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NVIDIA GTX 780....Maybe Some Good News

Topper

Topper

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 17, 2007
1,186
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As many of you know, The GTX 780 is rumored to be released on May 23rd.

Good News, maybe; a couple web sites are saying that the GTX 780 will have 2 x 6-pin connectors.
The GTX 780 will be so powerful, will 2 x 6 pin connectors be enough to power it?

The newest rumor has it that the GTX 780 will only have 3GB of memory.
Previous rumors had it at 5GB of memory. The 3GB of memory makes sense to me, that way video card manufacturers can make a 6GB GTX 680 as well as the 3GB card.
Many web sites show the GTX 780 TDP to be 250W which is the same as the GTX Titan. 250W seems high to me.

I used a number of sites to make the following chart. It compares the GTX Titan, GTX 780, GTX 770, and GTX 680.
GPUs Compared.jpg
 
4gb gtx 680

I am not pleased.
My 4GB GTX 680 is only using 2GB of vram when running under Wndows 7(bootcamp).
Dxdiag shows it having 4GB but GPU-Z shows it only using 2GB of memory. Totally unacceptable!
My next video card will be either the Titan or GTX 780 depending on the memory.
If the GTX 780 comes with 5GB of vram, then it will be my next card.
If it only comes with 3GB of memory, then the GTX Titan shall be my next video card.
 
$400 to $600 for a video card huh?

attachment.php


Too rich for my blood. All I do is games and movies mostly. The $90 I spent for an overclocked 3-fan Gigabyte GTX 570 was already a lot IMO. $600 for a game card hmm, I think I would rather spend the extra $400 and get a Titan if for professional use otherwise, yeah, a 570 or 670 at most. :p


BTW, I dunno anything really but as I've seen; typically up to the X70 cards are all 6-pin and the X80 cards go to the use of one 8-pin. I dunno if the TBA GTX 770 and 780 will follow that same pattern or not tho.
 
My OC 5870 is still cutting the mustard for gaming in Windows.

Debating whether to retire my Mac Pro from gaming and build a gaming PC.
 
Tesselator said:
The $90 I spent for an overclocked 3-fan Gigabyte GTX 570 was already a lot IMO.
Click to expand...
Tesselator, Tesselator, Tesselator. I did not realize you could buy 570s at yard sales. :p

Wardenski said:
Debating whether to retire my Mac Pro from gaming and build a gaming PC.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I can't see any way around it.
I think the processor of my 2008 Mac Pro is becoming a hindance. An Intel Core i7-3960 or 3970 would be so much faster.
I am seriously thinking about throwing a Titan or 780 into my Mac Pro and see how much that helps.
If not....I'll put the GTX 680 back in and use the Mac Pro for professional applications.
I'll buy a PC and slap the Titan or GTX 780 into it.
 
Topper said:
Yeah, I can't see any way around it.
I think the processor of my 2008 Mac Pro is becoming a hindance. An Intel Core i7-3960 or 3970 would be so much faster.
I am seriously thinking about throwing a Titan or 780 into my Mac Pro and see how much that helps.
If not....I'll put the GTX 680 back in and use the Mac Pro for professional applications.
I'll buy a PC and slap the Titan or GTX 780 into it.
Click to expand...

When I play Bioshock Infinite my CPU is close to 75 % but still no major slowdowns. I only have home premium so I can only use four out of eight cores :eek:.

I can't handle Crysis 2 on Ultra, not sure if its processors or GPU. Other than that, no major issues but I am a graphics whore and will be buying Far Cry 3 and maybe Crysis 3 if its on sale (too short for price).
 
Topper said:
Tesselator, Tesselator, Tesselator. I did not realize you could buy 570s at yard sales. :p
Click to expand...

:D Hehe.. :D

Actually it was an auction site tho. :) He just listed it wrong is all. He listed it as NVidia Galaxy Video Card or something. So without the GTX or 570 in the title it didn't show up in very many searches. Only one bidder from the starting price of $90... Me. :) I didn't save all that much tho. They regularly go for $110 to $150 where I live - unless it's something special and then sometimes a tad more:

http://page18.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/w86501982


.
 
Last edited:
Topper said:
I am not pleased.
My 4GB GTX 680 is only using 2GB of vram when running under Wndows 7(bootcamp).
Dxdiag shows it having 4GB but GPU-Z shows it only using 2GB of memory. Totally unacceptable!
My next video card will be either the Titan or GTX 780 depending on the memory.
If the GTX 780 comes with 5GB of vram, then it will be my next card.
If it only comes with 3GB of memory, then the GTX Titan shall be my next video card.
Click to expand...

Are you sure this isn't just a reporting error in GPU-Z? 2GB (minus 1) is the largest signed 32-bit integer, and many apps have had trouble with values over that because they're not expecting such large values.
 
Asgorath said:
Are you sure this isn't just a reporting error in GPU-Z? 2GB (minus 1) is the largest signed 32-bit integer, and many apps have had trouble with values over that because they're not expecting such large values.
Click to expand...

It turns out the video card is using 4GB of vram.
Because of your reply, I decided to recheck the results.
Turns out that I was using an old version of GPU-Z.
I ran the new version and voilà!
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Capture 2.JPG
 
Topper said:
Yeah, I can't see any way around it.
I think the processor of my 2008 Mac Pro is becoming a hindance. An Intel Core i7-3960 or 3970 would be so much faster.
I am seriously thinking about throwing a Titan or 780 into my Mac Pro and see how much that helps.
Click to expand...

As X-Plane 10 has our shared interest, I would like to share some thoughts regarding a huge grfx card in a 2008 Mac Pro:
I have experimented with X-Plane 10 10.2x 64 bits on OS X 10.8.3 quite a lot now.
1. 16 GB RAM is not the limiting factor (phew... :eek:)

2. It's interesting to find out that changing grfx settings hardly influences FPS count. The grfx card is probably not limiting in my system...

3. 2 GB VRAM is exceeded often, even when the grfx details are NOT that high. The amount of extra scenery loaded combined with the visibility (weather) decides for the most part how much VRAM is used up. I am so happy with 3 GB VRAM. With texture compression enabled I never exceed 2.6 GB of VRAM. (Turn off texture compression, and KLGA / KJFK / Manhattan scenery eats > 4.5 GB VRAM.... :eek:)

4. I play with "real weather" enabled. That gives me no option to influence the visibility setting. Problem with that is sometimes the sim tries to show too much....

All in all.... the CPU (2 x Quad Core 2.8 GHz E5462), maybe combined with "just" 800 MHz DDR2 EEC RAM speed, is the limiting factor.
I don't think a GTX Titan or 5 GB VRAM GTX 780 will help this ageing Mac Pro.
 
MacsRgr8 said:
I don't think a GTX Titan or 5 GB VRAM GTX 780 will help this ageing Mac Pro.
Click to expand...

I am very happy with how X-Plane looks using my 4GB GTX 680.
I'll post some numbers a little later on in the "GTX 680 (2 or 4MB VR) and X-Plane 10" thread.
 
Topper said:
I am very happy with how X-Plane looks using my 4GB GTX 680.
I'll post some numbers a little later on in the "GTX 680 (2 or 4MB VR) and X-Plane 10" thread.
Click to expand...

That'll be gr8!

I do think that your 3.0 GHz probably helps too. Wouldn't surprise me that you can squeeze that 10% more out of it compared to my 2.8.

Just another thought:
As the AMD drivers on OS X aren't suffering that much compared to the nVidia grfx drivers, I wonder if in my case using Windows 7 might help or not.... (I have the AMD 7950 inside mu Mac Pro). A lot of work just for a test... :eek:
 
MacsRgr8 said:
That'll be gr8!

I do think that your 3.0 GHz probably helps too. Wouldn't surprise me that you can squeeze that 10% more out of it compared to my 2.8.

Just another thought:
As the AMD drivers on OS X aren't suffering that much compared to the nVidia grfx drivers, I wonder if in my case using Windows 7 might help or not.... (I have the AMD 7950 inside mu Mac Pro). A lot of work just for a test... :eek:
Click to expand...

Purely a guess on my part but AMD normally works best with OS X.
 
MacsRgr8 said:
Hmm... then I hope that there is an AMD HD 9970 for Mac coming... ;)
Click to expand...

I am guessing you mean the 7970 which is a very good video card.
The 7990 won't work well as OS X doesn't make use of two gpus.
Maybe, I am laughing as I say this, maybe, the new Mac Pro will have an 8000 series video card.
 
Topper said:
I am guessing you mean the 7970 which is a very good video card.
The 7990 won't work well as OS X doesn't make use of two gpus.
Maybe, I am laughing as I say this, maybe, the new Mac Pro will have an 8000 series video card.
Click to expand...

Nah, he meant he 9970 that was leaked two weeks ago. Looks impressive.
 
has anyone seen the rumored 2 x 6-pin versions of the GTX 780 anywhere? only finding the "1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin" versions in recent searches.
 
bsbeamer said:
has anyone seen the rumored 2 x 6-pin versions of the GTX 780 anywhere? only finding the "1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin" versions in recent searches.
Click to expand...

My understanding is it has a 6 and 8 pin connection. The original rumor showed it had 6 and 6.
 
Even GTX 770 seems to have 1x6, 1x8 pin. GTX 760 will be slower than current crop. Last 2x6-pin looks to be the GTX 680 or AMD.
 
derbothaus said:
Even GTX 770 seems to have 1x6, 1x8 pin. GTX 760 will be slower than current crop. Last 2x6-pin looks to be the GTX 680 or AMD.
Click to expand...

Seems to be completely accurate. The GTX 770's that are now available (today) are all 1x6-pin, 1x8-pin versions and claim better performance than the GTX 680's by a slim margin. Have yet to see a 2x6-pin GTX 7xx series and don't think it will happen... so GTX 680 is probably the end of the line for current Mac Pro's without a PSU upgrade/addition.
 
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