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Nvidia have always said that the GTX Titan and GTX Titan Black graphics cards were never released to target the gaming audience, however that hasn't stopped demanding enthusiast gamers buying them by the bucket load. As the GTX780 Ti is ‘only' equipped with 3GB of GDDR5 memory the move to ‘Titan gaming' has been the only way for a wealthy Nvidia user to double the memory count. If you want to game at Ultra HD 4K resolution – or across multiple screens then the 6GB of GDDR5 makes sense. Nvidia knew there was a gap and have recently been working with their partners to double the memory count on the older non TI GTX780.
We received two of these samples direct from the oriental Palit headquarters. Both cards feature the triple fan Jetstream cooler and have an enhanced 8 Phase PWM. We look at the hardware in more detail on the next page.
| Ref Nvidia GTX780Ti | Ref Nvidia GTX780 Palit GTX780 Jetstream 6GB |
Ref Nvidia GTX Titan | |
| GPU | GK110 | GK110 | GK110 |
| Technology | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm |
| Transistors | 7.1Bn | 7.1Bn | 7.1Bn |
| ROP’s | 48 | 48 | 48 |
| TMU’s | 240 | 192 | 224 |
| CUDA Cores |
2880 | 2304 | 2688 |
| Pixel Filrate | 42.0 GPixel/s | 41.4 GPixel/s 43.3 GPixel/s |
40.2 GPixel/s |
| Memory Size | 3GB | 3GB 6GB |
6GB |
| Texture Filrate | 210.2 GTexel/s | 165.7 GTexel/s 173.2 GTexel/s |
187.5 GTexel/s |
| Bus Width | 384 bit | 384 bit | 384 bit |
| Bandwidth | 336 GB/s | 288.4 GB/s | 288.4 GB/s |
| GPU clock speed | 876mhz | 863mhz 902mhz |
837mhz |
| Boost clock speed | 928mhz | 902mhz 954mhz |
876mhz |
| Memory clock speed | 1,750mhz | 1,502mhz | 1,502mhz |
The Palit GTX780 Jetstream 6GB is clocked at 902mhz, with a boost speed of 954mhz. Memory is held at 1,502mhz (6Gbps effective). The card has 48 ROPS, 192 texture units and 2304 CUDA cores. The 6GB of Hynix GDDR5 memory is connected via a 384 bit memory interface.
The Palit GTX780 Jetstream 6GB arrives in a rather bland looking box with no images of the actual product. The main focus is clearly on the 6GB of GDDR5 memory.
The main box opens up in a Gatefold presentation with much of the focus placed on the custom cooling system.
Inside the box is a power converter cable and two video converters. Palit include literature on the product, alongside a software disc.
The Palit GTX780 Jetstream 6GB is a large, heavy card built around a black PCB. There are three fans set in the cooler shroud. The outer two fans are 80mm, with the center fan slightly larger at 90mm. Each adjacent fan rotates in a different direction to reduce airflow conflicts. The fans use ‘TurboFan Blades' which are inspired by Jet engines. These are sculpted to improve air flow and subsequently cooling performance.
The I/O plate has dual DVI connectors alongside a full sized DisplayPort and HDMI connector.
These cards are SLi capable, with dual connectors, as shown above.
The Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB takes power from a single 6 pin and 8 pin connector.
The cooler is built around a copper base with multiple thick heatpipes. The card adopts an 8 Phase PWM to stabilize the voltage level and improve overclocking ability. Palit say it delivers 30% more current capacity. DrMOS offers high current circuits and low noise operation.On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.
Today we test with the latest Forceware 337.50 driver and Catalyst 14.4 driver.
We are using one of our brand new test rigs supplied by PCSPECIALIST and built to our specifications. If you want to read more about this, or are interested in buying the same Kitguru Test Rig, check out our article with links on this page.
We are featuring results today with an Apple 30 inch Cinema HD Display at 2560×1600 resolution and an Asus PQ321QE Ultra HD 4K screen running at 4K 3840 x 2160 resolution.
Room ambient was held at 23c throughout testing.
Comparison Graphics cards:
AMD R9 295X2 (1018mhz core / 1250mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX Titan Black x2 (890 mhz core / 1,750 mhz memory)
Gigabyte GTX780 Ti Windforce OC (1020mhz core / 1750 mhz memory)
Palit GTX 780 Ti Jetstream OC (980 mhz core / 1,750 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X (1010mhz core / 1250 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X OC (1030mhz core / 1400 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X OC (1100 mhz core / 1500 mhz memory)
Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
Games:
Thief 2014
Total War: Rome 2
Tomb Raider
Metro: Last Light
GRID 2
Battlefield 4
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.
Some game descriptions edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.
Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.
The Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB cards score very well in SLi, falling in around 3,000 points behind the SLi Titan Black configuration.3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.
The graphics score of 26,162 points places the Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB SLi configuration in third place, around 2,000 points behind the Titan Black in SLi.
AMD's R9 295 X2 claims top spot.
3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.
Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.
To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.”
The Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB cards in SLi score around 2,000 points less than the GTX Titan Black in SLi. AMD's R9 295 X2 claims top position, although it is very closely matched.
Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset.
A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.
Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.
Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:
- Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
- Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
- Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
- Multicore CPU support
- Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
- Powerful C++ API
- Comprehensive performance profiling system
- Flexible XML-based data structures
We use the settings shown above at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.
Nvidia are always strong in these Tesselation heavy synthetic benchmarks. The Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB cards in SLi take second spot in our graphs at both 1080p and 1600p, behind the GTX Titan Black's in SLi.
Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.
We test with the settings above both at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.
Solid performance in this Direct X 11 benchmark, holding third position at 1600p.In Thief 2014 Players control Garrett, a master thief, as he intends to steal from the rich. Similar to previous games in the series, players must use stealth in order to overcome challenges, while violence is left as a minimally effective last resort.
We test at 1080p, both with Direct X rendering (Nvidia and AMD) and Mantle rendering (AMD only).
The SLi and AMD R9 295X2 have to deal with a little CPU limiting at 1080p, and all the configurations are closely matched.
In Thief 2014 Players control Garrett, a master thief, as he intends to steal from the rich. Similar to previous games in the series, players must use stealth in order to overcome challenges, while violence is left as a minimally effective last resort.
We test at 1600p, both with Direct X rendering (Nvidia and AMD) and Mantle rendering (AMD only).
Very tight at the top of the chart, even at 1600p. Time to crank the resolution to Ultra HD 4k to sort out the wheat from the chaff.
In Thief 2014 Players control Garrett, a master thief, as he intends to steal from the rich. Similar to previous games in the series, players must use stealth in order to overcome challenges, while violence is left as a minimally effective last resort.
We test at Ultra HD 4k with the HIGH preset, both with Direct X rendering (Nvidia and AMD) and Mantle rendering (AMD only).
Not a great deal of difference at Ultra HD 4k at the top of the chart, although the AMD R9 295X2 holds the top position, averaging 57 frames per second.
Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far.
We use the ULTIMATE profile, as shown above. We want the best image quality possible.
The Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB cards in SLi have no problems powering this game at 1080p – averaging 142 frames per second.
Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far.
We use the ULTIMATE profile at 2560×1600, as shown above.
Frame rates drop significantly when the resolution is increased from 1080p to 1600p. Still the top solutions still have no issues holding 60+ frame rates at all times.
Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far.
We switched over to the ASUS Ultra HD 4K monitor and set to the ULTIMATE profile for maximum image quality.
If you want to enjoy Tomb Raider with the eye candy cranked then you really need a high end SLi or Crossfire system. The Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB Sli scores high, averaging 47 frames per second, and holding 40 frames per second even in the most intensive sections of the environment. Very smooth.
Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike. 4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools.
We tested this particular game with the extremely demanding built in benchmark. Settings detailed above. Direct X 11 mode, Quality is set at Very High, 16 AF, normal Motion blur, Tessellation Normal, Advanced PhysX disabled and SSAA disabled.
Excellent performance, averaging 106 frames per second.
Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike. 4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools.
We tested this particular game with the extremely demanding built in benchmark. Settings detailed above. Direct X 11 mode, Quality is set at Very High, 16 AF, normal Motion blur, Tessellation Normal, Advanced PhysX disabled and SSAA disabled.
The Titan Black SLi configuration is very closely matched to the Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB in this test. The AMD R9 295X2 takes top position, by a clear margin.
Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike.
4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools.
We tested this particular game with the extremely demanding built in benchmark. Settings detailed above. Direct X 11 mode, Quality is set at High, 16 AF, normal Motion blur, Tessellation Normal, Advanced PhysX disabled and SSAA disabled.
The Titan Black Sli configuration has a minimum frame rate advantage in this benchmark, although performance is quite tightly matched. Again the AMD R9 295X2 takes top position by a noticeable margin.
Grid 2 is the sequel to the racing video game Race Driver: Grid. It was developed and published by Codemasters. The game includes numerous real world locations such as Paris, numerous United States locations, and many more, and also includes motor vehicles spanning four decades. In addition, it includes a new handling system that developer Codemasters has dubbed ‘TrueFeel’, which aims to hit a sweet spot between realism and accessibility.
We test at the maximum image quality settings, which are different for both AMD and Nvidia cards. The Nvidia hardware is tested at 16xQCSAA and the AMD hardware is tested at 8f16x EQAA.
The results below therefore are NOT directly comparable. We wanted to show performance from both AMD and NVIDIA solutions in GRID 2 when maximising the image quality settings.
The Nvidia GTX Titan Black SLi configuration scores around 5 frames more than the Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB Sli build. AMD's R9 295X2 takes top spot again at Ultra HD 4K resolution.
Battlefield 4 (also known as BF4) is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE) and published by Electronic Arts. The game is a sequel to 2011′s Battlefield 3. Battlefield 4 is built on the new Frostbite 3 engine. The new Frostbite engine enables more realistic environments with higher resolution textures and particle effects. A new “networked water” system is also being introduced, allowing all players in the game to see the same wave at the same time.Tessellation has also been overhauled.
We test at 2560×1600 with the image quality settings on the ‘ULTRA’ preset. We test the AMD hardware with both Direct X and AMD’s Mantle rendering. Nvidia hardware is tested with Direct X rendering.
This is a very demanding engine at these settings. The SLI and Crossfire configurations score very well at the top of the chart.Battlefield 4 (also known as BF4) is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE) and published by Electronic Arts. The game is a sequel to 2011′s Battlefield 3. Battlefield 4 is built on the new Frostbite 3 engine. The new Frostbite engine enables more realistic environments with higher resolution textures and particle effects. A new “networked water” system is also being introduced, allowing all players in the game to see the same wave at the same time.Tessellation has also been overhauled.
We test at Ultra HD 4K with the HIGH Image preset.
We dropped the image quality settings a little at Ultra HD 4K and all of the hardware on test manage to maintain 30+ frame rates. The AMD R9 295X2 card is way out in front in our tests, although the Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB in SLi score very well – averaging 73 frames per second.
The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.
Palit's Jetstream cooler is one of the best air cooled designs money can buy right now, claiming top position in our chart.
We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.
We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa. It isn’t a real world situation to be measuring with a case panel off only a few centimeters away from a video card. Our noise figures may therefore be lower than other publications who record at closer distances, or without a fully closed case muting the noise.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
The Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB cards are not the quietest we have tested hitting almost 37dBa on our meter from a closed chassis around a meter away. When two are in SLi obviously the noise levels are higher (we measured around 45dBa), however it would depend on your chassis, and slot positioning. Always best trying to give the cards a little air flow room between them.
To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. We measure results while gaming in Crysis Warhead and the synthetic stress test Furmark and record both results.
Each card consumes around 240 watts under load when gaming.
To overclock today we are using the ‘Thunder Master' software supplied on the Palit CD. It is a terrible name for an overclocking suite, but it actually works very well.
There is plenty of room on the core, hitting 1,133mhz at the settings in our screenshot. Almost 26% on the core, is an impressive result.
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.
