The NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X Review
by Ryan Smith on March 17, 2015 3:00 PM ESTFinal Words
When NVIDIA introduced the original GTX Titan in 2013 they set a new bar for performance, quality, and price for a high-end video card. The GTX Titan ended up being a major success for the company, a success that the company is keen to repeat. And now with their Maxwell architecture in hand, NVIDIA is in a position to do just that.
For as much of a legacy as the GTX Titan line can have at this point, it’s clear that the GTX Titan X is as worthy a successor as NVIDIA could hope for. NVIDIA has honed the already solid GTX Titan design, and coupled it with their largest Maxwell GPU, and in the process has put together a card that once again sets a new bar for performance and quality. That said, from a design perspective GTX Titan X is clearly evolutionary as opposed to the revolution that was the original GTX Titan, but it is nonetheless an impressive evolution.
Overall then it should come as no surprise that from a gaming performance standpoint the GTX Titan X stands alone. Delivering an average performance increase over the GTX 980 of 33%, GTX Titan X further builds on what was already a solid single-GPU performance lead for NVIDIA. Meanwhile compared to its immediate predecessors such as the GTX 780 Ti and the original GTX Titan, the GTX Titan X represents a significant, though perhaps not-quite-generational 50%-60% increase in performance. However perhaps most importantly, this performance improvement comes without any further increase in noise or power consumption as compared to NVIDIA’s previous generation flagship.
Meanwhile from a technical perspective, the GTX Titan X and GM200 GPU represent an interesting shift in high-end GPU design goals for NVIDIA, one whose ramifications I’m not sure we fully understand yet. By building what’s essentially a bigger version of GM204, heavy on graphics and light on FP64 compute, NVIDIA has been able to drive up performance without a GM204-like increase in die size. At 601mm2 GM200 is still NVIDIA’s largest GPU to date, but by producing their purest graphics GPU in quite some time, it has allowed NVIDIA to pack more graphics horsepower than ever before into a 28nm GPU. What remains to be seen then is whether this graphics/FP32-centric design is a one-off occurrence for 28nm, or if this is the start of a permanent shift in NVIDIA GPU design.
But getting back to the video card at hand, there’s little doubt of the GTX Titan X’s qualifications. Already in possession of the single-GPU performance crown, NVIDIA has further secured it with the release of their latest GTX Titan card. In fact there's really only one point we can pick at with the GTX Titan X, and that of course is the price. At $999 it's priced the same as the original GTX Titan - so today's $999 price tag comes as no surprise - but it's still a high price to pay for Big Maxwell. NVIDIA is not bashful about treating GTX Titan as a luxury card line, and for better and worse GTX Titan X continues this tradition. GTX Titan X, like GTX Titan before it, is a card that is purposely removed from the price/performance curve.
Meanwhile, the competitive landscape is solidly in NVIDIA's favor we feel. We would be remiss not to mention multi-GPU alternatives such as the GTX 980 in SLI and AMD's excellent Radeon R9 295X2. But as we've mentioned before when reviewing these setups before, multi-GPU is really only worth chasing when you've exhausted single-GPU performance. R9 295X2 in turn is a big spoiler on price, but we continue to believe that a single powerful GPU is a better choice for consistent performance, at least if you can cover the cost of GTX Titan X.
Finally on a lighter note, with the launch of the GTX Titan X we wave good-bye to GTX Titan as an entry-level double precision compute card. NVIDIA dumping high-performance FP64 compute has made GTX Titan X a better graphics card and even a better FP32 compute card, but it means that the original GTX Titan's time as NVIDIA's first prosumer card was short-lived. I suspect that we haven't seen the end of NVIDIA's forays into entry-level FP64 compute cards like the original GTX Titan, but that next card will not be GTX Titan X.
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Kevin G - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
There was indeed a bigger chip due closer to the GK104/GTX 680's launch: the GK100. However it was cancelled due to bugs in the design. A fixed revision eventually became the GK110 which was ultimately released as the Titan/GTX 780.After that there have been two more revisions. The GK110B is quick respin which all fully enabled dies stem from (Titan Black/GTX 780 Ti). Then late last nVidia surprised everyone with the GK210 which has a handful of minor architectural improvements (larger register files etc.).
The morale of the story is that building large dies is hard and takes lots of time to get right.
chizow - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
We don't know what happened to GK100, it is certainly possible as I've guessed aloud numerous times that AMD's 7970 and overall lackluster pricing/performance afforded Nvidia the opportunity to scrap GK100 and respin it to GK110 while trotting GK104 out as its flagship, because it was close enough to AMD's best and GK100 may have had problems as you described. All of that led to considerable doubt whether or not we would see a big Kepler, a sentiment that was even dishonestly echoed by some Nvidia employees I got into it with on their forums.Only in October 2012 did we see signs of Big Kepler in the Titan supercomputer with K20X, but still no sign of a GeForce card. Its no doubt that a big die takes time, but Nvidia had always led with their big chip first, since G80 and this was the first time they deviated from that strategy while parading what was clearly their 2nd best, mid-range performance ASIC as flagship.
Titan X sheds all that nonsense and goes back to their gaming roots. It is their best effort, up front, no BS. 8Bn transistors Inspired by Gamers and Made by Nvidia. So as someone who buys GeForce for gaming first and foremost, I'm going to reward them for those efforts so they keep rewarding me with future cards of this kind. :)
Railgun - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
With regards to the price, 12GB of RAM isn't justification enough for it. Memory isn't THAT expensive in the grand scheme of things. What the Titan was originally isn't what the Titan X is now. They can't be seen as the same lineage. If you want to say memory is the key, the original Titan with its 6GB could be seen as more than still relevant today. Crysis is 45% faster in 4K with the X than the original. Is that the chip itself or memory helping? I vote the former given the 690 is 30% faster in 4K with the same game than the original Titan, with only 4GB total memory. VRAM isn't going to really be relevant for a bit other than those that are running stupidly large spans. It's a shame as Ryan touches on VRAM usage in Middle Earth, but doesn't actually indicate what's being used. There too, the 780Ti beats the original Titan sans huge VRAM reserves. Granted, barely, but point being is that VRAM isn't the reason. This won't be relevant for a bit I think.You can't compare an aftermarket price to how an OEM prices their products. The top tier card other than the TiX is the 980, which has been mentioned ad nauseam that the TiX is NOT worth 80% more given its performance. If EVGA wants to OC a card out of their shop and charge 45% more than a stock clock card, then buyer beware if it's not a 45% gain in performance. I for one don't see the benefit of a card like that. The convenience isn't there given the tools and community support for OCing something one's self.
I too game on 25x14 and there've been zero issues regarding VRAM, or the lack thereof.
chizow - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I didn't say VRAM was the only reason, I said it was one of the reasons. The bigger reason for me is that it is the FULL BOAT GM200 front and center. No waiting. No cut cores. No cut SMs for compute. No cut down part because of TDP. It's 100% of it up front, 100% of it for gaming. I'm sold and onboard until Pascal. That really is the key factor, who wants to wait for unknown commodities and timelines if you know this will set you within +/-10% of the next fastest part's performance if you can guarantee you get it today for maybe a 25-30% premium? I guess it really depends on how much you value your current and near-future gaming experience. I knew from the day I got my ROG Swift (with 2x670 SLI) I would need more to drive it. 980 was a bit of a sidegrade in absolute performance and I still knew i needed more perf, and now I have it with Titan X.As for VRAM, 12GB is certainly overkill today, but I'd say 6GB isn't going to be enough soon enough. Games are already pushing 4GB (SoM, FC4, AC:U) and that's still with last-gen type textures. Once you start getting console ports with PC texture packs I could see 6 and 8GB being pushed quite easily, as that is the target framebuffer for consoles (2+6). So yes, while 12GB may be too much, 6GB probably isn't enough, especially once you start looking at 4K and Surround.
Again, if you don't think the price is worth it over a 980 that's fine and fair, but the reality of it is, if you want better single-GPU performance there is no alternative. A 2nd 980 for SLI is certainly an option, but for my purposes and my resolution, I would prefer to stick to a single-card solution if possible, which is why I went with a Titan X and will be selling my 980 instead of picking up a 2nd one as I originally intended.
Best part about Titan X is it gives another choice and a target level of performance for everyone else!
Frenetic Pony - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
They could've halved the ram, dropped the price by $200, and done a lot better without much to any performance hit.Denithor - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
LOL.You just described the GTX 980 Ti, which will likely launch within a few months to answer the 390X.
chizow - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
@Frenetic Pony, maybe now, but what about once DX12 drops and games are pushing over 6GB? We already see games saturating 4GB, and we still haven't seen next-gen engine games like UE4. Why compromise for a few hundred less? You haven't seen all the complaints from 780Ti users about how 3GB isn't enough anymore? Shoudn't be a problem for this card, which is just 1 less thing to worry about.LukaP - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
Games dont push 4GB... Check the LTT Ultrawide video, where he barely got Shadow of Mordor on ultra to go past 4GBs on 3 ulrawide 1440p screens.And as a game dev i can tell you, with proper optimisations, more than 4GB is insane, on a GPU, unless you just load stuff in with a predictive algorithm, to avoid PCIe bottlenecks.
And please do show me where a 780Ti user isnt happy with his cards performance at 1080-1600p. Because the card does, and will continue to perform great on those resolutions, since games wont really advance, due to consoles limiting again.
LukaP - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
Also, DX12 wont make games magically use more VRAM. all it really does is it makes the CPU and GPU communicate better. It wont magically make games run or look better. both of those are up to the devs, and the look better part is certainly not the textures or polycounts. Its merely the amount of drawcalls per frame going up, meaning more UNIQUE objects. (contrary to more objects, which can be achieved through instancing easily in any modern engine, but Ubisoft havent learned that yet)chizow - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
DX12 raises the bar for all games by enabling better visuals, you're going to get better top-end visuals across the board. Certainly you don't think UE4 when it debuts will have the same reqs as DX11 based games on UE3?Even if you have the same size textures as before 2K or 4K assets as is common now, the fact you are drawing more polygons enabled by DX12's lower overhead, higher draw call/poly capabilities means they need to be textured, meaning higher VRAM requirement unless you are using the same textures over and over again.
Also, since you are a game dev, you would also know Devs are going more and more towards bindless or megatextures that specifically make great use of textures staying resident in local VRAM for faster accesses, rather than having to optimize and cache/load/discharge them.