Just how fast is the GTX780m anyway?! (780M OC vs GTX760 OC)

This is a question that has bugged me for a while yet I have never been able to get conclusive proof; Just how fast is a GTX780m(880m) in relation to desktop cards?

Various reviews and forum posts state the performance is anywhere from GTX670 levels (makes more sense) right the way down to the 750Ti.... (Just no). Actual analysis compared to desktop cards is hard to come by (outside of basic 3DMark runs at least).

Well not any longer!

I recently got fed up with Eyefinity profiles causing all manner of trouble with my 290X. So I decided to make the move back to Nvidia Surround. I am waiting on the Maxwell cards to hit to properly upgrade, but in the meantime I bought this little beast:



This is an Asus GTX760 DCII Mini, it clocks in at 1150/6000 out of the box and is just so damn cute!

Given this card offers up slightly faster than GTX670 reference speeds, I thought it would be fun to use it as a base line comparison against the GTX780M both stock and overclocked.

The reasoning behind this is that I have always though the 780M to have similar overall performance to a GTX670 based on its specifications alone. For those who don't know this is how the cards stack up:

GTX780M - 1536 SP @ 849Mhz / 128 TMU / 32 ROPS / 5000Mhz 256bit GDDR5 160GB/s
GTX670 (Ref) - 1344 SP @ ~980Mhz / 112TMU / 32 ROPS / 6000Mhz 256bit GDDR5 192GB/s
GTX760 (DCII Mini) - 1152SP @ 1150Mhz / 96TMU / 32ROPS / 6000 Mhz 256bit GDDR5 192GB/s

All of the cards are based on the Kepler GK104 architecture with the only differences being how many SMX's are enabled and the clock speeds.

We all know that a reference GTX760 is only around 5% slower than a reference GTX670 clock for clock, thus my 760 will match up quite nicely against a mildly clocked 670 (say 1050Mhz core). Arguably at 1150Mhz on the core it is closing in on a reference GTX680...

This sets the stage for a long overdue comparison.

The Benchmarks

I am running through a few benchmarks which I have easy access to on both systems. I was going to add Titanfall to the benchmark but the multplayer nature coupled with the inability to select a map made this not really possible for a quick comparison.

Test Setup

GTX780M
i7 4700MQ @ 3.2Ghz
16GB DDR3 @ 1600MT/s
H87M Clevo platform

GTX760
i7 4770S @ 3.9Ghz
4GB DDR3 @ 1600MT/s
MSI B85i mITX

GPU clock speeds (core/memory):

GTX780M Stock - 849/5000 (undervolted by -25mV)
GTX780M OC - 950/6000 (undervolted by -25mV)
GTX780M "Max OC" - 980/6000 - This is the max overclock at stock voltages

GTX760 Stock - 1150/6000
GTX760 OC - 1202/7000



Battlefield 3

1080P Ultra Settings with 4xMSAA
5 minute FRAPS run through of "Operation Swordbreaker"



Well there you go. The 780M is marginally slower than a GTX760 at stock clocks and quicker once overclocked. The overclocked 760 is marginally quicker again but the difference is quite small. This is a pattern that will become all too familiar...

I forgot to run FRAPS with FPS over time for BF3. Having re-run the same section 100's of times for various reviews I really didn't want to go back and do it again....


Crysis 3

1080p "High" system preset with Very High Textures - SMAAx1
5 minute FRAPS run through of "Welcome to the Jungle"





Well what do you know, the performance is in line with what we saw in BF3. The delta is closer this time by a small margin (in favour of the 780M).


Sleeping Dogs

1080p "Max" settings with High AA
Built in benchmark



And again.... This time the 780M OC is much closer to the 760OC. If I could get the memory higher it would overtake it!


Thief

1080p "Max" settings with High SSAA
Built in benchmark



The two cards overclocked are basically identical in this benchmark. The 780M at stock clocks is a little slower than the stock 760 but the difference isn't massive. Interestingly the minimums are much higher on the 780M. I re-tested this a few times and each time the result was the same. This could be a case of the raw SP advantage being more important than clock speed alone (possibly due to scheduling?).


3DMark11

Standard test (P)



The 780M wins out here despite a weaker CPU. I must admit, this was the result that got me thinking about doing this comparison in the first place.


Benchmarks Summary & Conclusion

I have always though the 780M performed (or could perform) roughly the same as a GTX760/670 and here is my proof. In all of the games tested the 780M is right there side by side (some could say slightly ahead) of a pre overclocked GTX760.

Ultimately this puts its performance squarely at mildy overclocked GTX670 levels, which in a laptop isn't half bad!

Overall I am very pleased. I now can't wait for the true successor to my 780M!

 

Thanks for sharing. Curious of you used the stock 780m vbios?
There's a lot more OC room in the 780m there. But then I'm going to assume you took both cards both to a limit you were comfortable with and didn't want to fiddle with voltage so there's that too.
Anyway Rep +1 for the share

PS. Great looking 760 too

 

A +135/400 780m should be equal to a stock GTX 760, at least according to 3dmark11. Your 780m seems to be faster than what it's normally supposed to have tho, 8000 at stock.

 

Thanks. I am running the unlocked bios from SLYv7 (SP?) on Techinferno. My card runs quite hot so 980/6000 is the max I want to go to for day to day benchmarking. Maybe tempted to try some further mods down the line though. I run it at 950/6000 -25mV day to day (hence the inclusion on the review). Higher clocks would only make it faster which is fine by mean.

In terms of temperatures I am seeing a 3-5 degree drop thanks to the lower voltage in Crysis 3.

This is the reason I ran the benchmarks. 3DMark11 can often show one thing but games something totally different. The stock score seems about right (just under 8k). It used to be around 7.6K when I first got the laptop but subsequent driver releases (specifically the 337.50's) helped nicely). For the point of view of the 3DMark11 run I did nothing more than set the clock preset in NI (850/5000 @ -25mV) and ran the benchmark.

 

You should be able to get at least 10000 on 3DMark 11 with the 780M and his vBIOS, which brings it to GTX 680/770 performance. Mr. Fox was able to get 17000 on 3DMark 11 with 780M SLI, which is equal to or slightly better than a GTX 780Ti, at least while it's at stock. Unfortunately, you 880M owners out there can only dream of reaching this level of performance. NVIDIA dropped the ball with you guys.

---

GTX 780M:

Spoiler

GTX 780Ti:

Spoiler

Stock:


Overclocked:

Good post, though. It's interesting to see the comparison.

 

Oh definately if I was to push it (the 780M) further (it is afterall just a downclocked GTX680/770). Honestly though I don't really have much interest for synthetic benchmarks (not saying they don't serve a purpose though). I was more interested in finding out how the card performed in games.

 

Nice. 780M OC reaches 670 stock level.

 

my 337.5 +135/300 only gets 8500ish, got 8750 once when I was running malwarebytes(the physics score dropped by 15%, could be possible the CPU+gpu on full load was affecting total GPU performance, but my GPU was at 99-100% the entire benchmark it wasn't throttling).

Does the 200 memory extra really give 500? I already go 82-83c at full load running dark souls 2 at 4k res so I probably won't bother OCing it further, granted I'm in an enclosed room at 28c and I dont have an external cooler.

 

Honestly I don't know. In my case an extra 30Mhz on the core added about 150 points so I suppose it may be possible. I will re-run the max OC benchmark tonight to see if I see any variation.

EDIT: Does your GPU run at 980Mhz all the the time through the benchmarks when setting +135mhz core? I noticed on the stock bios that the first test didn't run at 980Mhz, it ran at something like 940Mhz despite setting +135mhz. All of the sebsequent tests I have run have shown a locked 980Mhz.

 

Good stuff, +rep

 

Can one really run 10k 3dmark clock 24/7? Say, in a mild temp 25C?

 

You need a laptop cooler and a larger PSU. It will run fine, but it will also probably shorten the life of the card. That level of overclock is not worth it for gaming/every day use.

 

Thanks

I personally wouldn't, but it is technically possible as long as you keep the temps in check. I would perhaps want an ambient temperature lower than 25 degrees though (Living in the UK so used to lower).

 

I got my 780M in a Asus G750JH to maintain 9400+ safely for 24/7 use.. It still runs cold too

 

Temperature is one thing, but how well the power circuitry will hold up to 24/7 OC is another.

Also I've always thought of the 780M as a heavily downclocked desktop 770. Paper specs are the same except for clockspeeds.

 

Quick update - I re-ran the benchmarks last night and got scores that were within margin of error to the scores shown above. I didn't graph anything as I was juggling two systems and four screens but nothing untoward was noticed (no throttling or clockspeed reductions).