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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chizow - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Sorry Ryan but that's a bit of a cop-out exuse imo. Anyone who can fork out $1K for a few GPUs in SLI should be able to figure out how to google SLI bits and enter them into Nvidia Inspector. They are "enthusiasts" afterall, right?SLI working on launch day with proper SLI bits:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1334390/how-to-get-prop...
Nvidia is usually pretty good about updating these bits or launching optimized drivers ahead of a big game launch, but sometimes they are a few days behind. The same can be said for single-GPU performance optimizations, but obviously less frequently than SLI.
With few exceptions over the course of my 5 year run with SLI, I've been able to get SLI working on Day 1 for most major game launches. AA is more hit or miss, but generally with Nvidia you don't have to wait for updates if you know how to manipulate SLI/AA bits (or use google).
In any case, I think Titan has created a new paradigm that may need to be addressed, where 2 performance parts are going to be preferable over a single GPU, when those 2 parts in CF/SLI offer 150% of the performance at 75% of the price.
Veteranv2 - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
And that is a subjective view. Not objective.You don't have 1 graph where you prove dual GPU's are inconsistent. You don't prove your point, you just bring up a subjective view defending a 1000$ card which is crap compared to best offer from AMD...
ronin22 - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
Haters gonna hate.CeriseCogburn - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
liars gonna liehttp://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA...
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
here's a chart showing how amd fails utterly...http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA...
Have fun amd fanboy, the lies you live by are now exposed.
Veteranv2 - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Same comment for you:Wow, you base your opinion on 1 game on a point that 1 review site has made without knowing that the FRAPS software measures correctly and that drivers are good with that game?
Wow, that blows my mind. How dumb can be people be?
This is the same like saying, wow this 1 musquito didn't give me malaria, malaria doesn't exist....
I am not a fanboy, except for my wallet and honesty.
Anandtech makes a point which it does not prove. That is my point. Hence if you cannot prove a point, but still make it, that makes you subjective. So either prove it, or shut up about it and be objective.
veppers - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
I'm not sure you should be calling anyone out for being a fanboy when your childish pro-Nvidia posts are here for all to see. (happy Nvidia customer here just incase you wanted to go there)Also, how many times are you going to spam that same link?
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
As many times as the lying whiners pull their stupid crap.It should be spammed about 300 times in all the articles here since the Jan 2012 release of the amd failship 79xx, shouldn't it ?
Hello amd fanboy.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
" SLI profiles for optimum scaling, NVIDIA has done a very good job here in the past, and out of the 19 games in our test suite, SLI only fails in F1 2012. Compare that to 6 out of 19 failed titles with AMD CrossFire. "http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_...
LOL - yes you sure know what you're talking about...
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
Take a look at HOW CRAP amd dual top end card setups actually are and how FRAPS, which this site regularly uses has been SCREWING nVidia for years...http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA...
Enjoy the years of lies you have swallowed whole, while sentient human beings like myself have warned against.