Radeon R9 295X2 vs Nvidia Titan Z

[core 2 duo dude]

i agree, but nvidia is rebranding their products too, its just two gk104s i believe.

 

[core 2 duo dude]

sorry gk110b, still recycled, look at these specs:
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2575/geforce-gtx-titan-z.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2523/radeon-r9-295x2.html

the only thing the Titan Z has going for it are: 12GB> 8GB
TMUs: 240x2 >176x2
TDP: 375>500
yes I know that 375w tdp is less than 500, but tdp is one thing you want less of.
and i know that tmu stands for texture mapping unit

 

[mordorrson]

So for the people that don't want to go through the trouble of comparing all the specs themselves, here's a summary of the ones that are different:

Transistors: 6.2B vs. 7.08B

Die size: 438mm vs. 561mm

GPU clock: 1018 MHz vs. 705/876 MHz

Memory clock: 1250 MHz vs 1750 MHz

width: dual-slot vs. triple-slot

length: 307mm vs. 267mm

TDP: 500w vs. 375w

shaders: 2816 vs. 2880 (x2)

TMUs: 176 vs 240 (x2)

ROPs: 64 vs. 48 (x2)

Pixel Rate: 65.2 GPixels vs. 42.3 GPixels (x2)

Texture Rate: 179 GTexels vs. 169 GTexels (x2)

GFlops: 5,733 vs. 4,061 (x2)

Memory: 4GB vs. 6GB (x2)

Memory bus: 512-bit vs. 384-bit (x2)

Bandwidth: 320 GB/s vs 336 GB/s (x2)

DirectX: 11.2 vs. 11.0

OpenCL: 1.2 vs. 1.1

Note: OpenCL isn't very well integrated on Nvidia GPUs anyway, even the 1.1 support isn't as good as AMD GPUs that support 1.1. Also, 4GB x2 is still 4GB, it's not 8GB, as each GPU only has access to its own memory... same goes for 6GB...

P.S. I do find it interesting that Nvidia didn't manage to do what AMD did by not throttling down the GPU clock because of both GPUs being on the same PCB. I wonder how well the heatsink would work if the Titan Z had the same clock speed as the 295X2, or how much bigger the card would be...

 

[mordorrson]

sorry that this is completely off topic, but i'm trying to get a mid range gpu, ( 7770, r7 250, 250x) ( gt 640, gt 650) but my psu is a single +12v rail with five molex connectors, if i get the converters would it work ( rest of the system power is under 125w)

Should work fine, mid-range cards don't have particularly high power consumption.

 

[core 2 duo dude]

Thanks for the advice Mordorrson

As for the titan z vs r9 295x2:
good points have been brought up, I find it odd that the titan z is triple slot ( I belive this is the first stock triple slot gpu ever made, this makes it a pain to put into SLI) nvidia really missed out with the whole water cooling thing. You can clearly see by the clock frequency what happens when so many cores are on the same die. This probably is part of the reason that amd's wattage is higher too. ( I wonder what the wattage is actually used when running games)

P.S. I was planning to run OpenCL on the GPU I bought, this advice about nvidia will help my decision.

 

[core 2 duo dude]

I guess this makes sense ( Nvidia and OpenCL) sense nvidia always seems to have lower floating point performance in their class. ( not to be a troll, but it is a fact)

GFlops: 5,733 AMD vs. 4,061 Nvidia (x2)

 

[mordorrson]

here's the 2014 power consumption (gaming) charts for a myriad of cards. They also have power consumption idle and maximum charts.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2014-vga-charts/23-Power-Consumption-Gaming,3615.html

 

[mordorrson]

I guess this makes sense ( Nvidia and OpenCL) sense nvidia always seems to have lower floating point performance in their class. ( not to be a troll, but it is a fact)

GFlops: 5,733 AMD vs. 4,061 Nvidia (x2)

Yeah, but FP64 performance favors Nvidia (roughly 1k vs. roughly 2k) although, that won't actually matter when you're gaming, just when you need to use that DP feature...

 

[core 2 duo dude]

I guess this makes sense ( Nvidia and OpenCL) sense nvidia always seems to have lower floating point performance in their class. ( not to be a troll, but it is a fact)

GFlops: 5,733 AMD vs. 4,061 Nvidia (x2)

Yeah, but FP64 performance favors Nvidia (roughly 1k vs. roughly 2k) although, that won't actually matter when you're gaming, just when you need to use that DP feature...

I just thought of something, bitcoin miners, this is a massive market that has people willing to spend lots of money on ultra high-end Gfx cards. This could be a problem for nVidia because amd clearly wins the computing side of things. and amd actually wins at the Gflops/w performance. making this a much more logical purchase. (yes i am thinking of single precision, but double is very rarely used, and not necessary for bitcoin mining. )

 

[core 2 duo dude]

I'm fairly sure that's the maximum wattage measured, not the average for gameplay, plus I didn't see the Titan Z, just the Titan black 6GB

 

[mordorrson]

nope, that was the average power usage during gameplay. They have separate charts for maximum power usage. The Titan Z isn't there because they don't have it benchmarked yet, as the charts were made about a month before it was released.

 

[CAaronD]

So in overall performance who wins? The R9 295x2 obviously smashes the Titan Z in price to performance.

 

[Horace Napier]

The TITAN Z is basically two TITAN BLACKs in SLI while the R9 295X2 is two R9 290Xs in crossfire. This means that the TITAN Z is the most powerful GPU out of the two. The reason the AMD is said to be the fastest on the market is because the TITAN Z is not out yet.

So basically the Nvidia one is more powerful, but the AMD one gives you better bang for your buck.

I can get 2 295x2 for 3000 or less. but the money will be used to Intel Core i7-4770K,ASUS Z97-DELUXE(NFC & WLC) LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard ,CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2933 (PC3 23400) and 2 SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA 6Gb/s TLC Internal Solid State Drive with that $1500

 

[core 2 duo dude]

The TITAN Z is basically two TITAN BLACKs in SLI while the R9 295X2 is two R9 290Xs in crossfire. This means that the TITAN Z is the most powerful GPU out of the two. The reason the AMD is said to be the fastest on the market is because the TITAN Z is not out yet.

So basically the Nvidia one is more powerful, but the AMD one gives you better bang for your buck.

I can get 2 295x2 for 3000 or less. but the money will be used to Intel Core i7-4770K,ASUS Z97-DELUXE(NFC & WLC) LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard ,CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2933 (PC3 23400) and 2 SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA 6Gb/s TLC Internal Solid State Drive with that $1500

This is true. you basically get a whole very nice gaming system with a r9 295x2 for the price of just the titan Z. (I think this has been brought up enough) but mordorrson, what do you think about the bitcoin mining thing?

 

[core 2 duo dude]

the titan Z I would say wins in gameplay, r9 295x2 in computing, and price. I'm fairly sure most of us agree. I hope that answers your question, CAaronD

 

[CAaronD]

Who would buy the Titan Z then? Are there any MAJOR advantages that would make the extra 1500 useful? Because r9 295x2 is better at computing? So who would actually buy the card apart from people who want to exaggerate "I have the fastest graphics card in the world!" Because Gaming doesn't really require that much power even at 4K. 30FPS+ constant is very smooth (for me) already and both of these cards average 40 FPS on the most demanding games maxed 4K.

 

[Memhorder]

Who would buy the Titan Z then? Are there any MAJOR advantages that would make the extra 1500 useful? Because r9 295x2 is better at computing? So who would actually buy the card apart from people who want to exaggerate "I have the fastest graphics card in the world!" Because Gaming doesn't really require that much power even at 4K. 30FPS+ constant is very smooth (for me) already and both of these cards average 40 FPS on the most demanding games maxed 4K.

I think anyone that would be doing computer animation would find the Titan Z useful with the ridiculous amounts of VRAM. I think we are at a point in time where GPU's far exceed everything. If we look at it this way. Buying one of these cards would take care of you for the next 10 years (possibly) as they say are able to take on 5K (which I can't imagine seeing because the clarity on 4K is beautiful)
780 ti absolutely dominates 1440 when you move up in Res AMD takes over. 295x is king for now in the 4k world. I'm fairly certain the price wars will commence and the after market coolers will thin the Titan out a little providing a means to create Monstrosity Rigs capable of throwing breakers.

 

[mordorrson]

@Core 2 duo dude Bitcoin Miners would go straight for the 295X2, the only thing they care about in a card is GFlops and price.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Power consumption...

 

[CAaronD]

150 watts difference dosen't seem like much when there is a $1,500 difference 😛 you would have to use the GPU for 30 years or so to justify the power usage difference

 

[Eduello]

150 watts difference dosen't seem like much when there is a $1,500 difference 😛 you would have to use the GPU for 30 years or so to justify the power usage difference

Trust me, it's a lot when you're mining bitcoin 24/7/365.


EDIT: It seems like you're somewhat right.
Calculations: 24h*365*0.15kW=1314kWh
Lets say that electricity costs $0.10/kWh, so that's about $131.4/year.
$1500/$131.4/year = 11.41years. So yeah, it would 'only' take 11.41 years to save $1500 in electricity, and that's assuming that the cards perform equally.

 

[CAaronD]

I guess most of the extra usage of power from the R9 295x2 comes from the water cooling? I guess if you're going to use a card for the next 10 years or so (which is a very bad decision) then Titan Z is the way to go lol, imagine a top notch GPU from 2004 can be easily trumped by $100 cards now.

 

[Neil Dangat]

the r9 295x2 is more powerful hands down, it is capable of 11.5 terraflops, whereas the titan z is only capable of 8 terraflops, mainly because the titan Z has both gpus slightly under clocked comapired to the titan blacks, simply because the titan z reference cooler has 1 fan running slightly faster than the on on each titan black, whereas the R9 295X2 has both gpus overclocked compairred to the R9 290X because it is watercooled

 

[nikoli707]

with the ek block and a 360 rad, the titan z with a 1.5ghz overclock will beat the pants off the 295x2 in almost any application. but its going to cost you.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

If you threw a serious cooler like that on the 295X2, I'm sure much the same could be said.

Or you could just get two of them.