TheOverclocker Issue 27 | Page 23

All results were obtained at 4625MHz on an un-optimized Windows7 64-bit. These are our results, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system. Graphics Card GIGABYTE GV-N78TGHZ3GD OC 3DMark Fire Strike 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme 3DMark11 3DMark Vantage Catzilla: 1080p HWBOT Heaven Extreme 3821,779 12290 6238 17509 56289 16427 1297MHz GPU /7.8GHz Graphics: 13744 Graphics: 6421 Graphics: 18065 GPU Score: 57760 Hardware: 16532 GIGABYTE GV-N78TGHZ3GD 11617 Graphics: 5941 Graphics: 16834 Graphics: 54177 GPU Score: 15690 Hardware: 12908 6133 17285 55619 15775 Overclocked Radeon R9 290X 1125MHz GPU /6GHz 11051 5578 16188 51576 12595 Graphics: 12435 Graphics: 5788 Graphics: 16587 GPU Score: 52189 3639,79 Hardware: 12147 As stated previously, for your competitive overclocking endeavours, it is best you look for another GTX 780 Ti, but for your gaming needs there isn’t a better GTX 780 Ti that we can think of. Clock speeds is where GIGABYTE have been particularly aggressive, delivering a boost clock of 1150MHz out the box. Not only is this a higher clock than on any other GIGABYTE graphics card, but it’s a mighty 23.9% higher than what NVIDIA will provide you with on the reference GTX 780 Ti. Even more impressive though, is that the real clock under gaming and benchmark conditions is even higher at an astonishing 1215MHz. At these frequencies, the performance differences between this card and the reference 780 Ti are made vividly clear. While the reference GTX 780 Ti is a fast card, just a little faster than the Radeon R9 290X, GIGABYTE’s 780 Ti GHZ Edition card, simply distances itself away from the 290X by some margin. To put this into perspective, you will notice that an overclocked Radeon R9 290X is slower in all tests, when compared to the GIGABYTE 780Ti GHz Edition. Out the box performance is phenomenal making this the fastest graphics card we have ever had the opportunity to test. The numbers are more than compelling and be it you’re gaming at 1080p or UHD resolutions, this is the graphics card you should consider over and above all others (dual GPU solutions withstanding) as we doubt if there will be any other vendor with a 780 Ti clocked this high. Our attempts at further increasing the clock speed on this graphics card were quickly curbed. We managed an additional 82MHz, on the core, and 800MHz on the memory before things became unstable. That’s a mere 6% overclock on the core, but do consider that it’s 6% on top of the 23.9% you buy the card with. Providing additional cooling to the graphics card didn’t help, thus our conclusion is that you’re likely in need of more VDDC voltage. Unfortunately GIGABYTE”s own software will limit you to 1.21V much like all other voltage control software. There are several ways to get around this, but we would caution you about this as you do run the risk of damaging the card or at the very 3502,696 least voiding your warranty. Should you need additional performance for competitive overclocking purposes, then perhaps you should consider one of the other cards that are geared more specifically to overclocking. For your gaming purposes however, GIGABYTE’s GV-N78TGHZ is near perfect. It runs cool, hardly audible and it’s incredibly fast. GIGABYTE’s best graphics card to date by far.  [ The Overclocker ] Summary GIGABYTE has managed to make the fastest single GPU graphics card to date with the GV-N78TGHz. With such a high clock speed and impressive cooling capabilities, it delivers cracking performance that has yet to be matched by any other. There is little to no incentive for looking elsewhere for your gaming needs. Would you buy it? Yes, without hesitation! Issue 27 | 2013 The OverClocker 23