titleOur first introduction to the new 700 series of cards from Nvidia was impressive and I can say without a doubt that I have enjoyed our time with it through the review and beyond. I was especially impressed with the stock cooler aesthetically, but the performance wasn’t too bad as well. Of course that can be improved on and I finally have a chance to see that now with our latest card to come in, MSI’s GTX 780 Gaming or the N780 Twin Frozr 3GB Overclocked. Every time I have had a Twin Frozr card on the test bench I have been impressed, I wonder if this will be the same. Of course I am going to put it through our test suite to find out.

Product Name:  MSI GTX 780 Gaming / N780 TF 3GD5/OC

Review Sample Provided by: MSI

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

 

Specifications

Graphics Processing Clusters

4

Streaming Multiprocessors

12

CUDA Cores

2304

Texture Units

192

ROP Units

48

Base Clock

954 MHz

Boost Clock

1,006 MHz

Memory Clock (Data rate)

6008 MHz

L2 Cache Size

1536K

Total Video Memory

3072MB GDDR5

Memory Interface

384-bit

Total Memory Bandwidth

288.4 GB/s

Texture Filtering Rate (Bilinear)

165.7GigaTexels/sec

Fabrication Process

28 nm

Transistor Count

7.1 Billion

Connectors

2 x Dual-Link DVI

1 xHDMI

1 x DisplayPort

Form Factor

Dual Slot

Power Connectors

One 8-pin and one 6-pin

Recommended Power Supply

600 Watts

Thermal Design Power (TDP)

250 Watts

Thermal Threshold2

95° C




Packaging

Having seen some of MSI’s gaming motherboards, the packaging for the GTX 780 Gaming wasn’t really a big surprise. We have the large dragon across the front as well as a large red Gaming Series logo. Down in the bottom left corner there is a logo pointing out that this is an overclocked card. On the back of the box MSI has broken down some of the GTX 780 Gaming’s features including the included gaming app, thermal design, military class components, and predator (MSI’s video capturing software).  Along with those breakdowns, there is also a feature and specification listing on the back.

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Inside there is a box with the MSI logo on top that houses all of the cards accessories. You get a user guide, driver and software disk, Molex to 6-pin adapter, DVI to VGA adapter, and a 6-pin to 8-pin adapter. The 6 to 8 pin adapter matches the card with its black and red design, a nice touch. Under the accessory box is the GTX 780 Gaming itself wrapped up in a static protective bag and sitting in foam to keep it safe.

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Card Layout and Photos

We have seen a few of MSI’s Twin Frozr cards in the past and technically this is another one, but this time things are a little different. For one, you only see the Twin Frozr name in the official model name of the card, not on the cover of the box or in its friendlier name GTX 780 Gaming. That is because this card is designed to do with MSI’s Gaming Series, much like the Z87 Gaming motherboard we recently took a look at. Other than the obvious Gaming Series badge in the middle of the card, you can also tell just by the use of red and black.

Even so, the GTX 780 Gaming still does have the Twin Frozr cooling design meaning it has two large cooling fans that blow over an extremely large heatsink that runs the length of the card. On top of that there are heatpipes running from the GPU itself pulling the heat out and over the heatsink for the dual fans to cool down. If you look at the top and bottom of the card you will see those heatpipes and frankly they are very large, but I also love that MSI made a point to give them a nice chrome like finish.

On the top edge of the GTX 780 Gaming, aka the only part of the card you will see when it is installed in your PC, you will see the MSI logo but oddly enough there isn’t a badge showing off what model this is. I think that this is a missed opportunity for MSI, a sharp GTX 780 Gaming badge right on top would really draw attention to the card and get people even more interested in getting a card just like it for their PC.

Also along the top edge, MSI did have to include a bracket that goes from the top of the card to the PCI bracket on the back to keep the whole card secure. The heatsink on this card is large than normal so keeping everything in place was very important. That bracket runs along the edge of the PCB as well preventing any sagging. MSI did make sure that this bracket won’t block your SLI bridges, although the bracket will go over top of them.

The other important thing to keep in mind with this design is that it is an open air cooling design. Because of the size of the heatsink, there isn’t a way for the GTX 780 Gaming to vent solely out the back of the card. Because of this, you will have to keep it in mind when picking this card. If your case doesn’t do a very good job cooling you would be adding additional heat into your case that could heat up other components. This is rarely an issue for any enthusiasts, but I do like to remind everyone.

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The GTX 780 Gaming’s two power connections are tucked away behind one of the cards heatpipes but you can still get to them. Once you do, you will need an 8 pin connection and a 6 pin connection to power this monster of a card.

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For connections, the GTX 780 Gaming isn’t any difference than a reference card. As you can see, you have two DVI connections as well as a full sized DisplayPort and a full sized HDMI port. There is also basically the same ventilation that we saw with the reference card, but as I already mentioned the Twin Frozr cooling vents mostly into the case making these vents fairly un-needed.

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For such an amazing looking card, I was a little surprised they didn’t go with a fully black PCB on the GTX 780 Gaming. It is close, but it ends up having that brown finish when you can see the copper traces, and they are basically all over the card.

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I mentioned before that this is a large card. Here are a few pictures of the GTX 780 Gaming up next to the GTX 780 reference card. The reference design is very attractive, but if I had to pick between the two I would have to go with the MSI, the Twin Frozr design looks great. I would miss the light up logo on top, but I suspect that the GTX 780 Gaming’s cooling will help me forget that soon enough. Overall length wise the cards are the same,  but there is almost an inch extra in height for the Twin Frozr cooler, luckily most cases have plenty of room there.

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Our Test Rig and Procedures

Our Test Rig

CPU

Intel i7-3960X

Memory

Corsair Vengeance 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM Quad Channel  (4x4GB)

Motherboard

Asus Rampage IV X79 Motherboard 

Cooling

Intel Active Thermal Solution RTS2011LC

Power Supply

Cooler Master Gold Series 1200 Watt PSU

Storage

Kingston Hyper X 120 SSD

Seagate Constellation 2tb Hard drive 

Case

High Speed PC Test Bench

 

Our Testing Procedures

Bioshock Infinite 

Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool we run Bioshock Infinite on the “Xtreme” quality setting. This has a resolution of 1920x1080, FXAA turned on, Ultra Texture detail, 16x Aniso Texture Filtering, Ultra Dynamic Shadows, Normal Postprocessing, Light Shafts on, Ambient Occlusion set to ultra, and the Level of Detail set to Ultra as well.

Tomb Raider

Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool we run Tomb Raider on the “Xtreme” quality setting. This has a resolution of 1920x1080, Exclusive Fullscreen turned on, Anti-Aliasing set to 2xSSAA, Texture Quality set to Ultra, Texture Aniso set to 16x Aniso, Hair Quality set to TressFX, Shadow set to Normal, Shadow Resolution on High, Ultra SSAO, Ultra Depth of Field, High Reflection quality, Ultra LOD scale, Post Processing On, High Precision RT turned on, and Tessellation is also turned on. 

Hitman: Absolution

Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool we run Hitman: Absolution on the “Xtreme” quality setting other than the MSAA setting is turned down from 8x to 2x. That setting puts the resolution at 1920x1080, MSAA is set to 2x, Texture Quality is set to High, Texture Aniso is set to 16x, Shadows are on Ultra, SSA is set to high, Global Illumination is turned on, Reflections are set to High, FXAA is on, Level of Detail is set to Ultra, Depth of Field is high, Tessellation is turned on, and Bloom is set to normal.

Sleeping Dogs

Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool we run Sleeping Dogs on the “Xtreme” quality setting. That means our resolution is set to 1920x1080, Anti-Aliasing is set to Extreme, Texture Quality is set to High-Res, Shadow Quality is High, Shadow Filter is set to high, SSAO is set to High, Motion Blur Level is set to High, and World Density is set to Extreme.

F1 2012

We use the built in benchmark for F1 2012. We set our resolution to 1920x1080 and then use the “Ultra” setting.

Batman Arkham Asylum

We used the built-in benchmark set to 1920 x 1080, Multi Sample AA 16XQ, Detail Level, Very High, Bloom: Yes, Dynamic Shadows: Yes, Motion Blur: Yes, Distortion: Yes, Fog Volumes: Yes, Spherical Harmonic Lighting: Yes, Ambient Occlusion: Yes, PhysX: Off

Total War: Shogun 2

Direct X11 Benchmark High setting

Crysis 2

Using Adrenaline Crysis 2 benchmark.  1080p, 4x Anti-Aliasing, DX11, Laplace Edge Detection Edge AA, on the Times Square map, with hi res textures turned on.

Battlefield 3

Using Fraps with the game set to Ultra settings with 4x MSAA Antialiasing Deferred, 16X Anisotropic Filter, at 1920x1080.

Sniper V2 Elite

1920 x 1080 resolution, graphics detail set to ultra

Dirt Showdown

1920 x 1080 resolution, 4x MSAA multisampling, Vsync off, Shadows: ultra; Post Process: High; Night Lighting: High; Vehicle Reflections: Ultra; Ambient Occlusion: Ultra; Water: high; Objects: Ultra; Trees: Ultra; Crowd: Ultra; Ground Cover: High.

Metro Last Light

Using the included benchmark tool. The settings are set to 1920x1080, DirectX 11, quality is set to very high, Texture filtering is untouched at 4x, and motion blue is set to normal. SSAA is unselected, PhysX is unselected, Tessellation is off. We run through scene D6 three times to get an average score.

Synthetic Benchmarks

For video cards our synthetic benchmarks are limited to 3DMark Vantage 2011, and 3DMark 2013 (AKA 3DMark). In 3DMark Vantage 2011 we run both performance and extreme benchmarks. The same goes for the most current version of 3DMark, we run through Fire Strike on standard and extreme settings.

Unreal Heaven Benchmark 4.0

Using the “Extreme” preset

Unreal Heaven Benchmark 4.0 heat testing

We run through Unreal Heaven at 1080p for 30 minutes to test in game heat performance and noise output of the card while under load.

Power Usage

Using Unreal Heaven Benchmark 4.0, we get our “load” power usage number from the peak power usage during our test. We get our numbers from a Kill-A-Watt connected to the test benches power cord.

Noise Testing

Our Noise testing is done using a decibel meter 3 inches away from the video card on the bottom/fan side of the card. We test an idle noise level and then to get an idea of how loud the card will get if it warms all the way up we also turn the fan speed up to 100% and test again. The 100% test isn’t a representation of typical in game noise levels, but it will show you how loud a card can be if you run it at its highest setting or if it gets very hot.

 

 


Cooling, Noise and Power

Our GTX 780 reference card wasn’t what I would call a low power card, but it did come in lower than what I saw from the R7970 when testing it. Even more surprising it came in less than a few SLI setups as well. Of course the GTX 780 Gaming from MSI is a whole different beast. We have two large cooling fans to push now as well as its increased overclock, so I wasn’t surprised when it pulled more power than the reference card in our power consumption test. It actually scored a tie with the R7970 in load power consumption, but at idle it was slightly more efficient pulling only 204 watts for our entire test rig. The load results are still a little surprising, being 34 watts more than reference, but we have yet to see what the card is capable of, that power might be put to use.

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Now we are talking, the MSI GTX 780 Gaming had impressive cooling numbers in our temperature testing. We didn’t match the amazing performance that we saw with the GTX 650 Ti Boost with Twin Frozr cooling, but it was in line with the GTX 760 we tested last week with aftermarket cooling, very impressive!

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We know it can cool, but what kind of racket will it put up while you are using it? Well our idle testing was nearly in the middle of our previous results. More importantly the noise that the card makes at an un natural 100% fan load is actually considerably less than the reference design and almost spot on with what the last Twin Frozr card tested did.

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Synthetic Benchmarks

The base clock on the reference GTX 780 is 863 while the Boost clock is 900 Mhz. The MSI GTX 780 Gaming on the other hand has a much higher clock of 954 Mhz base clock and 1006 Mhz boost meaning it should outperform the stock GTX 780. To put that to the test of course I had to run it through our entire test suite starting with our synthetic benchmarks. So how did it perform? Well if you look at the first graph from 3DMark Fire Strike, you will see that this is the fastest single card that we have ever had on the test bench, of course we haven’t tested the Titan, the GTX 780’s big brother. The difference between the stock GTX 780 and the MSI GTX 780 Gaming is actually fairly large. The only results that are higher are from SLI and Crossfire tests but even then I think the card performs fairly well getting close to two GTX 660’s in most cases. That of course means that you could pick up two cards for less to match the performance you are going to get from this card, but in the end you will also have to deal with issues from SLI that a single card will never have like micro stuttering and having to wait for an SLI update for the newest games.

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In Game Benchmarks

In every single game tested the MSI GTX 780 Gaming tops the charts for a single card. There was one result where the reference card did perform slightly better for some weird reason, but beyond that you should expect to see a healthy 5-6 extra FPS from the overclocked MSI card over a stock GTX 780, that has to be the biggest improvement I have ever seen going to an overclocked card. It goes without saying that this card is going to play everything you throw at it. Even in Tomb Raider where our results with AA turned up have been fairly low for every card we are almost at 60 FPS with the MSI GTX 780 Gaming.

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Overclocking

Overclocking an already overclocked card can sometimes be a little interesting. For starters there is less overhead because the card is already using some of the overclocking ability that you would normally be getting. Having said that, pre-overclocked cards like the MSI GTX 780 Gaming normally also come with amazing cooling meaning heat is rarely the issue that will hold you back, short of extreme cooling designs of course.

This time around I jumped into overclocking the GPU with a healthy 200 MHz offset but if you look at the resulting speeds it didn’t show any improvement going from 200 to 265, oddly enough though my FPS results did jump. I assumed that I had capped out at 1032 MHz but it is possible considering the faster FPS that my resulting speed may be off for some reason. Anyhow, I wasn’t able to edge any more of an offset on the GPU, so I moved onto the memory overclock. As you can see I was able to bump the memory performance up multiple times before I ran into issues at a memory offset of 500 Mhz. Even then it wasn’t a hard crash, so with fine tuning I could have gotten something very close to 500 Mhz. Having said that, I went for it again on my combined tests running an GPU offset of 260 and memory at 500 Mhz. Surprisingly I didn’t experience the artifacts that I saw on my memory testing.

All in all, the MSI GTX 780 Gaming overclocked well and I am willing to bet its additional cooling played a big part in that. If I was able to toss more power at the card I bet it is capable of a lot more.

GPU Clock Speed Overclocking

GPU Clock Speed Offset

Pass/Fail

Resulting GPU Speed

FPS Result

Notes

200Mhz

Pass

1032Mhz

62.12

 

265Mhz

Pass

1032Mhz

62.46

 

285Mhz

Fail

1032Mhz

N/A

Driver and 3DMark Crash

 

Memory Clock Offset Overclocking

Memory Clock Speed Offset

Pass/Fail

Resulting Memory Speed

FPS Result

Notes

200Mhz

Pass

3206Mhz

62.69

 

250Mhz

Pass

3251Mhz

62.75

 

300Mhz

Pass

3305Mhz

62.81

 

350MhZ

Pass

3348Mhz

62.85

 

400MhZ

Pass

3402Mhz

62.93

 

500Mhz

Fail

3506Mhz

62.98

3-4 Artifact

 

Combined GPU and Memory overclocks together

GPU Offset

Memory Offset

Pass Fail

FPS Resuts

Notes

260Mhz

500Mhz

Pass

63.12

 

 

 


Overall and Final Verdict

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When I took a look at the GTX 780 at its launch I was impressed both with its performance as  well as the overall quality of its design. Improving on both of those was going to be a tall order, but I feel the MSI did a good job on both with their GTX 780 Gaming. The bump in gaming performance that we saw from its overclock was very impressive on top of an already good performing card. Even more impressive was the MSI GTX 780 Gaming’s performance when it came to cooling and noise levels. Not only did MSI improve on the cooling of the card, but they did it while keeping the noise down in comparison to the reference card.

Really my only complaints about the card were trivial in comparison to the cards benefits. For example, one of the con’s I noted was that the PCB isn’t completely black to match the rest of the card’s styling, at the end of the day this doesn’t change its performance and it still looks good. The same goes for the other con noted mentioning the designs higher heatsink height. The additional height isn’t going to affect 99% of the people who will be considering the card. That goes to show you how good of a design MSI put together with the GTX 780 Gaming when that is all I could complain about.

On top of the performance and the cards styling, MSI also bundled along with it their afterburner software suite. With afterburner you can see what your card or cards are up too and also overclock as needed. They also include an easy to use app that lets you select overclock performance for the GTX 780 Gaming in a way similar to the OC Genie that MSI motherboards are known for. If that wasn’t enough, they also include functionality that lets you record your screen, saving you money on Fraps. Nvidia is getting ready to introduce a similar program for their own software as well, but for now MSI has you covered.

 

So what does all of this cost you? Well stock speed reference cards are running 649.99 and if you look around overclocked reference designs are $10 more at $659.99. So I was a little surprised to see that the MSI GTX 780 Gaming priced at $659.99 as well. It was already a good option but pricing it in line with overclocked reference designs makes this a steal. To give you an idea, currently the only other overclocked GTX 780 with an aftermarket heatsinks are running $679 and $799 (watercooled). If you are on the market for a GTX 780, the MSI GTX 780 Gaming aka N780 TF 3GD5/OC should be at the top of your list to check out. 

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Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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garfi3ld replied the topic: #31618 03 Jul 2013 00:06
MSI's Gaming version of the GTX 780 with a healthy overclock!

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