The NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X Review
by Ryan Smith on March 17, 2015 3:00 PM ESTOverclocking
Finally, no review of a GTX Titan card would be complete without a look at overclocking performance.
From a design standpoint, GTX Titan X already ships close to its power limits. NVIDIA’s 250W TDP can only be raised another 10% – to 275W – meaning that in TDP limited scenarios there’s not much headroom to play with. On the other hand with the stock voltage being so low, in clockspeed limited scenarios there’s a lot of room for pushing the performance envelope through overvolting. And neither of these options addresses the most potent aspect of overclocking, which is pushing the entirely clockspeed curve higher at the same voltages by increasing the clockspeed offsets.
GTX 980 ended up being a very capable overclocker, and as we’ll see it’s much the same story for the GTX Titan X.
| GeForce GTX Titan X Overclocking | ||||
| Stock | Overclocked | |||
| Core Clock | 1002MHz | 1202MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 1076Mhz | 1276MHz | ||
| Max Boost Clock | 1215MHz | 1452MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 7GHz | 7.8GHz | ||
| Max Voltage | 1.162v | 1.218v | ||
Even when packing 8B transistors into a 601mm2, the GM200 GPU backing the GTX Titan X continues to offer the same kind of excellent overclocking headroom that we’ve come to see from the other Maxwell GPUs. Overall we have been able to increase our GPU clockspeed by 200MHz (20%) and the memory clockspeed by 800MHz (11%). At its peak this leads to the GTX Titan X pushing a maximum boost clock of 1.45GHz, and while TDP restrictions mean it can’t sustain this under most workloads, it’s still an impressive outcome for overclocking such a large GPU.
The performance gains from this overclock are a very consistent 16-19% across all 5 of our sample games at 4K, indicating that we're almost entirely GPU-bound as opposed to memory-bound. Though not quite enough to push the GTX Titan X above 60fps in Shadow of Mordor or Crysis 3, this puts it even closer than the GTX Titan X was at stock. Meanwhile we do crack 60fps on Battlefield 4 and The Talos Principle.
The tradeoff for this overclock is of course power and noise, both of which see significant increases. In fact the jump in power consumption with Crysis is a bit unexpected – further research shows that the GTX Titan X shifts from being temperature limited to TDP limited as a result of our overclocking efforts – while FurMark is in-line with the 25W increase in TDP. The 55dB noise levels that result, though not extreme, also mean that GTX Titan X is drifting farther away from being a quiet card. Ultimately it’s a pretty straightforward tradeoff for a further 16%+ increase in performance, but a tradeoff nonetheless.
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BurnItDwn - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
So its like 50% faster vs a R9 290, but costs 3x as much ... awesome card, but expensive.uber_national - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
I think there's something strange going on in your benchmark if the 7990 is only 3 fps slower than the 295x2 in the 2560x1440 chart...Samus - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
"Unlike the GTX 980 then, for this reason NVIDIA is once again back to skipping the backplate, leaving the back side of the card bare just as with the previous GTX Titan cards."Don't you mean "again back to SHIPPING the backplate?"
I'm confused as the article doesn't show any pictures of the back of the card. Does it have a backplate or not?
xchaotic - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
Nope. A $999 card and it doesn't have a backplate. This is possibly due to easier cooling in SLI configsAntronman - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
It's a blower cooler. So everything goes out the side of the case, which can be desirable if you have cards right on top of each other as the airflow is unobstructed.It's just Nvidia. Unless you need PhysX, you're much better off waiting for the R300s.
Mikmike86 - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
Spring pricing is a bit off.R9 290x's go below $300 after rebates quite often now, Febuary I picked up a 290x for about $240 after rebate which was the lowest but have seen several at or below $300 without a rebate.
R9 290s run around $250 and have gone down to $200-$220 recently as a low.
970s have been hovering around $320 but have gone to $290-$300.
Otherwise the Titan X was more for marketing since the 290x (2yr old tech) claws at the 980 at 4k and the 970 falls on it's face at 4k.
This cards a beast don't get me wrong especially when it chases the 295x2 after overclocking, but when you can get a 295x2 for $600 after rebates a couples times a month it just doesn't make sense.
$800 and I could see these selling like hotcakes and they'd still pocket a solid chunk, probably just going to drop a 980ti in a few months after the 390x is released making these 2nd place cards like they did with the og Titans
I go back and forth between Nvidia and AMD but Nvidia has been extra sketchy recently with their drivers and of course the 970.
Refuge - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
I just dont' appreciate their price premiums.I've been a fan of Green Team since i was a young boy, but anymore I usually lean Red team.
Just not satisfied with what I'm paying over on the other side to be honest.
Yes when I'm on the Red side I don't always have the same peak performance as Green. But I had enough money afterwards to pay my car payment and take the old lady out to dinner still. ;)
sna1970 - Saturday, March 21, 2015 - link
Nvidia intentionaly made GTX 970 only 4G of ram ... why ? so no one use them in 4K for cheap SLI.I hate nvidia ways.
imagine 3x GTX 970 in SLI for only $900 (300 each)
or 2x GTX 970 , which will be slightly faster than Titan X for $600
but noooooooooo, nvidia will never allow 8G GTX 970 , keep it at 4G so people buy Titan X ...
disgusting . AMD wake up .. we need competition.
medi03 - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
There is R9 290x available for nearly half of 980's price, being only 5-15% slower. (and 300w vs 370w total power consumption, I'm sure you can live with it)There is R9 295x2 which handily beats Titan X in all performance benchmarks, with power consumption being the only donwside.
Railgun - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
@Ryan Smith. For future reviews, as you briefly touched on it with this one, especially at high resolutions, can you start providing how much VRAM is actually in use with each game? For cards such as this, I'd like to see whether 12GB is actually useful, or pointless at this point. Based on the review and some of the results, it's pointless at the moment, even at 4K.