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

[Souv]

pcgameshardware.de reviewed crysis 3 with latest drivers....
1080p,4xaa,VHQ maxed out-
7970ghz-43 fps
7970=39 fps
680=38 fps
7950=35 fps
670=34 fps
......amd forever


http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Crysi...e/2046899/#?a_id=1056491&g_id=-1&i_id=2046902

 

[blackened23]

Imho,

Let's say they did release Titan at 599 -- it would cannibalize sales for their existing sku's one may imagine. By pricing it at 999 allows Gk-104 and possibly GK-114 sku's to retain their enthusiast price-points.

All i'm asking for is a reasonable price slot given the relative performance, I never once asked for 599$. I don't think others are either, unless i'm mistaken.

Even 900$ would make this a palpable buy. At 1000$? Even overclocked the Titan doesn't overtake the 690, so the pricing is rather ridiculous. At 800-900$ I personally wouldn't mind the price at all, after all nvidia has always charged premiums for halo parts. That doesn't bother me - the skewed performance per dollar compared to GTX 690 does.

 

[notty22]

A more interesting question is what happens with GK114? If NV brings 20% increase at $499 by replacing GTX680, the Titan will look really overpriced imo because then it'll be just 25-30% faster than GK114 for 2x the price.

Nvidia's lineup is more balanced and complete with actual options.
People seem to forget there are a couple 1000 dollar 7970x2 models and one 1500 dollar one. All use crossfire , which is suddenly being brought up, to hold against a single Titan. Except crossfire is amateur hour compared to SLI right now. That quickly leaves less desirable options, to equal the GTX 690 or single gpu Titan.

Why the focus on 2560x1600? You really should not bother using Titan on anything lower. NVIDIA has a solid lineup for full HD gaming and below, even a single GTX 680 can deliver very cozy framerates at 2560x1600, so Titan really only makes sense for the most demanding of gamers. The HD 7970 GHz Edition, which AMD recently declared "best GPU for enthusiast gamers," is far behind Titan in all regards, except it's half Titan's price.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_Titan/35.html

 

[Rubycon]

Apparently they didn't include the backplate to give 2-3mm of room for airflow in Tri-SLI. Regarding your statement I am not so sure. The Titan is just 36% faster than a 1.05ghz HD7970 at 1600P when the Titan is near 1Ghz boost. A proper comparison for enthusiasts would mean 1300mhz HD7970 Matrix Platinums in Cross-fire because that costs $1000.

Look at these benches. A 1.3ghz 7970 is leaving GTX680 far behind. Since a single 7970 @ 1300mhz is nearly 30% faster than the GTX680, the Titan stands no chance whatsoever because the 2nd 1300mhz 7970 would add 70-80% more performance on top of 1.3x GTX680!!!

1) The plate was never an issue (cooling) with even the furnace known as 480GTX. Perhaps this is different, not having stock in hand so I cannot say for certain.

2) That's highly overclocked. I've been ignoring acoustics up to this point (as it's a moot point with liquid cooling) but the 7970 cooler is a hair dryer at anything over 60%! At 100% it competes with 40mm server fans on the 1U!

But the crux of the matter (and that applies to 90% of the user base here!) Titan does not make much sense from a gaming point of view! We do have Cuda and TESLA stuff here and personally I'm excited to see how these work in those situations. If it turns out favorably $1k per card out of the box is laughably cheap! :biggrin:

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Titan makes a great case for buying a 7970.

 

[DiogoDX]

Great performance and power usage but the price is terrible for the gains over a 7970GHZ

 

[tviceman]

NV still obviously has an issue with compute in Kepler, and by that I mean compute shader performance. In Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs and Dirt Showdown, the 551mm2 Titan leads the HD7970GE by just 3-18%! There is no future-proofing value here either for next gen games that will most likely use even more compute shaders as a result of PS4/720 adopting GCN architectures and AMD pushing this heavily with GCN in AMD GE titles. Why pay $1000 when it's not hard to take an educated guess that 20nm Volcanic Islands/ Maxwell will bring even faster DirectCompute performance and overall probably match this card at just $550? For GTX690/680 SLI/ HD7970GE CF owners (especially with overclocked), you can't upgrade to a single Titan which means you need 2! :biggrin:

A more interesting question is what happens with GK114? If NV brings 20% increase at $499 by replacing GTX680, the Titan will look really overpriced imo because then it'll be just 25-30% faster than GK114 for 2x the price.

How can Nvidia extract a 20% performance to GK104 without extensive additions to the chip? Not going to happen. 5-10% at best, but with improved perf/watt.

Titan demonstrates that the rest of Nvidia's lineup has room for efficiency improvement in graphics. Cut down GK110 chips should fill the gap between GK104/GK114 and Titan.

 

[Grooveriding]

Nvidia's lineup is more balanced and complete with actual options.
People seem to forget there are a couple 1000 dollar 7970x2 models and one 1500 dollar one. All use crossfire , which is suddenly being brought up, to hold against a single Titan. Except crossfire is amateur hour compared to SLI right now. That quickly leaves less desirable options, to equal the GTX 690 or single gpu Titan.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_Titan/35.html

Better part of his full conclusion comes closer to the end

Super high-end cards like the GTX Titan sell typically relatively low volume, which means in terms of sales revenue GTX Titan is only minor for NVIDIA. However, having the single fastest GPU helps marketing even $200 mainstream products, but I somehow feel the $1000 price might hurt the brand more than help it. People could despise NVIDIA for pricing the card so prohibitively and obnoxiously high, even if the same people would still not buy it at say $700. Sure, the statement "NVIDIA has the fastest single GPU," holds true, but "NVIDIA has the most overpriced single-GPU card in 25 years of VGA history," is equally true.

Haha, price of this card is a joke and I said this earlier. nvidia has sorely miscalculated here, they are going to lose mindshare trying for this price. The card is simply too slow to be going for a $1000. It needed to be ground breaking for that price.

Good chance we see price drops on this card in a few months. Let the first day buyers get them and then let the dust settle and these cards may be sitting around with no one interested but the few who want 2 or more, probably day 1 buyers. Many will get a 690 or two 680s and ignore this card altogether for the horrible price and performance. You spend a grand to get good performance, there are better options out there for a grand, from AMD and nvidia, with significantly more performance.

 

[RussianSensation]

I have come to trust hardware.fr over the years and their review only shows titan to be 16% faster than the 7970 GE at 1080p which I am interested in. Their test suite is not bad.

Their test suite is excellent since they included some GPU demanding games like Alan Wake, Anno 2070 and Witcher 2 EE. Most websites skip those now but it's still good to see how Titan performs in them.

Those scores are awful for a $1000 card that you expect to obliterate a $430 card everywhere. When Witcher 2 was one of the most demanding GPU games in the last 2 years and the Titan is only 17% faster at 1600P than a 7970Ghz, that's honestly a face-palm moment.

1Ghz Titan is just 23% faster at 1600P in review.

This card is doing the exact opposite of what NV intended. It's making HD7970GE cards look better. It really does. Even HD7950 CF looks ridiculously cheap in this context, if people realize that a single HD7950 OC can exceed GTX680/HD7970GE. That means even a 1Ghz Titan would still lose to $560 HD7950 CF OC in many cases. It's understandable that cheaper high-end cards normally slightly outperformed or matched a flagship for less $ (GTX460 SLI vs. 580) but in this case you are paying $440 more to just not deal with CF and you also get none of those AAA games either. It was never this bad.

 

[n0x1ous]

"If the GTX TITAN’s price is exclusively associated with raw frame rates, it seems like NVIDIA may have completely misjudged its positioning somewhere along the line. $1000 for a product that simply strides in the vast open space between the GTX 680 and GTX 690 yet is priced identically to the latter seems absolutely preposterous at first glance. But it isn’t. NVIDIA’s strategy here is spot-on and there are two reason for that: frame times and consistency.

When it comes to a consistent gameplay experience, the TITAN is head, shoulders and knees above its compatriots. The low standard deviation shown between frame times is a fraction of what other solutions offer, which in turn leads to significantly smoother onscreen performance. For example, the GTX 690 exhibits many of the issues normally associated with dual GPU cards like minor stuttering and outright frame hesitation, a situation the TITAN deftly avoids by virtue of being a single core solution. Gamers won’t have to wait for the latest SLI profile for optimal new game support either. So while the GTX 690 may outclass the TITAN in terms of raw framerate production, the GK110 clearly holds the edge this key area.

Even though it is a single GPU solution, AMD’s HD 7970 GHz just isn’t in the same league as the GeForce TITAN. Its comparative frame times border on abysmal and no amount of overclocking will improve that fact. Had AMD addressed the stuttering in key games like Far Cry 3 and Hitman Absolution (both of which are Gaming Evolved titles I may add) we could be having a very different conversation right now, especially considering the GHz Edition’s strong framerates. "

From - Hardware Canucks Conclusion.

Terrible price/performance based on FPS, but based on the increasingly important frame time metric, its peerless and then somewhat price justified. I didn't realize how bad the frame times were even on a single 7970.

 

[moonbogg]

Its nice and fast, but wow, just wow at the fact that this card makes no sense performance wise unless you buy two of them, otherwise two 7970's makes wayyyyyy more sense at this point, especially considering the low price of 7970's currently. If you want to stick with nvidia, then you are screwed and get to pay $2,000. I think I can survive with my 670's until next gen.
If you want to go multi monitor crazy, then two titans is where its at for sure (unless you get three 7970's! BAHAHA! (ya im a hater cause im too broke for these things...whut?!)

 

[SlowSpyder]

Ok saw that and while it may be "under water" that system has a single circuit with CPU and would be severely radiator limited. With GPU/CPU running at full load the ambient to water delta would become unacceptable. Granted GPU temps would be lower than air they are far from ideal.

Titan is a hardcore GPU and should have equally hardcore water cooling to shoot for the moon!

I dunno... I read on these forums, quite a bit, about how no one in their right mind will overvolt an enthusiast level card because of how much money they cost. No one wants to risk ruining their investment. Just go back and read the GTX590 review threads or GTX680 review threads.

 

[Souv]

Their test suite is excellent since they included some GPU demanding games like Alan Wake, Anno 2070 and Witcher 2 EE. Most websites skip those now but it's still good to see how Titan performs in them.

Those scores are awful for a $1000 card that you expect to obliterate a $430 card everywhere. When Witcher 2 was one of the most demanding GPU games in the last 2 years and the Titan is only 17% faster at 1600P than a 7970Ghz, that's honestly a face-palm moment.

1Ghz Titan is just 23% faster at 1600P in review.

right on the money ....

 

[Face2Face]

^^ Hey Russian, your links are broken...

 

[wand3r3r]

This is actually kind of sad. The rumors were going as far as 80% gains over the 680 (merely the 560 ti successor). They try to say don't look at the price, but what else is there to look at, it's not like it's even that fast. It's simply a bump up, only 74%/80% vs. the 7970, and 69/70% vs the 680 according to the charts above.

SLI will look slightly better when 2 vs. 4 but mainly because SLI scales like crap so 4 cards has diminishing returns. Either way, for this absurd price it's depressingly bad.

The hilarious thing would be if the 7970GHz got a 20% boost from the memory rewrite. (not at all expected, but the 7950 got some crazy driver gains since launch) The $1000 card would be trading blows with a $400 card.

 

[Rubycon]

I dunno... I read on these forums, quite a bit, about how no one in their right mind will overvolt an enthusiast level card because of how much money they cost. No one wants to risk ruining their investment. Just go back and read the GTX590 review threads or GTX680 review threads.

The issue with 590 was its weak VRM. We could push them further on water but 1.1V is about the sane limit and requires a hacked BIOS to get there. You're still PDL'd though and that knocks framerate way down...

What we find with 690 air vs. water is little difference in overclockability! Once you hit the ceiling it does not matter if the load temp is +80C or +25C. :|

 

[Hypertag]

Three titans = $3000

two 690s =$2000

It should be doing much better.

Seems like going with three 4GB 670s would be better than all of that. What can you even do with two 690s without hitting a Vram limit?

 

[SirPauly]

You spend a grand to get good performance, there are better options out there for a grand, from AMD and nvidia, with significantly more performance.

Imho,

Indeed! There are other nVidia options that may offer more performance/dollar, specifically multi-GPU -- this price-point doesn't cannibalize Sli platform prospective buyers as well!

I would wager that nVidia would desire to sell two GTX 680's or three GTX 670's or GTX 660 Ti's than a Titan at their current MSRP's.

 

[RussianSensation]

^^ Hey Russian, your links are broken...

Which ones ?

Nvidia's lineup is more balanced and complete with actual options.

Say what? AMD has superior price/performance and performance at nearly every level up to $600 on the desktop at regular prices, not sales. Sure they are occasional sales of GTX670 at $300 or GTX660 dipping to $185-190 but on average what does NV have worth buying from $100 to $600? I am curious. And if you are into overclocking, frankly HD7950 MSI TF3 or similar obsoletes everything AMD/or NV has from $300 to $600. :biggrin:

 

[moonbogg]

Better part of his full conclusion comes closer to the end


Haha, price of this card is a joke and I said this earlier. nvidia has sorely miscalculated here, they are going to lose mindshare trying for this price. The card is simply too slow to be going for a $1000. It needed to be ground breaking for that price.

You know what, you are right. I think i've just about had it with Nvidia. I've been super loyal for over a decade but this last round is all it took to piss me off. First I paid (cause im a sucker) full price for their mid range card. Then they release the card everyone wanted for a grand. Really? GTX 580's logical replacement for 1 grand?
So now anyone with two 670/680's or a 690 are in a strange spot. They could ALMOST get the same performance without SLI issues by going with a single Titan, but not quite. It only makes sense to get two of them for a proper upgrade, but thats too expensive and waiting for next gen is better. But now we don't get to experience the full Kepler arch.
I say screw Nvidia from here on out. If they come out with compute gimped, overpriced midrange cards next gen, count me in on the red team. My first AMD card since 9700pro is on its way next gen. (two of them actually).

 

[RussianSensation]

I think I can survive with my 670's until next gen.

:thumbsup: BF4 is out Q4 2013, right? You got time to burn. I honestly think Maxwell is going to be spectacular because it's the first major architecture redesign from NV since Fermi. It's being built as a compute monster from the ground-up, the greatest Gflops increase per watt for NV. To upgrade for you would require 2 Titans ($2K) and most of that for what, Crysis 3? Sounds like a waste. I am personally going to wait until Witcher 3 and next gen games drop and Maxwell/Volcanic Islands should be better prepared for those titles than "future-proofing" with $1K Titan(s).

But then If you wait another year after that, you will get 2x the performance of Titan and 1/3 of the price! So you guys are dumb for not waiting till 2015.
And even those people that wait till 2015 are dumb because there will be an even more powerful card for less cost in 2016!! So yeah!

That's not how it's going to work anymore NV and AMD are limited by node shrinks more than ever. The next big increase in performance and price/performance will be on 20nm. That means 2015 would likely be a 20nm refresh year with minimal gains or 35% gains for $1K (LOL!). Then 2016 will be a big year with 14nm. The Titan is $1K for 36-38% faster than 7970GE but looking at the move from 40nm to 28nm, both NV and AMD managed to give us at least 35% at $499-549. That gives a high chance that in 2014 a $500 20nm card will match or beat the Titan on 20nm.

 

[blackened23]

The issue with 590 was its weak VRM. We could push them further on water but 1.1V is about the sane limit and requires a hacked BIOS to get there. You're still PDL'd though and that knocks framerate way down...

What we find with 690 air vs. water is little difference in overclockability! Once you hit the ceiling it does not matter if the load temp is +80C or +25C. :|

Titan is also limited by the TDP, and that is a hard limit that cannot be overcome. Kinda wish they had put 2x 8 pin connectors on it instead; As SKYMTL at hardwarecanucks mentioned, while you can overclock the Titan -- and the Titan does overclock better than the prior GK104 parts, it is still going to throttle when it hits the hard TDP limit. The good news is that nearly every Titan is boosting to nearly 1000mhz out of the box, and some reviewers have been able to go 100mhz or so further than that. I don't see users doing better even on water cooling.

This TDP limit applies even if you're on water - it won't let you exceed 103%? From what I remember reading - that is a hard limit. So if anyone has thoughts about anyone except Kingpin getting 1300mhz+, it's not going to happen. In fact I think kingpin has already done it except he had to add additional power to the card, modify the BIOS, use an add-on VRM, use sub zero temps with LN2, and get around the Hard TDP limit that every Titan has - this is not representative of what a user can do. You'd have to be kidding yourself if you think anyone but the most wealthy HWBOT guys would ever do that.

Bottom line, don't expect much higher overclocking than what other reviewers have already obtained. The power % limit will prevent that.

 

[Face2Face]

1Ghz Titan is just 23% faster at 1600P in review.

I am not seeing any of this.. Maybe it's on my end.

 

[SirPauly]

You know what, you are right. I think i've just about had it with Nvidia.

Did they lose mind share with the 7800 GTX 512 sku or 8800 ultra sku?

It's competition that keeps pricing in check and brings more value, imho!

 

[moonbogg]

Did they lose mind share with the 7800 GTX 512 sku or 8800 ultra sku?

It's competition that keeps pricing in check and brings more value, imho!

They also didn't charge $500 for an 8800GT and strip it of features.