NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX Titan Review, Part 2: Titan's Performance Unveiled
by Ryan Smith & Rahul Garg on February 21, 2013 9:00 AM ESTCrysis: Warhead
Up next is our legacy title for 2013, Crysis: Warhead. The stand-alone expansion to 2007’s Crysis, at over 4 years old Crysis: Warhead can still beat most systems down. Crysis was intended to be future-looking as far as performance and visual quality goes, and it has clearly achieved that. We’ve only finally reached the point where single-GPU cards have come out that can hit 60fps at 1920 with 4xAA.
At 2560 we still have a bit of a distance to go before any single-GPU card can crack 60fps. In lieu of that Titan is the winner as expected. Leading the GTX 680 by 54%, this is Titan’s single biggest win over its predecessor, actually exceeding the theoretical performance advantage based on the increase in functional units alone. For some reason GTX 680 never did gain much in the way of performance here versus the GTX 580, and while it’s hard to argue that Titan has reversed that, it has at least corrected some of the problem in order to push more than 50% out.
In the meantime, with GTX 680’s languid performance, this has been a game the latest Radeon cards have regularly cleared. For whatever reason they’re a good match for Crysis, meaning even with all its brawn, Titan can only clear the 7970GE by 21%.
On the other hand, our multi-GPU cards are a mixed bag. Once more Titan loses to both, but the GTX 690 only leads by 15% thanks to GK104’s aforementioned weak Crysis performance. Meanwhile the 7990 takes a larger lead at 33%.
I’d also note that we’ve thrown in a “bonus round” here just to see when Crysis will be playable at 1080p with its highest settings and with 4x SSAA for that picture-perfect experience. As it stands AMD multi-GPU cards can already cross 60fps, but for everything else we’re probably a generation off yet before Crysis is completely and utterly conquered.
Moving on, we once again have minimum framerates for Crysis.
When it comes to Titan, the relative improvement in minimum framerates over GTX 680 is nothing short of obscene. Whatever it was that was holding back GTX 680 is clearly having a hard time slowing down Titan, leading to Titan offering 71% better minimum framerates. There’s clearly much more going on here than just an increase in function units.
Meanwhile, though Titan’s gains here over the 7970GE aren’t quite as high as they were with the GTX 680, the lead over the 7970GE still grows a bit to 26%. As for our mutli-GPU cards, this appears to be a case where SLI is struggling; the GTX 690 is barely faster than Titan here. Though at 31% faster than Titan, the 7990 doesn’t seem to be faltering much.
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chizow - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Sorry Ryan but that's a bit of a cop-out exuse imo. Anyone who can fork out $1K for a few GPUs in SLI should be able to figure out how to google SLI bits and enter them into Nvidia Inspector. They are "enthusiasts" afterall, right?SLI working on launch day with proper SLI bits:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1334390/how-to-get-prop...
Nvidia is usually pretty good about updating these bits or launching optimized drivers ahead of a big game launch, but sometimes they are a few days behind. The same can be said for single-GPU performance optimizations, but obviously less frequently than SLI.
With few exceptions over the course of my 5 year run with SLI, I've been able to get SLI working on Day 1 for most major game launches. AA is more hit or miss, but generally with Nvidia you don't have to wait for updates if you know how to manipulate SLI/AA bits (or use google).
In any case, I think Titan has created a new paradigm that may need to be addressed, where 2 performance parts are going to be preferable over a single GPU, when those 2 parts in CF/SLI offer 150% of the performance at 75% of the price.
Veteranv2 - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
And that is a subjective view. Not objective.You don't have 1 graph where you prove dual GPU's are inconsistent. You don't prove your point, you just bring up a subjective view defending a 1000$ card which is crap compared to best offer from AMD...
ronin22 - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
Haters gonna hate.CeriseCogburn - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
liars gonna liehttp://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA...
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
here's a chart showing how amd fails utterly...http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA...
Have fun amd fanboy, the lies you live by are now exposed.
Veteranv2 - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Same comment for you:Wow, you base your opinion on 1 game on a point that 1 review site has made without knowing that the FRAPS software measures correctly and that drivers are good with that game?
Wow, that blows my mind. How dumb can be people be?
This is the same like saying, wow this 1 musquito didn't give me malaria, malaria doesn't exist....
I am not a fanboy, except for my wallet and honesty.
Anandtech makes a point which it does not prove. That is my point. Hence if you cannot prove a point, but still make it, that makes you subjective. So either prove it, or shut up about it and be objective.
veppers - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
I'm not sure you should be calling anyone out for being a fanboy when your childish pro-Nvidia posts are here for all to see. (happy Nvidia customer here just incase you wanted to go there)Also, how many times are you going to spam that same link?
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
As many times as the lying whiners pull their stupid crap.It should be spammed about 300 times in all the articles here since the Jan 2012 release of the amd failship 79xx, shouldn't it ?
Hello amd fanboy.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
" SLI profiles for optimum scaling, NVIDIA has done a very good job here in the past, and out of the 19 games in our test suite, SLI only fails in F1 2012. Compare that to 6 out of 19 failed titles with AMD CrossFire. "http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_...
LOL - yes you sure know what you're talking about...
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
Take a look at HOW CRAP amd dual top end card setups actually are and how FRAPS, which this site regularly uses has been SCREWING nVidia for years...http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA...
Enjoy the years of lies you have swallowed whole, while sentient human beings like myself have warned against.