The Talos Principle

Croteam’s first person puzzle and exploration game The Talos Principle may not involve much action, but the game’s lush environments still put even fast video cards to good use. Coupled with the use of 4x MSAA at Ultra quality, and even a tranquil puzzle game like Talos can make a good case for more powerful video cards.

The Talos Principle - 3840x2160 - Ultra Quality

The Talos Principle - 2560x1440 - Ultra Quality

At 4K Ultra quality the GTX Titan X won’t quite break 60fps, but at 53.4fps it’s not too far off. Compared to the GTX 980 this is another 35% performance advantage, though the lead over the GK110 cards is a bit smaller than normal at 40% and 47% for the GTX 780 Ti and GTX Titan respectively.

Meanwhile since I haven’t had a chance yet to address how GTX Titan X compares to NVIDIA’s flagship Fermi card, GTX 580, this is a good time. GTX 580 actually holds up decently here, delivering 32fps at 1440p, however GTX Titan X offers 3 times the performance, and more still in VRAM limited situations, showcasing how far ahead Big Maxwell is over Big Fermi over 4 years later.

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  • joeh4384 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link

    Old news.
  • joeh4384 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link

    I bet if you overclock the crap out of this, its TDP shoots north of 300 watts.
  • cmdrdredd - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link

    People buying this don't care about TDP.
  • Kutark - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link

    Which means even with OC it would still be at or under a 290x. I'm failing to see the problem here.

    TDP is really only super important for compute cards that will be running for hours on end at 100% load.
  • FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link

    I didn't care either, my $800 FX9590 loved 320 watts and my "uber" two niner zeroX loved double dipping that 320 watts, so I converted my carbon arc Linclon 220 welder to handle the AMD juice load and my DVD/RW/DL/LS melted tight to my CM heavy tower and dripped bubbling fire plastic drops through my liquid AMD loop... bye bye overclock
  • shing3232 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link

    It does not make anything, because 290x is a old Card
  • Stuka87 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link

    You can't take those numbers seriously though, as they are wrong. Anandtech is *STILL* using reference cards for these tests. You have not been able to buy reference cards for over a year now. The current cards are run MUCH cooler, MUCH quieter, use less power, and have better performance.
  • Stuka87 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link

    Quick edit, it seems XFX is still selling a reference 290X. No clue why, but they are. You can get custom cooled AIB cards for less. Could just be leftover stock though I suppose.
  • Ryan Smith - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link

    Using reference cards is consistent with our long-standing policy to use them. Aside from the immediate definition of reference, I believe that it is very important not to cherry pick results. The results you in our reviews should be equal to or lower than the results you will get with a retail card - we specifically want to avoid publishing results higher than what the buyer can get.* We don't want to overstate the performance of a card.

    * Using the same testbed hardware as us of course.
  • beginner99 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link

    Still it shows the 290(x) in a way poorer light than is actually true. At least that should be stated but better would be to add a AIB card to the reviews,

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