Gainward GTX Titan
Conclusion
Published: 11th March 2013 | Source: Gainward | Price: �£834.95 |
Conclusion
Summing up the GTX Titan isn't as easy as we might have assumed. The reason is isn't necessarily a case of "best thing ever, go buy it" is two fold.
Firstly, the potential of the card is clearly barely tapped at the moment. All new GPUs are better than the previous generation and then, as the drivers mature and developers unlock the potential, it becomes even more spectacular. Secondly the GTX680 and HD7970 are already running on very mature drivers whereas the Titan is on the betas. This clearly has some issues as we saw in our overclocking results, but the biggest issue is that the GTX680/HD7970 are as outstanding as they are ever likely to be, but the GTX Titan has barely had the surface scratched. So although the results are good right now, in the future they should be even more jaw-dropping. Of course we can't, and never would, review something based on theoretical future performance.
Even with the beta drivers though the GTX Titan is a special card. Unquestionably the fastest single GPU currently available, it often ran dual-card setups close. Perhaps the thing that has us salivating the most is the performance in the very latest titles. Whereas, for example, The Witcher 2 showed good results, titles such as Unigine Valley, 3D Mark Fire Strike, and Crysis 3 had a vast improvement when running on the Titan. If this is the level of performance that we can expect to see from the very early samples then once the drivers are mature and the games companies take advantage of the incredible amounts of power available to them, then we're certain that this will be the card that you want in your rig.
Indeed with the recent announcement of the Playstation 4, as well as the forthcoming XBOX 720, the gap between a console port and a great looking PC game is even narrower, so we're sure that soon we will finally get the range of games that make these expensive GPU purchases a worthwhile investment.
Overclocking is now limited by temperature rather than power-draw, so once some watercooled variants appear the sky is now the limit, and the card will automatically achieve those levels of performance. In current trim there clearly is a bit of tweaking still needing to be done as our sample didn't seem to give the same temperate readings across all programs. We do however think this needs further investigation before we decide whether its a glitch or faulty.
If you want to be ready for the future, then the Gainward GTX Titan is the card for you. It's certainly capable of some incredible frame-rates and with the combination of Adaptive Vsync, GPU Boost 2.0 and TXAA (all technologies that benefit gamers) it is the next generation now. This Gainward model is near silent too. Performance and silence in one easy to use package, a worthy winner of the OC3D Performance Award.
NOTE - Following the writing of this review it became apparent that the failure lay with the Afterburner software, and we'll be doing a follow-up review on our new overclock results next week.
Thanks to Gainward for supplying the GTX Titan for review. Discuss your thoughts in the OC3D Forums.
Most Recent Comments
I know it would be unbalanced in terms of CPU/GPU , but if you aren't interested in benchmarking a 3770k with a h100i and this in a betfenix prodigy is perhaps the ultimate single screen gaming rig , small, cool , quiet.
For me thats probably the perfect system.
thanks for the clarification - But what a video to see, 1 hour and 24 mins, a good break after 10 hours of work
/edit
4 times! not counting the ones in crysis 3
And if you could send me back the Titan as soon as, that would be great
But it was very interesting. It compared the titan to a quadro gpu. The titan is apparently a very good deal for applications where you need a load of ram and cuda cores. This would make sense.
So should this be branded as an entry level quadro card?
I mean if you look at the pricing of a quadro card with 6GB of ram Clicky Then having triple SLI titans, (or even a single titan might be enough,) seems like a better deal.
so much better than the 10 minutes stuff so certain people upload
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Originally Posted by Cru3L139
great review as always, love your long videos
so much better than the 10 minutes stuff so certain people upload |
However, and I hate to be the fuddy-duddy, the language, does come across as a little bit unprofessional and I think some companies that supply you with goodies may start to have an issue with it if it becomes regular.
Plus you have to think that you may be getting younger viewers, who probably know more swear words than us adults however parents walking past their young kids computer and hearing it might take offence.
Personally, doesn't really bother me but devil's advocate and all that.
Edit:
Just to add though. great card but I wish nVidia would start and listen to consumers regarding LED lighting and use RGB. I understand that yes green is representative of the company but for those that take the time in choosing a colour scheme for their rig it's annoying that one component can't match in.
Keep them coming..................
After the feature film to show off the titan, 1 hour 26mins. if I remember correctly indeed was showing great stuff as in features and the power engineered into just one nVidia card, well so far it's unrivaled.
This leaves me (a lot) diss-heartened as I bought the nVidia EVGA version of the GTX690, as I only just bought it weeks before the titan card came out/even knew about it.
Where I'm going with this is it was a smart marketing play by nVidia
but my next GPU purchase will be a good 2 ATI's (FirePro's) or a top of the range Quadro (which I will be sure to check its the only one for a while to come/industry-wise!).
Otherwise the money grabbing gits at nVidia will keep making these kind of cards for gaming and might end up charging £2000+ for one, simply because they're being bought (great cards, credit to them) ATI will catch up and show no mercy, win in the battle for the best gaming card I'll bet money on that!
But paying out that kind of money for a graphics card? Yes it's awesome, yes TTL got in the first best review, but that kind of cash, it can field a whole system if you buy smart, simple.
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Originally Posted by 2Dcypher
So Tinytomlogan, our Guv. Got his mitts on the TITAN 6GB GPU the kool accommodating staff too hopefully.
After the feature film to show off the titan, 1 hour 26mins. if I remember correctly indeed was showing great stuff as in features and the power engineered into just one nVidia card, well so far it's unrivaled. This leaves me (a lot) diss-heartened as I bought the nVidia EVGA version of the GTX690, as I only just bought it weeks before the titan card came out/even knew about it. Where I'm going with this is it was a smart marketing play by nVidia but my next GPU purchase will be a good 2 ATI's (FirePro's) or a top of the range Quadro (which I will be sure to check its the only one for a while to come/industry-wise!). Otherwise the money grabbing gits at nVidia will keep making these kind of cards for gaming and might end up charging £2000+ for one, simply because they're being bought (great cards, credit to them) ATI will catch up and show no mercy, win in the battle for the best gaming card I'll bet money on that! But paying out that kind of money for a graphics card? Yes it's awesome, yes TTL got in the first best review, but that kind of cash, it can field a whole system if you buy smart, simples. |
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Originally Posted by SeekaX
something is messed up here
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It's perfectly OK to rebadge a failed Tesla card and ask £1000 for it.
All our love,
Your faithful (and rather stupid) audience.
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Originally Posted by 2Dcypher
1 word, what?
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Evin funny! Funny cheeky grin time everybody
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Originally Posted by 2Dcypher
1 word, what?
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I feal dummer for doing so
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Originally Posted by 2Dcypher
Is it a coincidence or is that avatar a still frame of Tom there?? lol
Evin funny! Funny cheeky grin time everybody |
I built my current rig in Nov last year with the plan of upgrading the GPU to 1 or 2 780's or what ever the top performing next gen/architecture card was. I even planned for stupid prices of about 35% more the the MOST expensive single core cards out at the time. That worked out at about £650. So if it cost £650 ..1 card, if it cost £400 i would push to 2 cards. I knew Nvidia would be expensive so why not plan ahead.
But damn ..Nvidia really pulled a number on us, the cheapest u can find these cards is £830 ....'ridiculous' just doesnt quiet mean enough in this case lol.
Pitty really, the Titan wont get the sales it deserves imo, even those with LGA 2011 rigs probably wont stomach spending that much on a single core card..i know i wont.
I for one will now have to wait for the 780 which will likely be within the price range i originaly planed on..it just wont be the 'flagship' model i wanted
.. owell such is life. I deffinatly need a upgrade this year so its gunna have to be Nvidia since AMD wont be releasing anyting till next year...i wanna play Crysis 3 but im holding off becouse i just know my 560ti will get a proper thrashing trying to play it otherwise :PAnyway nice review
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Originally Posted by SolarNova
Pitty really, the Titan wont get the sales it deserves imo, even those with LGA 2011 rigs probably wont stomach spending that much on a single core card..i know i wont.
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I wouldn't mind but you can set up a SLI arrangement for around £500 and beat it easily.
the price tag is massive but the card just looks stunning and the performence is proper aswell
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Originally Posted by Solanos
What i would like to see as an addition to this long review is a power consumption benchmark. I mean a single core card with a TDP of 250Watts must be much lower than 2 Crossfire/SLI overclocked cards right? So performance wise we have the fastest single core card that costs a ton of money, hmmm I think I can live with an overclocked GTX670 that runs Crysis 3 @ 1080p maxed out @30-45 FPS.
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Times like this I miss 'Doom', no I'm happy enough with a rig build in process no titan for moi just the very cool GeForce GTX690, takes up little energy, not watercooling it as the body is just so cool, and chuck on the backplate from EVGA.
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Originally Posted by AlienALX
Dear Nvidia.
It's perfectly OK to rebadge a failed Tesla card and ask £1000 for it. All our love, Your faithful (and rather stupid) audience. |
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Originally Posted by 2Dcypher
Maybe I'm being ignorant but just why would you overclock the most powerful GPU on the market to date?
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BTW Crysis 3 with everything max out and Motion Blure High killing this card
So is it safe, or not ?
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