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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M: Architecture, Performance, and Tips for 2025

An overview of an outdated but historically significant mobile graphics card

Introduction

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M is a mobile graphics card released in 2013, which at its time set standards for gaming laptops. However, in 2025, it appears archaic compared to modern GPUs that support ray tracing and AI technologies. In this article, we will analyze what tasks the GTX 780M can still perform today and who might find it useful.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Kepler Architecture: A Legacy of the Past

The GTX 780M is built on the Kepler (GK104) architecture, using a 28 nm manufacturing process. This generation focused on enhancing energy efficiency and gaming performance but lacks support for modern technologies:

- RTX (ray tracing) and DLSS — absent, as they were introduced only with Turing and Ampere architectures.

- FidelityFX (AMD) — incompatible due to being part of a competing platform.

- CUDA Cores: 1536 cores, which is 4-5 times fewer than modern mobile GPUs (e.g., RTX 4050).

Unique Features for Its Time:

- GPU Boost 2.0 — automatic overclocking based on temperature and load.

- Optimus — switching between integrated and discrete graphics to save power.

2. Memory: Limitations of an Outdated Standard

- Memory Type: GDDR5 (4 GB).

- Bus Width: 256-bit.

- Bandwidth: 160 GB/s (effective speed of 5 Gbps).

Impact on Performance:

The available memory is sufficient for games from the 2010s at medium settings, but in projects from the 2020s (e.g., Cyberpunk 2077 or Starfield), 4 GB becomes a bottleneck — textures load with delays, and FPS drops are possible.

3. Gaming Performance: Nostalgia at 1080p

In 2025, the GTX 780M is suitable only for undemanding games and older projects:

- CS2 (1080p, low settings): 60-70 FPS.

- GTA V (1080p, medium settings): 45-55 FPS.

- Fortnite (1080p, low settings): 35-45 FPS.

- Hogwarts Legacy (1080p, minimum settings): 15-20 FPS (practically unplayable).

Supported Resolutions:

- 1080p — acceptable for lighter games.

- 1440p and 4K — not recommended due to lack of power and memory.

Ray Tracing: Not supported.

4. Professional Tasks: Moderate Potential

- Video Editing: In Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve, the card can handle HD video editing, but 4K projects will cause lag.

- 3D Modeling: In Blender or Maya, rendering through CUDA is possible, but processing times are 3-4 times longer than modern GPUs.

- Scientific Calculations: CUDA/OpenCL support is available, but the low core count means low efficiency.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Generation

- TDP: 100 W (requires a powerful cooling system in the laptop).

- Recommendations:

- Use laptops with ventilation grilles and heat pipes.

- Avoid prolonged loads — overheating may occur.

- Regularly clean fans from dust.

6. Comparison with Competitors

In Its Era (2013-2015):

- AMD Radeon HD 8970M: Lagged behind the GTX 780M by 10-15% in DirectX 11.

- NVIDIA GTX 880M: An evolution of the 780M with a slight performance boost (~5%).

In 2025:

- NVIDIA RTX 4050 Mobile: 3-4 times faster, supports DLSS 3.5 and ray tracing.

- AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT: 200% more performant in Vulkan/DX12.

7. Practical Tips

- Power Supply: A laptop with a GTX 780M requires an adapter rated at 150-180 W.

- Compatibility:

- Platforms: Only outdated laptops (e.g., Clevo P150EM, MSI GT70).

- Interfaces: PCIe 3.0 x16 — compatible with modern motherboards but offers no performance gain.

- Drivers: Official support has been discontinued. Use modified drivers from the community (e.g., NVCleanstall).

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price on the used market ($50-80).

- Suitable for older games and basic tasks.

- More energy-efficient than desktop counterparts from 2013.

Cons:

- No support for new technologies (RTX, DLSS, FSR).

- Insufficient memory for modern projects.

- Risk of overheating in older laptops.

9. Final Conclusion: Who Should Consider the GTX 780M in 2025?

This graphics card is an option for:

1. Retro gaming enthusiasts who want to run projects from 2000-2015 on original hardware.

2. Owners of old laptops looking for a replacement for a burnt-out GPU.

3. Office tasks: Working with browsers, office applications, and streaming video.

Why Not to Choose It for Beginners?

Even budget modern GPUs (e.g., Intel Arc A380) provide better performance and support for current technologies for $100-150.

Conclusion

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M is a monument to an era when mobile GPUs were just beginning to compete for their place in the sun. In 2025, it retains a niche status, but for serious tasks, it’s advisable to choose something from a newer generation.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

May 2013

Model Name

GeForce GTX 780M

Generation

GeForce 700M

Base Clock

771MHz

Boost Clock

797MHz

Bus Interface

MXM-B (3.0)

Transistors

3,540 million

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

128

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

Kepler

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

4GB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

256bit

Memory Clock

1250MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

160.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

25.50 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

102.0 GTexel/s

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

102.0 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

2.497 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

1536

L1 Cache

16 KB (per SMX)

L2 Cache

512KB

TDP

122W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.1

OpenCL Version

3.0

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (11_0)

CUDA

3.0

Power Connectors

None

Shader Model

5.1

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

2.497 TFLOPS

OctaneBench

Score

Hashcat

Score

45589 H/s

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce GTX 760 Ti OEM

2.581 +3.4%

Quadro M4000

2.522 +1%

GeForce GTX 780M

2.497

Radeon R9 270

2.415 -3.3%

GeForce GTX 960

2.365 -5.3%

OctaneBench

GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile

273 +875%

Quadro P5200 Max Q

123 +339.3%

Tesla K40m

69 +146.4%

GeForce GTX 1050 Max Q

36 +28.6%

GeForce GTX 780M

Hashcat / H/s

GeForce GTX 750

49571 +8.7%

GeForce GTX 870M

45978 +0.9%

GeForce GTX 780M

45589

GeForce GTX 580

44442 -2.5%

Radeon Vega 8

43657 -4.2%