Titan X vs Titans 3-way SLI Water-Cooled

[96Firebird]

He's been feeling this way for awhile now.

Oh I know, but the title of the thread and the original post before edit makes it sound like he was legitimately thinking about making the switch. And then he changed his mind 20 minutes later, like he had just read about Nvidia's ethics...

 

[5150Joker]

So what you are saying is 80% of consumers make purchases (not just videocards) based on emotions and not logic? Thanks for stating the obvious.

I can't be bothered to read your long winded novels, learn to write something more succinctly if you want some attention. And what I stated is very clear, people buy based on what's best on the market, not what they think of the companies ethics. They aren't obsessed with 3.5 GB "NVIDIA IS EVIL" mentality like some people are. NVIDIA is the best on the market, you can copy paste all the TPU graphs you want and twist it like a pretzel but it won't change reality. And I have to laugh at your notions of "well just 6 months later there's something faster!". Well color me shocked, new technology emerges a product cycle later!?! Two years later and the original Titan is still kicking butt and is near the top in performance metrics WITH extra vram to spare so I'd say it has done extremely well for the people that bought it.

 

[RussianSensation]

And what I stated is very clear, people buy based on what's best on the market, not what they think of the companies ethics. They aren't obsessed with 3.5 GB "NVIDIA IS EVIL" mentality like some people are.

Clearly some people in this and other threads disagree with that notion and you have a problem with it. Again, the definition is what's best varies from person to person.

NVIDIA is the best on the market, you can copy paste all the TPU graphs you want and twist it like a pretzel but it won't change reality.

Ya, we get it. The concept of price/performance doesn't apply to you. You only buy the best. Moving on now.

And I have to laugh at your notions of "well just 6 months later there's something faster!". Well color me shocked, new technology emerges a product cycle later!?!

Right, that's why some people time their GPU purchases to get solid value for their dollar - a concept that seems to fly over your head.

Two years later and the original Titan is still kicking butt and is near the top in performance metrics WITH extra vram to spare so I'd say it has done extremely well for the people that bought it.

1.5 years later and R9 290s in CF are still kicking but for $1200 less than 2 Titans. As I said there are consumers like you who have to have the latest and greatest on week 1 regardless of price. However, there are others like the OP who is willing to wait it out to get better value because his Titans OCed are good enough for almost any game out there at 1440P. It would be immesnely wasteful to drop $2k on Titan Xs if his cards can survive another 6 months and he can pick up dual MSI Lightning GM200 6GBs for $1400 that will beat Titan Xs (or R9 390s for way less $, etc.). If the OP had GTX460 SLI or something slow, that would be different.

 

[5150Joker]

You're acting like 6-9 months is nothing, that's a gigantic gap in time for a fast moving market like GPUs. These segments are catered towards two different crowds:

1. Enthusiasts who don't want to wait and can recognize that $1k for a hobby isn't much at all.
2. Those who are hard up for cash due to other priorities and can wait.

Both get rewarded in the end, just those that pay an early adopter premium get things a lot earlier. Apparently, the Titan X is selling out everywhere so it seems the market is there. Even Intel charges $1k for their 5960x and that arguably offers nothing in terms of performance as very few apps utilize 8 cores vs much cheaper CPUs but people still buy them. At least with cards like the Titan X, you're guaranteed the best performance on the market that can be fully tapped the day you buy it. I plan to upgrade to big Pascal which will likely come in 1.5-2 years, I think saving up $2000 by then shouldn't be difficult at all, especially when I factor in the sale price for these Titan X's to subsidize it. We're not spending $50k each time like on a new car.

 

[alcoholbob]

Waiting 6 months means you play through Witcher 3 a couple times with substandard settings at 4K. lol.

 

[gamervivek]

Lower clockspeed has been 290 series achilles' heel and will probably continue with the 390 series if that 1050Mhz WCE leak slide is true.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia_geforce_gtx_titan_x/4.htm

oced Titan X vs 290x stock at 4k

metro last night: 88.1%
bio infi: 88.9
c3 : 86.9
fc4: 91.7%
bf4: 103.7%
ac unity: 111.5%
arkham origins: 50%

Can't see 390X beating an overclocked card(980Ti?).

 

[Headfoot]

It seems that now that Titan X has come out, the power consumption straw man argument has fallen by the wayside with the "3-6 months is a really long tiem guise" straw man argument coming to the forefront.

I wonder how many of these same people told buyers to wait for Fermi when 58xx series was new...

 

[RussianSensation]

You're acting like 6-9 months is nothing, that's a gigantic gap in time for a fast moving market like GPUs. .

So you think R9 390/390X/GM200 6GB are 6-9 months away now? What if by June 30, there is a $550 R9 390 with 87% of the performance of the Titan X? What's going to be your response after spending $2K on Titan Xs? That 3 months of bragging rights and 13% more performance is worth nearly double the price?

It's not as if OP's Titan SLI @ 1.2Ghz is slow. You realize that's as fast as a Titan X OCed and for 1440P, that's as fast as 970 SLI/780Ti SLI, very fast setups for even games like TW3 considering that's faster than probably what 96% of PC gamers worldwide have. He still has 81% of the performance of GTX980 SLI for crying out loud and that's at stock speeds.

You are making it sound as if Titan X SLI will offer the OP some new dimension for PC gaming at 1440P in current games while Titan SLI @ 1.2Ghz is severely holding him back or something.

That's the part of my comment you seem to have missed. The OP doesn't have GTX 460 SLI or GTX560Ti SLI. He has Titans @ 1.2Ghz with waterblocks, and he doesn't have a 4K monitor either. He would probably benefit more from an upgrade to a GSync monitor at this point than spending $2K on Titan Xs. Maybe you could offer your advice here on this point actually since you've used GSync.

 

[Lepton87]

So you think R9 390/390X/GM200 6GB are 6-9 months away now? What if by June 30, there is a $550 R9 390 with 87% of the performance of the Titan X? What's going to be your response after spending $2K on Titan Xs? That 3 months of bragging rights and 13% more performance is worth nearly double the price?

It's not as if OP's Titan SLI @ 1.2Ghz is slow. You realize that's as fast as a Titan X OCed and for 1440P, that's as fast as 970 SLI/780Ti SLI, very fast setups for even games like TW3 considering that's faster than probably what 96% of PC gamers worldwide have. He still has 81% of the performance of GTX980 SLI for crying out loud and that's at stock speeds.

According to futuremark orb my system is faster than 99% systems out there. There are no decimal but it's definitely more than 99%, our forum is a little bubble of hardware enthusiasts. This run wasn't even run on water or at max CPU OC you seriously overestimate what people have. It's probably 99.5% or more

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/4173808
better run with OC but I still don't remember if it was max OC
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3117943

I guess that even running everything at stock my computer would still be faster than 99%, I would like to know how low I would have to go to be just 97% faster of all systems, I would definitely have to take out one card.
ps. sorry you said 96% so I would have to downclock my Titan.
ps.2 Seems like one Titan x would be a downgrade I would need two to have more perf.

 

[RussianSensation]

According to futuremark orb my system is faster than 99% systems out there. There are no decimal but it's definitely more than 99%, our forum is a little bubble of hardware enthusiasts.

There you go. I just used 96% as an estimate. Ever since NV raised prices on its GPUs, this forum started to have a tendency to correlate being an enthusiast with how much money one spends on GPU hardware. Sorry but that's a very shallow and recently made-up definition of what a PC enthusiast is. In the past AT was more about sensible upgrade choices while places like OCN were more about bragging rights, showing off and benchmarking stand-offs. On AT, GPUs such as 6800GT or 8800GT or 6950 unlocked were far more popular than top-of-the-line X850XT PE or 6800 UE or 8800GTX/Ultra or 6970. Hardly anyone back then would defend the high prices of 6800 UE/8800GTX Ultra, and those cards were called out for not being worth it/overpriced. Today $1K prices for flagships and $550 for mid-range are defended. Don't let this affect your GPU upgrade path judgement.

As I said, ask yourself what are you upgrading for? If your cards are fast enough, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you waiting until GM200 6GB/390X or even until 14nm/16nm generation. You can even put your GPUs up for sale and see what kind of offers you get today to get an idea. For example, I monitor what the 7970 goes for in the used market. In the last 6 months the card barely dropped $15-20 in resale, which means I am not that concerned about their resale value at this point. Fairly stagnant resale value and lack of next generation PC games is why I am not in a particular rush to upgrade despite all the hype around cards like 970/980 and Titan X. I would imagine that your Titans are also at a point where it's unlikely that they will lose too much value as NV will not have any high-DP performing GM200 chip this generation.

 

[Lepton87]

There you go. I just used 96% as an estimate. Ever since NV raised prices on its GPUs, this forum started to have a tendency to correlate being an enthusiast with how much money one spends on GPU hardware. Sorry but that's a very shallow and recently made-up definition of what a PC enthusiast is. In the past AT was more about sensible upgrade choices while places like OCN were more about bragging rights, showing off and benchmarking stand-offs. On AT, GPUs such as 6800GT or 8800GT or 6950 unlocked were far more popular than top-of-the-line X850XT PE or 6800 UE or 8800GTX/Ultra or 6970. Hardly anyone back then would defend the high prices of 6800 UE/8800GTX Ultra, and those cards were called out for not being worth it/overpriced. Today $1K prices for flagships and $550 for mid-range are defended. Don't let this affect your GPU upgrade path judgement.

As I said, ask yourself what are you upgrading for? If your cards are fast enough, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you waiting until GM200 6GB/390X or even until 14nm/16nm generation. You can even put your GPUs up for sale and see what kind of offers you get today to get an idea. For example, I monitor what the 7970 goes for in the used market. In the last 6 months the card barely dropped $15-20 in resale, which means I am not that concerned about their resale value at this point. Fairly stagnant resale value and lack of next generation PC games is why I am not in a particular rush to upgrade despite all the hype around cards like 970/980 and Titan X. I would imagine that your Titans are also at a point where it's unlikely that they will lose too much value as NV will not have any high-DP performing GM200 chip this generation.

There's no point in upgrading with my current monitor however the real comparison for the same upgrade money would be 3-WAY Titan vs Titan x of course those Titans at 1.2GHz probably even at stock with no throttling would outperform that new Titan x even at 1.5GHz However I wanted to change my monitor for either a 4K or a 1440p 120/144Hz non-TN then I would need more power. So maybe I'll grab a third titan used or wait for cards made with a new node from AMD unless NV will be so much better.

 

[RussianSensation]

I wouldn't buy a 3rd Titan. At that point might as well sell yours and get dual Titan Xs or GM200 6GB SLI/390 CF.

 

[Lepton87]

I wouldn't buy a 3rd Titan. At that point might as well sell yours and get dual Titan Xs or GM200 6GB SLI/390 CF.

Titan X SLI would be so much more expensive and the other cards don't yet exist so we don't know when and if(GM200 6GB) they will hit the market and at what price points and then the resale value of the Titan might plummet.
ps. Even R295 +R295 or R280X for TRI-FIRE would be close in performance to Titans at about half the price.

 

[Denithor]

This is what Russian is trying to tell you, the resale of your Titans isn't likely to plummet just because Titan X or 390X launch. Those cards do not offer strong DP performance at all, meaning for the target market (prosumer) they are not a viable option. So your cards should maintain solid value for quite some time to come, not as gaming cards but rather for compute purposes.

 

[RussianSensation]

ps. Even R295 +R295 or R280X for TRI-FIRE would be close in performance to Titans at about half the price.

You have to be careful as you cannot just compare FPS directly. There is no way R9 280X Tri-Fire is going to be as smooth as Titan Xs SLI. I don't even think R9 290X Tri-Fire will be as good considering a Titan X @ 1.5Ghz ~ R9 295X2 on its own. If money wasn't a factor, Titan Xs hands down are the best solution on the market today.

 

[Lepton87]

You have to be careful as you cannot just compare FPS directly. There is no way R9 280X Tri-Fire is going to be as smooth as Titan Xs SLI. I don't even think R9 290X Tri-Fire will be as good considering a Titan X @ 1.5Ghz ~ R9 295X2 on its own. If money wasn't a factor, Titan Xs hands down are the best solution on the market today.

I of course meant Hawaii Tri Fire. And I meant 295X2+290X as tri-fire. Also, let's see how retail Titans X overclock. My Titans are too much for that crappy cooler I need water to cool them properly. I had 2, 3 and 4 cards in my computer and adding a third card doesn't somehow increase stutter. Titan X SLI is easily in 4 GPU territory price-wise but I hate that the drivers are very messy for 4 cards.
ps. don't compare stock to OC. Either stock or OC. Those Hawaii can be overclocked too, maybe by half as much as the Titan but it would shift the results in their favor.
ps. Have someone done some scalings tests with Hawaii Kepler and Maxwell at least up to 3 cards (4 would be preferable) At launch I remember that Maxwell didn't shine in SLI.

This is what Russian is trying to tell you, the resale of your Titans isn't likely to plummet just because Titan X or 390X launch. Those cards do not offer strong DP performance at all, meaning for the target market (prosumer) they are not a viable option. So your cards should maintain solid value for quite some time to come, not as gaming cards but rather for compute purposes.This is what Russian is trying to tell you, the resale of your Titans isn't likely to plummet just because Titan X or 390X launch. Those cards do not offer strong DP performance at all, meaning for the target market (prosumer) they are not a viable option. So your cards should maintain solid value for quite some time to come, not as gaming cards but rather for compute purposes.

The resale value of luxury items in my country works a bit different then in the civilized world. and yes 1000$ EXTREME EDITION CPUs and card that cost that much are considered luxury items in here while in the US it they might be just commodity items. As of now there isn't a single used Titan available for sale in Poland.

 

[RussianSensation]

I of course meant Hawaii Tri Fire. And I meant 295X2+290X as tri-fire. Also, let's see how retail Titans X overclock. My Titans are too much for that crappy cooler I need water to cool them properly.

If you've paid attention to my posts, I am not against CF/SLI and especially so if when SLI/CF doesn't work, the single card solution can still offer 85-90% of the performance of the flagship. This is not the case with R9 290X CF vs. Titan X though because when CF doesn't work, you stand to lose nearly 45-48% of the performance.

Look at BF Hardline. At 1440P, 290X CF and 980 SLI are stellar.

But then at 4K, SLI/CF scaling right now is a disaster.

For that reason, when the single GPU solution in a CF/SLI setup is much slower than the flagship (i.e., R9 290X vs. Titan X), using CF/SLI against a single chip solution is no longer a slam dunk contest as say when comparing HD7970Ghz CF vs. 780 is or say GTX 970 SLI vs. 980 is.

Current rumours point to R9 390 series being announced around Computex, June 2-5th. Again, since you have Titans @ 1.2Ghz, in your shoes I would personally wait. Since you want a real upgrade, you will want 2 next gen high-end cards (i.e., 2x GM200 6GB or 2x R9 390/390Xs).

 

[Lepton87]

That 30% faster than 290X seems unimpressive for 3 times as much money. That 4K M-GPU scaling seems like a driver issue nothing more, or maybe 4GB is not enough anymore? They should have tested the original Titan and see if it tanks just as much. As for the Titan X Unfortunately its cooler is crappy despite all the praises* it gets, if it is like the orginal Titan it loses 10-15% performance after some gaming due to throttling but benchmarks tend to be so short that it doesn't even start to throttle. That's kind of false misleading the consumer. Fortunately it was easily fixable on the original titan with still good acoustics. But you could forget about OC if you didn't want to have a yet engine right in your room.

*It is great for a blower but blowers are flawed and good only up to 200W. Maybe 250 if someone can tolerate more noise, anything more than that is too much. It's like trying to achieve competitive power to displacement ratio with a diesel when your competition uses gasoline engine. But that's hardly the point most enthusiast will water cool that card and I mean enthusiast not just rich buyer.

After thinking about it, I'm going to wait out this node, it is too long in the tooth already unless I can get a 3rd Titan for a very good price.
Current monitors still don't satisfy me fully and for my own monitor I'm good. I want 4K about 30" 120Hz/144Hz and some kind of adaptive refresh rate, probably free sync unless NV decides to support that DP adaptive refresh rate standard then I might consider their cards. Right now I'm appalled at how they do business, still if they are the only game in town like 5870 was when NV was dragging the release of the GTX480 I'll still buy a card from them.
ps. currently I use EVGA PRECISION X which allows to raise the voltage to 1.3V, is there any benefit to raising it higher like 1.4V? The temperature is still under 40C on both cards.