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
Idiot...has the top end card cost 2x as much every time? Of course not!!! Or we'd be paying $100K for GPUs!!!CeriseCogburn - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
Stop being an IDIOT.What is the cost of the 7970 now, vs what I paid for it at release, you insane gasbag ?
You seem to have a brainfart embedded in your cranium, maybe you should go propose to Charlie D.
chizow - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
It's even cheaper than it was at launch, $380 vs. $550, which is the natural progression....parts at a certain performance level get CHEAPER as new parts are introduced to the market. That's called progress. Otherwise there would be NO INCENTIVE to *upgrade* (look this word up please, it has meaning).You will not pay the same money for the same performance unless the part breaks down, and semiconductors under normal usage have proven to be extremely venerable components. People expect progress, *more* performance at the same price points. People will not pay increasing prices for things that are not essential to life (like gas, food, shelter), this is called the price inelasticity of demand.
This is a basic lesson in business, marketing, and economics applied to the semiconductor/electronics industry. You obviously have no formal training in any of the above disciplines, so please stop commenting like a ranting and raving idiot about concepts you clearly do not understand.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
They're ALREADY SOLD OUT STUPID IDIOT THEORIST.LOL
The true loser, an idiot fool, wrong before he's done typing, the "education" is his brainwashed fried gourd Charlie D OWNZ.
chizow - Sunday, February 24, 2013 - link
And? There's going to be some demand for this card just as there was demand for the 690, it's just going to be much lower based on the price tag than previous high-end cards. I never claimed anything otherwise.I outlined the expectations, economics, and buying decisions in general for the tech industry and in general, they hold true. Just look around and you'll get plenty of confirmation where people (like me) who previously bought 1, 2, 3 of these $500-650 GPUs are opting to pass on a single Titanic at $1000.
Nvidia's introduction of an "ultra-premium" range is an unsustainable business model because it assumes Nvidia will be able to sustain this massive performance lead over AMD. Not to mention they will have a harder time justifying the price if their own next-gen offering isn't convincingly faster.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
You're not the nVidia CEO nor their bean counter, you whacked out fool.You're the IDIOT that babbles out stupid concepts with words like "justifying", as you purport to be an nVidia marketing hired expert.
You're not. You're a disgruntled indoctrinated crybaby who can't move on with the times, living in a false past, and waiting for a future not here yet.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
The article's first page has the word luxury appearing five times. The blurb, which I read prior to reading the article's first page has luxury appearing twice.That is 7 uses of the word in just a bit over one page.
Let me guess... it's a luxury product?
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
It's stupid if you ask me. But that's this place, not very nVidia friendly after their little didn't get the new 98xx fiasco, just like Tom's.A lot of these top tier cards are a luxury, not just the Titan, as one can get by with far less, the problem is, the $500 cards fail often at 1920x resolution, and this one perhaps can be said to have conquered just that, so here we have a "luxury product" that really can't do it's job entirely, or let's just say barely, maybe, as 1920X is not a luxury resolution.
Turn OFF and down SOME in game features, and that's generally, not just extreme case.
People are fools though, almost all the time. Thus we have this crazed "reviews" outlook distortion, and certainly no such thing as Never Settle.
We're ALWAYS settling when it comes to video card power.
araczynski - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
too bad there's not a single game benchmark in that whole article that I give 2 squirts about. throw in some RPG's please, like witcher/skyrim.Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
We did test Skyrim only to ultimately pass on it for a benchmark. The problem with Skyrim (and RPGs in general) is that they're typically CPU limited. In this case our charts would be nothing but bar after bar at roughly 90fps, which wouldn't tell us anything meaningful about the GPU.