Gigabyte GTX780 WindForce OC Graphics Card Review

The Gigabyte GTX780 WindForce OC is a remarkable graphics card. With the latest Direct X 11 titles, it is only a couple of percent slower than the significantly more expensive GTX Titan flagship.

Gigabyte's Windforce cooler is certainly a talking point. The adoption of three high grade fans means that Gigabyte can adopt a non aggressive profile. At idle, the fans are only spinning at 800 rpm which means the card is almost silent. Under gaming load the fan speeds rise, but noise emissions are always low partially due to the dull, unobtrusive pitch of the three fans.

The Gigabyte GTX780 WindForce OC has received a 10.5% overclock over the reference Nvidia solution (863mhz to 954mhz) and in real world terms this gives it a notable edge at high resolutions with the image quality cranked. Most of our results show very little performance difference between this GTX780 and a reference clocked Titan.

Every video card will overclock to a slightly different level, however we managed to squeeze another 8.3% from the core before the card would hardlock. Headroom on the GDDR5 memory is exceptional, increasing from 1,502 mhz to 1,771mhz before artefacts would raise their ugly head.

We aren't quite sure why Gigabyte didn't decide to increase the memory speeds to support the excellent core clock enhancements. Final overclocking results point to performance in excess of a standard clocked GTX Titan.

Power consumption of the card is a little higher than the reference model, although this is minor and won't have an overly negative impact on an electricity bill, even long term.

There is a price premium for this card right now in the United Kingdom. Overclockers UK have limited stock, priced at £579.95 inc vat. We have seen some GTX780's for less than £550, although considering the clock and cooler enhancements on this WindForce OC model, we feel this is a fair price.

Other options between £500 and £600? Well AMD really have nothing to compete at this price, although OCUK have a deal right now on a special MSI HD7990 which has been reduced to £499.95 inc vat, This really does seems almost too good to miss, although as the HD7990 is a dual GPU design you will need to rely on a Crossfire driver profile to get the most from this card with the latest games. MSI are also going to be releasing their GTX780 Lightning soon, which will be clocked even higher out of the box, at 980mhz.

Pros:

• looks great.
• good out of the box core overclock.
• Faster than GTX Titan when cranked.
• Quiet.
• responded well to manual overclocking.
• power consumption is good.

Cons:

• Expensive.
• memory is reference speed.
• no backplate.

Kitguru says: A truly excellent flagship solution from Gigabyte. 

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