In Review: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M, GTX 770M & GTX 765M

We already scrutinized several gaming notebooks with quad core CPUs from the Haswell family and new Nvidia graphics cards about a month before they were finally officially launched.

The first one was the 15-inch Clevo P150SM barebone, which Schenker Technologies made available to us as W503: The GTX 765M notebook houses 16 GB DDR3 RAM, a 750 GB hybrid hard drive and a 128 GB mSATA SSD with pre-installed Windows 8 Enterprise 64-bit.

The performance of the GeForce GTX 770M was measured in the One K73-3N, a 17-inch desktop replacement based on the Clevo P170SM barebone. Finally, the results of the GeForce GTX 780M stem from the One K56-3N2 (Clevo P157SM barebone). The latter two notebooks featured 8 GB DDR3 RAM and a 500 GB Samsung SSD 840 with Windows 8 64-bit.

We had to use the old ForceWare 311.27 as GPU driver. The ForceWare 320.21 was released just under a week before the publication of our test and so, too late for this review. However, apart from several new games, the performance difference will be only small and the total result might only change by a few percent.

As mentioned above, Nvidia does not use a completely new architecture in the GeForce 700 series. But, it is processed in 28 nm lithography, which is rather energy efficient.

The GeForce GTX 765M was designed for price-conscious gamers. With 768 unified shaders and 2048 MB GDDR5 video memory (128-bit interface), it is theoretically slower than the GeForce GTX 670MX with 960 unified shaders (called CUDA cores by Nvidia) and a 3072 MB GDDR5 video memory (192-bit interface). But, thanks to significantly higher clock rates (core: 850 vs. 600 MHz and memory: 2,000 vs. 1,400 MHz) the GeForce GTX 765M is actually faster.

Most of the features are identical to the old generation. A brief summary:

• PhysX: PhysX allows additional effects in several games like Metro: Last Light or Borderlands 2. The graphics card takes over the physics calculations and unloads the CPU. But, the frame rate falls to some extent with hardware PhysX.

• 3D Vision: Nvidia's technology for 3D imaging is still significantly more mature than AMD's. If you own the necessary hardware (120 Hz display, shutter glasses), you can also run games and videos in 3D. Note: Because of technical restrictions not every notebook supports 3D Vision.

• SLI: If desired, two graphics cards can be combined in a so-called SLI-connection (see e.g. Schenker XMG P722). Because of the enormous energy, space and cooling requirements, a dual GPU system is only apt for absolute gaming enthusiasts. The high driver dependence and micro stuttering are further problems. At least Nvidia's driver support is better than AMD's (CrossFire).

• Optimus: Optimus is a dynamic graphics switch. While undemanding tasks like office and web are handled by the GPU integrated into the CPU, games and other 3D tasks run on the dedicated Nvidia GPU. As the technology saves a lot of energy and works reliably, Optimus is used in the high-end range. AMD's graphics switch is called Enduro.

• TXAA: TXAA is an adaptive anti-aliasing method which perfectly balances image quality and performance. Contrary to other methods, there is no stuttering caused by AA. With active TXAA the image appears smoother and does not flicker that much. More and more games support this technology by default (e.g. Assassin's Creed III and Crysis 3).

• GPU Boost: The GPU Boost 2.0 is one of the most interesting updates. In contrast to the GeForce 600 series, automatic overclocking is standard now and depends on energy demand and temperature. So, even higher clock rates are possible. During games, our test devices mostly significantly exceeded the base clock.