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

[Lepton87]

For 1000 dollars, I think I'd be glad that the manufacturer placed a limit. Knowing me, I'd over do it and fry my thousand dollar investment. A BIOS switch is an intriguing option though. Those that want to risk it, can. But the second you use that switch, warranty is void.

You're glad that someone limited your free choice!? Are you really serious or just trying to give a positive spin to everything NV does? I know that you won't answer that question honestly.
BTW. Do you use Apple products?
ps. one quote comes to my mind "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." B. Franklin

 

[Keysplayr]

Oh cmon keys, you are not fooling anybody with that comment ffs".For 1000 dollars, I think I'd be glad that the manufacturer placed a limit"hey its a great card and a very expensive one threr is no need to be a cock about it.

Are you seriously talking to me like that? Not gonna happen.

 

[Keysplayr]

You're glad that someone limited your free choice!? Are you really serious or just trying to give a positive spin to everything NV does? I know that you won't answer that question honestly.
BTW. Do you use Apple products?
ps. one quote comes to my mind "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." B. Franklin

So, you're trying to say I cannot have an opinion. Noted. Spending a thousand bucks on a card and then overvolting the crap out of it isn't my idea of smart. Unless a thousand bucks is nothing to you, then by all means hook some jumper cables up.

 

[Zanovar]

Are you seriously talking to me like that? Not gonna happen.

Or what our brief love affair is gonna end?,gimme a break keys i call it as i see it,im sorry if that offends you.

 

[Keysplayr]

Or what our brief love affair is gonna end?,gimme a break keys i call it as i see it,im sorry if that offends you.

You need meds dude.

 

[Zanovar]

You need meds dude.

Erm,ok*scratches head*.

 

[Lepton87]

So, you're trying to say I cannot have an opinion. Noted.

Can you have an opinion that is not favorable to NV and still receive free hardware? That's an honest question. How NV decides who will get the new toys and who won't? Anyway, will you answer the question? Do you really want a company to limit your options supposedly for your own good, even though you would first have to remove a sticker that says warranty void if removed and then agree to some warnings that say increasing voltages may damage your hardware. Just WOW.

Noted. Spending a thousand bucks on a card and then overvolting the crap out of it isn't my idea of smart. Unless a thousand bucks is nothing to you, then by all means hook some jumper cables up.

I see you added that line. Why so offensive? What's wrong with having that option? If you don't want to use it, then don't, I haven't switched my AUSUM mode on my 6990 but I'm still glad that it's there. For a 1000$ I don't want to hardware mode my card, the option should be there in software. Even having that switch voiding warranty is a bit extreme, MSI LIGHTINGS, AUSUS MATRIXes etc. allow changing voltages in the default BIOS. But if NV don't want to deal with RMAs due to improper use, using dual BIOS is the least they could do. Also, not everyone would go crazy with the voltage as you imply, most people would stop when they hit diminishing returns.

 

[Keysplayr]

Can you have an opinion that is not favorable to NV and still receive free hardware? That's an honest question. How NV decides who will get the new toys and who won't? Anyway, will you answer the question? Do you really want a company to limit your options supposedly for your own good, even though you would first have to remove a sticker that says warranty void if removed and then agree to some warnings that say increasing voltages may damage your hardware. Just WOW.



I see you added that line. Why so offensive? What's wrong with having that option? If you don't want to use it, then don't, I haven't switched my AUSUM mode on my 6990 but I'm still glad that it's there. For a 1000$ I don't want to hardware mode my card, the option should be there in software. Even having that switch voiding warranty is a bit extreme, MSI LIGHTINGS, AUSUS MATRIXes etc. allow changing voltages in the default BIOS. But if NV don't want to deal with RMAs due to improper use, using dual BIOS is the least they could do. Also, not everyone would go crazy with the voltage as you imply, most people would stop when they hit diminishing returns.

AAAAAAAAaaanyway, it's just a graphics card right?

 

[Zanovar]

AAAAAAAAaaanyway, it's just a graphics card right?

Yup

 

[kache]

So, you're trying to say I cannot have an opinion. Noted. Spending a thousand bucks on a card and then overvolting the crap out of it isn't my idea of smart. Unless a thousand bucks is nothing to you, then by all means hook some jumper cables up.

That's your problem.
Most of the people who'd buy a 1k$ GPU would be people who know what the hell they're doing, so they'd take all safety precautions needed if they decided to overclock.

 

[Deltaechoe]

Well got my titan, and it's living up to the performance reviews that have been posted (and them some with my overclock). I do not regret dropping a thousand bones on this beast of a (single die) gpu. Another thing that I like about this card is the fact that the blower on it doesn't sound like a jet engine like my previous 6870 cfx setup while being considerably more powerful at the same time.

 

[ocre]

Well got my titan, and it's living up to the performance reviews that have been posted (and them some with my overclock). I do not regret dropping a thousand bones on this beast of a (single die) gpu. Another thing that I like about this card is the fact that the blower on it doesn't sound like a jet engine like my previous 6870 cfx setup while being considerably more powerful at the same time.

wow. What are you boosting to after the overclock? I gues the higher the fan the higher the boost?

Anyway, they are sold out on new egg. I guess everywhere else too? Except ebay........i seen 2 on ebay for $1500!!!

how did you get yours?

 

[Lepton87]

wow. What are you boosting to after the overclock? I gues the higher the fan the higher the boost?

Anyway, they are sold out on new egg. I guess everywhere else too? Except ebay........i seen 2 on ebay for $1500!!!

how did you get yours?

It's so easy to earn some money in the US on expensive NV cards launches. In the EU they dropped to the same price as GTX690s. In my country it's 970-1000 euro with 23% VAT TAX, so 770 euro without the tax, in the US that would be 950-1000$ USD + whatever sales tax your state has if you even decide to pay it. I wish I could avoid paying VAT.

 

[BoFox]

For 1000 dollars, I think I'd be glad that the manufacturer placed a limit. Knowing me, I'd over do it and fry my thousand dollar investment. A BIOS switch is an intriguing option though. Those that want to risk it, can. But the second you use that switch, warranty is void.

Same here, I accidentally destroyed a couple of expensive Opterons trying to de-lid them using a cheap push-out razor blade instead of a quality exacto blade. Some people spending a fortune on these can just go nuts in their "enthusiasm" over these cards, saying "OMG, OMG, I gotta push it further.. OMG, I can't get enough out of it!! OMG!!!"
:biggrin:

It looks like NV wants to try to control overclocking, like Intel did with the locked SB's and IB's (while offering more expensive "K" unlocked versions). Maybe NV is gonna do a beefier version of Titan, with all 2880sp unlocked a few months later on, while also allowing for much higher voltage?

But there are some quirks being reported like strange downclocking in some instances. It could be a glitch associated with power draw? Perhaps there's something on the board like certain VRM circuitry that gets too hot, causing slight throttling even when the card is running cool? It has happened with Fermi and GK104s, so this is not new to Titan.

Perhaps NV is going to allow custom-designed PCBs to have higher voltages?

I would think that NV does not have full "Quality" confidence that their Titan cards are designed to last at least 3 years when overclocked and overvolted past 1.2V, running 24/7. I think that NV is extremely serious about their own "Quality" status for the professional market that is consistently growing.
Or - it could just be for control of granularity of the GPU hierarchy at certain performance point segments.... there have been too many instances of just THAT ever since the Geforce 2 Ultra was the first video card to hit $500. Perhaps NV is not sure if they will do Titan "Ultra" (with unlocked shaders) yet, or not.. deciding to just limit Titan for now?

Ya know, I'm surprised that NV held GTX 680 back with limited voltage threshold for so long - nearly 1 year before releasing Titan. There was nothing in between. NV didn't even try to one-up 7970GHz by doing "680 Ultra" with higher clocks/voltage. It's pretty strange how the 690 was the only other choice all that time..

It's probably all about the sales. If there were not enough demand for 680, with the high prices, then NV would've probably done 680 Ultra. I guess NV was content with the limited 28nm supply selling well for a high price, so as long as there was satisfactory business, complacency kicked in... until Titan came just at the right time when 680 sales started falling. Of course, NV wanted Titan to have enough thunder - if 680 Ultra was already around, then Titan would've been a lackluster 30-35% faster, having a harder time at prying $1000 from the wallet's death grip.

Argh, business!

 

[Final8ty]

How do two, three and four GTX Titans perform?

By Koen Crijns, Saturday March 2, 2013 12:58 AM

Introduction

Yesterday we published our comprehensive review of the new Nividia GeForce GTX Titan graphics card, but it lacked one important item. How do two, three and four Titans perform together? We tested all SLI combinations, including 5760x1080 and frametime tests, and compared the results to GeForce GTX 690 Quad-SLI.

Nvidia itself only mentions SLI and 3-way SLI, and indicated that 4-way SLI would not be possible with the GTX Titan. However, the Nvidia-sponsored overclocker Kingpin has already posted 3DMark scores with four Titan cards on HWbot.org. We of course had to try our own 4-way SLI configuration, and we're happy to report that it's definitely possible.

And despite the rather steep pricetag of $1,000, Nvidia is aiming this graphics card at the type of gamers who would buy two or three of these. The similarly priced dual-GPU GeForce GTX 690 performs about the same as the GTX Titan, but is louder, uses more power and is limited to SLI (so not three or four cards). Since you can combine three or even four Titans, you're able to get more performance out of the Titans than you can with two GTX 690s.

You obviously don't need this much graphical power for most things, but we've come up with a few extreme scenarios where a second, third or even fourth Titan can be very useful. (Read: Crysis 3!)

http://us.hardware.info/reviews/403...-way-sli-review-incl-5760x1080-and-frametimes

 

[Deltaechoe]

wow. What are you boosting to after the overclock? I gues the higher the fan the higher the boost?

Anyway, they are sold out on new egg. I guess everywhere else too? Except ebay........i seen 2 on ebay for $1500!!!

how did you get yours?

I got mine in the initial stock that tiger direct had, got my order in about a minute after the page was available

 

[ocre]

i guess you got to be fast. I think that most of the gk110 chips are going for tesla and there just isnt a lot left for geforce titans still. This points to there not being unlimited wafers. Not only does nvidia need wafers for their gtx 600 series, they need wafers for their tesla and tegra business.

I think nvidia is in no position to sell millions of titans right now. It wouldnt make too much sense anyway. Those same chips are flying out the door at a much higher 3000-$4000 price as tesla. I think this is could be the huge factor. There just isnt a too many left over for geforce atm.

So the 10000 may not be true but there is a limit to how many gk110s will go to geforce. Overtime i think this could improve.

 

[Deltaechoe]

Nvidia almost certainly prefers that the gk110s will go toward a tesla card instead of the titan due to a higher profit margin. It is the responsibility of a company to maximize profits but that is a discussion for another time and place. The ones that are going to the titan are most likely the chips that just didn't cut the mustard for a high end workstation.

 

[ocre]

I dont know about that. The highest tesla gk110 (k20x) has the same amount of cores but titan is at higher clocks. I do not think its plausible that titan is made from chips that couldnt make the tesla cut. Besides that, nvidia has the k20 which is cut all the way down to 2496 shaders at a measly 706mhz. The K20 also has memory bandwidth cut down to 320 from 384. The memory of the k20 is 5gb. So if there is anything wrong with any part of a chip, nvidia has got it covered with the k20. Its still way more expensive than titan yet its cut down in every single way possible.

I just do not see where titan would be gk110s that couldnt make the cut as tesla. I actually see that chips that cant make the cut as the k20x or titan would end up as a $3300 tesla K20.

I still think that nvidia doesnt have the supply to feasibly sell titan in large quantities, that tesla is taking the majority of the gk110 silicon. I think they launched titan so they could reclaim the top single GPU crown and to give their die hard fans a card they have been waiting for. But i think that there just isnt a lot of chips to go around and they are priced accordingly. Even at this pricing they are sold out already so obviously they know what they are doing. I would love a cheaper option but its just not realistic right now.

 

[3DVagabond]

I dont know about that. The highest tesla gk110 (k20x) has the same amount of cores but titan is at higher clocks. I do not think its plausible that titan is made from chips that couldnt make the tesla cut. Besides that, nvidia has the k20 which is cut all the way down to 2496 shaders at a measly 706mhz. The K20 also has memory bandwidth cut down to 320 from 384. The memory of the k20 is 5gb. So if there is anything wrong with any part of a chip, nvidia has got it covered with the k20. Its still way more expensive than titan yet its cut down in every single way possible.

I just do not see where titan would be gk110s that couldnt make the cut as tesla. I actually see that chips that cant make the cut as the k20x or titan would end up as a $3300 tesla K20.

I still think that nvidia doesnt have the supply to feasibly sell titan in large quantities, that tesla is taking the majority of the gk110 silicon. I think they launched titan so they could reclaim the top single GPU crown and to give their die hard fans a card they have been waiting for. But i think that there just isnt a lot of chips to go around and they are priced accordingly. Even at this pricing they are sold out already so obviously they know what they are doing. I would love a cheaper option but its just not realistic right now.

I agree with everything you said, as far as Titan goes. It's a K20X that runs at higher clocks, nothing to make us think it's defective/2nd tier, etc...

Apparently, corporate customers pay far less than $3000+ for K20Xs though. There was another poster on this board who said his company paid $2k for them in workstations. If you look at the entire up front cost of the Titan super computer of $60mil, just the 18K+ K20Xs would be 65mil at retail. Cray got them at ???. Certainly far less than what people pay for buying a couple of workststions.

At $1k a piece, with only consumer level support, I doubt nVidia is loosing much if anything, profit wise with the Titan.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Titan has higher profit margins than the mid-range $500 GK104, without question.

If they couldn't keep inventory for workstation demands they wouldn't have made Titan, there is no loss Nvidia is run too well for mistakes like that.

 

[ocre]

No, i am not saying that titan is taking away from tesla. More the opposite. The gk110 silicon is cut into chips and there are few chips left over after tesla. Not a large number left for geforce.

Lets put it another way. Nvidia currently is in no position to sell huge quantities of gk110 graphic cards. The demand for K20s is increasing and there just isnt that many left over. Nvidia released titan to sit on top the charts and for their die hard fan base. They are limited in quantites and they are very expensive for this reason.

Its just the way it is.

 

[OCGuy]

Sold out, surprise surprise!

 

[2is]

For 1000 dollars, I think I'd be glad that the manufacturer placed a limit. Knowing me, I'd over do it and fry my thousand dollar investment. A BIOS switch is an intriguing option though. Those that want to risk it, can. But the second you use that switch, warranty is void.

I'm gonna have to chime in and call BS on this like everyone else. Yes, people can have their opinion, yes people can have their biases, yes people can lie even if the only person they are fooling is themselves, and yes, people can combine all those things in a single post.

 

[Firestorm007]

Sold out, surprise surprise!

Did anyone say that they wouldn't ? Did you pick one up after reading the reviews. I know you had that debit card ready, lol.