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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Jdubo - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
290x was the original Titan killer. Not only did it kill the original release but killed its over-inflated price as well. I suspect the next reiteration of AMD flagship card will be Titan X killer as well. History usually repeats itself over and over again.jay401 - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
You say this is not the same type of pro-sumer card as the previous Titan yet the price is the same. No thanks.Ballist1x - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
No gtx970/970 sli in the review;) Anand you let the consumers down...H3ld3r - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
R9 290x only haves 4Gb at 5ghz and does a awsome job at 4k. the 295 only operates with 4Gb the other 4 are mirrored and shines in 4k. So i can't understand everybody concerns with 4k gaming with upcoming fiji. This Titan X has 12GB at 7Ghz and only shows how gddr5 is obsolete.oranos - Friday, March 20, 2015 - link
The ratio of potential buyers to comments on this article is atronomical.leignheart - Friday, March 20, 2015 - link
Hello everyone, I would like you to read the final words on the Titan X. It says the performance increase over a single gtx 980 is 33%, except the price is 100% over the gtx 980. If you are lucky enough to pay just 1000$ for the Titan X. Please people do not waste your money on this card. If you do then Nvidia will keep releasing Extremely overpriced cards. DO NOT BUY THIS CARD.Please instead wait for the gtx 980 TI if you want dx12. I will certainly pay 1 grand and more for a card, but this card is a particular rip off at that price point. Don't just throw your money away. Read the performance chart yourself, it is in no way shape or form worth 1000$.
Dug - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
I suppose we can't buy a Rolex, Tesla, a vacation condo, or even a pony?Paying for the best available is always more money. Get a job where another $500 doesn't affect you when you purchase something. Plus price is only perception on worth. People could say $20 is too much for a video card and they would be right.
themac79 - Friday, March 20, 2015 - link
I wish they would have thrown in 780sli, which is what I run. I would like to have more VRAM, but I'm running all the new games pretty much maxed out. I made the mistake of buying them when they first came out and payed over $600 a piece. I will definitely wait for price drops this time.H3ld3r - Friday, March 20, 2015 - link
You need is more transistors, memory speed, stream processors, bus, rops, tmu's not memory amountArchetype - Friday, March 20, 2015 - link
4K gaming not quite there yet. Not going to pay $500+ for it. And in the mean time still jamming Full HD games like a baws using my old 280X "on my Full HD monitor".