***Official Reviews Thread*** Nvidia Geforce GTX Titan - Launched Feb. 21, 2013

[Skurge]

LOL that was a hyperbole ofc.,

but Titan is not such a terrible price/perf value that people are making it to be, and for Halo product that is pretty amazing.

Titan is pretty terrible price/perf. It is impressive hardware, no denying that, but not U$1000 impressive. It doesn't anything any other flagship card hasn't done before. If there was any card that was worth U$1000 it would be either 9700Pro or 8800GTX. Cards that made everything else look like it came from the stone age. Those were no compromise cards. 9700 meant you could finaly use AA and AF and still have playable FPS. 8800GTX played games at good settings for many years to come and was the fastest card for longer than any generation I can remember.

Titan will make it through 2013 maybe as the fastest single GPU. A Highly OC'd 7970 comes within spitting distance to a Titan. (I know titan can OC too)

U$1000 should mean head and shoulders above anything else in performance features and image quality. A GTX690 is much closer to being U$1000 worth of kit.

Just my 2c

 

[Grooveriding]

It is literally the worst price/performance card in history, which is why it becomes relevant on a flagship card rebranded as a 'designer' card.

It will play out like 8800ultra, day one crowd buys them up then price drops will come because there is no one left willing to spend a $1000 on one. Once it hits $800 I will get a pair

 

[3DVagabond]

I don't understand people complaining about paying $400 for a "midrange" chip when the "true highend" is $1000 and they think that's fine. :\

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Well mid-range was a 100% markup and so is high end.

The difference is most who were unhappy with 7970/680 pricing are still unhappy with Titan pricing, while those who bought overpriced 7970s and 680s are now upset over Titans prices.

It doesn't really matter though, people are buying these cards so money in the bank for Nvidia.

 

[blackened23]

Titan is pretty terrible price/perf. It is impressive hardware, no denying that, but not U$1000 impressive. It doesn't anything any other flagship card hasn't done before. If there was any card that was worth U$1000 it would be either 9700Pro or 8800GTX. Cards that made everything else look like it came from the stone age. Those were no compromise cards. 9700 meant you could finaly use AA and AF and still have playable FPS. 8800GTX played games at good settings for many years to come and was the fastest card for longer than any generation I can remember.

Titan will make it through 2013 maybe as the fastest single GPU. A Highly OC'd 7970 comes within spitting distance to a Titan. (I know titan can OC too)

I agree that Titan is a horrible value, but on that last statement I just don't know. Seems like a stretch.

 

[3DVagabond]

I agree that Titan is a horrible value, but on that last statement I just don't know. Seems like a stretch.

We'll need to see the next round of 7970 reviews to see just how close an O/C'd 7970 comes to stock Titan performance. Since they'll include Titan benches along with the review card's testing.

I think what we are likely to see in the short term, is AMD releasing a dual GPU card to compete. Something along the lines of a 7870x2 Lightning or Matrix w/4gig VRAM per gpu (Eyefinity 6, premium PCB, cool, quiet, efficient, with plenty of O/C headroom) would be cool. They're going to have to address crossfire scaling and MS issues though for that to be effective. I don't think they're ready with a big single GPU to compete.

 

[SolMiester]

It is literally the worst price/performance card in history, which is why it becomes relevant on a flagship card rebranded as a 'designer' card.

It will play out like 8800ultra, day one crowd buys them up then price drops will come because there is no one left willing to spend a $1000 on one. Once it hits $800 I will get a pair

I disagree, the worst would have to be $1500 Ares II...

 

[Elfear]

I agree that Titan is a horrible value, but on that last statement I just don't know. Seems like a stretch.

Not that big of a stretch. A Titan is 22-30% faster than a stock 7970Ghz which has about 15-30% overclocking headroom depending on the card. OC vs OC there will still be an 18-26% difference but I think he was talking about OCed 7970 vs stock Titan.

I disagree, the worst would have to be $1500 Ares II...

True. The Ares II even beats Titan in that metric.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Not that big of a stretch. A Titan is 22-30% faster than a stock 7970Ghz which has about 15-30% overclocking headroom depending on the card. OC vs OC there will still be an 18-26% difference but I think he was talking about OCed 7970 vs stock Titan.




True. The Ares II even beats Titan in that metric.

I think your numbers are a little "forgiving"...

22-30% is low, 22 is such an odd number considering the other spectrum where it's 50% or better like BF3.

15-30% of a GHz is pretty ridiculous, thats 1200-1365MHz...


I think if people flash their cards and really tune up Titan the gap will actually grow from stock.

 

[Grooveriding]

I disagree, the worst would have to be $1500 Ares II...

Hah, well I'd agree. The custom AIB cards like Matix, Mars, Ares etc. are always obscene. I was speaking to official SKUs released from nv/ati.

 

[Elfear]

I think your numbers are a little "forgiving"...

22-30% is low, 22 is such an odd number considering the other spectrum where it's 50% or better like BF3.

22% at ComputerBase (@1600p)

12-15% at Hardware France (@1600p)

So I was being generous in the lower bound of my range.

15-30% of a GHz is pretty ridiculous, thats 1200-1365MHz...

I was a little high in my estimation but 25% certainly isn't out of the question.

I think if people flash their cards and really tune up Titan the gap will actually grow from stock.

Time will tell.

 

[wand3r3r]

More fud dropping. Name calling, handbook, Nvidiot, green wall every other post is like this from you. You can't make a logical argument, so you play internet tough guy. Fail.

The failure is your attempt to deflect.

What about the 265w wall. /lack of overvolting/overclocking
What about the possibility that benches are skewed.

Avoid the issues mentioned, throw in some deflection, it's pointing out your allegiance pretty easily. On top of that throw in some marketing to counter any alleged Titan flaws. Note the alleged.

Every other post isn't about NVidiots but there are clearly a couple here.

 

[SolMiester]

Lol, what benches are skewed?, and what is the flaw of Titan again?...you can't say a safety mechcanism is a flaw. Take the price out of the equation and its the most powerful card out there, the only one capable of running playable frame at any resolution, that doesn't have to rely on a second GPU and the lottery that comes with it.

 

[Jaydip]

I don't have the patience to read through all the posts but what is this "skewed benches" I'm hearing about?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I don't have the patience to read through all the posts but what is this "skewed benches" I'm hearing about?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34664254&postcount=54

Basically Titan can lose 5-20% of it's benchmark score depending on how hot the reviewer let the card get before a benchmark run. Varies by game the amount of performance you lose over time.

 

[wand3r3r]

Lol, what benches are skewed?, and what is the flaw of Titan again?...you can't say a safety mechcanism is a flaw. Take the price out of the equation and its the most powerful card out there, the only one capable of running playable frame at any resolution, that doesn't have to rely on a second GPU and the lottery that comes with it.

The overclocking/overvolting is gimped. See anandtechs review. So that's a 'safety mechanism' now?

The benchmarks can allegedly/potentially be skewed by running them when the card is cool, for example it starts off at almost 1000MHz, but it starts dropping when the card warms up to normal operating temperatures. Read the posts above and the links.

Here's the link again being people don't bother to read about the alleged issue instead spew at the person who dare utter that there may be an issue and deflect immediately (but... but.. it's the best card out atm, delve into marketing).

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34664254&postcount=54

Yeah it's currently the king of the hill, but it doesn't justify skewing the results nor gimping the capabilities. It might not even be quite as wide of a gap as thought if the above link is true.

 

[wand3r3r]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34664254&postcount=54

In our game testing we noticed three different primary levels of clock speed our video card liked to hover between. We tested this in a demanding game, Far Cry 3. At first, our video card started out at 1019MHz actual clock speed in-game at 1.162v. As the game went on, and the GPU heated up, the clock speed dropped to 967MHz and 1.125v. After 20 minutes of gaming, the GPU clock speed settled at 941MHz and 1.087v. Therefore, our real-world starting point for clock speed was actually 941MHz at 81c max.

[h] appears to have compensated for the drop, starting with a warm card?

 

[BoFox]

Good question.. what I find strange is that they didn't clearly state it earlier on in the review - rather only stating it in the overclocking section, after all the "stock" benches were done. Let's ask Kyle or Brent, or judge for ourselves from the benchmark scores?

 

[Jaydip]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34664254&postcount=54

Basically Titan can lose 5-20% of it's benchmark score depending on how hot the reviewer let the card get before a benchmark run. Varies by game the amount of performance you lose over time.

IIRC the temperature and power options are tied and Titan can reach max 95C no matter what.At the same time it can't exceed 265 watt either.So if it reaches 95C without drawing 265W from the wall it can't be overclocked further no matter what and the same is true if it is already drawing 265W from the wall regardless of the temperature.So for the best result it probably should be used under water.

 

[BoFox]

BTW, Termie (who's living in the same metro area as me! ), don't forget the reviews I added in the post: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34662996&postcount=675

Plus http://www.overclockers.ru/lab/52257/Testiruem_videokartu_NVIDIA_GeForce_GTX_Titan.html

And one that went right by me:
http://pclab.pl/art52456.html

 

[BoFox]

IIRC the temperature and power options are tied and Titan can reach max 95C no matter what.At the same time it can't exceed 265 watt either.So if it reaches 95C without drawing 265W from the wall it can't be overclocked further no matter what and the same is true if it is already drawing 265W from the wall regardless of the temperature.So for the best result it probably should be used under water.

Yep, cooler temps would help to reduce leakage (power draw), therefore allowing for yet higher clocks.. perhaps that's how Kingpin could do it, but I still think he was handed a special custom BIOS allowing for much more than 265W... not sure!

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Most reviewers went with default (afaik), which was 80C prioritized, from what I saw 80C on auto fan would only take fan speed to 50% (2xxx rpm), at which point when the card heated up (prior to that it was running factory max boost) the card would start to downclock and undervolt to bring temps inline with 50% fan speed @ 80C.

Nobody wants to talk about how quiet the card is, so I think we should just assume either priority is power (card will ramp fan to keep cool with power target > temp) or the user created a custom fan speed to keep boost /w 80C temp target.

Otherwise we'd have to start taking into account ambient, open bench vs case, sample quality, and all sorts of other random variables while disregarding controls (priority and fan speed).


Kingpin modded the PCB he added more capacitors and most likely had a custom signed bios from EVGA. AFAIK users can get pretty much the same ability with bios through a flash, but not the modding he did unless they know what they're doing. He also uses a custom power delivery addon PCB with two 8 pins but I didn't see it in the screens.

 

[3DVagabond]

Yep, cooler temps would help to reduce leakage (power draw), therefore allowing for yet higher clocks.. perhaps that's how Kingpin could do it, but I still think he was handed a special custom BIOS allowing for much more than 265W... not sure!

Do you think he had a stock bios?

 

[Grooveriding]

Do you think he had a stock bios?

He would of bypassed the hardware chip controlling TDP altogether. Look at that thing, lol. He has an entire additional PCB attached to provide more power...

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Well I see his custom power PCB addon in that screen