Prepare for sub $500 GTX780's very soon!

[SAAB340 28]

Having just gone from the loud GTX470 to the quiet 780 I'm very pleased. I did the upgrade just before the massive slash in pricing though. I had a one off chance to buy it for a good price at the time, so I did. I expected the pricing to drop slightly due to AMDs launch a few weeks down the road. But I didn't expect AMD to perform as well as they do with the very competitive price tag. Would still not touch the AMD cards with its current cooler though. I got the 470 at a bargain price a few years ago. It gave me massive price/performance value, but the noise and heat has been bugging me ever since. I feel like the AMD 290 series is very much like nVidias GTX400 series. And I don't miss it.

[cvearl 60]

Having just gone from the loud GTX470 to the quiet 780 I'm very pleased. I did the upgrade just before the massive slash in pricing though. I had a one off chance to buy it for a good price at the time, so I did. I expected the pricing to drop slightly due to AMDs launch a few weeks down the road. But I didn't expect AMD to perform as well as they do with the very competitive price tag. Would still not touch the AMD cards with its current cooler though. I got the 470 at a bargain price a few years ago. It gave me massive price/performance value, but the noise and heat has been bugging me ever since. I feel like the AMD 290 series is very much like nVidias GTX400 series. And I don't miss it.

 

Ultimately the stock coolers on AMD are louder than they should be. My first 7970 reference card went back in 1 week and I exchanged for a Gigabyte Windforce 7970 OC and the difference was day and night. 

 

The Board partners are being held back until AMD decides once and for all the position of the R9 290. The reference board matches the GTX 780 and the MSRP is $399 USD.

 

I suspect $429 ASUS, Gigabyte, Sapphire, HIS and MSI joining the party by end of the month. Since they will match the GTX 780 in every way and are a $400 card, what is nVidia going to do next? Drop to $449 or less?

 

The BETA driver for AMD recently was an issue. A bunch of us complained but prepared for silence from AMD. On the contrary. We all received personal emails and consequently the BETA 13.11 v9.2 squashed the bug that would crash FSX with a fatal error. They are really on their toes now it seems and back to caring about the little guy and legacy apps.

 

Wow. Black Friday and all of December should be interesting. This is the bloodiest battle I have seen between these two in many years!

 

Charles.

[ant_1984 20]

 

 

Plus now rumored they are prepping a GTX780 Ghz Edition to replace the 780 and trump the 290. The Ghz edition 780 or whatever they call it, will probably be 10% faster than the R9 290 and standard 780 and I'm guessing priced to kill.

 

There is no Ghz edition Nvidia SKU. The GHZ edition that's been talked about so much as actually a heavily pre-overclocked GTX 780 with clocks around 1Ghz, hence the name. Benches are out and it performs very very closely to a 780ti. 

 

It's based on the new B1 revision of the GK110 and other cards will be using this revision too, but there's no actual Nvidia "Ghz" part. 

 

For anyone looking at buying a GTX 780 but doesn't want to overclock themselves, this is probably THE card to go for. Marginally more expensive than some other 780's, but well worth it in my opinion.

 

http://www.eteknix.com/gigabyte-gtx-780-windforce-oc-ghz-edition-3gb-graphics-card-review/

 

The EVGA GTX 780 Classified would also be another good alternative, or you can overclock yourself.

 

I have my reference 780's boosting to up over 1100Mhz without any extra voltage needed and these babies perform like greased lightning, the fan on the Gigabyte model I linked above though is quieter and may be something for people to consider.

[cvearl 60]

There is no Ghz edition Nvidia SKU. The GHZ edition that's been talked about so much as actually a heavily pre-overclocked GTX 780 with clocks around 1Ghz, hence the name. Benches are out and it performs very very closely to a 780ti. 

 

It's based on the new B1 revision of the GK110 and other cards will be using this revision too, but there's no actual Nvidia "Ghz" part. 

 

For anyone looking at buying a GTX 780 but doesn't want to overclock themselves, this is probably THE card to go for. Marginally more expensive than some other 780's, but well worth it in my opinion.

 

http://www.eteknix.com/gigabyte-gtx-780-windforce-oc-ghz-edition-3gb-graphics-card-review/

 

The EVGA GTX 780 Classified would also be another good alternative, or you can overclock yourself.

 

I have my reference 780's boosting to up over 1100Mhz without any extra voltage needed and these babies perform like greased lightning, the fan on the Gigabyte model I linked above though is quieter and may be something for people to consider.

 

Except that Gigabyte is calling it the Ghz Edition LOL. Lord knows we need even more versions of the same card. My local shop has no less than 15 different 780's already. We need more! Haha.

 

But we all know nVidia floods the market with variants galore which I always found annoying. EVGA models number in the dozens (56) of card models. It's silly. EVGA is nVidia's closest partner. Look at this nonsense... Just select EVGA.

 

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Category/VideoCards

 

You walk in that store and there is a whole wall of EVGA. It takes up more shelf than all the other brands of video cards and motherboards combined. Talk about blocking everyone else out. 

 

Charles.