ABT evaluates Galaxy’s GTX 780 V2

In May, Galaxy announced the GeForce GTX 780 V2, bringing a new alternative to the reference blower-type design of the GeForce GTX 780.  The reference version is prized for its ability to SLI well, even in a small case as it exhausts much of the GPU’s heat out of the case.  Some PC gamers are considering an upgrade to GTX 780 SLI, and there are few reference version choices available.

The PCB on the new V2 shares the same build and layout as the standard GTX 780, however, the cooler is a newer AIB custom design that promises a lower overall temperature while maintaining a similarly silent operation as the reference version.  We received an evaluation sample from Galaxy on loan, and we put it though its paces for you.

This evaluation focuses primarily on the performance of the Galaxy GTX 780 V2 as it relates to the original reference GTX 780 that we got from Nvidia, the reference EVGA GTX 780 that we reviewed last year, as well as to other cards in the GeForce line-up and to their Radeon counterparts.  We will also look at SLI scaling to see if a second GTX 780 V2 might be a good idea to increase performance at 1920×1080 and at 2560×1600.

As a reference design, the Galaxy GTX 780 V2 includes 3GB of GDDR5 and supports the latest graphics technologies such as NVIDIA GPU Boost 2.0, Adaptive Vsync, DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.4 and PhysX. Galaxy’s Xtreme Tuner Plus software offers a good set of overclocking and monitoring tools.

The Galaxy GTX 780 V2’s Competition – the R9 290/290X

We will compare performance to price as the reference and overclocked GTX 780s are generally priced starting at $499 at Newegg, while the EVGA reference GTX 780 version which we reviewed last year, now sells for more than $500.  The Galaxy GTX 780 V2 is available today for $499.99, exclusively from the Galaxy Online Store.

Besides comparing the Galaxy GTX 780 V2 with the original Nvidia reference GTX 780, we will also overclock it further using the very latest GeForce WHQL 340.52 drivers. We shall also compare it with the original PCS+ reference version PowerColor R9 290X which would be in the $480-550 price range if available, and we are using the very latest Catalyst 14.7 Release Candidate drivers.  The R9 290 series Radeons generally are bundled with AMD’s Gold bundle which includes a choice of three games from the Never Settle bundle.  Unfortunately, there is no current promotion yet available with Galaxy’s GTX 780 V2 from the Galaxy online store, although there is a brand new Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel bundle available with select GTXes.

We use our Core i7-4770K at 4.0GHz which compares in performance to our previous Ivy Bridge benches with Core i7-3770K at 4.5GHz. We use 2x8GB of fast Kingston HyperX “Beast” DDR3 at 2133MHz in an ECS flagship Z87 “Golden” motherboard.  As part of ABT’s “Big Picture”, we will use 26 modern games, and compare video card performance from the R9 270X/GTX 760 on the lower midrange, to R9 280X/GTX 770, to the higher end R9 290X/GTX 780/GTX 780 Ti.

Let’s unbox and then test our Galaxy GTX 780 V2 after we check out its features and specifications.