EVGA GTX 780 Classified Video Card Review

Overclocking is a big part of the enthusiast community so we tend to look for special products designed to help us reach our goals without having to resort to extensive board modifications.  The EVGA GTX 780 Classified is clearly a video card designed for hardware enthusiasts looking to get the most from their system and delivers on that promise.

When comparing the 780 Classified to the other EVGA GTX 780 video cards you may wonder exactly what the difference is and why you would purchase one card over another.  The answer is in the hardware.  GTX 780 SuperClocked cards are factory overclocked and deliver amazing performance but are designed for gamers who may never tweak anything beyond the factory settings.  These reference cards come with arbitrary limits that the 780 Classified is designed to surpass with the help of a 14-phase VRM and larger ACX cooling solution.

During our testing the card ran extremely well and posted some impressive benchmark scores.  These scores mellowed slightly when it came to came to our gaming benchmarks but in a predictable manner.  What really impressed us was the level of overclocking performance we got with very little effort.  The ending overclock was just over 1370Mhz on the core with a memory speed of 1700Mhz.  This is over 300Mhz above the factory overclock and virtually unheard of without special cooling provisions.  Keep in mind the 1370Mhz core frequency is actually the calcuated Boost clock frequency and the prize for an excellent aircooler.

There is an ongoing debate in the enthusiast community about the inclusion of fancy lighting effects on high end computer hardware.  We all know that they serve very little purpose and often complicate the PCB design but do provide some extra value and bling in a high end gaming right.  Personally we really like to see LEDs flashing with VRM activity and really miss any sort of lighting effects on the EVGA 780 Classified.  

That doesn't mean the card is devoid of lights as there are 5 white LEDs across the top of the card and a red/green LED indicating which BIOS you have selected, they just don't do much.

Large 14-phase PWM
Great Looking ACX Cooler
GPU Boost 2.0
Quiet Operation
Excellent Overclocking (1370Mhz/1700Mhz on Air)
Dual BIOS
Extensive Voltage Control

Test leads not included
Absence of LED lighting effects