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

[DooKey]

The reason everyone is harping on the price is because Titan is a great card. No one is disputing that fact. Even though it's a great it can still be a joke based on its price.

Everyone that was up in arms over the 7970 release price made the same arguments, but the 7970 was priced correctly for the performance you got in comparison to its competition. If those same people refuse to see that Titan is a bust at $1000 then they are only confirming that they have alterior motives.

If Nvidia sells all they can make at $1000 a pop I wouldn't call that a bust. Nvidia, or any business for that matter, doesn't owe you a cheaper product if they can get their asking price.

 

[sontin]

Everyone that was up in arms over the 7970 release price made the same arguments, but the 7970 was priced correctly for the performance you got in comparison to its competition. If those same people refuse to see that Titan is a bust at $1000 then they are only confirming that they have alterior motives.

How was the 7970 " priced correctly for the performance you got in comparison to its competition" when the GTX580 was overpriced over the other cards on the market?

TITAN is twice as fast as the GTX580 and costs twice as much. So it's the exact same think what AMD did with 7970 over the 6970. The only difference is that AMD lowered their prices 5x times over the last year.

 

[Granseth]

How was the 7970 " priced correctly for the performance you got in comparison to its competition" when the GTX580 was overpriced over the other cards on the market?

TITAN is twice as fast as the GTX580 and costs twice as much. So it's the exact same think what AMD did with 7970 over the 6970. The only difference is that AMD lowered their prices 5x times over the last year.

There is a difference of more than a year between the releases too, that makes the Titans competition the 680/7970, not the 580.

What I thought of recently is that Titan sets a new benchmark to beat for next gen, and its great that its 30% higher than 7970. Maybe they make a bigger effort than with with 7970/680 for the next round

 

[AdamK47]

You can get one at Micro Center once it's available. For the low low price of $1200.

 

[Skurge]

How was the 7970 " priced correctly for the performance you got in comparison to its competition" when the GTX580 was overpriced over the other cards on the market?

TITAN is twice as fast as the GTX580 and costs twice as much. So it's the exact same think what AMD did with 7970 over the 6970. The only difference is that AMD lowered their prices 5x times over the last year.

Wow. your logic is impressive.

Anyway, Anybody have any idea whats going on with PCPR numbers? Also TR numbers are Showing CFX being smoother than a single 7970, and PCPR are showing SLI to be smoother than a single 680.

Either these guys have bad data or i'm just an idoit and don't know how to read the graphs.

I think the price is stupid and they cheaped out on the PCB and components. Other than that, it performs as I would expect a 550mm2 chip to perform.

Going by TR and PCPR a 690 or 7970CFX are better options cause apparently they are smoother and faster... Or so fast that they are smooth? I don't know anymore.

 

[Termie]

I think there's some misunderstanding of what the new latency benchmarks are actually showing. I'm going to just discuss a few TechReport charts for illustration, as they've been doing it the longest and have the best handle on why this testing makes sense:

Average FPS (the standard benchmarking method):

99th Percentile Frametime (a close approximation of frames per second):

Now, what I believe everyone is focusing on is how the dual-card setups perform better in the 99th percentile frametime. That should not be surprising - they are faster. Therefore, on average, their frametimes should be shorter. Now, there are some anomalies, such as the 7970CF's 99th percentile frametimes being worse than the Titan despite being faster, and that's a hint of what's to come, but it's quite close.


Time spent beyond 50ms (the latency benchmark):

Source: http://techreport.com/review/24381/nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-reviewed/12

It's when you get to the frametimes over 50ms, which is a rough approximation of a frame that the user could experience as a stutter, where this new technique really provides us more information than FPS. Even though the 690 and 7970CF are faster than the single card equivalents, they are not smoother. Yes, the 690 appears to be smoother than the 680 in some of the other games, but I'm not sure why this should be such a surprise if Nvidia has a method to smooth perceived latency. This does not mean SLI is more consistent, however, and I believe this is where there is confusion. All the frametime graphs show more variability in the frametimes on SLI setups, but "smoothness" is impacted only when frametimes are long enough to actually be perceived as out of sync with other frames.

There are enough reviewers out there who've provided descriptions of actual gameplay to know that in some cases, 7970CF does not work as well as the FPS would suggest. That is not to say that it will not be improved by the major driver re-work, but it is short-sighted to just say these new benchmarks don't make sense and therefore cannot be used to support what reviewers have long been reporting subjectively.

Now, here's a graph for the same game from PCPerspective:

Source: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...ance-Review-and-Frame-Rating-Update/Far-Cry-0

What you'll see is that the SLI setups are very fast, have average frametimes that are much lower (necessarily), but are also less consistent, and more importantly for the user, have more latency spikes. Where you report the cutoff in a chart will very much color how readers interpret the findings, but these raw data plots tell the whole story. In fact, I could make the argument that setting aside the initial spike for the GTX680, the 680 is smoother than Titan SLI.

 

[Imouto]

Termie bro, why you put benches for a game that both NV and AMD said it's broken? Even TR said it's way smoother for all setups cranking down the options. As for me it's just another proof of how retarded is benching with unplayable settings.

It's as stupid as showing 200 FPS benches in some sites.

http://techreport.com/review/24381/nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-reviewed/12

When I asked AMD about the CrossFire problems, they told me they were investigating multiple angles. When I asked Nvidia about this game, they said they believe there may be some problems with the application itself. So... yeah. In my experience, you can get Far Cry 3 to run fairly smoothly on these video cards, but you'll have to back way down on the image quality settings.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

If Nvidia sells all they can make at $1000 a pop I wouldn't call that a bust. Nvidia, or any business for that matter, doesn't owe you a cheaper product if they can get their asking price.

I know they are in the business of making money but that doesn't change the fact that anyone who buys this card for anything over $650-700 is brain dead from the butthole both ways.

Titan offers good performance for an idiotic price.

 

[Termie]

Termie bro, why you put benches for a game that both NV and AMD said it's broken? Even TR said it's way smoother for all setups cranking down the options. As for me it's just another proof of how retarded is benching with unplayable settings.

It's as stupid as showing 200 FPS benches in some sites.

http://techreport.com/review/24381/nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-reviewed/12

I picked a game that both vendors perform closely in with single cards. But the explanation still stands. Let's look at Hitman with just the Titan and 7970CF:

Looking at this graph, we can come to three conclusions:
(1) 7970CF is much faster
(2) Titan is much more consistent
(3) 7970CF and Titan are likely providing equal "smoothness" as they hit similar peak frametime numbers.

Sure enough, they are both really, really smooth:

My point was to explain the new benchmarking method, not necessarily to highlight strengths or weaknesses of AMD vs. Nvidia, although I do think SLI is probably a bit more refined than Crossfire, and even AMD has openly acknowledged that they are currently working on a latency fix in DX10/11 titles.

 

[Souv]

recent reports show that 5770 the best selling card for amd whereas 550 ti best selling for nvi.....these companies mainstay is it's mainstream cards..but hardly in these forums much talk going on that....more than 70% gamers even don't meet system requirements...money as honey(except the fact nvi gives dilusion of greater perf by putting huge price tag--as i said before 650ti selling at 7850 price as an example)

http://www.thinkdigit.com/Gaming/Latest-Steam-survey-reveals-popularity-of-Intel_13402.html

most of the members in forums just talks on enthusiast products as 7900/680/670/titan////maxwell//8900/huge oc bla bla bla


so guess me update you about 7790 on it's way in april-

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/30530-new-amd-graphics-card-coming-in-april

 

[chimaxi83]

recent reports show that 5770 the best selling card for amd whereas 550 ti best selling for nvi.....these companies mainstay is it's mainstream cards..but hardly in these forums much talk going on that....more than 70% gamers even don't meet system requirements...money as honey(except the fact nvi gives dilusion of greater perf by putting huge price tag--as i said before 650ti selling at 7850 price as an example)

most of the members in forums just talks on enthusiast products as 7900/680/670/titan////maxwell//8900/huge oc bla bla bla


so guess me update you about 7790 on it's way in april-

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/30530-new-amd-graphics-card-coming-in-april

How is this relevant to the Titan card? Nobody cares about those boring cards.

 

[SirPauly]

recent reports show that 5770 the best selling card for amd whereas 550 ti best selling for nvi.....these companies mainstay is it's mainstream cards..but hardly in these forums much talk going on that....more than 70% gamers even don't meet system requirements...money as honey(except the fact nvi gives dilusion of greater perf by putting huge price tag--as i said before 650ti selling at 7850 price as an example)

most of the members in forums just talks on enthusiast products as 7900/680/670/titan////maxwell//8900/huge oc bla bla bla


so guess me update you about 7790 on it's way in april-

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/30530-new-amd-graphics-card-coming-in-april

Steam survey may not be the end-all-be-all gauge but does offer some insight on gamers:

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/directx/?sort=chg

It will be interesting to see how well TiTan does with this survey

 

[Souv]

talking about this-

http://www.thinkdigit.com/Gaming/Latest-Steam-survey-reveals-popularity-of-Intel_13402.html

 

[Eymar]

I picked a game that both vendors perform closely in with single cards. But the explanation still stands. Let's look at Hitman with just the Titan and 7970CF:

Looking at this graph, we can come to three conclusions:
(1) 7970CF is much faster
(2) Titan is much more consistent
(3) 7970CF and Titan are likely providing equal "smoothness" as they hit similar peak frametime numbers.

Sure enough, they are both really, really smooth:

My point was to explain the new benchmarking method, not necessarily to highlight strengths or weaknesses of AMD vs. Nvidia, although I do think SLI is probably a bit more refined that Crossfire, and even AMD has openly expressed that they are currently working on the latency in DX10/11 titles.

I've got that game, havent played it yet (stupid steam sales). I'm going to fire it up just to see if I can see a subjective difference compared to Titan if I can get one(vs. plain 7970 CF). What I noticed with 7970 CF is stutter on 60hz monitors (Vsync on or off) on high FPS scenarios (>60FPS), so what you see is an effective framerate of 40-45FPS as others have mentioned. Turn CF off and back to smooth 60FPS experience. With a 120hz monitor (Vsync on, haven't tried with off) CF looks extremely smooth (stutter, frame delay may still be there, but I just don't see it subjectively). This is in games where minimum framerate > 60.

 

[BoFox]

:thumbsup:

That's my point. Why spend $1-2 grand on the Titans when most 2013 games are not next gen yet? If you are rocking multi-monitors and are hardcore enough, you are already running GTX680 SLI Lightnings or faster OCed. Where is Metro LL? BF4 only in Q4 '13? GTA V - not even a release date for PC. By the time we get next gen games like Witcher 3, we'll be on Maxwell/Volcanic Islands. This card seems like it launched at the wrong price and at the wrong time. If it came out last year at $1K, it would have allowed people to have the fastest GPU for 2+ years.

The specs for PS4 are not too bad. 8GB of unified GDDR5 and 1.84 Tflops ~ HD7850 is a lot better than HD6670/7670 1GB we heard 1.5 years ago. Developers can get access to the metal of the hardware in consoles. The Titan will be obsolete way before PS4 is. The type of games PS4 will belt out by 2018-2019 will exceed Crysis 3 graphics on the Titan, no doubt. By then the $1000 Titan will be a $100 videocard.

Or a $75 video card, or even $60. :awe:
By the time Maxwell comes out, it will be a Titan bust!
Funny, I guessed PS4 to have roughly 7850 equivalent graphics, about 1 year ago right when HD 7850 came out! ^_^ It just seemed like the sweet spot for a powerful console that uses a 28nm GPU.

My little birdie is telling me that AMD is preparing to go for 20nm as soon as possible (like 4-6 months earlier than NV), but with a smaller yet beefy GPU a-la 28nm Pitcairn. It'd be like a Pitcairn "XTX" with 1536sp, same 32 ROPs and 256-bit bus, except nearly doubled with 20nm specs, to something like 2560sp. If there is not yet feasible GDDR5 memory officially rated at over 6500MHz effective, or XDR2 memory that is cheap enough, then AMD might have to expand the bus to a 384-bit one, but I seriously doubt that AMD would. At like 1150MHz, or so, it could very well be roughly equivalent to Titan's performance, yet use maybe 1/3 the silicon size, eat a bit more than 1/2 the power, and be far cheaper to make. However, I just don't expect 20nm to be ready until the beginning of 2014 at the very earliest. We never know - AMD totally surprised us with 55nm 3870s and 40nm 4770s.

 

[hyrule4927]

Steam survey may not be the end-all-be-all gauge but does offer some insight on gamers:

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/directx/?sort=chg

It will be interesting to see how well TiTan does with this survey

Last time Steam survey collected data, it thought I was using my integrated graphics and completely ignored my 7950, so I consider the results to be rather unreliable.

 

[SirPauly]

talking about this-

http://www.thinkdigit.com/Gaming/Latest-Steam-survey-reveals-popularity-of-Intel_13402.html

Hehe, I offered a link to the survey!

 

[f1sherman]

Last time Steam survey collected data, it thought I was using my integrated graphics and completely ignored my 7950, so I consider the results to be rather unreliable.

Steam HW survey is not JPR that's for sure.
But I doubt there is any trend in which only 7950(AMD?) gets under-reported in that way.

GPU increments for January are suprisingly well in line with latest NV/AMD 2 : 1 AIB report.

 

[DooKey]

I know they are in the business of making money but that doesn't change the fact that anyone who buys this card for anything over $650-700 is brain dead from the butthole both ways.

Titan offers good performance for an idiotic price.

Why does someone have to be brain dead to buy Titan? Titan is marketed for a specific demographic that likes the latest and greatest and has the means to buy it. It's really as simple as that. It's kind of like people who buy super high end audio equipment. They don't really need it because you can only tell the difference in the sound using test equipment, but they like the latest and greatest. I see this as the same kind of thing.

 

[blackened23]

Why does someone have to be brain dead to buy Titan? Titan is marketed for a specific demographic that likes the latest and greatest and has the means to buy it. It's really as simple as that. It's kind of like people who buy super high end audio equipment. They don't really need it because you can only tell the difference in the sound using test equipment, but they like the latest and greatest. I see this as the same kind of thing.

I agree with this. Titan is for the more money than brains crowd. More microstutter than 690 and less performance. But man, it's shiny.

 

[Annisman*]

I agree with this. Titan is for the more money than brains crowd. More microstutter than 690 and less performance. But man, it's shiny.

When I am using my Titan, if I find it has more stutter than my (faster) GTX 670 SLI setup I will be the first to report it, but I seriously, seriously doubt it.

 

[blastingcap]

I love how self-centered people are in here. Just because you do not have a use for it or can't afford it doesn't mean it's useless for everybody else, too. Some people may want the unrestricted DP + CUDA or whatever. Stop being so self-centered.

 

[notty22]

I agree with this. Titan is for the more money than brains crowd. More microstutter than 690 and less performance. But man, it's shiny.

Except that wasn't what he wrote. This must be your hang-up. Don't worry you can have brains and not buy one or be able to buy one.

 

[DooKey]

I agree with this. Titan is for the more money than brains crowd. More microstutter than 690 and less performance. But man, it's shiny.

Whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

 

[Plimogz]

It's pretty weak to cap this beast of a card at 265 watts. While I've gotten the feeling throughout this generation that nV was reacting to anecdotes (and youtube footage) of some last-generation cards burning up on over-voltage -- so they locked voltages and limited overclocking, and shipped pretty wimpy designs power-circuitry-wise which certainly help their profits along.

I can't believe that some aren't more angered by this 106% power-limit in a $1000 luxury card. I mean, have a look at the total beast which is the 7970 Matrix Platinum. If nV is going to go to the extent of preventing their partners from differing in any big way from their reference design, and have end-users agree to something before overvolting, they could at least deliver a lovingly overbuilt PCB with all the bells and whistles for voltage monitoring and extensive overclocking if they're going to go ahead and charge this much for their flagship.

All the more because they have devised a clever way to cap the clocks should a user want to use their Titan as a cheaper DP cruncher. IMHO they're giving gaming enthusiasts a bum deal by not at least building this thing to max out the PCI-E spec with a couple of 8 pin power connectors and a PCB worthy of the lofty price tag.