Should I get GTX 780 now, read my usage scenario...

[bigi]

Hi,

I've been meaning to upgrade my GPU for a long time. I've been on 5850 for years. Initially, I was going to go R9 290 route, but now with its current pricing I've decided to go with ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC as it seems to get very good reviews.

I game occasionally at 2560x1440 if possible. I will replay Crysis 1 for sure and will also hit some newer titles that are coming up.

I use Photoshop, Lightroom and Neat Image a lot, so will 780 help in this respect?

My system specs:
I7-2600K @ 4.3 on Asrock Z77 Pro4-M mobo.
32 GB RAM
Asus 850W PSU

I will not overclock the GPU, nor will I go SLI as I am not interested in going that route.

Please advise on anything I should consider before getting this Asus 780.

Are there any next gen GPU's coming? Should I re-consider R9 290, what else is there to take a look?

Would like to stay within ~$520 budget.

Thanks for any input.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Hi,

I've been meaning to upgrade my GPU for a long time. I've been on 5850 for years. Initially, I was going to go R9 290 route, but now with its current pricing I've decided to go with ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC as it seems to get very good reviews.

I game occasionally at 2560x1440 if possible. I will replay Crysis 1 for sure and will also hit some newer titles that are coming up.

I use Photoshop, Lightroom and Neat Image a lot, so will 780 help in this respect?

My system specs:
I7-2600K @ 4.3 on Asrock Z77 Pro4-M mobo.
32 GB RAM
Asus 850W PSU

I will not overclock the GPU, nor will I go SLI as I am not interested in going that route.

Please advise on anything I should consider before getting this Asus 780.

Are there any next gen GPU's coming? Should I re-consider R9 290, what else is there to take a look?

Would like to stay within ~$520 budget.

Thanks for any input.

My GTX 780 (the two-fan ASUS model) cost me five-and-a-half Franklins. I wanted a card with more VRAM, and it had 3GB. I might have ordered a GTX 770 card with 4GB. Turns out, the memory is ample.

Before you click "Proceed to checkout," look for a 2014 article of Tom's Hardware evaluating graphics cards. The inflection-point for price/performance ratio is at the GTX 770 cards. Spending more gives more performance, but less per extra dollar. I finally just decided to spend an extra Franklin and change for the difference between the 780 and 770.

I won't vouch for the other makes and models. This particular GTX 780 [see this link] . . http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121779 . . . seems to run idle at ~75F ambient with ~31 to 33C. I played some older simulation games on it, and the temperatures barely broke 40C. Then I downloaded a new car-racing simulator, and ran it with the card feeding my HDTV in the background. Temperature peaked at 65C and GPU usage went to 100%, but it didn't miss a lick. I'd thought about getting a second card, but that's a lot of heavy-metal in the case and adds four fans.

By the way, the fans on this sucker are quiet. Can't hear 'em, no matter what.

Oh. There are some next gen cards on the horizon. I think the 780 is called "Kepler," and the new line will be called "Maxwell." You can wait . . . and then wait again. . . . I needed to upgrade from my GTX 570 -- a power hog and comparative slug. Upgrading from 4-year-old technology probably won't matter much for the difference between a powerful Kepler 780 and a Maxwell. In fact, they already released a small Maxwell card as a GTX 750. You can find out more by reading the reviews available.

 

[Pandamonia]

Get a 780 GTX Lightning LE.

Silent and seriously powerful. Great overclocker.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Get a 780 GTX Lightning LE.

Silent and seriously powerful. Great overclocker.

He could do that . . . too . . . . Just a quick glance at the triple-fan "frozer" MSI card. A review says it overclocks easily to 941 Mhz. My ASUS card is an "OC" model that simply comes with that stock setting. I think some lab reviewer was able to push it close to 1,200, but I'd have to go back and look at the detailed facts.

Generically, the 780 cards are beasts. I'm not sure why someone would drop another $200 to get the 780 "ti" card: maybe it has 6GB. So the key questions: "How does it behave thermally-speaking?" "How reliable is it?" "How good are the drivers?" And .. . how many customers out of a hundred reported 'DOA?'"

I wouldn't have any greatly-tutored judgment about this, but I studied the available lab reviews and did my own appraisal of customer reviews before I settled on the ASUS card. Maybe I missed something about the MSI, but I can't rightly say.

 

[BrightCandle]

Photoshop has CUDA acceleration,
Lightroom as far as I can tell isn't accelerated by the GPU.
Neat Image has both an openCL and CUDA acceleration.

Thus the 780 will help quite a bit in accelerating these applications. Just search application name + cuda in google and you'll find numerous reviews with various versions, in some Photoshop tests I saw it go 10x as fast with a much slower GPU.

I don't really think there is much else to consider, buying a nice cheap 780 based on the reference design will get you what you are looking for, you aren't looking for overclocking so there is no concern there. The 780 is a decent card for 1440p and its about the point where it and the 290X compete, the 290X does tend to do better at 4k but worse at 1080p so I don't think the resolution is a problem.

Your power supply looks sufficient also, I see no reason not to get it.

 

[Pandamonia]

He could do that . . . too . . . . Just a quick glance at the triple-fan "frozer" MSI card. A review says it overclocks easily to 941 Mhz. My ASUS card is an "OC" model that simply comes with that stock setting. I think some lab reviewer was able to push it close to 1,200, but I'd have to go back and look at the detailed facts.

Generically, the 780 cards are beasts. I'm not sure why someone would drop another $200 to get the 780 "ti" card: maybe it has 6GB. So the key questions: "How does it behave thermally-speaking?" "How reliable is it?" "How good are the drivers?" And .. . how many customers out of a hundred reported 'DOA?'"

I wouldn't have any greatly-tutored judgment about this, but I studied the available lab reviews and did my own appraisal of customer reviews before I settled on the ASUS card. Maybe I missed something about the MSI, but I can't rightly say.

You can basically add just 200mhz in AB and your hitting 1300mhz boost clocks on stock volts and stable. Runs cool and quiet and looks awesome with a case window.

Drivers are fine... MSI are a good manufacturer. 16 phase power and mil spec components. I got mine for the same price as the Reference Cards.

 

[Subyman]

Guys, he said he wasn't going to over clock....

If you are absolutely not going to over clock, get the SC version for $20 more. It adds another 100mhz, which translates to around a 8% boost in performance. You don't have to fiddle with any settings, it works out of the box. I went from an R9 290 to a 780. For Photoshop, you can use either. Adobe added OpenCL support, but I believe their CUDA support is more mature.

After using both, the 780 feels smoother when playing. The R9 290 may have been just as powerful, but it didn't feel as polished as the 780. If I had to buy again, I'd definitely choose the 780.

If you are planning to crypto mine, then there is only one option.

 

[3DVagabond]

SOURCE

Mercury Graphics Engine

The Mercury Graphics Engine (MGE) represents features that use video card, or GPU, acceleration. In Photoshop CS6, this new engine delivers near-instant results when editing with key tools such as Liquify, Warp, Lighting Effects and the Oil Paint filter. The new MGE delivers unprecedented responsiveness for a fluid feel as you work.

MGE is new to Photoshop CS6, and uses both the OpenGL and OpenCL frameworks. It does not use the proprietary CUDA framework from nVidia.

In order to use MGE, you must have a supported video card and updated driver. If you do not have a supported card, performance will be degraded. In most cases the acceleration is lost and the feature runs in the normal CPU mode. However, there are some features that will not work without a supported video card.

Maybe this will help with info on PS GPU features. Looks like possibly a 290 might be better.

These 3 are available from Newegg @ $499.99

 

[Silverforce11]

If you don't OC, for similar price I would go with the R290. But if the 780 is cheaper, go with that. They are both quite close in terms of gaming perf, especially factory OC 780s. But certainly don't rule out a good custom R290 like Powercolor or Sapphire.

 

[bigi]

Thanks for the replies.

I use Photoshop 5.

R 290' slook good too, but non-refs will blow all the heat into my case and we all know that those generate lots of it.

This EVGA 780 is $490 AR. What are your thoughts on it?

 

[3DVagabond]

Thanks for the replies.

I use Photoshop 5.

R 290' slook good too, but non-refs will blow all the heat into my case and we all know that those generate lots of it.

This EVGA 780 is $490 AR. What are your thoughts on it?

That card is going to blow excess heat into the case as well, but it's a good card if you are leaning that way.


Looked up CUDA & CS5. Found this @ TOM'S

Maddeningly, Photoshop CS5 still does not support any native CUDA-accelerated functions, leaving us in the same boat as After Effects...until we realized that some plug-ins for Photoshop actually use CUDA. Sweet! When we found Digital Anarchy’s Beauty Box Photo plug-in, it was love at first sight.

So, I guess it depends if you are going to use any CUDA accelerated plugins or if you might upgrade photoshop and have a use for the OpenCL, which both companies support but AMD is generally far superior running.