The NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X Review
by Ryan Smith on March 17, 2015 3:00 PM ESTCivilization: Beyond Earth
Shifting gears from action to strategy, we have Civilization: Beyond Earth, the latest in the Civilization series of strategy games. Civilization is not quite as GPU-demanding as some of our action games, but at Ultra quality it can still pose a challenge for even high-end video cards. Meanwhile as the first Mantle-enabled strategy title Civilization gives us an interesting look into low-level API performance on larger scale games, along with a look at developer Firaxis’s interesting use of split frame rendering with Mantle to reduce latency rather than improving framerates.
Though not as intricate as Crysis 3 or Shadow of Mordor, Civilization still requires a very powerful GPU to run it at 4K if you want to hit 60fps. In fact of our single-GPU configurations the GTX Titan X is the only card to crack 60fps, delivering 69fps at the game’s most extreme setting. This is once again well ahead of the GTX 980 – beating it by 31% at 4K – and 40%+ ahead of the GK110 cards. On the other hand this is the closest AMD’s R9 290XU will get, with the GTX Titan X only beating it by 23% at 4K.
Meanwhile at 1440p it’s entirely possible to play Civilization at 120fps, making it one of a few games where the GTX Titan X can keep up with high refresh rate 1440p monitors.
When it comes to minimum framerates the GTX Titan X doesn’t dominate quite like it does at average framerates, but it still handily takes the top spot. Even at its worst, the GTX Titan X can still deliver 44fps at 4K under Civilization.
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chizow - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
AMD fanboys went apeshit when AT used non-ref cooled GTX 460s that showed those cards in better light than the reference coolers, AMD fanboys need to pick a story and stick to it tbh.evolucion8 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Ahh, we can't never miss your daily dose of AMD bashing under any GPU article, thanks for the fun.shing3232 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Yep, it is quite entertaining.Kutark - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Entertaining but still accurate. Fanbois are fanbois, they're stupid regardless of what side of the isle they're on.chizow - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Like I said, happy to keep the AMD fanboys honest. as I did again here.Stuka87 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
That had nothing to do with non-ref cooled 460's. It was using FTW versions, which were heavily overclocked vs stock clocked AMD cards. It had nothing to do with what cooler was on them. Just the overclocked being portrayed as though they were standard edition cards. The article was later changed as I recall to state that they were overclocked cards and not stock 460s.chizow - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
Its the same difference, the AMD cards are no more "stock" with custom coolers than those FTW editions. AMD baked an overclock into their boost that they weren't able to sustain without extravagant cooling. And when I mean extravagant cooling, I am talking about the Cadillac Aluminum Boat we used to be like "Oh wow, maybe one day I will fork out $60 for that massive Arctic Cooling cooler".So yeah, now you get "stock clocked, stock cooled reference cards", if you want AMD to show better in benchmarks, have them design either 1) better cooling or 2) less power hungry cards.
chizow - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
@Ryan, we can't revisit all the nerdrage and angst from AMD fanboys over EVGA sending you non-reference cooled GeForce cards because they were too good over reference? Funny what happens when the shoe is on the other foot!My solution: AMD should design cards that are capable of comfortably fitting within a 250W TDP and cooler designed to dissipate that much heat, and not have to resort to a cooler that looks like an Autobot. I'm not kidding, briefly owned a Sapphire Tri-X 290X and the thing doubles as its own appliance.
Stuka87 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Stop stating that it was because of the cooler. As I mentioned above, FTW cards are heavily overclocked and should not be portrayed as standard edition cards.MrSpadge - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Go back and read that article. The factory-OC was clearly stated.