Nvidia's New Monster Titan X Costs a Thousand Dollars

[Steven Bogos]

Nvidia's New Monster Titan X Costs a Thousand Dollars

For the most enthusiastic of PC gaming enthusiasts, the Titan X is the mother of all graphics cards.

Building your own PC is part of the rite-of-passage to becoming a true PC gamer, and while most are happy with the mid-range components that keep their boxes similarly priced to gaming consoles, there is always a market for those who want the very best. Nvidia is appealing to that market with its new Titan X graphics card, boasting a whopping 12 GB of VRam, and a thousand dollar price tag.

The GTX Titan X comes out on March 18, and is quite a bit more expensive than its current $549 GTX 980, but on-par with the original Titan's launch price. Unlike the GTX 980, the Titan X sports a 384-bit memory interface, which shifts data 50 percent faster at 336.5 GB/sec. It's also the first GPU from Nvidia to make use of the GM200 core, which carries 8 billion transistors in a 28nm die.

It's an incredibly beefy card for an incredibly beefy cost. Let's just hope that when Nvidia says 12 GB, they actually mean 12 GB, unlike that whole fiasco with the GTX 970 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/139916-Nvidia-Hit-With-Class-Action-Suit-Over-GTX-970-Performance].

Source: GameSpot [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/nvidia-reveals-12gb-gtx-titan-x-price-and-specs/1100-6425971/]

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[J Tyran]

The Titan X isn't exactly good value for money but as a piece of hardware it's sexy as hell, something like the R9-295X might be half the price (or even less) and give astonishing performance but this card is still awesome for enthusiast that wants the absolute best and is willing to cough up the cash.

I cannot wait to see what the hardcore PC builders do with this, EK already have water blocks for this up on their website. Four way SLI Titan X's under water anyone?

 

[Scrythe]

Let's just hope that when Nvidia says 12 GB, they actually mean 12 GB, unlike that whole fiasco with the GTX 970 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/139916-Nvidia-Hit-With-Class-Action-Suit-Over-GTX-970-Performance].

This was pretty much the first thing that came to my head when reading this.

 

[MCerberus]

Well this should help all those 120Hz 4k people whose gaming rigs resemble performance specs for a heavy-load server to not do anything with the power because it's well beyond what the developers put into the game.

 

[MercurySteam]

A thousand dollars? Did it go down in price?

https://www.google.com/shopping/product/16354449919173124808?q=titan+gpu&safe=off&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS547US547&es_sm=122&biw=1920&bih=955&ei=2_AIVeKbJJezyATo1YHoAQ&ved=0CIIFEKYrMAM

Dunno where those prices are from but they're way out of the ballpark. The Titan X was always going to be around $1K USD.

Well this should help all those 120Hz 4k people whose gaming rigs resemble performance specs for a heavy-load server to not do anything with the power because it's well beyond what the developers put into the game.

So we're under the impression that current games can't fully utilise extreme hardware, even at 4K and 120Hz? Seriously?

 

[EHKOS]

I don't see what good that's going to do. PC is already so far ahead, and unless you're getting some AAA PC exclusives, you really can't use that to its full potential. And with that massive amount of just...raw...stuff, pretty sure the CPU is the bottle-neck at this point.

 

[EndlessSporadic]

And the floodgates have opened for the ignorant asshats who think this is a product aimed at consumers.

 

[Valkrex]

I HAVE A MIGHTY NEEEEEEEED! Even though I'll probably never be able to afford it and getting a GTX980 is probably more than enough power then I'll need for the next 6 years.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

Well this should help all those 120Hz 4k people whose gaming rigs resemble performance specs for a heavy-load server to not do anything with the power because it's well beyond what the developers put into the game.

You'd be vastly better off with SLI 980s than this. 12GB VRAM really is not necessary at the moment even at 4k. This is being marketed as a gaming card, but it's really not a gaming card. It's an entry-level computing card for those who don't want to spring for a Tesla or Quadro and do a little gaming on their work PCs.

 

[Stg]

By the time this card becomes relevant, three more generations will have been released and the price tag on this card will be a quarter of what it's at now. This is just for people who either want to show off how much disposable income they have or for people who are actively competing for 3D Mark scores. I guess I could also toss in stress testers would love this card, but honestly, stress testing is generally done using typical PC hardware whereas only a small portion of the testers use the best hardware available.

 

[JET1971]

I don't see what good that's going to do. PC is already so far ahead, and unless you're getting some AAA PC exclusives, you really can't use that to its full potential. And with that massive amount of just...raw...stuff, pretty sure the CPU is the bottle-neck at this point.

Are you sure about that?

http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/75/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-vs-980-sli-4k-surround/index.html

BF4 GTX 980 SLI with under 30FPS minimum and average of 48 seams like a single card is needed to get those numbers because you might get micro stuttering in SLI/crossfire mode and as the article shows a single GTX 980 doesn't cut it. Metro Last light and the SLI setup is subpar FPS and can be considered unplayable at those settings, an SLI Titan X setup should be, but then we are at the same micro stutter potential and a more powerful card than the Titan X will be desired.

But then not really mentioned is 60 FPS frame rates average that gamers will want, That's going to require a beast of a card to do for a 4k monitor and even worse 120hrz monitors are dropping in price so 120 FPS is fast becoming the new 60 for desired average fps. Also not mentioned was 4k textures or ENB mods, both are popular and could bring a high end gaming rig to it's knees.

Processors wont be a bottleneck anytime soon, check how much of your processor is being used when gaming, if it's %100 you need a new one. Mine very rarely gets higher than %75 and I have the I7 920 processor that was the very first I7 so it's not exactly new and top of the line, considered rather weak compared to many of todays. In the next couple years the bottleneck is going to be the PCI-E slot itself like AGP was when PCI-E took over as the slot of choice.

 

[Asclepion]

Well this should help all those 120Hz 4k people whose gaming rigs resemble performance specs for a heavy-load server to not do anything with the power because it's well beyond what the developers put into the game.

Or some really cool VR.

 

[Subbies]

I don't see what good that's going to do. PC is already so far ahead, and unless you're getting some AAA PC exclusives, you really can't use that to its full potential. And with that massive amount of just...raw...stuff, pretty sure the CPU is the bottle-neck at this point.

It's probably mostly going to be used in super computers for extreme parallel processing. At my university (EPFL) for example, our cryptography section uses high end graphic cards in lieu of regular processors and programs them in OpenCL or CUDA.

 

[Hazy992]

Does it have one GPU or is it in SLI like some of their other monster cards in the past? Like is 12GB actually 12GB or is it two GPUs with 6GB?

 

[Remus]

Already have my 295X2 awaiting other parts before I build my beast, which was running at this price at time of purchase (2 weeks ago) but found on sale at Newegg for $630. Don't regret the purchase as every titan I've seen was well into the $1200++ range even though they simply weren't the top card before this one. The MSRB might be $1000 but I suspect many retailers will be trying to merch it off for $1500-$2500. Good luck getting one under the price of a good used car.

 

[Strazdas]

I wonder if it is one of those Titans that are for server computation and were never meant for gaming (and everyone that uses them for gaming is doing it wrong as there are more powerful and more cheaper Nvidia cards. though the Vram seems to make it feel like it was made for high resolution gaming.

Well this should help all those 120Hz 4k people whose gaming rigs resemble performance specs for a heavy-load server to not do anything with the power because it's well beyond what the developers put into the game.

if a game is developed in such a way that it cannot scale with hardware its simply badly designed.

Luckily for most we have mods to fix that.

I don't see what good that's going to do. PC is already so far ahead, and unless you're getting some AAA PC exclusives, you really can't use that to its full potential. And with that massive amount of just...raw...stuff, pretty sure the CPU is the bottle-neck at this point.

Enthusiasts were begging for more Vram for some time. see, people game with multi-screen setups. its amazing to have 3 monitors run the game and your peripheral vision see things on the side. but for 3 monitors you have huge resolutions and thus need a lot of Vram.

Also for vast majority of games GPU, not CPU is the bottleneck.

It's probably mostly going to be used in super computers for extreme parallel processing. At my university (EPFL) for example, our cryptography section uses high end graphic cards in lieu of regular processors and programs them in OpenCL or CUDA.

From my understanding the Titan Z is the most power/price efficient way even at 3000 dollars for this. GPUs are great at number crunching.

 

[MercurySteam]

Does it have one GPU or is it in SLI like some of their other monster cards in the past? Like is 12GB actually 12GB or is it two GPUs with 6GB?

It's a single card with a single core, only takes up two slots, no integrated SLI bridge required. A little less performance than 2 GTX 970s in SLI but without any of the issues you can get in multi- card setups.

And the floodgates have opened for the ignorant asshats who think this is a product aimed at consumers.

The chip at the heart of the Titan X may not have been designed for consumers, but the Titan itself is a consumer (albeit extreme end) oriented card. Essentially some lunatics at Nvidia had a bet going who could make the most powerful single core GPU on the planet so they took chips that belong in enterprise cards (Quadro I think) and made the Titan/X. This is also why they can slap whatever price they want to on it; because AMD can't match it.

I wonder if it is one of those Titans that are for server computation and were never meant for gaming (and everyone that uses them for gaming is doing it wrong as there are more powerful and more cheaper Nvidia cards. though the Vram seems to make it feel like it was made for high resolution gaming.

See above. It is curious that Nvidia of all people would chose to put triple the VRAM that the 980 had into the Titan X (while the original Titan had only twice the VRAM of the 780). This could be them enticing people with multi-monitor 4K setups.

From my understanding the Titan Z is the most power/price efficient way even at 3000 dollars for this. GPUs are great at number crunching.

Unless you needed the extra 6GB of VRAM, the Titan Z was a colossal waste of money. For solely compute purposes, you would have been better off saving $1K of that money and getting two Titan Blacks or spending the same and getting a third.

 

[J Tyran]

I don't see what good that's going to do. PC is already so far ahead, and unless you're getting some AAA PC exclusives, you really can't use that to its full potential. And with that massive amount of just...raw...stuff, pretty sure the CPU is the bottle-neck at this point.

It's probably mostly going to be used in super computers for extreme parallel processing. At my university (EPFL) for example, our cryptography section uses high end graphic cards in lieu of regular processors and programs them in OpenCL or CUDA.

Not this card, it really is a Titan aimed at gamers. Its the first one to lack full-speed double-precision floating point option, the VXGI and H.265 are native to the chip across the 900 series and the new Titan X but Nvidia are aiming this at gamers and enthusiasts because they know that there are people willing to shell out for a card like this even at that price after gamers gobbled up the Titan, Titan Black and even the Titan Z to a degree (there are loads of showcase builds that are not workstations around the enthusiast community at hardcore case mod and overclocking meetings and conventions).

 

[EHKOS]

I don't see what good that's going to do. PC is already so far ahead, and unless you're getting some AAA PC exclusives, you really can't use that to its full potential. And with that massive amount of just...raw...stuff, pretty sure the CPU is the bottle-neck at this point.

Are you sure about that?

http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/75/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-vs-980-sli-4k-surround/index.html

BF4 GTX 980 SLI with under 30FPS minimum and average of 48 seams like a single card is needed to get those numbers because you might get micro stuttering in SLI/crossfire mode and as the article shows a single GTX 980 doesn't cut it. Metro Last light and the SLI setup is subpar FPS and can be considered unplayable at those settings, an SLI Titan X setup should be, but then we are at the same micro stutter potential and a more powerful card than the Titan X will be desired.

But then not really mentioned is 60 FPS frame rates average that gamers will want, That's going to require a beast of a card to do for a 4k monitor and even worse 120hrz monitors are dropping in price so 120 FPS is fast becoming the new 60 for desired average fps. Also not mentioned was 4k textures or ENB mods, both are popular and could bring a high end gaming rig to it's knees.

Processors wont be a bottleneck anytime soon, check how much of your processor is being used when gaming, if it's %100 you need a new one. Mine very rarely gets higher than %75 and I have the I7 920 processor that was the very first I7 so it's not exactly new and top of the line, considered rather weak compared to many of todays. In the next couple years the bottleneck is going to be the PCI-E slot itself like AGP was when PCI-E took over as the slot of choice.

I guess my i5 isn't as good as I thought it was, it certainly chokes. I suppose I should catch up and read up on the new graphics cards, I was heavily into PC hardware as an interest but it dropped off when I didn't have the cash to keep my build up to date. Now I just operate off what I knew from 2009, I assumed the GTX 980 was able to handle 60 FPS by itself still.