NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX Titan Review, Part 2: Titan's Performance Unveiled
by Ryan Smith & Rahul Garg on February 21, 2013 9:00 AM ESTSleeping Dogs
Another Square Enix game, Sleeping Dogs is one of the few open world games to be released with any kind of benchmark, giving us a unique opportunity to benchmark an open world game. Like most console ports, Sleeping Dogs’ base assets are not extremely demanding, but it makes up for it with its interesting anti-aliasing implementation, a mix of FXAA and SSAA that at its highest settings does an impeccable job of removing jaggies. However by effectively rendering the game world multiple times over, it can also require a very powerful video card to drive these high AA modes.
Sleeping Dogs is another game that AMD cards have done rather well at, leaving the GTX 680 quite a way behind. The sheer increase in functional units for Titan means it has no problem vaulting back to the top of the list of single GPU cards, but it also means it’s crossing a sizable gap.
In the end, at 2560 at the High (second-highest) AA settings, Titan is just shy of 50% faster than the GTX 680, but a weaker 17% ahead of the 7970GE. As we drop in resolution/AA, so does Titan’s lead, as the game shifts to being CPU limited.
Notably, no single card is really good enough here for 2560 with Extreme AA, with even Titan only hitting 35fps. This is one of the only games where even with a single monitor there’s real potential for a second Titan card in SLI.
Meanwhile the gap between Titan and our dual-GPU cards is roughly as expected. The GTX 690 takes a smaller lead at 18%, while the 7990 is some 42% ahead.
Due to its built-in benchmark, Sleeping Dogs is also another title that is a good candidate for repeatable and consistent minimum framerate testing.
While on average Titan is faster than the 7970GE, the minimum framerates put Titan in a rough spot. At 2560 with high AA Titan is effectively tied with the 7970GE, and with extreme AA it actually falls behind. It’s not readily apparent why this is, whether it’s some kind of general SSAA bottleneck or if there’s something else going on. But it’s a reminder that at its very worst, Titan can only match the 7970GE.
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CeriseCogburn - Sunday, February 24, 2013 - link
Enlightenment comes slow to the angry activist conspiracist tinfoil hatter, but it appears you've made progress.Another REASON $999 is the correct price.
Suck it up loser.
Sabresiberian - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
You know, there are some reasonable arguments against this card, but you have to take it to an AMD fanboy level by calling it an overpriced GTX 680.iSlayer - Saturday, March 30, 2013 - link
Titan gets pretty close to 690/680 SLI performance while using less power, producing less heat, and freeing up space for 3 additional Titans. With Titan, I can make a machine up to 60% more powerful than was previously possible. Sure, it's going to cost twice as much as it would to get the same performance from other cards, but that's only theoretical as you literally cannot match a Titan config with a single computer.You seem to have entirely missed the point of this card.
klepp0906 - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
if you thought the titan was a troll, i'd hate to see what you call their latest attempt w/ the titan black, free of the artificial limitations put in place just so they can make another money grab. (all while the driver support on the older card still falls flat on its face in many cases ie: surround)ehpexs - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
Nvidia has been so greedy with 600 series. 560s turned into 680s and now this. Nvidia is not getting my money for years.HighTech4US - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
> Nvidia has been so greedy with 600 series. 560s turned into 680s and now this. Nvidia is not getting my money for years.So you instead gave your money to greedy AMD and their $549 HD7970 last January or did you wait for AMD to become less greedy when they had to reduce the price by $120 because of the greedy Nvidia releasing the GTX680.
chizow - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
Yes AMD started this all with their ridiculous 7970 prices, but Nvidia has taken it way beyond that. $1K is usury, plain and simple.Hrel - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
Haha, never seen anyone use the word "usury" in real life before. You used it kinda wrong but your point came across. Nice!chizow - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
It's contemporary usage has extended beyond the traditional references to loans/interest, if you replace "interest" with "premium" it makes perfect sense. But glad you understood and enjoyed the reference.mlambert890 - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
It's a ridiculous usage honestly. The sense of entitlement people have is almost incomprehensible that there is moral outrage over an expensive video card.If you feel its a bad deal, don't buy it. If you feel that somehow NVidia has committed a sin against nature by releasing the 680 originally (which is somehow now being viewed as "broken" I guess.. amazing) and then releasing this card at $1000, because you feel that this card should have *been* the 680, then you are making assumptions without any evidence.
Everyone seems to be basing their angst on the notion that NVidia *could* be selling this card right now at $500. How does *anyone* know this? It's faith based insanity. No one knows what their yields are on this thing yet all of the disgruntled are going out on some wild limb screaming because they feel this card could have come out last year for half price.