The NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X Review
by Ryan Smith on March 17, 2015 3:00 PM ESTCrysis 3
Still one of our most punishing benchmarks, Crysis 3 needs no introduction. With Crysis 3, Crytek has gone back to trying to kill computers and still holds “most punishing shooter” title in our benchmark suite. Only in a handful of setups can we even run Crysis 3 at its highest (Very High) settings, and that’s still without AA. Crysis 1 was an excellent template for the kind of performance required to drive games for the next few years, and Crysis 3 looks to be much the same for 2015.
With GTX Titan X being based on the same iteration of the Maxwell architecture as the GTX 980 and its GM200 GPU essentially built as a GM204 + 50%, it comes as no surprise that the performance gains over GTX 980 are going to be rather consistent. In Crysis 3 the GTX Titan X holds a 35% performance lead at 4K, with that lead tapering slightly to 30% at 2560. Meanwhile the lead over the GK110 cards isn’t quite what we saw with BF4, dropping to around 45% and 55% for GTX 780 Ti and GTX Titan respectively.
As one of our most punishing games, this is also a good example of where even GTX Titan X will come up short at 4K. Even without MSAA and one step below Crysis 3’s Very High quality settings, the GTX Titan X can only muster 42fps. If you want to get to 60fps you will need to drop to Low quality, or drop the resolution to 1440p. The latter will get you 85.2fps at the same quality settings, which again highlights GTX Titan X’s second strength as a good card for driving high refresh rate 1440p displays.
Meanwhile this is another game where our multi-GPU cards still pull ahead, reminding us of the spoiler potential for the R9 295X2 and the GTX 980 SLI. In fact AMD gets some very good scaling here, and they need it as the GTX Titan X bests the R9 290XU by 56% at 4K High.
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BurnItDwn - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
So its like 50% faster vs a R9 290, but costs 3x as much ... awesome card, but expensive.uber_national - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
I think there's something strange going on in your benchmark if the 7990 is only 3 fps slower than the 295x2 in the 2560x1440 chart...Samus - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
"Unlike the GTX 980 then, for this reason NVIDIA is once again back to skipping the backplate, leaving the back side of the card bare just as with the previous GTX Titan cards."Don't you mean "again back to SHIPPING the backplate?"
I'm confused as the article doesn't show any pictures of the back of the card. Does it have a backplate or not?
xchaotic - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
Nope. A $999 card and it doesn't have a backplate. This is possibly due to easier cooling in SLI configsAntronman - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
It's a blower cooler. So everything goes out the side of the case, which can be desirable if you have cards right on top of each other as the airflow is unobstructed.It's just Nvidia. Unless you need PhysX, you're much better off waiting for the R300s.
Mikmike86 - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
Spring pricing is a bit off.R9 290x's go below $300 after rebates quite often now, Febuary I picked up a 290x for about $240 after rebate which was the lowest but have seen several at or below $300 without a rebate.
R9 290s run around $250 and have gone down to $200-$220 recently as a low.
970s have been hovering around $320 but have gone to $290-$300.
Otherwise the Titan X was more for marketing since the 290x (2yr old tech) claws at the 980 at 4k and the 970 falls on it's face at 4k.
This cards a beast don't get me wrong especially when it chases the 295x2 after overclocking, but when you can get a 295x2 for $600 after rebates a couples times a month it just doesn't make sense.
$800 and I could see these selling like hotcakes and they'd still pocket a solid chunk, probably just going to drop a 980ti in a few months after the 390x is released making these 2nd place cards like they did with the og Titans
I go back and forth between Nvidia and AMD but Nvidia has been extra sketchy recently with their drivers and of course the 970.
Refuge - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
I just dont' appreciate their price premiums.I've been a fan of Green Team since i was a young boy, but anymore I usually lean Red team.
Just not satisfied with what I'm paying over on the other side to be honest.
Yes when I'm on the Red side I don't always have the same peak performance as Green. But I had enough money afterwards to pay my car payment and take the old lady out to dinner still. ;)
sna1970 - Saturday, March 21, 2015 - link
Nvidia intentionaly made GTX 970 only 4G of ram ... why ? so no one use them in 4K for cheap SLI.I hate nvidia ways.
imagine 3x GTX 970 in SLI for only $900 (300 each)
or 2x GTX 970 , which will be slightly faster than Titan X for $600
but noooooooooo, nvidia will never allow 8G GTX 970 , keep it at 4G so people buy Titan X ...
disgusting . AMD wake up .. we need competition.
medi03 - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
There is R9 290x available for nearly half of 980's price, being only 5-15% slower. (and 300w vs 370w total power consumption, I'm sure you can live with it)There is R9 295x2 which handily beats Titan X in all performance benchmarks, with power consumption being the only donwside.
Railgun - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
@Ryan Smith. For future reviews, as you briefly touched on it with this one, especially at high resolutions, can you start providing how much VRAM is actually in use with each game? For cards such as this, I'd like to see whether 12GB is actually useful, or pointless at this point. Based on the review and some of the results, it's pointless at the moment, even at 4K.