The NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X Review
by Ryan Smith on March 17, 2015 3:00 PM ESTBattlefield 4
Kicking off our 2015 benchmark suite is Battlefield 4, DICE’s 2013 multiplayer military shooter. After a rocky start, Battlefield 4 has since become a challenging game in its own right and a showcase title for low-level graphics APIs. As these benchmarks are from single player mode, based on our experiences our rule of thumb here is that multiplayer framerates will dip to half our single player framerates, which means a card needs to be able to average at least 60fps if it’s to be able to hold up in multiplayer.
After stripping away the Frostbite engine’s expensive (and not wholly effective) MSAA, what we’re left with for BF4 at 4K with Ultra quality puts the GTX Titan X in a pretty good light. At 58.3fps it’s not quite up to the 60fps mark, but it comes very close, close enough that the GTX Titan X should be able to stay above 30fps virtually the entire time, and never drop too far below 30fps in even the worst case scenario. Alternatively, dropping to Medium quality should give the GTX Titan X plenty of headroom, with an average framerate of 94.8fps meaning even the lowest framerate never drops below 45fps.
From a benchmarking perspective Battlefield 4 at this point is a well optimized title that’s a pretty good microcosm of overall GPU performance. In this case we find that the GTX Titan X performs around 33% better than the GTX 980, which is almost exactly in-line with our earlier performance predictions. Keeping in mind that while GTX Titan X has 50% more execution units than GTX 980, it’s also clocked at around 88% of the clockspeed, so 33% is right where we should be in a GPU-bound scenario.
Otherwise compared to the GTX 780 Ti and the original GTX Titan, the performance advantage at 4K is around 50% and 66% respectively. GTX Titan X is not going to double the original Titan’s performance – there’s only so much you can do without a die shrink – but it continues to be amazing just how much extra performance NVIDIA has been able to wring out without increasing power consumption and with only a minimal increase in die size.
On the broader competitive landscape, this is far from the Radeon R9 290X/290XU’s best title, with GTX Titan X leading by 50-60%. However this is also a showcase title for when AFR goes right, as the R9 295X2 and GTX 980 SLI both shoot well past the GTX Titan X, demonstrating the performance/consistency tradeoff inherent in multi-GPU setups.
Finally, shifting gears for a moment, gamers looking for the ultimate 1440p card will not be disappointed. GTX Titan X will not get to 120fps here (it won’t even come close), but at 78.7fps it’s well suited for driving 1440p144 displays. In fact it’s the only single-GPU card to do better than 60fps at this resolution.
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Braincruser - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
The titan was teased 10 days ago...Tunnah - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
It feels nVidia are just taking the pee out of us now. I was semi-miffed at the 970 controversy, I know for business reasons etc. it doesn't make sense to truly trounce the competition (and your own products) when you can instead hold something back and keep it tighter, and have something to release in case they surprise you.And I was semi-miffed when I heard it would be more like a 33% improvement over the current cream of the crop, instead of the closer to 50% increase the Titan was over the 680, because they have to worry about the 390x, and leave room for a Titan X White Y Grey SuperHappyTime version.
But to still charge $1000 even though they are keeping the DP performance low, this is just too far. The whole reasoning for the high price tag was you were getting a card that was not only a beast of a gaming card, but it would hold its own as a workstation card too, as long as you didn't need the full Quadro service. Now it is nothing more than a high end card, a halo product...that isn't actually that good!
When it comes down to it, you're paying 250% the cost for 33% more performance, and that is disgusting. Don't even bring RAM into it, it's not only super cheap and in no way a justification for the cost, but in fact is useless, because NO GAMER WILL EVER NEED THAT MUCH, IT WAS THE FLIM FLAMMING WORKSTATION CROWD WHO NEEDING THAT FLIM FLAMMING AMOUNT OF FLOOMING RAM YOU FLUPPERS!
This feels like a big juicy gob of spit in our faces. I know most people bought these purely for the gaming option and didn't use the DP capability, but that's not the point - it was WORTH the $999 price tag. This simply is not, not in the slightest. $650, $750 tops because it's the best, after all..but $999 ? Not in this lifetime.
I've not had an AMD card since way back in the days of ATi, I am well and truly part of the nVidia crowd, even when they had a better card I'd wait for the green team reply. But this is actually insulting to consumers.
I was never gonna buy one of these, I was waiting on the 980Ti for the 384bit bus and the bumps that come along with it...but now I'm not only hoping the 390x is better than people say because then nVidia will have to make it extra good..I'm hoping it's better than they say so I can actually buy it.
For shame nVidia, what you're doing with this card is unforgivable
Michael Bay - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
So you`re blaming a for-profit company for being for-profit.maximumGPU - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
no he's not. He's blaming a for-profit compaby abusing it's position at the expense of its customers.Maxwell is great, and i've got 2 of them in my rig. But titan X is a bit of a joke. The only justification the previous titan had was that it could be viewed as a cheap professional cards. Now that's gone but you're still paying the same price.
Unfortunately nvidia will put the highest price they can get away with, and 999$ doesn't seem to deter some hardcore fans no matter how much poor value it represents.
I certainly hope the sales don't meet their expectations.
TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
I would argue that the vram may be needed later on. 4GB is already tight with SoM, and future games will only push that up.people said that 6GB was too much for the OG titan, but SoM can eat that up at 4k, and other games are not far behind. especially for SLI setups, that memory will come in handy.
Thats what really killed the 770. gpu was fine for me, but 2GB was way to little vram.
Tal Greywolf - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
Not being a gamer, I would like to see a review in which many of these top-of-the-line gaming cards are tested against a different sort of environment. For example, I'd love to see how cards compare handling graphics software packages such as Photoshop, Premier Pro, Lightwave, Cinema 4D, SolidWorks and others. If these cards are really pushing the envelope, then they should compare against the Quadro and FirePro lines.Ranger101 - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
I think it's safe to say that Nvidia make technically superior cards as compared to AMD,at least as far as the last 2 generations of GPUs are concerned. While the AMD cards consume
more power and produce more heat, this issue is not a determining factor when I upgrade unlike
price and choice.
I will not buy this card, despite the fact that I find it to be a very desirable and
techically impressive card, because I don't like being price-raped and because
I want AMD to be competitive.
I will buy the 390X because I prefer a "consumer wins" situation where there are at least 2
companies producing competitive products and lets be clear AMD GPUs are competitve, even when you factor in what is ultimately a small increase in heat and noise, not to mention lower prices.
It was a pleasant surprise to see the R295X2 at one point described as "very impressive" yet
I think it would have been fair if Ryan had drawn more attention to AMD "wins," even though they
are not particularly significant, such as the most stressful Shadow of Mordor benchmarks.
Most people favour a particular brand, but surely even the most ardent supporters wouldn't want to see a situation where there is ONLY Intel and ONLY Nvidia. We are reaping the rewards of this scenario already in terms of successive generations of Intel CPUs offering performance improvements that are mediocre at best.
I can only hope that the 390X gets a positive review at Anandtech.
Mystichobo - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
Looking forward to a 390 with the same performance for 400-500. I certainly got my money's worth out of the r9 290 when it was released. Don't understand how anyone could advocate this $1000 single card price bracket created for "top tier".Geforce man - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
What still frustrates me, is the lack of using a modern aftermarket r9 290/x.Crunchy005 - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
I actually really like how the new titan looks, shows what can be done. The problem with this card at this price point is it defeats what the titan really should be. Without the couple precision performance this card becomes irrelevant I feel(overpriced gaming card). The original titan was an entry level compute card outside of the quadro lineup. I know there are drawbacks to multiGPU setups but I would go for 2 980's or 970's for same or less money than the Titan X.I also found these benchmarks very interesting because you can see how much each game can be biased to a certain card. AMDs 290x, an old card, beat out the 980 in some cases, mostly at 4k resolutions and lost in others at the same resolution. Just goes to show that you also have to look at individual game performance as well as overall performance when buying a card.
Can't wait for the 390x from AMD that should be very interesting.