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- Date:
- Tuesday , April 14, 2015
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X Video Card Review
It is time to take the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X out for a full evaluation in six games in comparison to the AMD Radeon R9 295X2 and GeForce GTX 980. We will find out who comes out on top, which one provides the best gameplay experience, and of course overclock the GeForce GTX TITAN X to the max.
Introduction
Last month, on March 17th, 2015 NVIDIA launched the fastest Maxwell architecture GPU based video card to date. The new NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X is the ultimate Maxwell GPU. This GPU, codenamed GM200, is a full implementation of what Maxwell is capable of this generation. The incredible performance and memory capacity doesn't come without a price, this is also the most expensive single-GPU video card available for gamers at $999. For this price though you get the fastest single-GPU video card and 12GB of VRAM for no constraints in today's games up to 4K.
In our previous NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X Video Card PREVIEW article we introduced the video card, went over the specifications and only had a limited time to run apples-to-apples performance comparison. In that evaluation we found the GTX TITAN X was about 33%, on average, faster than the GeForce GTX 980. In today's full review we will include highest playable settings, the competitions best offering, and overclocking.
Specifications
Before we hit up performance, let's go over the specifications again briefly. This time we are able to share with you some more detailed information from the reviewers guide. This information should give you a background on the design goals and how the GeForce GTX TITAN X is configured in terms of hardware. Check out the original Preview article for more information as well.
The GeForce GTX TITAN X contains 3072 CUDA Cores with 192 texture units and 96 ROPs. NVIDIA is backing the TITAN with a full 384-bit memory bus and 7GHz VRAM. This allows for 336GB/sec of memory bandwidth. There are 12GB of VRAM on board. The base clock speed is 1000MHz and boost clock is 1075MHz.
As you can see above, NVIDIA hits upon the point that high quality components were used to give this card robustness. It should perform well, last long, and even provide further overclocking potential. This video card is meant to last.
The above slides further discuss the hardware configuration, and worth a read. You will see this video card, even with a reference cooler, seems to be ready to overclock. Our one concern is the low +10% power target, which will overall limit the overclock due to TDP.
Our Video Card Comparison Setup
In our preview article we only had time to look at how much faster the new GeForce GTX TITAN X was compared to the GeForce GTX 980. In this evaluation we are going to include the GeForce GTX 980 again, but this time show you what the highest playable settings are of both video cards. In this way we can see what the real-world advantage is with the GeForce GTX TITAN X compared to the GeForce GTX 980. We will also include apples-to-apples data, and a newer driver is being used on both video cards, so this is all the latest fresh data with new game patches, and a new added game.
For the second comparison we are going to utilize the best AMD comparison we can find by price. Though the AMD Radeon R9 290X video card is AMD's current fastest single-GPU video card, it in no way comes close to the price of the GeForce GTX TITAN X. The video cards are miles apart on price. Current AMD Radeon R9 290X video cards are just under $300-$350 with rebates. The GTX TITAN X is of course $999, so this comparison would not make any sense in the world.
However, what would make sense is two AMD Radeon R9 290X video cards in CrossFire. Even at $350 a piece, that would still be around $700, or $300 cheaper than one GeForce GTX TITAN X. In fact, AMD makes its own dual-GPU video card on a single PCB called the AMD Radeon R9 295X2 video card. It is this video card that matches in price best to the GeForce GTX TITAN X.
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 varies in price from $700-$800 based on brand and where you buy it. Since the AMD Radeon R9 295X2 is comprised of two AMD Radeon R9 290X GPUs in CrossFire on a single video card configuration, this makes the best match from what AMD has to offer to compare to the GeForce GTX TITAN X. Therefore, we will be including it, using new drivers with new CrossFire profiles, to use as comparison. Overall, it is still less expensive than one GeForce GTX TITAN X.
We are also going to focus on 1440p for this entire evaluation in all six games, so you can get an idea what performance to expect at this common gaming resolution. Rest assured, we have 4K performance and SLI performance evaluation planned for further evaluation of the GeForce GTX TITAN X coming in the future.