GeForce GTX Titan is a lot like Intel’s Core i7-3970X—a ridiculously fast piece of hardware sitting atop of a stack of alternatives that make a lot more sense. The GeForce GTX 780 is akin to Core i7-3930K. It’s the option we’d recommend to more savvy power users. Almost every bit as fast, it costs a lot less and sacrifices very little of the flagship’s feature set (FP64 performance the biggest loss).
But we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out the more value-oriented offering able to satisfy a majority of enthusiasts: Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition at $450. If you average the performance of our eight benchmarks and then calculate what you pay for every frame per second, AMD’s single-GPU flagship runs $8.38/FPS. The GeForce GTX 780 lands at $10.73/FPS. The Tahiti-based board also maintains a massive advantage in compute-oriented workloads. And it still includes Tomb Raider, BioShock, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and Crysis 3. That’s a killer bundle. When performance per dollar is your only consideration in a high-end graphics card, AMD comes away looking pretty good.
Conversely, the GeForce GTX 780 is faster in absolute terms, even though you pay more for every drop of extra speed. It’s quieter than 7970, it uses less power, it includes a number of tuner-friendly tools, and Nvidia has a really cool feature in ShadowPlay (too bad it isn’t available to test yet). The 780 is a much better-looking board, too. But an asking price of $650 is only a relief to someone who was about a pay a grand for Titan. By all other accounts, that’s still a big flippin’ number.
This isn’t the generational jump you see when a company updates its architecture on a smaller process node and hits you with more speed at a familiar price point. GeForce GTX 780 is a derivative of existing technology that drops its shoulder and charges its way into a new segment. Is it worth more than GeForce GTX 680 or Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition? Absolutely. But I would have rather seen the 780 at $550 or $600.
When it comes to multi-card configurations, there’s a lot more to laud. For the price of two GeForce GTX Titans, you could have three 780s. For $300 more than one Titan, you can get two 780s. If you’re gaming at 2560x1440 or 5760x1080, a couple of GK104- or GK110-based boards will help maintain playable frame rates using the most demanding detail settings. A couple of Radeon HD 7970s or a Radeon HD 7990 might turn out decent benchmark results, but their frame pacing issues are noticeable enough to earn a panel of gamers' disdain in A/B testing next to a GeForce GTX 690. Two GeForce GTX 780s are a winning combination, if you have the means.
The GeForce GTX 780 is a sexy piece of graphics hardware built on top of an impossibly-complex 7.1 billion-transistor GPU. It’s very fast, very quiet, and includes several other attractive features. But, I’m going to wait a week before deciding what I’d spend my money on in the high-end graphics market. You’d be wise to do the same…
- GK110 Gets A Little Bit Leaner
- GeForce GTX 780: The Card
- GeForce Experience And ShadowPlay
- GPU Boost 2.0 And Troubleshooting Overclocking
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Single-Card Results: Battlefield 3
- Single-Card Results: BioShock Infinite
- Single-Card Results: Borderlands 2
- Single-Card Results: Crysis 3
- Single-Card Results: Far Cry 3
- Single-Card Results: Hitman: Absolution
- Single-Card Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Single-Card Results: Tomb Raider
- Multi-GPU Results: Battlefield 3
- Multi-GPU Results: BioShock Infinite
- Multi-GPU Results: Borderlands 2
- Multi-GPU Results: Crysis 3
- Multi-GPU Results: Far Cry 3
- Multi-GPU Results: Hitman: Absolution
- Multi-GPU Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Multi-GPU Results: Tomb Raider
- Heat, Noise, And Cooling
- Power Consumption And GPU Boost
- OpenGL: 2D And 3D Performance
- DirectX And CAD: 2D And 3D Performance
- CUDA Performance
- OpenCL: Single-Precision
- OpenCL: Double-Precision
- GeForce GTX 780: Another GK110-Based Card For Wealthy Gamers

Of course, one could argue that as we get closer to higher-end products, the performance increase is always minimal and price to performance ratio starts to increase, however, for the past 3-4 years (or so I guess), never has it been that the 2nd highest-end GPU having such low performance difference with the highest-end GPU. It's usually significant enough that the highest end GPU (GTX x80) still has it's place.
Tl;dr,
The GTX Titan was released to make the GTX 780 look incredibly good, and people (especially on the internet), will spread the news fast enough claiming the $650 release price for the GTX 780 is good and reasonable, and people who didn't even bother reading reviews and benchmarks, will take their word and pay the premium for GTX 780.
Nvidia is taking a different route to compete with AMD or one could say that they're not even trying to compete with AMD in terms of price/performance (at least for the high-end products).
Of course, one could argue that as we get closer to higher-end products, the performance increase is always minimal and price to performance ratio starts to increase, however, for the past 3-4 years (or so I guess), never has it been that the 2nd highest-end GPU having such low performance difference with the highest-end GPU. It's usually significant enough that the highest end GPU (GTX x80) still has it's place.
Tl;dr,
The GTX Titan was released to make the GTX 780 look incredibly good, and people (especially on the internet), will spread the news fast enough claiming the $650 release price for the GTX 780 is good and reasonable, and people who didn't even bother reading reviews and benchmarks, will take their word and pay the premium for GTX 780.
Nvidia is taking a different route to compete with AMD or one could say that they're not even trying to compete with AMD in terms of price/performance (at least for the high-end products).
Thats apretty bad analogy. A gpu is still smooth even with some of the cores/vram/etc turned off, it doesn't increase latency/frametimes/etc.
I must've missed something. Why wait a week?
Probably to get the GTX 770 launch into the picture, and maybe price cuts from AMD.
That was my opinion after I read Anandtech's review.
Not all is right at nvidia and this is just desperate times for desperate measures stuff, we now await AMD's response and if they play it right and make the node jump it could end up being very ugly.
but i don't know why people are complaining about the price because nvidia had no good competition for it at the moment and when they do they will have to reduce it
GK110 isn't a new anything. It's been around as long as the GTX 680 aka GK104 and is still part of the Kepler family. I think the new cards you're thinking of that are due sometime next year (maybe?) are the Maxwell family of cards.
I still maintain that this is what the 680 should have been a year ago, but I've beaten that horse to death too many times so I'll shut up...
No, if I meant Maxwell I would have said Maxwell. GTX 700 is GK110 but in the long and short Nvidia talked this up to be an almighty part yet we are only talking about 20% faster than the aging 7970. So now we wait for AMD's response which may still be some time yet.
I'd rather save $200+ and get a 7970GE. If Nvidia really wants to be aggressive they need to sell this for ~$550.
Granted, the price difference between this and Titan is ridiculously, making it a no-brainer purchase. Not for me though. Not upgrading from two 670s yet, hehe.