s. Memory overclocking makes a big improvement on GK110. I saw better gains out of memory overclocks than core with my Titans.

 

[Xed]

I would wait on the classified. This HOF has no voltage control so I don't think you'll get the sort of overclocking results you will on the classified.

My one concern is I am hearing they are starting to use cheaper Elpida memory on 780s now. I wonder if they will keep the higher quality Samsung memory on these custom 780s. Memory overclocking makes a big improvement on GK110. I saw better gains out of memory overclocks than core with my Titans.

Classified are all Elpida (and so are lightnings apparently). The first batch used Samsung chips and have better memory overclocks. I am also concerned with the fan noise on the acx cooler and the other minor bugs you can read about on the evga forums.

If I could hit 1300 core with a decent memory overclock and a relatively quiet cooler I would be happy with the Hoff. Hence my dilemma. =)

 

[blackened23]

Classified are all Elpida (and so are lightnings apparently). The first batch used Samsung chips and have better memory overclocks. I am also concerned with the fan noise on the acx cooler and the other minor bugs you can read about on the evga forums.

If I could hit 1300 core with a decent memory overclock and a relatively quiet cooler I would be happy with the Hoff. Hence my dilemma. =)

If EVGA and MSI are having shortages of samsung VRAM, everyone is. All of these boards are produced in the same country, all of them.

The only way to get samsung probably (until the shortage situation ends) is to buy a card that has been on the shelf for a while..

 

[Xed]

If EVGA and MSI are having shortages of samsung VRAM, everyone is. All of these boards are produced in the same country, all of them.

The only way to get samsung probably (until the shortage situation ends) is to buy a card that has been on the shelf for a while..

And there are no launch Classifieds left and Lightnings will launch with Elpida apparently =P I'm sure the Hoff has Elpida as well unless their first batch went out with Samsung like the Classifieds.

 

[Grooveriding]

Well that's too bad about the memory. I'm just going to go with a Lightning or Classified based on whichever is in stock first. There are in-stock classifieds, but they're the hydro coppers, and EVGA thinks a waterblock is worth $200.... Pass on that.

 

[Mastercommander]

Why wouldn't they be binned

Some speak binned as if a bad thing. I suppose with these amounts of money some trepidation can be understandable and I'll ignore these posts as private limpouts.

For that amount of money, and that amount of effort spent engineering these cards, I would expect them to be binned

It's a little different from other companies' established lines of top end cards - it seems meant to be a bit more premium, a bit more unique, Galaxy is looking to make a name for themselves, and so they would actually spend more effort to bin. Hopefully it pays off

 

[Jaydip]

Looks like hitting 1300+ on my 780 isn't tough either.So we don't really need a HOF to hit 1300+.Here my gpu clock is 1305 , stable after five consecutive valley runs.

 

[Grooveriding]

Nice clock, but valley is the worst offender for testing stability. I can get clocks in Valley that hold stable but fall apart in most every game I try to run at the same settings.

Metro:LL benchmark or Far Cry 3 are the best for seeing if your overclock is actually stable.

 

[blackened23]

Jaydip, the clockspeed displayed within valley isn't accurate. Do you have any OSD type software like EVGA precision? Or MSI afterburner? Just go in the options and check-off which things you want to monitor like the memory speed, clockspeed, etc, and turn it on.

Also, that 1305 isn't technically possible with GK110, the 13mhz bins allow 1293, 1306, and 1319 since boosts are done in 13mhz increments.

It's a common error over at OCN, everyone has to show clockspeeds with precision or afterburner for verification. Valley always has a wrong clock for some reason. But, if you do get 1300mhz+ on your MSI card, that's pretty sick

 

[TheMasterNoob]

Alrighty. Ran some tests as everyone suggested. The previous pic is what I use in game. Not really stable in 3dmark. Benchmarks maxed out at about 1280MHz stable. Here is a pic of my most recent run in 3dmark. http://www.overclock.net/t/1418366/lightbox/post/20636044/id/1617514

Edit: I ran MSI Kombuster and Unigine Valley multiple times each.

Edit 2: Isn't the new version of Afterburner allowing voltages up to 1.3v? If that is correct, I would go with the card with the best cooler which currently seems to be the HOF.