NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX Titan Review, Part 2: Titan's Performance Unveiled
by Ryan Smith & Rahul Garg on February 21, 2013 9:00 AM ESTSleeping Dogs
Another Square Enix game, Sleeping Dogs is one of the few open world games to be released with any kind of benchmark, giving us a unique opportunity to benchmark an open world game. Like most console ports, Sleeping Dogs’ base assets are not extremely demanding, but it makes up for it with its interesting anti-aliasing implementation, a mix of FXAA and SSAA that at its highest settings does an impeccable job of removing jaggies. However by effectively rendering the game world multiple times over, it can also require a very powerful video card to drive these high AA modes.
Sleeping Dogs is another game that AMD cards have done rather well at, leaving the GTX 680 quite a way behind. The sheer increase in functional units for Titan means it has no problem vaulting back to the top of the list of single GPU cards, but it also means it’s crossing a sizable gap.
In the end, at 2560 at the High (second-highest) AA settings, Titan is just shy of 50% faster than the GTX 680, but a weaker 17% ahead of the 7970GE. As we drop in resolution/AA, so does Titan’s lead, as the game shifts to being CPU limited.
Notably, no single card is really good enough here for 2560 with Extreme AA, with even Titan only hitting 35fps. This is one of the only games where even with a single monitor there’s real potential for a second Titan card in SLI.
Meanwhile the gap between Titan and our dual-GPU cards is roughly as expected. The GTX 690 takes a smaller lead at 18%, while the 7990 is some 42% ahead.
Due to its built-in benchmark, Sleeping Dogs is also another title that is a good candidate for repeatable and consistent minimum framerate testing.
While on average Titan is faster than the 7970GE, the minimum framerates put Titan in a rough spot. At 2560 with high AA Titan is effectively tied with the 7970GE, and with extreme AA it actually falls behind. It’s not readily apparent why this is, whether it’s some kind of general SSAA bottleneck or if there’s something else going on. But it’s a reminder that at its very worst, Titan can only match the 7970GE.
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Tetracycloide - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
That's the thing, it's not a 'consumer gaming card.' It's a consumer compute card. Obviously the price for performance for gaming makes no sense but that's not their target market.ronin22 - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
This exactly!It's an amazing card for computing.
I wish I could get one...
Blazorthon - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
In reply to both of your comments, I have to ask this: If that is justification for its price, then why is it that AMD doesn't have their Tahiti cards priced like that and why didn't Nvidia price their previous consumer compute cards like that (GTX 280, GTX 285, GTX 480, GTX 580, etc.)?CommandoCATS - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Because this seems like a specialized thing for people who care about compute tasks within NVidia's CUDA universe (and things like iRay, which didn't exist when previous generations first came out).The truth is that in academia and research, CUDA is still the top dog (just do a google scholar search). I'm sure for most gamers, the GTX 680 is the way better deal. However, this is essentially a Tesla K20 for 1/3rd of the cost, so it's kind of a bargain from that perspective.
cheersloss - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
Exactly right. There is nothing about this card that is a value. The same compute functions were there in the older flagships as well, the gtx 580, 480, 280 etc.Titan is just an overpriced, overhyped trainwreck. Another attempt at a cashgrab on the gullible.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
The gullible that have the several thousands of extra they can spend that you don't have and cannot spend.Certainly poorboy feels better after having called his superiors gullible. The jelly is seeping through at an extraordinary rate.
cheersloss - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
Exactly right. There is nothing about this card that is a value. The same compute functions were there in the older flagships as well, the gtx 580, 480, 280 etc.Titan is just an overpriced, overhyped trainwreck. Another attempt at a cashgrab on the gullible.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, February 23, 2013 - link
LOLGood you run the 280, and I'll run the Titan, and we can be equal and best friends, and I'll tell you over and over all the benchmarks and games and fps scores and compute tests are lying and your 280 is just as good and the same and you're right and I wish so badly that I was as poor as you and just bought a used 3 gen back nVidia card, but they fooled me, the gullible gamer.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
ROFL - aww poor baby, now tessellation and compute is a total loss for amd, too as you conveniently forgot to include the 680, 670 660Ti 660 650Ti 650. hahahahha u people suck.So I can buy 2 amd cards that crash and don't run CF at all 33% of the time, or I can buy the most awesome top card in the entire world of gaming and play all the titles and be just great, or I can buy 2 nVidia cards and SLI them and have every game run except correctly except 1 while amd CF fails often...
I can buy the most stable, fully featured, many more featured nVidia card, or I can buy the dying no catalyst driver writers worth their salt (fired for savings) or left for better waters or headhunted, crashing piece of rotten unsupported glitching amd crap.
$999 looks like a bargain basement price to me. I can hardly wait to own The Shield, too.
Innovation. Awesomeness. New features. Unified drivers THAT JUST WORK.
Features ported BACKWARDS to prior generations.
Cuda
PhysX
Frame Rate Target
Boost
Stable dual card setups
Same game day drivers
Honest company not cheating liars like amd
I BUILT THIS co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang current CEO, a perfect example of the awesomeness of capitalism and personal success and the American Dream in REAL LIFE. lol
( Oh I bet those little OWS activist amd fanboys we have here are shooting blood through every pore)
Why in the world would I buy an amd card ? There's only one reason - to try to save a dying loser in a kind act of CHARITY - and frankly, what we have for amd fanboys is nothing short of the most evil little penny pinching crying whining baby SCROOGES I have ever seen.
So we can FORGET IT when it comes to the amd fanboy rabble here supporting AMD - they support only their own selfish fanboy agenda and psychotic public pocketbook panhandling.
I'd like to thank TheJian for pointing out amd fail coverage, vs the ignoring of the nVidia FINANCIAL SUCCESS STORY:
amd Q earnings coverage
"
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5465/amd-q411-fy-201...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5764/amd-q112-earnin...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6383/amd-q3-2012-ear...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6690/amd-q412-and-fy...
"
nVidia Q earnings coverage
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6746/tegra-4-shipmen...
LOL - let it burn you crybabies to the CORE, I hope blood shoots from your eyes...
xaml - Sunday, March 3, 2013 - link
Don't leave out the biggest "crybaby" of all, yourself.