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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nos024 - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
Well lets see. Even when it launches, will it be readily available and not highly priced like the 290X. If the 290x was readily available when it was launched, I would've bought one.eanazag - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
Based on leaked slides referencing Battlefield 4 at 4K resolution the 390X is 1.6x the 290X. In the context of this review results we could guess it comes up slightly short at 4K ultra and 10 fps faster than the Titan X at 4K medium. Far Cry 4 came in at 1.55 x the 290X.290X non-uber 4K ultra - BF4 - 35.5 fps x 1.6 = 56.8. >> Titan 58.3
290X non-uber 4K medium - BF4 - 65.9 fps x 1.6 = 105.44 >> Titan 94.8
290X non-uber 4K ultra - FC4 - 31.2 fps x 1.55 = 48.36 >> Titan 42.1
290X non-uber 4K medium - FC4 - 40.9 fps x 1.55 = 63.395 >> Titan 60.5
These numbers don't tell the whole story on how AMD arrived with the figures, but it paints the picture of a GPU that goes toe-to-toe with the Titan X. The slides also talk about a water cooler edition. I'm suspecting the wattage will be in the same ball park as the 290X and likely higher.
With the Titan X full breadth compute muscle, I am not sure what the 980 Ti will look like. I suspect Nvidia is holding that back based on whatever AMD releases, so they can unload a smack down trump card. Rumored $700 for the 390X WCE with 8GB HBM (high bandwidth memory - 4096 bit width) and in Q2 (April-June). Titan X and 390X at the same price given what I know at the moment I would go with the Titan X.
Stack your GPU $'s for July.
FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
If the R9 390X doesn't come out at $499 months and months from now, it won't be worth it.shing3232 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
1/32 FP32？ so, this is a big gaming core.Railgun - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Exactly why it's not a $999 card.shing3232 - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
but, it was priced at 999.Railgun - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
What I mean is that it's not worth being a 999 card. Yes, it's priced at that, but it's value doesn't support it.Flunk - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Plenty of dolts bought the first Titan as a gaming card so I'm sure someone will buy this. At least there's a bigger performance difference between the Titan X and GTX 980 than there was between the Titan and GTX 780.Kevin G - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
Except the GTX 780 came after the Titan launched. Rather it was the original Titan compared to the GTX 680 and here we see a similar gap between the Titan X and the GTX 980. It is also widely speculated that we'll see a cut down GM200 to fit between the GTX 980 and the Titan X so history looks like it will repeat itself.chizow - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
@Railgun, I'd disagree and I was very vocal against the original Titan for a number of reasons. Mainly because Nvidia used the 7970 launch as an opportunity to jump their 2nd fastest chip as mainstream. 2ndly, because they held back their flagship chip nearly a full year (GTX 680 launched Mar 2012, Titan Feb 2013) while claiming the whole time there was no bigger chip, they tried to justify the higher price point because it was a "compute" card and lastly because it was a cut down chip and we knew it.Titan X isn't being sold with any of those pretenses and now that the new pricing/SKU structure has settled in (2nd fastest chip = new $500 flagship), there isn't any of that sticker shock anymore. Its the full chip, there's no complaints about them holding anything back, and 12GB of VRAM is a ridiculous amount of VRAM to stick on a card, and that costs money. If EVGA wants to release an $800 Classified 980 and people see value in it, then certainly this Titan X does as well.
At least for me, it is the more appealing option for me now than getting a 2nd 980 for SLI. Slightly lower performance, lower heat, no SLI/scaling issues, and no framebuffer VRAM concerns for the foreseeable future. I game at 2560x1440p on an ROG Swift btw, so that is right in this card's wheelhouse.