Gigabyte nVidia GTX780 SLI vs GTX Titan SLI Comparison

Gigabyte nVidia GTX780 SLI vs GTX Titan SLI Comparison

Conclusion

So the million dollar question that’s been lighting up the forums and discussions over a pint is, “which is better, the GTX780 or GTX Titan, and do you need that 6GB of GDDR5 in high resolution settings?”.

When we looked at the GTX780 we found it to be a couple of frames behind the GTX Titan, but because of the price differential it was the wiser choice, even if it wasn’t the choice for the people who demand the absolute best and the kudos that comes from being able to claim you have a GTX Titan in your system. So it stood to reason that running the very latest titles at maximum settings on our big 2560×1440 monitor should stretch the gap between the two offerings. After all, if the GTX Titan is two or three frames better as a single card then as two it should be five or six better in SLI right. Right?

Nope.

If anything has come from our SLI testing today it’s that the GTX780 is an even better proposition than it seemed as a single card. Regularly when the going got tough and the benchmarks strenuous the Gigabyte GTX780 SLI setup trumped its bigger brother. Only in the low resolution gentler benchmarks, 3D Mark on the performance preset and CatZilla) did the Titan have enough raw CUDA cores to take the crown and even then it’s by a barely noticeable margin.

The biggest shocks come from the fact that the GTX780s clearly scale much better than the Titans. We often saw numbers near or past the 100% mark from the extra card, whereas the GTX Titan never really doubled the single card performance. In gaming, which is where it counts, the GTX780 SLI setup was constantly ahead of the Titan. After all, nobody can watch Unigine on a loop, no matter how beautiful it is.

So the GTX780 was the sensible choice for all but the most well-heeled user or those who are seeking to break some world records. In SLI the GTX780 is the best choice for both your pocket and for those looking for the smoothest gameplay experience around. You could argue that for the two people who have three 30″ monitors then perhaps the extra GDDR5 available to the GTX Titan frame buffer will mean that it will squeak out a little more performance than the GTX780, but if you could afford such an arrangement you’d buy the Titan’s regardless of cost.

The GTX780 SLI setup is the current champion. The King. The Daddy. It bows to nobody. It has given us the highest scores we’ve ever seen in some tests, and out-performed even a GTX690 SLI setup, which isn’t exactly lacking in performance. The GTX Titan exists solely for those with more money than sense, who rely upon the cachet of the name amongst those who believe that bigger must be better. It isn’t though.

Thanks to Gigabyte for supplying the GTX780s and GTX Titans for our review. Discuss your thoughts in the OC3D Forums.