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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M SLI

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M SLI

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M SLI is a high-end DirectX 11-compatible graphics card for laptops, consisting of two GeForce GTX 780M. Each card has a 28nm GK104 core based on the Kepler architecture. The clocks for the SLI-setup are in theory identical to a single GTX 780M. With SLI, each card usually renders a single frame (AFR mode). Therefore, it may suffer from micro stuttering in low fps ranges of 30fps. This happens because of different timespans between two frames (e.g., irregular delays between sequential frames).

Architecture
The Kepler architecture is the successor to the Fermi architecture that first appeared in laptops with the GeForce 400M series. The GK104 Kepler core offers eight shader blocks, called SMX, that are clocked at the same speed as the central core. In the GTX 780M, all eight blocks are active for a total of 1536 CUDA cores. Although the Kepler architecture can utilize more shader cores than a Fermi chip, its shaders can be up to twice as power efficient.  However, due to the missing hot clock of the shader domain, two shaders of a Kepler chip are of similar speed to one shader of a Fermi chip (as the latter is clocked twice as fast).

PCIe 3.0 is now supported by the mobile Kepler series and an optional Turbo mode can automatically overclock the Nvidia card by a theoretical 15 percent if the laptop cooling system allows it. The implementation of this boost mode is done in the BIOS, but it is ultimately dependent upon the manufacturer of the laptop.

Performance

The graphics performance of the GeForce GTX 780M SLI is clearly above the old GTX 680M SLI and Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire (or 8970M CF), thus making it the fastest mobile solution as of summer 2013. Furthermore, Nvidia currently (mid 2013) has a better mechanism to minimize micro stuttering (altough not perfect).

Even extremely demanding titles like Metro Last Light or Crysis 3 are playable at the highest detail settings in 1920x1080 pixels and anti aliasing.

Features
The improved feature set now includes support for up to 4 active displays. Furthermore, high resolution monitors of up to 3840x2160 pixels can now be connected using DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 1.4a if available. HD-Audio codecs, such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD, can be transmitted via bitstream mode through the HDMI port. However, as most laptops will feature Optimus, the integrated GPU will likely have direct control over the display ports and may limit the feature set available by the Nvidia Kepler cards.

The 5th generation PureVideo HD video processor (VP5) is also integrated in the GK104 core and offers hardware decoding of HD videos. Common codecs such as MPEG-1/2, MPEG-4 ASP, H.264 and VC1/WMV9 are fully supported up to 4K resolutions while VC1 and MPEG-4 are supported up to 1080p. Two streams can be decoded in parallel for features such as Picture-in-Picture. Another novelty is the inclusion of a dedicated video encoding engine similar to Intel QuickSync that can be accessed by the NVENC API.

The power consumption of the GeForce GTX 780M SLI should double to 200 Watt (including board and memory) compared to a single GTX 780M. Therefore, only large desktop replacements can handle the heat.

GeForce GTX 700M Series

GeForce GTX 780M SLI 3072 @ 0.82 GHz2x 256 Bit @ 5000 MHz
GeForce GTX 770M SLI compare 1920 @ 0.81 GHz2x 192 Bit @ 4000 MHz
GeForce GTX 780M compare 1536 @ 0.82 GHz256 Bit @ 5000 MHz
GeForce GTX 765M SLI compare 1536 @ 0.85 GHz2x 128 Bit @ 4000 MHz
GeForce GTX 775M compare 1344 @ 0.72 GHz256 Bit @ 3600 MHz
GeForce GTX 770M compare 960 @ 0.81 GHz192 Bit @ 4000 MHz
GeForce GTX 765M compare 768 @ 0.85 GHz128 Bit @ 4000 MHz
GeForce GTX 760M compare 768 @ 0.66 GHz128 Bit @ 4000 MHz
CodenameN14E-GTX
ArchitectureKepler
Pipelines3072 - unified
Core Speed823 MHz
Memory Speed5000 MHz
Memory Bus Width2x 256 Bit
Memory TypeGDDR5
Max. Amount of Memory2x 4096 MB
Shared Memoryno
APIDirectX 11, Shader 5.0, OpenGL 4.3
Power Consumption200 Watt
Transistor Count7.1 Billion
technology28 nm
FeaturesOptimus, SLI, PhysX, Verde Drivers, CUDA, 3D Vision, 3DTV Play
Notebook Sizelarge
Date of Announcement30.05.2013

Benchmarks

Performance Rating - 3DMark 11 + Fire Strike + Time Spy
3.8 pt (11%)
3DMark 11 - 3DM11 Performance Score
min: 11960     avg: 12425     median: 12424.5 (15%)     max: 12889 Points
3DMark 11 - 3DM11 Performance GPU
min: 14005     avg: 14140     median: 14139.5 (11%)     max: 14274 Points
3DMark Vantage
3DM Vant. Perf. total +
3DM Vant. Perf. GPU no PhysX +
3DMark Vantage - 3DM Vant. Perf. GPU no PhysX
min: 43484     avg: 43525     median: 43525 (24%)     max: 43566 Points
3DMark 06 3DMark 06 - Standard 1280x1024 +
SPECviewperf 11
specvp11 snx-01 +
SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 snx-01
min: 2.57     avg: 3.5     median: 3.5 (2%)     max: 4.43 fps
specvp11 tcvis-02 +
SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 tcvis-02
min: 1.05     avg: 1.2     median: 1.2 (1%)     max: 1.34 fps
specvp11 sw-02 +
SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 sw-02
min: 11.63     avg: 12.2     median: 12.2 (9%)     max: 12.81 fps
specvp11 proe-05 +
SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 proe-05
min: 1.18     avg: 1.6     median: 1.6 (2%)     max: 1.99 fps
specvp11 maya-03 +
SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 maya-03
min: 11.43     avg: 11.4     median: 11.4 (9%)     max: 11.45 fps
specvp11 lightwave-01 +
SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 lightwave-01
min: 15.82     avg: 17.7     median: 17.7 (19%)     max: 19.65 fps
specvp11 ensight-04 +
SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 ensight-04
min: 31.08     avg: 38.9     median: 38.9 (19%)     max: 46.65 fps
specvp11 catia-03 +
SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 catia-03
min: 7.64     avg: 10.4     median: 10.4 (5%)     max: 13.07 fps
Cinebench R11.5 Cinebench R11.5 OpenGL 64 Bit +
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
red legend - Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance

Game Benchmarks

The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailed information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

med. 1366x768
170.7  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
131.4  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
31.6  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
med. 1366x768
78.9  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
68.8  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
68.2  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
121.4  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
105.3  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
64.7  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
117.6  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
98.6  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
70  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Dota 2

Dota 2

2013
med. 1366x768
100.4  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
96.3  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
53.7  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
43.6  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
20.7  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
GRID 2

GRID 2

2013
med. 1366x768
143.9  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
134.9  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
93.2  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
104.4  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
79.3  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
53.7  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
233.5  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
208.5  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
94.5  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
SimCity

SimCity

2013
med. 1366x768
145.9  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
108.3  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
57.1  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
365  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
273.1  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
130.1  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Crysis 3

Crysis 3

2013
med. 1366x768
96.3  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
78  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
47.2  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
410.4  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
384.1  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
254.2  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Far Cry 3

Far Cry 3

2012
med. 1366x768
120.8  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
86.2  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
55.6  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
82.3  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
81.8  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
53.7  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
64.9  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
57.9  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
56.2  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
256.4  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
199.4  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
148.6  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
60  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
60  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
60  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1366x768
130  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
130  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
130  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Fifa 13

Fifa 13

2012
med. 1366x768
400.3  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
420.8  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
390.3  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
F1 2012

F1 2012

2012
med. 1366x768
128  fps    + Compare
high 1366x768
118  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
100  fps    + Compare