Max Overclocked GTX 780ti vs GTX 970 @ 2560x1600

[Grooveriding]

I received a GTX 970 recently and it's a very powerful card for $330. I was interested to see how it would do overclocked to its limit against one of my overclocked 780ti cards. I was hoping to get the 970 up to the speed of one of my 780ti cards with a hefty overclock. I run my GPUs at whatever their overclock limit is 24/7, so these results are not going to represent what everyone will experience with the same model of cards.

I'll note first off that these were not run on the same platform because my main rig is watercooled and I can't swap parts in and out as I please. Both machines are Haswell based though and both CPUs were run at 4.5Ghz. There should be little variance in benchmark performance from platform differences apart from 3DMark, in which case I am only listing the GPU scores.

Rig 1

• 5960X @ 4.5Ghz
• 16GB DDR4 2600Mhz
• GTX 780ti @ 1300 Core / 8000 Memory

Rig 2

• 4670K @ 4.5Ghz
• 8GB DDR3 1866Mhz
• GTX 970 @ 1506 Core / 8000 Memory

The synthetic benches were run at their predetermined resolutions. All the game benchmarks were run at 2560x1600 and maximum settings, apart from Tomb Raider where I ran 2x SSAA rather than 4x.


GTX 780ti Firestrike - http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/4175494
GTX 970 Firestrike - http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/4176125
GTX 780ti Firestrike Extreme - http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/4175523
GTX 970 Firestrike Extreme - http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/4176238

GTX 780ti Valley - http://i.imgur.com/0XTraGh.jpg
GTX 970 Valley - http://i.imgur.com/gKVUDGU.jpg

GTX 780ti Tomb Raider - http://i.imgur.com/JGmrJkz.jpg
GTX 970 Tomb Raider - http://i.imgur.com/IMD1O68.jpg

GTX 780ti Metro 2033 Redux - http://i.imgur.com/FCfMdVJ.jpg
GTX 970 Metro 2033 Redux - http://i.imgur.com/E2PSvIV.jpg

GTX 780ti Metro Last Light - http://i.imgur.com/Hej9ePz.jpg
GTX 970 Metro Last Light - http://i.imgur.com/MowYT05.jpg

GTX 780ti Rome Total War 2 - http://i.imgur.com/S93XVg9.jpg
GTX 970 Rome Total War 2 - http://i.imgur.com/Iv2leky.jpg

Crysis 3

GTX 780ti Crysis Warhead - http://i.imgur.com/TPJgNDr.jpg
GTX 970 Crysis Warhead - http://i.imgur.com/SweaDyB.jpg

Basing it on average framerates, the 780ti is about 20% faster than the 970 here. I've started to do some benches at 1080p and the performance difference appears to get smaller at that resolution. My 780ti cards are both pretty golden, reference cards that can run 1300/8000 at the 1.21 volt limit, which is not typical for reference 780ti. Whereas 1500 core overclocks on the 970 seem pretty common. For the price the 970 is really impressive after you finish overclocking it.

The 980/970 don't provide any sort of tangible upgrade for a 780ti, but for $330 and pushing a couple sliders you can easily get gtx780ti/gtx980 stock performance out of the 970.

 

[Attic]

Thanks for the review here.

One of the major drawbacks of Anands review and others are the lack of worthwhile card selection for competition to the 970/980. Anand is still using the 290x "Uber" moniker from the 290x reference cards FFS (this was poor showing when orginally done last year and they are still doing it)... and then using the 290x quiet mode while not noting "quiet".

I've been looking to get in a 290/290x 780/780ti worth their salt to test against the 970/980, your's is one of thew few that breaks ranks with stock clocks for older cards vs the new nVidia cards (often over stock). Maybe someone with high clocked i5 or i7 can spit out numbers for a 290/290x taken to 1100core 1500mem and compare to your bench results.

It'd be interesting if you could test less ballsout clocks as well, though I know that's a lot of work. 970 at 1300-1400 on core and the 780ti closer to 1150-1200. Maybe something representing a solid 970 on the market vs a solid 780ti on the market, both at their shipping clocks.

A lot of the value in the 780 non ti was it's clocking ability as well. Stock vs 290 the 780 didn't show nearly as well (particularly with price), but once both were OC'd the 780 had different optics.

 

[Fastx]

Nice work G, man these types of BM's with charts are great to see (very interesting) when you guys post them!

Thanks!

 

[Grooveriding]

I wanted to do some stock benches yesterday, but the time it takes starts to add up. The difference between the two cards would certainly be smaller if they were left at stock. The 970 boosts to about 1370 without any adjustments, while the 780ti only hits around 1100 at stock.

 

[Keysplayr]

The 970 is insane for such a shader count deficit and 2/3 the bus width.

Shader:
780Ti - 2880
970 - 1664 (only slightly more than a GTX680 has)

Nice work btw Groover.

 

[Phynaz]

Thanks for posting Groove. Wish new hardware was in my budget.

 

[Subyman]

So the 780TI is watercooled? Without a voltage unlock bios, the 970 still has a lot of potential. What we are seeing here is a fully unlocked 780TI with a water block competing with a stock BIOS, voltage locked, air cooled 970. I'm wondering how the 970 does with a voltage bump underwater. Also, your 780TI PC is using a 8 core vs the 970's 4 core CPU which could influence some of the gaming scores as well as ram speed (DDR4 vs DDR3).

Thanks for the comparison, but it seems the 970's overlock community still has a few weeks to sort out getting a new bios and getting some water blocks to see what the card can do. Regardless, the 970 is a really good value and certainly not an upgrade for those that have 780TIs.

 

[chimaxi83]

Wow, good showing by 970. I can only imagine a "full" chip. Serious performance. Thanks for sharing. :thumbsup:

 

[RussianSensation]

970 is a solid value as you can basically pick up 2 of these for what used to be the price of a single 780Ti. Still, as expected once 780Ti is overclocked to 1.3Ghz, it's a beast. Not many air cooled 780Ti cards can hit 1.3Ghz though. I bet most 780Ti overclocks are in the 1.18-1.22Ghz range on air.

If GM200 overclocks to 1.5Ghz as 970/980 do, it will be a very nice upgrade over a 1.3Ghz 780Ti.

Thanks for the review Groover!

 

[toyota]

the Crysis 3 results are making any not sense according to other reviews or my own experience. usually even the 980 is not always beating the 780 ti in reviews. a 780 ti at 1300 should easily be beating a 970 at 1500 in that game. heck even my plain 780 at just 1019 is only 4-5 fps behind my 970 with it bouncing between 1450 and 1528.

EDIT: oops I was just looking at the max framerate...

 

[Sohaltang]

Any notes on power consumption on the two cards?

 

[wand3r3r]

Great little review, thanks for sharing!

970 is a solid value as you can basically pick up 2 of these for what used to be the price of a single 780Ti. Still, as expected once 780Ti is overclocked to 1.3Ghz, it's a beast. Not many air cooled 780Ti cards can hit 1.3Ghz though. I bet most 780Ti overclocks are in the 1.18-1.22Ghz range on air.

If GM200 overclocks to 1.5Ghz as 970/980 do, it will be a very nice upgrade over a 1.3Ghz 780Ti.

Thanks for the review Groover!

Yep. 780/ti owners will be better off overclocking then sidegrading/downgrading.

the Crysis 3 results are making any not sense according to other reviews or my own experience. usually even the 980 is not always beating the 780 ti in reviews. a 780 ti at 1300 should easily be beating a 970 at 1500 in that game. heck even my plain 780 at just 1019 is only 4-5 fps behind my 970 with it bouncing between 1450 and 1528.

It is beating the 970 easily, did you notice the min and average? It just had a spike somewhere so the max appears to beat the 780 ti.

 

[toyota]

Great little review, thanks for sharing!



Yep. 780/ti owners will be better off overclocking then sidegrading/downgrading.



It is beating the 970 easily, did you notice the min and average? It just had a spike somewhere so the max appears to beat the 780 ti.

my bad I was looking at the max

 

[wand3r3r]

my bad I was looking at the max

It goes to show that max is basically worthless, and avg and min are both necessary to compare cards. Min can also be a terrible measure since it only has to stutter once during a 10 min session and it appears very bad.

I guess the 95 and 99 as well as 99.9 percentiles would clarify it too.

 

[Techhog]

Thanks for the review here.

One of the major drawbacks of Anands review and others are the lack of worthwhile card selection for competition to the 970/980. Anand is still using the 290x "Uber" moniker from the 290x reference cards FFS (this was poor showing when orginally done last year and they are still doing it)... and then using the 290x quiet mode while not noting "quiet".

I've been looking to get in a 290/290x 780/780ti worth their salt to test against the 970/980, your's is one of thew few that breaks ranks with stock clocks for older cards vs the new nVidia cards (often over stock). Maybe someone with high clocked i5 or i7 can spit out numbers for a 290/290x taken to 1100core 1500mem and compare to your bench results.

It'd be interesting if you could test less ballsout clocks as well, though I know that's a lot of work. 970 at 1300-1400 on core and the 780ti closer to 1150-1200. Maybe something representing a solid 970 on the market vs a solid 780ti on the market, both at their shipping clocks.

A lot of the value in the 780 non ti was it's clocking ability as well. Stock vs 290 the 780 didn't show nearly as well (particularly with price), but once both were OC'd the 780 had different optics.

Gotta admire them for sticking to their guns on methodology, even when it makes no true logical sense.

 

[alcoholbob]

970 is a solid value as you can basically pick up 2 of these for what used to be the price of a single 780Ti. Still, as expected once 780Ti is overclocked to 1.3Ghz, it's a beast. Not many air cooled 780Ti cards can hit 1.3Ghz though. I bet most 780Ti overclocks are in the 1.18-1.22Ghz range on air.

If GM200 overclocks to 1.5Ghz as 970/980 do, it will be a very nice upgrade over a 1.3Ghz 780Ti.

Thanks for the review Groover!

I'm seeing some 780Tis going for $440 now after rebate, so actually the price isn't too bad. If you can get them up to 1200MHz they are an even better deal than a $550 GTX 980.

 

[night.fox]

nice work. what about putting the 970 on x99 rig and the 780ti on the 4690k?

 

[RussianSensation]

I'm seeing some 780Tis going for $440 now after rebate, so actually the price isn't too bad. If you can get them up to 1200MHz they are an even better deal than a $550 GTX 980.

There are a couple cards going for $420 (PNY) and $430 (Zotac). The thing that would make me a bit hesitant on getting the 780Ti is 3GB of VRAM. Still, there is bound to be a deal for $350-360 on final clearance. At that point I'd take a 780Ti over the 980.

 

[Grooveriding]

Thanks guys. Ideally I'd prefer to have run all the benches with the 5960X, but it's too much work to drain my loop and refill just on the CPU to install the 970 and then drain/refill again to put the 780tis back in. In hindsight I should of disabled HT and 4 of the cores on the 5960X to of brought more parity between the setups.

In my experience there are only a few games where there is an advantage from having more cores. Out of this list I think Crysis 3 would of seen some benefit out of the HW-E chip and I probably should of left it out. Other than that obviously Firestrike, but the GPU score is the only thing to pay attention to.

The 970 is really a great card. It overclocks like stink and performs really well with an overclock. The MSI Gaming 970 I did these benches with has never gone over 72C or 60% fan speed and I've never heard any fan noise above the case fans. I would like to get a custom BIOS to remove the power limit like I use on my 780tis. Hopefully one becomes available soon.

I'd like to add a third 780ti to my main system on the cheap for Witcher 3, but none of the price cut deals that are showing up on 770/780/780ti I've seen have been reference cards.

http://www.ncixus.com/promo/subpromosale.php?webid=1447

For some reason all the reference cards are actually the most expensive, nothing under $750. Not interested in paying that for an EOL card.

 

[3DVagabond]

Any notes on power consumption on the two cards?

the 780 ti uses more.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Awesome review! that is alot closer than I anticipated, comparing a GTX780Ti that clocks that high!!

Also which GTX970 did you get?

 

[Yungbenny911]

Can you quickly run another bench and check what total system power draw is at on both setups? Thanks in advance.

 

[beginner99]

I would be interested in the benches with the 970 at lower settings (but same resolution) to see how much to lower them to get say 85+ fps for pairing it with a ROG Swift.

 

[Black Octagon]

Interesting. Anyone know how a 5960X at 4.5Ghz compares to a 4670K at 4.5Ghz?

 

[guskline]

Grooveriding, First a BIG THANK you for the testing work. I sent you a PM on the results. Like Grooveriding I have a custom water cooled rig with both CPU and GPUS under water so switching out graphics cards is neither easy nor fun!

I think the point of this exercise is that the GTX780Ti is still a remarkable card but the GTX 970 is really the value king of higher end cards now, especially considering the price.

I'm not sure if the GTX 980 is worth the premium, though the same argument was made concerning the GTX780 vs the GTX 780Ti