<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;">When NVIDIA launched their first consumer GK110 card back in February with the&nbsp;GeForce GTX Titan, one of the interesting (if frustrating) aspects of the launch was that we knew we wouldn&rsquo;t be getting a &ldquo;complete&rdquo; GK110 card right away. GTX Titan was already chart-topping fast, easily clinching the crown for NVIDIA, but at the same time it was achieving those high marks with only 14 of GK110&rsquo;s 15 SMXes active. The 15<span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; top: -0.5em;">th</span>&nbsp;SMX, though representing just 7% of GK110&rsquo;s compute/geometry hardware, offered the promise of just a bit more performance out of GK110, and a promise that would have to wait to be fulfilled another day. For a number of reasons, NVIDIA would keep a little more performance in the tank in reserve for use in the future.</span></span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;">Jumping forward 8 months to the past few weeks, and things have significantly changed in the high-end video card market. With the launch of AMD&rsquo;s new flagship video card, Radeon R9 290X, AMD has unveiled the means to once again compete with NVIDIA at the high end. And at the same time they have shown that they have the wherewithal to get into a fantastic, bloody price war for control of the high-end market. Right out of the gate 290X was fast enough to defeat GTX 780 and battle GTX Titan to a standstill, at a price hundreds of dollars cheaper than NVIDIA&rsquo;s flagship card. The outcome of this has been price drops all around, with GTX 780 shedding $150, GTX Titan being all but relegated to the professional side of &ldquo;prosumer,&rdquo; and an unexpectedly powerful&nbsp;Radeon R9 290&nbsp;practically starting the same process all over again just 2 weeks later.</span></span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;">With that in mind, NVIDIA has long become accustomed to controlling the high-end market and the single-GPU performance crown. AMD and NVIDIA may go back and forth at times, but at the end of the day it&rsquo;s usually NVIDIA who comes out on top. So with AMD knocking at their door and eyeing what has been their crown, the time has come for NVIDIA to tap their reserve tank and to once again cement their hold. The time has come for GTX 780 Ti.</span></span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review" target="_blank">Read more...</a></p>