- May 30, 2004
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I bought a 780 Lightning awhile ago because I wanted to try something new and prices had dropped a lot on the high-end 780's. It turned out to be a great card and I would have kept it longer but the mining craze hit and I couldn't resist. I ended up buying a pair of reference Powercolor 290s to replace it.
I decided to do a shootout between the Lightning and one of my 290s since it's been a hot topic on the forum the last couple months. I don't have all the modern games in my library but I do have a few and some classics that still give modern GPUs a workout.
Benchmark Rig
OS: Win 8.1 64-bit
Drivers: AMD - 13.11 Beta 9.5, Nvidia - 331.65
CPU: 4770k@4.7Ghz 1.345V HT off
Game Drive: Samsung EVO SSD
Testing Methodology
Each game was run 2-3 times at each listed setting and the best run was used in the charts below. There was very little variability between runs so I'm confident in the results.
Average watts were taken with my calibrated eyeball and a Kill-O-Watt during the last run to make sure both cards were warmed up. Power consumption fluctuated around but generally it was within 15-20W of the average.
For most of the testing I used the stock cooler for both cards. For max oc and a couple other benches I used an EK full water block on the 290. You'll notice on some of the charts that I have "290@1150/1450 H2O" listed to compare power consumption between the reference cooler and the watercooled card. Taking the blower fan out of the equation obviously reduces power draw but the lower temps also help a lot too.
I decided to bench at three different overclocked settings:
Stock - Out-of-the-box performance
Gaming - Clocks and voltage I'd be comfortable with 24/7
Max OC - Bench only settings.
In general the clocks for both cards were the following:
780
Stock - 1124/1500
Gaming - 1340/1650 (+100mV or 1.2V after droop)
Max - 1430/1675 (+200mV or 1.29V after droop)
290
Stock - 975/1250
Gaming - 1150/1450 (+60mV or 1.18V after droop)
Max - 1250-1285/1400 (+219mV or 1.29V after droop)
General Observations
290
My computer is in an open case and sits about three feet away from me. From my limited time using the reference 290 cooler I will say that at 47% or below the fan wasn't that bad. About the same as the reference AMD coolers I've used in the past. Once I started ramping up fan speed though it got very loud. At 90% I didn't want to be in the same room.
The reference PCB is fairly weak IMO with it's 6-phase design. Having used a few reference 7970's in the past I was disappointed with the capability of the 290 PCB. The "leakier" card (80.5% ASIC) I could put ~1.39V through (1.29V with vdroop) and the less leaky card (72% ASIC) could only take 1.34V (1.25V after droop) before the image got all fuzzy and started crawling. I've never seen that before when overclocking too high, usually it either artifacts when the core is tapped out or goes checkered or freezes if the memory is too high. All I can think is that the VRMs just couldn't handle the voltage and it corrupted the video output (only happened on the dual-link DVI).
Even under water with a block known for it's VRM cooling (EK) the VRM's still hit 70C at 1285/1400 1.29V looping Heaven. Needs more phases!
780
This card is an overclocker's dream. 20-phase power delivery (vs. 8-phase on the regular 780s) and comes with 2x 8-pin power connectors. The cooler is capable of dissipating 550W of energy and is still quiet to boot. While benching at 1420-1440Mhz 1.35V (1.29V after droop) the core only hit 78C and VRMs only reached 62C (fans at 80%/70%/80%).
Recommendation
When I first started the shootout it wasn't really a fair comparison because of the large price difference ($380 vs $515 AR). The deck was stacked against the 290 with its reference PCB and stock cooler compared to the Lightning's tank-like build quality and very efficient cooler. I was willing to cut the 290 some slack if it didn't turn out quite as good as the 780 because of the price.
With today's prices however, it's a different story. The 780 Lightning is going for $500 AR and a reference 290 is now the same price with all the gouging going on.
As you'll see in the charts below the cards perform very close to each other, mainly due to the excellent overclocking ability of the Lightning. At today's prices I would recommend the 780 Lightning because it's just such a well-built card. In fact I don't think I've ever used such a quality built video card and I must say it makes going back to reference cards tough. If prices drop down to MSRP or better, I would have a harder time recommending the 780 but prices are what they are so the nod goes to the Lightning.
I decided to do a shootout between the Lightning and one of my 290s since it's been a hot topic on the forum the last couple months. I don't have all the modern games in my library but I do have a few and some classics that still give modern GPUs a workout.
Benchmark Rig
OS: Win 8.1 64-bit
Drivers: AMD - 13.11 Beta 9.5, Nvidia - 331.65
CPU: 4770k@4.7Ghz 1.345V HT off
Game Drive: Samsung EVO SSD
Testing Methodology
Each game was run 2-3 times at each listed setting and the best run was used in the charts below. There was very little variability between runs so I'm confident in the results.
Average watts were taken with my calibrated eyeball and a Kill-O-Watt during the last run to make sure both cards were warmed up. Power consumption fluctuated around but generally it was within 15-20W of the average.
For most of the testing I used the stock cooler for both cards. For max oc and a couple other benches I used an EK full water block on the 290. You'll notice on some of the charts that I have "290@1150/1450 H2O" listed to compare power consumption between the reference cooler and the watercooled card. Taking the blower fan out of the equation obviously reduces power draw but the lower temps also help a lot too.
I decided to bench at three different overclocked settings:
Stock - Out-of-the-box performance
Gaming - Clocks and voltage I'd be comfortable with 24/7
Max OC - Bench only settings.
In general the clocks for both cards were the following:
780
Stock - 1124/1500
Gaming - 1340/1650 (+100mV or 1.2V after droop)
Max - 1430/1675 (+200mV or 1.29V after droop)
290
Stock - 975/1250
Gaming - 1150/1450 (+60mV or 1.18V after droop)
Max - 1250-1285/1400 (+219mV or 1.29V after droop)
General Observations
290
My computer is in an open case and sits about three feet away from me. From my limited time using the reference 290 cooler I will say that at 47% or below the fan wasn't that bad. About the same as the reference AMD coolers I've used in the past. Once I started ramping up fan speed though it got very loud. At 90% I didn't want to be in the same room.
The reference PCB is fairly weak IMO with it's 6-phase design. Having used a few reference 7970's in the past I was disappointed with the capability of the 290 PCB. The "leakier" card (80.5% ASIC) I could put ~1.39V through (1.29V with vdroop) and the less leaky card (72% ASIC) could only take 1.34V (1.25V after droop) before the image got all fuzzy and started crawling. I've never seen that before when overclocking too high, usually it either artifacts when the core is tapped out or goes checkered or freezes if the memory is too high. All I can think is that the VRMs just couldn't handle the voltage and it corrupted the video output (only happened on the dual-link DVI).
Even under water with a block known for it's VRM cooling (EK) the VRM's still hit 70C at 1285/1400 1.29V looping Heaven. Needs more phases!
780
This card is an overclocker's dream. 20-phase power delivery (vs. 8-phase on the regular 780s) and comes with 2x 8-pin power connectors. The cooler is capable of dissipating 550W of energy and is still quiet to boot. While benching at 1420-1440Mhz 1.35V (1.29V after droop) the core only hit 78C and VRMs only reached 62C (fans at 80%/70%/80%).
Recommendation
When I first started the shootout it wasn't really a fair comparison because of the large price difference ($380 vs $515 AR). The deck was stacked against the 290 with its reference PCB and stock cooler compared to the Lightning's tank-like build quality and very efficient cooler. I was willing to cut the 290 some slack if it didn't turn out quite as good as the 780 because of the price.
With today's prices however, it's a different story. The 780 Lightning is going for $500 AR and a reference 290 is now the same price with all the gouging going on.
As you'll see in the charts below the cards perform very close to each other, mainly due to the excellent overclocking ability of the Lightning. At today's prices I would recommend the 780 Lightning because it's just such a well-built card. In fact I don't think I've ever used such a quality built video card and I must say it makes going back to reference cards tough. If prices drop down to MSRP or better, I would have a harder time recommending the 780 but prices are what they are so the nod goes to the Lightning.
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