Palit GTX780 Jetstream 6GB SLi (Ultra HD 4K) review

The GTX780 has been a big seller for Nvidia partners – it took the high end market by storm in 2013 and clearly outperformed AMD's HD7970 at the time. But this is 2014 – why would the same partners decide to release a 6GB version of the solution a year later and after the more powerful GTX780Ti was unleashed to market?

Nvidia claimed that the GTX Titan and GTX Titan Black were released for CUDA development engineers and other specialists in the professional sector. Nvidia didn't even sample the GTX Titan Black to press when it launched, we had to get our review samples via other channels.

Their reasoning was that the card was never meant to target gamers – even though some of their online material has contradicted that. This official overview page on the GTX Titan Black features the following quote ‘GTX TITAN Black is the ultimate gaming GPU for a pure gaming experience'. Make your mind up, Nvidia.

Confusing marketing strategies aside, it didn't really matter what Nvidia said, the GTX Titan and GTX Black have sold extremely well into the gaming market – our sources indicate that almost 80% of all Titan cards sold have gone to the enthusiast sector. One of the key reasons is that the GTX Titan cards all have 6GB of GDDR5 memory, not 3GB. If you game across three screens or have picked up a new bargain priced 4K panel then 3GB does seem rather stingy.

We have heard rumors of a 6GB GTX780 Ti for a while now, but so far nothing has been released to market. Someone in Nvidia is clearly musing the point that a 6GB GTX780Ti may eat into the sales of the GTX Titan Black. Both cards are full GK110 implementations, but the GTX780 Ti gave up double precision floating point performance. There aren't many gamers who care about this, the focus has always been on the 3GB memory deficit.

The Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB is undoubtedly an impressive graphics card. The Jetstream cooler has proven very capable and it is in fact the highest rated cooling system we have tested on any performance oriented Nvidia graphics card, to date. When gaming, we recorded load temperatures of only 58c, which is truly remarkable.

Noise levels aren't quite so impressive. We measured close to 37dBa under load and with two of the Jetstream cards in our test bed, noise levels rated at close to 45dBa. If you own an expensive, well insulated chassis then noise emissions will be masked a little, but this is clearly not a configuration you want you suffer from acute Hyperacusis.

Palit have clocked this model at 900mhz, which is really quite a silly decision for such a well cooled solution. There is plenty of core clocking headroom – both our samples could run stable with a 25% overclock, at 1,133mhz. They could have released the 6GB cards at 1,000mhz without any fear of RMA or long term failure.

As we go to press, we have no confirmed UK retail pricing, although other 6GB samples at the same speeds on OverclockersUK would indicate pricing to be around the £430 inc vat price point, give or take £10 either way. Therefore you should be able to pick up two of these Palit GTX780 Jetstream 6GB cards for around £860 inc vat.

It is a lot of money, but the performance is very strong at Ultra HD 4K and there is plenty of overclocking headroom to push the frame rates even higher. Two of these cards can't match the mighty AMD R9 295X2, but to be fair they will save you £240, when combined.

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Pros:

• class leading cooling performance.
• tons of overclocking headroom.
• great looking card.
• Around £130 less than a 3GB GTX780Ti.

Cons:

• A little loud, especially in SLi.
• could have been clocked higher out of the box.
• people will want a 6GB GTX780Ti.

Kitguru says: Until Nvidia release a 6GB GTX780Ti, this is your only 6GB high end option outside ‘Titan' territory. It is a heck of a card.

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