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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
276 Comments
View All Comments
Jdubo - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
290x was the original Titan killer. Not only did it kill the original release but killed its over-inflated price as well. I suspect the next reiteration of AMD flagship card will be Titan X killer as well. History usually repeats itself over and over again.jay401 - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
You say this is not the same type of pro-sumer card as the previous Titan yet the price is the same. No thanks.Ballist1x - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
No gtx970/970 sli in the review;) Anand you let the consumers down...H3ld3r - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
R9 290x only haves 4Gb at 5ghz and does a awsome job at 4k. the 295 only operates with 4Gb the other 4 are mirrored and shines in 4k. So i can't understand everybody concerns with 4k gaming with upcoming fiji. This Titan X has 12GB at 7Ghz and only shows how gddr5 is obsolete.oranos - Friday, March 20, 2015 - link
The ratio of potential buyers to comments on this article is atronomical.leignheart - Friday, March 20, 2015 - link
Hello everyone, I would like you to read the final words on the Titan X. It says the performance increase over a single gtx 980 is 33%, except the price is 100% over the gtx 980. If you are lucky enough to pay just 1000$ for the Titan X. Please people do not waste your money on this card. If you do then Nvidia will keep releasing Extremely overpriced cards. DO NOT BUY THIS CARD.Please instead wait for the gtx 980 TI if you want dx12. I will certainly pay 1 grand and more for a card, but this card is a particular rip off at that price point. Don't just throw your money away. Read the performance chart yourself, it is in no way shape or form worth 1000$.
Dug - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
I suppose we can't buy a Rolex, Tesla, a vacation condo, or even a pony?Paying for the best available is always more money. Get a job where another $500 doesn't affect you when you purchase something. Plus price is only perception on worth. People could say $20 is too much for a video card and they would be right.
themac79 - Friday, March 20, 2015 - link
I wish they would have thrown in 780sli, which is what I run. I would like to have more VRAM, but I'm running all the new games pretty much maxed out. I made the mistake of buying them when they first came out and payed over $600 a piece. I will definitely wait for price drops this time.H3ld3r - Friday, March 20, 2015 - link
You need is more transistors, memory speed, stream processors, bus, rops, tmu's not memory amountArchetype - Friday, March 20, 2015 - link
4K gaming not quite there yet. Not going to pay $500+ for it. And in the mean time still jamming Full HD games like a baws using my old 280X "on my Full HD monitor".