EVGA's latest GTX 780 Ti Classified comes with the highest out-of-the-box performance we've ever seen from a single GPU graphics card. It is the fastest GTX 780 Ti we tested so far. Averaged over our benchmark selection, we see the card 10% faster than the stock GTX 780 Ti and almost 20% faster than AMD's R9 290X. 20% is a big deal, so EVGA's GTX 780 Ti Classified is the way to go if you want the highest performance and can afford it. The card is even a few percentage points faster than the previous generation's dual-GPU flagships, the GTX 690 and HD 7990.
EVGA has completely revamped the PCB with the GTX 780 Ti Classified. They reorganized things, switched out the voltage controller and added port headers for EVGA's EVBot accessory. Unfortunately, EVBot is currently sold out, with no info on when we'll see more. We also find a dual-BIOS on the card, which will help experts with liquid nitrogen maximize the card's potential. For everyone else, the dual-BIOS is a lifesaver in case something goes wrong during BIOS flashing.
We've seen the dual-fan ACX cooler on several cards from EVGA before, and it does a very good job at keeping the card cool. While it is also a bit quieter than the NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti reference design, it is far from the quietest GTX 780 Ti option available at the moment. Temperatures are, on the other hand, lower than on most other cards on the market, which suggests EVGA focused more on temperature than on fan noise (a bit too much in my opinion). Please consider that the Classified is very tall. It is 14 cm tall and might not fit into some cases.
Power consumption in idle is surprisingly high, around 10W higher than comparable GTX 780 Ti cards. While 10W is not a lot, it can still add up, especially when you leave your system running 24/7. Power draw during gaming is increased, too, but performance per watt is actually better than on the NVIDIA reference board since the card runs much faster than the stock GTX 780 Ti.
Right now, we are seeing first EVGA GTX 780 Ti Classifieds pop up in stores like Newegg and Amazon. EVGA's own shop also has some stock, currently at the lowest price of $750, which is a $100 premium over stock cards, a significant and for the typical gamer, I find, steep increase. Other custom design GTX 780 Ti cards come at $700-$710, while performing not much different than the Classified.