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

[Grooveriding]

But still, wouldn't part of that be achievable with water, as long as the GPU boost didn't have that stupid TDP limit and the card had 2x8pin connectors?

6+8pin can deliver 300W of power within spec, even more beyond spec without the wires burning out - see GTX 480. If the card itself does not have the infrastructure to handle that amount of power draw though you'll wind up blowing components out on the card if you try and push more power through the card than it can handle - see GTX 590. Blowing out a $1000 card by doing something that voided your warranty would suck.

I'm sure someone who could identify all the components on the Titan PCB would be able to give an idea of if it is capable of handling drawing more than the 265W limit.

But Ryan in his review seemed to feel the card is designed for 265W and that's it:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6774/nvidias-geforce-gtx-titan-part-2-titans-performance-unveiled/2

All indications are that NVIDIA built Titan’s power delivery system for around 265W, and that’s exactly what buyers will get.

If the Titan card turns out like a GTX 680/690/670 card, you should be able to modify the BIOS to extend the power limit, this still will do nothing to overcome the hardlocked maximum voltage level. So you could find yourself able to extend the TDP cap, but unable to take advantage of it because of the hardware capped 1.2V for the core is balanced against consuming 265W and won't let you get much beyond that.

I think we'll find out in a few weeks once people have the cards in hand and if the BIOS can be modded to extend the power target. We'll see from anecdotes of owners if they get better overclocks and if the card can handle consuming additional power or they end up blowing their cards up I know for the GTX 680, raising the power target did not do much of anything for getting better overclocks. Using the modded BIOS generally got most people about 50mhz from what I saw.

 

[Annisman*]

More Titans available at the egg !

 

[kache]

It would take NV not to skimp on power circuitry, that's not going to happen. 2x8pin would not be enough, the card would need more expensive power circuitry and probably more phases like 8+3. It would make the card as much as 40$ more expensive to produce, given the already razor thin margins NV has on their cards it's not possible. There are some 7970s that all they need for extreme OC is subzero cooling, hell even reference 7970 is good for that. Premium NV product my ass. It's like soldering extra VRMs on my motherboard to achieve extreme OC. I didn't buy the most expensive/the best mobo on the market to deal with that crap.

So I guess we'll have to hope for custom PCBs from Asus or EVGA. :\

 

[kache]

You don't need 2x8pin, you just need bios to give more TDP headroom, and possibly (most likely) more voltage headroom.

6+6 can pull gobs more than it's rated for.

Also no way you'd hit those clocks even with an unlocked card with extra hardware, 1700MHz is just too high, 1300-1400 (best case) is more likely what we'd get without voltage and tdp restrictions on water.

That's why I said "part of that".
And 1400 is already 600mhz more than stock, which is 75% more frequency...

 

[kache]

6+8pin can deliver 300W of power within spec, even more beyond spec without the wires burning out - see GTX 480. If the card itself does not have the infrastructure to handle that amount of power draw though you'll wind up blowing components out on the card if you try and push more power through the card than it can handle - see GTX 590. Blowing out a $1000 card by doing something that voided your warranty would suck.

I'm sure someone who could identify all the components on the Titan PCB would be able to give an idea of if it is capable of handling drawing more than the 265W limit.

But Ryan in his review seemed to feel the card is designed for 265W and that's it:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6774/nvidias-geforce-gtx-titan-part-2-titans-performance-unveiled/2

If the Titan card turns out like a GTX 680/690/670 card, you should be able to modify the BIOS to extend the power limit, this still will do nothing to overcome the hardlocked maximum voltage level. So you could find yourself able to extend the TDP cap, but unable to take advantage of it because of the hardware capped 1.2V for the core is balanced against consuming 265W and won't let you get much beyond that.

I think we'll find out in a few weeks once people have the cards in hand and if the BIOS can be modded to extend the power target. We'll see from anecdotes of owners if they get better overclocks and if the card can handle consuming additional power or they end up blowing their cards up I know for the GTX 680, raising the power target did not do much of anything for getting better overclocks. Using the modded BIOS generally got most people about 50mhz from what I saw.

Well, honestly, in this case the real bonus for raising the TDP wouldn't even be the overclock, but the overclock stability on GPU boost, since with the TDP being much higher GPU boost would only have the temperature to work on for balancing frequencies, which should avoid part of the downclocking issues.

But yeah, we'll see in the coming weeks.

 

[thilanliyan]

Anyone know if Titan is any good at bitcoin mining?

 

[blackened23]

Anyone know if Titan is any good at bitcoin mining?

Sure.

That depends on what your definition of is, is.

 

[thilanliyan]

Sure.

That depends on what your definition of is, is.

Anywhere near 7950/7970 cards?

 

[BoFox]

Isn't it hardware modded? So people achieved better performance with GTX590 than 580SLI by soldering some additional power circuitry. Reference GTX680 also needs some additional power circuitry for extreme OC, while 7970 only needs LN2 cooling. Great PCB designs by NV no doubt.

Oh, duh me.. anybody know how much power Kingpin's card drew? It'd be interesting to see how much the temps affected power leakage compared to say, 40nm and higher.

So, could Kingpin teach you guys how to "unlock" your Titan cards by hardware-modding it?

That would be interesting, at least!! Especially for those who are into water cooling!

 

[BoFox]

Anyone know if Titan is any good at bitcoin mining?

It can do about 300 Mhps, I think - still not 400 like my oc'ed 5870 @950MHz, default voltage using maybe 50-70W less!

 

[PowerK]

Titans in da house!

 

[BallaTheFeared]

/jelly


lol I just noticed...

Green in avatar, green in graphics cards, green in desk trim...

This man loves his green!



Woah, woah hold up here.... Is that a pink butterfly on your wall?

 

[SirPauly]

PowerK has a very colorful gaming environment, remember seeing a picture of it.

http://ns1.rage3d.com/board/showpost.php?p=1337119674&postcount=4423

 

[AdamK47]

Titans in da house!

All of that for one monitor? You need to get a least six 30" monitors.

 

[notty22]

Titans in da house!

Nice Congrats.
Gigabytes in your neck of the world hey? So that's 10,000-2 = 9998 for everyone else! I kid.

 

[Annisman*]

Mine should be at the house already.

 

[PowerK]

I wish I had more free time during the weekdays. :-( I won't be able to play around much with them until the weekend.

 

[thilanliyan]

It can do about 300 Mhps, I think - still not 400 like my oc'ed 5870 @950MHz, default voltage using maybe 50-70W less!

K, nevermind, my lowly 6950 can do 300MH/s at stock.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Is that with DP 1/3 enabled?? (does mining even use DP)

Just curious if it's a hardware limitation or software/driver.

 

[f1sherman]

PowerK has a very colorful gaming environment, remember seeing a picture of it.

http://ns1.rage3d.com/board/showpost.php?p=1337119674&postcount=4423

Then he should have gone with Colorful Titan

GPU clock:944Mhz
Boost Clock: 983MHz
RAM: 6400Mbps

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/b1558/Colorful_GTX_Titan.html

 

[Deltaechoe]

Is that with DP 1/3 enabled?? (does mining even use DP)

Just curious if it's a hardware limitation or software/driver.

Mining clients are not very well optimized for the keplar architecture, if you want a reasonable comparison, look at how a workstation k20x card mines and you will see a similar relative performance with the titan

 

[SirPauly]

Then he should have gone with Colorful Titan

GPU clock:944Mhz
Boost Clock: 983MHz
RAM: 6400Mbps

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/b1558/Colorful_GTX_Titan.html

LOL! Literally the Colorful titan!

 

[Cookie Monster]

6+8pin can deliver 300W of power within spec, even more beyond spec without the wires burning out - see GTX 480. If the card itself does not have the infrastructure to handle that amount of power draw though you'll wind up blowing components out on the card if you try and push more power through the card than it can handle - see GTX 590. Blowing out a $1000 card by doing something that voided your warranty would suck.

I'm sure someone who could identify all the components on the Titan PCB would be able to give an idea of if it is capable of handling drawing more than the 265W limit.

But Ryan in his review seemed to feel the card is designed for 265W and that's it:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6774/nvidias-geforce-gtx-titan-part-2-titans-performance-unveiled/2

If the Titan card turns out like a GTX 680/690/670 card, you should be able to modify the BIOS to extend the power limit, this still will do nothing to overcome the hardlocked maximum voltage level. So you could find yourself able to extend the TDP cap, but unable to take advantage of it because of the hardware capped 1.2V for the core is balanced against consuming 265W and won't let you get much beyond that.

I think we'll find out in a few weeks once people have the cards in hand and if the BIOS can be modded to extend the power target. We'll see from anecdotes of owners if they get better overclocks and if the card can handle consuming additional power or they end up blowing their cards up I know for the GTX 680, raising the power target did not do much of anything for getting better overclocks. Using the modded BIOS generally got most people about 50mhz from what I saw.

I can tell you that the main VRM circuitry found on Titan can handle up to a maximum of 360Ws of power (50~60W per phase).

If you put Titan under water i.e. will never hit the temp target + unlock voltage, max out the power target slider etc, I think its possible to maintain atleast 1.1GHz clock if not ~1200MHz if you get a good silicon.

 

[f1sherman]

Real-World Gaming Performance.

Titan(1162MHz) vs 680 Lightning vs HIS 7970 X

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU6VPHsArII

 

[Grooveriding]

I can tell you that the main VRM circuitry found on Titan can handle up to a maximum of 360Ws of power (50~60W per phase).

If you put Titan under water i.e. will never hit the temp target + unlock voltage, max out the power target slider etc, I think its possible to maintain atleast 1.1GHz clock if not ~1200MHz if you get a good silicon.

Are you able to tell based on the components used for the VRMs and then number of them ?

You might able to get good clocks like that with unlocked voltage. Unfortunately there is no unlocked voltage. Once the price drops come and I get a few I will still water cool them though, mostly because I like having a dead-silent computer now :thumbsup: