As we mentioned in our look at the GTX 780 Ti hardware, NVIDIA has increased their default temperature throttle point from 80C on the GTX Titan/780 to 83C on the GTX 780 Ti. The end result is that in all of our temperature limited tests the GTX 780 Ti will peak at 83C-84C, whereas the older GK110 cards will peak at 80C-81C. On a side note, it’s interesting to note here that under FurMark we’re seeing the GTX 780 Ti draw more power than the Radeon R9 290X. Despite the fact that the 290X has a higher rated TDP, in the card’s default quiet mode the card can’t actually dissipate as much heat (and thereby consume as much power) as the GTX 780 Ti can.

Our last idle scenario, we once again see all of our GK110 cards performing similarly, with idle noise levels in the 38dB-39dB range. Please note: Effective April 12, 2018, Game Ready Driver upgrades, including performance enhancements, new features, and bug fixes, will be available only for desktop Kepler, Maxwell, Pascal, Volta, and Turing-series GPUs, as well as for systems utilizing mobile Maxwell, Pascal, and Turing-series GPUs for notebooks. GeForce GTX 780 Ti, GeForce GTX 780, GeForce GTX 770, GeForce GTX 760, GeForce GTX 760 Ti (OEM), GeForce GTX 750 Ti, GeForce GTX 750, GeForce GTX 745, GeForce GT 740, GeForce GT 730, GeForce GT 720, GeForce GT 710

Looking to stretch the memory bandwidth in particular, we next tee up our 1440p tests. The immediate result is surprising: earlier Nvidia cards show a similar delta in fps as the 1080p numbers. However, the advantage in Hitman: Absolution across the 290X and 290 is much more pronounced this time, giving these GPUs up to a 5fps advantage. This gap also narrows significantly across the other tests, between the GTX 780 Ti and the R9 290X in particular, for games like Metro: Last Light and the open-world Sleeping Dogs. In terms of physical design, there are few surprises: the GTX 780 Ti is a single Kepler GPU housed in a double-slot form factor case, the total sum weighing in at 0.87kg. Much like the GTX 780, it sports a snazzy aluminium exterior with a dark fin array at its centre, plus grills to either end for divided airflow. For the money, it's a design that leaves the impression of a premium quality product overall, especially compared to the cheaper matte plastics used across the R9 290X. Meanwhile, the connections are standard fare: there are two DVI-D slots, DisplayPort (capable of reaching 4K resolutions at 60Hz), plus a single HDMI output.

After witnessing the GTX Titan take a hit from both the R9 290 and 290X, the GTX 780 Ti sees the top-end performance crown returning to Nvidia." Testing these cards at 1080p, we set each game to the maximum settings in every case and let the benchmark sequences in Tomb Raider and Hitman: Absolution roll out. The advantage in the 780 Ti's favour is comprehensive. 1920x1080 GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce GTX 1660, GeForce GTX 1650 As for the GTX 780 Ti SLI, like our single-card comparison points its up slightly as compared to the GTX 780 SLI. The GTX 780 GHz Edition and GTX 780 Ti OC are similar enough that we decided to cover them together. The GTX 780 reference board measures 26.7cm long while Gigabyte's cards are slightly longer with their upgraded cooler stretching 29cm (their boards are still 26.7cm long). The display outputs remain standard including two dual-link DVIs, one HDMI and one DisplayPort connector.As for 4K comparisons with the 290X, the lead across the Tomb Raider benchmark is once again palpable at 11fps - though this is perhaps something of an anomaly as much of the test reveals an uncomplicated ocean horizon. This means any lead the GTX 780 Ti has here is accentuated to an extent, whereas other tests show the true nature of the power advantage: typically around 4fps in games like Metro: Last Light or Sleeping Dogs. Impressively, Nvidia's card pulls through at this resolution for Hitman: Absolution too, where for once it has the AMD cards trailing by a 2fps margin. The suggestion is that the higher your intended playing resolution, the slighter the apparent gains in performance are going to be with the GTX 780 Ti. To take this theory to its natural conclusion, we next push the cards to their absolute limits with 4K benchmarks. It's rare to achieve flattering performance at this grade of resolution on a single GPU, so we carry on using the next rung down from maximum settings for each game as a starting point for optimising the experience. So to consider Gsync as a competitive advantage when considering a card, add the cost of a monitor to that. Perfect for those that are going to upgrade soon but for those that won't, Gsync is moot.