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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D. Lister - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
@testbug00If this is a 250W card using about the same power as the 290x under gaming load, what does that make the 290x?
Considering the several tens of percent of performance lead over the 290x, I would say it makes the 290x appear laughably inefficient by comparison.
testbug00 - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
You misunderstand my point. The 290x was labeled as a 300W TPD (unofficial) card by Anandtech when they reviewed. Everyone refers to it as 300W, sometimes 290W. So, is the 290x a 250W card like the Titan X, or are they both closer to 300W?I understand that TPDs don't mean power draw, but, they are used to express power draw by everyone. Sigh. Partially trying to highlight that issue also. Just like Intel TPD versus AMD TPD, Nvidia's and AMD's TPDs also mean the same thing (I believe Nvidia's is the TPD under heavy load at the base clock, not 100% sure)
D. Lister - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
Oh right, sorry for the misunderstanding. TDP (Thermal Design Power) deals with the heat that a processor releases when under load. Watt is a unit that can be used to measure the flow of any type of energy, not just electricity. "Heat", just like electricity, is a form of energy, so the rate of its flow can also be measured in Watts.You may want to check out the following wiki for further reading about TDP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_design_power
will54 - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
well the cpu uses more power when the graphics hit higher frames so I'm assuming that the Titan X uses less power than the 290x but since it gets higher frames the CPU has to work harder to feed it so the CPU power draw goes up.packerman - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
So all I saw was that AMD was wiping the floor with it for 300 dollars less. Am I missing something.Intervenator - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Didnt you read the review? It was explained *multiple* times...smilingcrow - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Yes, a brain.packerman - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Really explain idiot. The benchmarks reflect that the 295x2 destroyed the card. So it's better because it's the best single gpu option available. Who cares. It 300 dollars less and still wipes the floor. Benchmarks are really what matters.dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Benchmarks are what really matter now? That's kind of ironic.Kutark - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Man, that guys comment was a serious /facepalm.