The NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X Review
by Ryan Smith on March 17, 2015 3:00 PM ESTMiddle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Our next benchmark is Monolith’s popular open-world action game, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. One of our current-gen console multiplatform titles, Shadow of Mordor is plenty punishing on its own, and at Ultra settings it absolutely devours VRAM, showcasing the knock-on effect of current-gen consoles have on VRAM requirements.
Once again even GTX Titan X won’t be enough for 60fps at 4K, but at 48.9fps it’s closer to 60fps than 30fps, representing a significant improvement in 4K performance in only a generation. Compared to the GTX 980 and NVIDIA’s other cards the GTX Titan X is once more in a comfortable lead, overtaking its smaller sibling by around 33% and the older GK110 cards at 45-60%.
Turning down the game’s quality settings to Very High does improve performance a bit, but at 54.1fps it’s still not quite enough for 60fps. The biggest advantage of Very High quality is alleviating some of the high VRAM requirements, something the GTX Titan cards don’t suffer from in the first place. Otherwise dropping to 1440p will give us a significant bump in performance, pushing framerates over 80fps once again.
Meanwhile the game’s minimum framerate further elaborates on the performance hit from the game’s high VRAM usage at Ultra quality. 3GB cards collapse here, leaving the 4GB cards and the 6GB original Titan much higher in our charts. Multi-GPU performance also struggles here, even with 4GB cards, reminding us that while multi-GPU setups can be potent, they do introduce performance consistency issues that single-GPU cards can avoid.
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chizow - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
And custom-cooled, higher clocked cards should? It took months for AMD to bring those to market and many of them cost more than the original reference cards and are also overclocked.http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...
Like I said, AMD fanboys made this bed, time to lie in it.
Witchunter - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
I hope you do realize calling out AMD fanboys in each and every one of your comments essentially paints you as Nvidia fanboy in the eyes of other readers. I'm here to read some constructive comments and all I see is you bitching about fanboys and being one yourself.chizow - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
@Witchunter, the difference is, I'm not afraid to admit I'm a fan of the best, but I'm going to at least be consistent on my views and opinions. Whereas these AMD fanboys are crying foul for the same thing they threw a tantrum over a few years ago, ultimately leading to this policy to begin with. You don't find that ironic, that what they were crying about 4 years ago is suddenly a problem when the shoe is on the other foot? Maybe that tells you something about yourself and where your own biases reside? :)Crunchy005 - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
@chizow either way you don't really offer constructive criticism and you call people dishonest without proving them wrong in any way and offering facts. You are one of the biggest fanboys out there and it kind of makes you lose credibility.Crunchy005 - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
Ok wanted to add to this, I do like some of the comments you make but you are so fan boyish I am unable to take much stock in what you say. If you could offer more facts and stop just bashing AMD and praising the all powerful Nvidia is better in every way, despite the fact that AMD has advantages and has outperformed Nvidia in many ways, so has Nvidia outperformed AMD, they leap frog...if you did that we might all like to hear what you have to say.FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
I know what the truth is so I greatly enjoy what he says.If you can't handle the truth, that should be your problem, not everyone else's, obviously.
chizow - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Like I said, I'm not here to sugarcoat things or keep it constructive, I'm here to set the record straight and keep the discussion honest. If that involves bruising some fragile AMD fanboy egos and sensibilities, so be it.I'm completely comfortable in my own skin knowing I'm a fan of the best, and that just happens to be Nvidia for graphics cards for the last near-decade since G80, and I'm certainly not afraid to tell you why that's the case backed with my usual facts, references etc. etc. You're free to verify my sources and references if you like to come to your own conclusion, but at the end of the day, that's the whole point of the internet, isn't it? Lay out the facts, let informed people make their own conclusions?
In any case, the entire discussion and you can be the judge of whether my take on the topic is fair, you can clearly see, AMD fanboys caused this dilemma for themselves, many of which are the ones you see crying in this thread. Queue that Alanis Morissette song....
http://anandtech.com/comments/3987/amds-radeon-687...
http://anandtech.com/show/3988/the-use-of-evgas-ge...
Phartindust - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
Um, AMD doesn't manufacture after market cards.dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
"use less power"...right, and why would these non reference cards consume less power? Just hypothetically speaking, ignoring for a moment all the benchmarks out there that suggest otherwise.
squngy - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Undervolting?