PP Mguire
Build Guru
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- Fort Worth, Texas
1: Yes and no. Sandy Bridge is codename for the 2nd gen of Intel Core i series processors. GPUs have these code names as well, but neither of which signify any kind of performance level at all. For instance "Fermi" and "Kepler" are both codenames for different gens of Nvidia GPUs but each are broken down by the specific model/range of GPU. Much like how Intel has Core i3/i5/i7 both AMD and Nvidia have their range of chips broken down by SKU. The thing here is though, you can't simply identify performance levels of the GPU by that name like you can a CPU. Like, when you see an i3 you know that's going to be a dual core with HT processor, no questions asked and an i5 is a quad core with no HT. Well for instance Nvidia's recent Kepler series has been broken down into two generations by splitting their midrange chip "GK104" into the 2012 high end as well as mid end making GK106 fill in the lower end blanks. GK110 is the high end chip for Kepler BUT they did not release it until 2013. So the GTX 680/670/660ti were GK104 SKUs but the GTX 680 was the high end GPU of 2012 from Nvidia. This year the Titan was released as a consumer workstation workhorse for a niche market having the GK110 chip but it was locked down by how many cores it had. The 780ti is the fully unlocked gaming consumer GK110 Kepler card with all shaders unlocked while the 780 is a slightly lesser version of that and the GTX 770/760 are the same GK104 chip (rebranded GTX680 and 670).
So now that you have a wall of text I'll give you the simple answer. You can't judge a GPU based on paper specs, what gen it's from, price, shaders, or VRAM. These only give you a basic understanding of where the card should land on the performance table. Reviews do this and guys like myself present this information easily to you like I (we) did earlier in the thread. 2: The GTX780ti is the best card you can buy right now with no real set date on the next generation release.
