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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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".