GeForce GTX Titan X Review: Can One GPU Handle 4K?

[renz496]

Fail. Epic fail by nVidia and by Tom's hardware.

Where are all the compute reviews? You do realize 90% of the people who buy Titans use them as a better-Quadro for compute and not for gaming.

The only thing I was interested at all was completely skipped by the benchmarks. By my own personal calculations, the Titan X will be slower in compute than the older Titan. Too bad noone posted the benchmarks to prove this. Or was it a dark veil from nVidia.

even the original titan is not really a quadro replacement. for people that need certified drivers with their work titan is not an option regardless how fast it is. rather than quadro the titans are more like tesla. the GK110 titans anyway. as for compute the new titan x will no doubt will be faster in single precision (7 teraflops vs 5 teraflops). but the GK110 titans will out right beat the new titan in DP. that's what makes the original titan was priced at 1k. unlocked DP performance. but the new titan x has no such things. so for that reason alone calling the new card as titan x and priced at titan price is a bit of nonsense when the card did not have the main factor that make the original titan line up different from the previous titan. but no matter how absurd it is nvidia is first and foremost is profit making company. making profit is their main primary concern. all we can hope is AMD to bring something to force nvidia to bring their card at much lower price. right now they are quite confident with their product because they almost dominate discrete gpu market the same way intel dominates x86 CPU world.

 

[cst1992]

So... with the 295x2 around, is there any reason to get the titan x?

Other countries.
In India, the R9 295X2 costs INR 130,000. A Titan costs INR 80,000. Since Titan X is around the same price point, the Titan X is the card to go for, since a savings of INR 50,000(US$803) is involved.

 

[Nossy]

So... with the 295x2 around, is there any reason to get the titan x?

Yes, if you don't want to also get a 1200W+ PSU or don't have one. Those things are pricey, At least $300 USD for a Silver/Gold rating. Meanwhile, if you have a 700-800W PSU, you can still get this.

 

[koossyo]

Very disappointing... after gtx 960 Nvidia comes with another product which doesn't meet expectations. I was honestly expecting titan x to be at least 50% faster than gtx 980...its more like 33% for double the price. The problem is that AMD isn't much better either... it will be almost 18 months without new card releases for AMD when fiji is released later this year. No competition and obnoxious pricing will make the transition to 4K looooong.

 

[Marius Cirsta]

It just seems to me that 4K isn't ready just yet. If you need a 1000$ card and even that is not really able to always give smooth performance in current games then ....
I've got a 23 inch 1080p monitor that I'm very happy with and if I'd buy a graphics card for it then I'd probably only need to spend $200 max.

 

[Marius Cirsta]

It just seems to me that 4K isn't ready just yet. If you need a 1000$ card and even that is not really able to always give smooth performance in current games then ....
I've got a 23 inch 1080p monitor that I'm very happy with and if I'd buy a graphics card for it then I'd probably only need to spend $200 max.

 

[renz496]

Very disappointing... after gtx 960 Nvidia comes with another product which doesn't meet expectations. I was honestly expecting titan x to be at least 50% faster than gtx 980...its more like 33% for double the price. The problem is that AMD isn't much better either... it will be almost 18 months without new card releases for AMD when fiji is released later this year. No competition and obnoxious pricing will make the transition to 4K looooong.

well expectation have to go side by side with reality. right now both AMD and nvidia are stuck with 28nm node which should be replaced by 20nm in 2014 time frame. TSMC scrapped the plan for high performance 20nm node and here were are. in fact it is already quite a feat what nvidia has done with maxwell. in the past we will not going to see power efficiency improvement unless nvidia/amd move to much smaller node. if you look at maxwell it is certain that nvidia have to sacrifice double precision to have more performance in games.

 

[koossyo]

SLI 2xTitan X + GSYNC.

If money was not an issue that's what I would do.

*And why do people whine about the COST of any of the Titan cards? NVidia isn't misleading anybody here; if you don't think it's worth the cost then don't buy it.

I don't complain because my FERRARI wasn't a good value.

As companies strive for perfection, they should make their cards the most appealing to all audiences as they can.

In your case, you "own a Ferrari." When someone buys a Ferrari (or any car, house, etc.), it is assumed that they are in for a more permanent investment. New graphics cards, by nature, are released every year-year and a half, causing new graphics cards to become outdated and obsolete within 3-5 years after being released. When someone gets a Ferrari, it's assumed that the car will retain most, if not all of its value after being purchased. Whereas graphics cards are concerned, they lose value relatively quickly.

When someone bought a Lamborghini Diablo they lost $1000 every kilometer for the first 100 kilometers of it's value. Most high end cars also loose value, only the few that get classed as classics hold or regain that value, houses are a different issue. You can get a Nissan Skyline R35 GTR for about $100k here in Aus or a Porch 911 Turbo for $300k, the Porch does the Nuremberg ring in about .2 seconds quicker then the Nissan, all high end products in all markets cost significantly more for almost no improvement, hifi is also a very good example.

You cant compare GPUs to cars... GPU is something you put in your rig and the only subjective benefit you receive is higher FPS. People buy Porsche, Ferrari, etc for thousands of reasons...

Nvidia could have either made a product with a high profit margin which will be bought by a very small elite of gamers... or they could have made a product which makes higher resolution gaming more affordable and contributes to the transition to 4k which is the next big thing for PC gaming. Using the relatively cheap 28nm process could have made this possible. Obviously they went for higher margins. What bothers me is that almost the whole PC community praises them for 'advancing GPU technology'. Well... its a pretty small advance for a tremendous cost in my view.

 

[koossyo]

Very disappointing... after gtx 960 Nvidia comes with another product which doesn't meet expectations. I was honestly expecting titan x to be at least 50% faster than gtx 980...its more like 33% for double the price. The problem is that AMD isn't much better either... it will be almost 18 months without new card releases for AMD when fiji is released later this year. No competition and obnoxious pricing will make the transition to 4K looooong.

well expectation have to go side by side with reality. right now both AMD and nvidia are stuck with 28nm node which should be replaced by 20nm in 2014 time frame. TSMC scrapped the plan for high performance 20nm node and here were are. in fact it is already quite a feat what nvidia has done with maxwell. in the past we will not going to see power efficiency improvement unless nvidia/amd move to much smaller node. if you look at maxwell it is certain that nvidia have to sacrifice double precision to have more performance in games.

Titan x has roughly 50 more shaders and higher memory bandwidth, so it is reasonable to expect 50 boost in performance? The 28nm process poses a limitation but it also has benefits for being cheap. Nvidia could have used this to make a cheaper GPU...

 

[airborn824]

I figured they would at least get close to the 295x2, but i was wrong. AMD is still the king of GPUs in 2015. This is Sad, i know it is dual GPU, but it is 1 PCB and a year old. 295x2 sells for $600 and is substantially faster than the Titan X at $999. Fiji is going to have no competition, this scares me as a consumer.

 

[Arabian Knight]

This Card should be $800 not more . $1000 is too much. you can have the better or at least the performance with 2 GTX 970 for 2x300= $600 only.

Why is this Article not comparing this card with 2 GTX 970 ??? they are only $600 both and will give same performance or little better.

I can understand $200 more for being the titan , but $400 ??? no thats too much greed Nvidia. This card should be $799 .

besides , 2 GTX 970 will draw 280 watts only !!! so not a big deal in comparison.

 

[M0j0jojo]

I picked up a 970 today. No 4K for me, but I'll be set for a long time.

Screw your Titans, Nvidia. I've been hearing that word waaaay too much over the a past few years. In everything. GTX Titan, Attack on Titan, Titanfall. My dad's truck is a darned Nissan Titan.

Screw Titans.

LOL

 

[renz496]

Very disappointing... after gtx 960 Nvidia comes with another product which doesn't meet expectations. I was honestly expecting titan x to be at least 50% faster than gtx 980...its more like 33% for double the price. The problem is that AMD isn't much better either... it will be almost 18 months without new card releases for AMD when fiji is released later this year. No competition and obnoxious pricing will make the transition to 4K looooong.

well expectation have to go side by side with reality. right now both AMD and nvidia are stuck with 28nm node which should be replaced by 20nm in 2014 time frame. TSMC scrapped the plan for high performance 20nm node and here were are. in fact it is already quite a feat what nvidia has done with maxwell. in the past we will not going to see power efficiency improvement unless nvidia/amd move to much smaller node. if you look at maxwell it is certain that nvidia have to sacrifice double precision to have more performance in games.

Titan x has roughly 50 more shaders and higher memory bandwidth, so it is reasonable to expect 50 boost in performance? The 28nm process poses a limitation but it also has benefits for being cheap. Nvidia could have used this to make a cheaper GPU...

well that is assuming if the core count scale linearly with performance. mature 28nm process might be cheaper right now but to create that 601mm2 are not. if you really look at it GTX780Ti was not really that cheap either when it comes out. same with 780. if AMD not come with 290X/290 GTX780Ti might never exist beyond titan black.

 

[renz496]

This Card should be $200 not more . $1000 is too much. you can have the better or at least the performance with 2 GTX 970 for 2x300= $600 only.

Why is this Article not comparing this card with 2 GTX 970 ??? they are only $600 both and will give same performance or little better.

I can understand $200 more for being the titan , but $400 ??? no thats too much greed Nvidia. This card should be $799 .

besides , 2 GTX 970 will draw 280 watts only !!! so not a big deal in comparison.

what can you expect? greed or not their main concern is to make profit as much as possible and make sure the shareholders happy. nvidia is no charity. so does intel and AMD.

 

[-Fran-]

So... with the 295x2 around, is there any reason to get the titan x?

Yes, if you don't want to also get a 1200W+ PSU or don't have one. Those things are pricey, At least $300 USD for a Silver/Gold rating. Meanwhile, if you have a 700-800W PSU, you can still get this.

Uhm... The Review used a "regular" 850W PSU... It's what most "gamer" fellas would use anyway.

--

The more I think about this release, the more I think nVidia rushed it because they might know something more than us in regards to Fiji... With this, they have a slight edge for sales instead of delaying it until Fiji arrives and it's faster (it's a possibility).

Cheers!

 

[Steveymoo]

I see a lot of whining in the comments section here. The Titan is marked up, because it's not just a re-badged chip and board, it's a new GPU, with 3x the amount of memory. Let's just put these things into perspective. GDDR5 is not cheap, and design a new fab costs a lot of money. Think it's too expensive? Don't buy it, get yourself a 970 sli set up. Think it could be useful for your educational institution, research, or work? Buy it. Have some spare cash, and want to build a max speed mini-itx single GPU gaming beast? Buy it.

 

[King Kii]

a little off topic but, surprising to see the 780 Ti pull ahead at 4k on the metro last light benchmark over the 980. you would think the 980 would consistently stay ahead of the 700 cards.

 

[Wisecracker]

I wonder what nVidia will do when AMD dumps TSMC for Global Foundries (and Samsung?) ...

 

[TNT27]

295x2 consumes lot more power than the titan-z right?
But didnt the 295x2 offer a bit more performance per watt
And a huge advantage in performance per dollar?

Its still beating the Titan-x in performance/dollar, I would like to see the numbers for performance per watt though.

 

[koossyo]

I figured they would at least get close to the 295x2, but i was wrong. AMD is still the king of GPUs in 2015. This is Sad, i know it is dual GPU, but it is 1 PCB and a year old. 295x2 sells for $600 and is substantially faster than the Titan X at $999. Fiji is going to have no competition, this scares me as a consumer.

Very disappointing... after gtx 960 Nvidia comes with another product which doesn't meet expectations. I was honestly expecting titan x to be at least 50% faster than gtx 980...its more like 33% for double the price. The problem is that AMD isn't much better either... it will be almost 18 months without new card releases for AMD when fiji is released later this year. No competition and obnoxious pricing will make the transition to 4K looooong.

well expectation have to go side by side with reality. right now both AMD and nvidia are stuck with 28nm node which should be replaced by 20nm in 2014 time frame. TSMC scrapped the plan for high performance 20nm node and here were are. in fact it is already quite a feat what nvidia has done with maxwell. in the past we will not going to see power efficiency improvement unless nvidia/amd move to much smaller node. if you look at maxwell it is certain that nvidia have to sacrifice double precision to have more performance in games.

Titan x has roughly 50 more shaders and higher memory bandwidth, so it is reasonable to expect 50 boost in performance? The 28nm process poses a limitation but it also has benefits for being cheap. Nvidia could have used this to make a cheaper GPU...

well that is assuming if the core count scale linearly with performance. mature 28nm process might be cheaper right now but to create that 601mm2 are not. if you really look at it GTX780Ti was not really that cheap either when it comes out. same with 780. if AMD not come with 290X/290 GTX780Ti might never exist beyond titan black.

It might have scaled linearly if the core clock wasn't 126mhz lower... which leads me to another issue I have with this card - the cooling. They basically did not change at all their cooling from the first Titan... not even a backplate to cool 6GB of your precious frame buffer. This is just plain lazy from Nvidia. Of course they might charge any price for it... but consumers have the right to whine against it.

 

[CptBarbossa]

For me it would boil down to price/performance AND ability to fit in my chassis. The r9 295x2 is still atop the roost for the single PCB (albiet dual GPU) graphics card. The only area in which the r9 295x2 doesnt win out is the fact that is is crossfire and power draw. Lets be realistic. Crossfire is darn near as good as single gpu scaling these days and if you are spending that much money on a GPU in the first place, you are going to be buying a PSU with plenty of headroom anyway.

I really want to see if AMD can answer the call hear though. They really need to bring something fresh to the table, despite the amazing performance of the 295x2.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Congratulations Tom's Hardware. You have proven your reviews to be completely irrelevant by recommending a card that is completely outpriced and outperformed by a previous-generation card simply because nVidia made it. Your unicorn? Did you really just say that? Here's a little thing that most people in the industry AUTOMATICALLY know. REAL gamers use desktops with full-size ATX motherboards and ATX Full Tower cases. My case measures 24" tall, 24" deep and 9" wide. THAT is a gaming case. Real gamers also have PSUs that range from 800W-1200W (mine being 1kW), so the R9-295X2 is no problem there either. There are so few people (none of whom I have ever met) that would even consider to build a mini-ITX system for even 1080p gaming, that the idea of there being a demand for a card that can play at 4K in a mini-ITX system is beyond ludicrous. The straight goods here is that nVidia released another overblown, overpriced and under-performing Titan card that was repeatedly spanked by the R9 295x2 in EVERY SINGLE SITUATION despite the R9 card costing more than $300 less.

 

[TNT27]

Congratulations Tom's Hardware. You have proven your reviews to be completely irrelevant by recommending a card that is completely outpriced and outperformed by a previous-generation card simply because nVidia made it. Your unicorn? Did you really just say that? Here's a little thing that most people in the industry AUTOMATICALLY know. REAL gamers use desktops with full-size ATX motherboards and ATX Full Tower cases. My case measures 24" tall, 24" deep and 9" wide. THAT is a gaming case. Real gamers also have PSUs that range from 800W-1200W (mine being 1kW), so the R9-295X2 is no problem there either. There are so few people (none of whom I have ever met) that would even consider to build a mini-ITX system for even 1080p gaming, that the idea of there being a demand for a card that can play at 4K in a mini-ITX system is beyond ludicrous. The straight goods here is that nVidia released another overblown, overpriced and under-performing Titan card that was repeatedly spanked by the R9 295x2 in EVERY SINGLE SITUATION despite the R9 card costing more than $300 less.

Real gamers still play on original xbox, and ps2 consoles. Real gamers play battleship board game, or cards. Just saying Real PC gamers don't necessarily have high end stuff, they just buy what they can afford and play a game.

Now the gamers you may be referring to might be EXTREMIST GAMERS

 

[M0j0jojo]

Congratulations Tom's Hardware. You have proven your reviews to be completely irrelevant by recommending a card that is completely outpriced and outperformed by a previous-generation card simply because nVidia made it. Your unicorn? Did you really just say that? Here's a little thing that most people in the industry AUTOMATICALLY know. REAL gamers use desktops with full-size ATX motherboards and ATX Full Tower cases. My case measures 24" tall, 24" deep and 9" wide. THAT is a gaming case. Real gamers also have PSUs that range from 800W-1200W (mine being 1kW), so the R9-295X2 is no problem there either. There are so few people (none of whom I have ever met) that would even consider to build a mini-ITX system for even 1080p gaming, that the idea of there being a demand for a card that can play at 4K in a mini-ITX system is beyond ludicrous. The straight goods here is that nVidia released another overblown, overpriced and under-performing Titan card that was repeatedly spanked by the R9 295x2 in EVERY SINGLE SITUATION despite the R9 card costing more than $300 less.

You do realize that the Titan series is not all meant for games, its also meant for developing games, CAD, and creating animated content. So for ~$1000 you get a hell a lot more than you expect. Also no average consumer would buy this beast in the first place.

 

[skit75]

Congratulations Tom's Hardware. You have proven your reviews to be completely irrelevant by recommending a card that is completely outpriced and outperformed by a previous-generation card simply because nVidia made it. Your unicorn? Did you really just say that? Here's a little thing that most people in the industry AUTOMATICALLY know. REAL gamers use desktops with full-size ATX motherboards and ATX Full Tower cases. My case measures 24" tall, 24" deep and 9" wide. THAT is a gaming case. Real gamers also have PSUs that range from 800W-1200W (mine being 1kW), so the R9-295X2 is no problem there either. There are so few people (none of whom I have ever met) that would even consider to build a mini-ITX system for even 1080p gaming, that the idea of there being a demand for a card that can play at 4K in a mini-ITX system is beyond ludicrous. The straight goods here is that nVidia released another overblown, overpriced and under-performing Titan card that was repeatedly spanked by the R9 295x2 in EVERY SINGLE SITUATION despite the R9 card costing more than $300 less.

Using your argument then, toss two of these Titans into your rig and see what that does to your R9-295X2 numbers. The guy running SLI Titan X's is laughing at your "real gaming" rig. There is always a bigger fish. Don't take it personally either as you can see in my signature, my fish is only a guppy.

The real focus here is the CUDA cores and the VRAM capacity. There are plenty of people doing contract editing that will make use of this card. They will gobble these cards up and also, some gamers might buy them.

The gaming type reviews of this card will generate the buzz needed to properly identify the real market for this card, as seen in this very thread. Then you will see the semi-pro/industry/compute reviews showing up for it.