Review: Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X

by Tarinder Sandhu on 17 March 2015, 19:00

Tags: NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

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Conclusion

Such brute force isn't merely the reserve for gamers looking at 4K. The onerous GPU demands of future technologies such as virtual reality mean that a surfeit of TFLOPS and bandwidth is necessary.

The GeForce GTX Titan X is a predictably impressive graphics card. Extending the Maxwell architecture to the fullest by using a larger die and juicier connection to memory - two facets that largely predicate performance - Nvidia's new single-GPU monster has no current peer.

Extra horsepower over and above the GeForce GTX 980 enables this card to offer, finally, a smooth gaming experience at the 4K resolution... running it at anything lower is verging on the pointless and represents a terrific waste of money.

Titan X is the logical successor to the GTX 780 Ti and Titan cards that have gone before, and Nvidia uses the same building blocks, laced with energy-efficient Maxwell technology, to construct this 3,072-core behemoth.

Such brute force isn't merely the reserve for gamers looking at silky-smooth gameplay at 4K. The onerous GPU demands of future technologies such as virtual reality mean that a surfeit of TFLOPS and bandwidth is necessary: bigger is most definitely better.

Nvidia's focus on the future is also exemplified by equipping this card with a 12GB framebuffer, though present games rarely trouble the 4GB available on high-end GPUs such as the GTX 980 and Radeon R9 290X. Such an extravagant move in terms of memory footprint does enable Nvidia to introduce a 6GB-equipped 'GTX 980 Ti' at a later date, depending on how well the upcoming AMD's R9 390X performs.

The $999 street price is expected but the lack of faster double-precision support, present in other cards of this ilk, goes against the Titan X to some degree. But that's a minor inconveniences for deep-walleted enthusiasts who need, and can afford, the best of the best. Nvidia has played its hand first with the benchmark-bruisin' Titan X; over to you, AMD.

The Good
 
The Bad
Supremely fast
Ideally suited for 4K
Decent power consumption
Relatively quiet
Overclocks well
 
Titanically expensive
Slow double-precision support
12GB framebuffer overkill



Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB

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The GeForce GTX Titan X graphics card will be on pre-order from selected retailers from 2pm Wednesday, March 18.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



HEXUS Forums :: 42 Comments

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Hmm, the overclocked result is more where I expected things from stock. Room for a higher clocked 980ti indeed - or room for a driver ‘improvement’ once the competition comes out? Good efficiency though.
Where's the 295x2?
semitope
Where's the 295x2?

It comprehensively outperforms the titan X, but kind of a different category of card (even though it's cheaper).
with a listed US price of $999 (yeah that $1 really makes a difference lol) we might as well say this is going to be £1000 in the UK….

For my own personal usage scenario (3D rendering etc), seeing as it's literally just a larger ram and cuda core count 980 I might as well wait for a ‘8GB 980’ and buy 2, it will likely work out about the same price but ram allowing be faster due to more cores.

They've actually removed the one thing that made the titan worth the money, the double floating point is now no different than the gaming cards… now the cynic in me says it's to sell more quadro's at stupidly high markup prices when it's basically the exact same core without the extra laser cuts rather than the ‘it was too big’ excuse being bandied about.

Having seen the release I am now actually thinking about whether it would be better to look at ati and change my gpu render of choice…. although I must admit I've had better experiences with nvidia than ati. Oh well I've got time to think it over.
kalniel
It comprehensively outperforms the titan X, but kind of a different category of card (even though it's cheaper).


uber bleeding edge - like the *not even pretending to be a compute* titan x……


so yes , since the Tian X is the flagship - the R9 295X2 is the flagship