3DMark, Power, Sound and Conclusions
Although we don't put a lot of weight behind the results from 3DMark, I know that a lot of readers use this as a point of reference so I have included it.
3DMark has never been as kind to the Kepler architecture as it has to AMD's Tahiti and Hawaii parts, and that shows here once again. The Radeon R9 295X2 is 16% faster than the GeForce GTX Titan Z and the GTX 780 Ti cards in SLI is 2% faster than the R9 295X2.
Power Consumption and Sound Levels
With performance testing done it's time to look at the other aspects of the graphics card experience including power consumption and noise testing. When you are looking at these dual-GPU cards you are going to see a lot of power being utilized, and that's expected. How does the new GeForce GTX Titan Z stack up?
Very well in fact! The Radeon R9 295X2 still uses the most power, drawing 676 watts as a full system including our Sandy Bridge-E processor and platform. The pair of GeForce GTX 780 Ti cards in SLI uses 624 watts, 52 watts less than the 295X2. The GeForce GTX Titan Z was actually quiet efficient, with a total system power consumption 530 watts, 146 watts less than the 295X2.
That is not a small difference. With a TDP of 500 watts, we knew that that Radeon R9 295X2 was on the outside looking in when it comes to graphics cards, but the Titan Z is clearly keeping things more in line with the expected values. The TDP of 375 watts is within specification of the PCIe standards: 75 watts from the PCIe bus and 150 watts from each of the two 8-pin power connectors. There are no strict power supply amperage requirements like we saw on the second page of our R9 295X2 review which gives users and system builders more flexibility in chassis and design.
Another area of strength for the GTX Titan Z is the lower sound level it creates compared to the R9 295X2 and the pair of GTX 780 Ti cards in SLI. At idle the Titan Z is almost silent, measuring nearly 5 dbA lower than the Radeon R9 295X2. The Radeon card is hindered not by the fan on the card but also by the fan on the radiators and the pump noise itself.
Under a full gaming load, after at least 20 minutes of heavy use, the GTX Titan Z continues to be the more quiet option, about 3 dbA lower than the 295X2.
To be fair, none of the solutions seen here are obnoxiously loud, but if you are very serious about sound levels the design of the NVIDIA cooler has clearly addressed the aspect more directly than the R9 295X2.
Pricing and Availability
NVIDIA has an uphill battle to climb with the GeForce GTX Titan Z when it comes to drawing in high end gamers and our performance results on the previous pages didn't get us off to a good start. The pricing hurts it even more.
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Z – $2999
- AMD Radeon R9 295X2 – $1499
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti SLI (two cards) – $1300
The GeForce GTX Titan Z stands out like a sore thumb in this list, coming it at two times the price of the Radeon R9 295X2 and more than two times the price of the pair of GeForce GTX 780 Ti cards that can run in SLI. Based purely on gaming performance, the Titan Z does not present a compelling option for enthusiasts that are concerned with performance per dollar metrics. If the Titan Z were priced at $1500 then there are all kinds of arguments you might be able to make for it over the R9 295X2, but we really can't do it today.
Final Thoughts
To be fair, we kind of knew how the GeForce GTX Titan Z was going to fare before going into this review, but it is something that needed to be tested and confirmed with hardware for our readers and fans. I think the results fall in line with those expectations but the full analysis involves some further discussion.
NVIDIA sees gaming as just a part of the Titan Z market and will point to the CUDA development as another outlet for this hardware. It's true too – software developers that need a lot of CUDA processing capability will not find a more compact way to write and produce projects. There are also system builders that will sell through all the allocation of Titan Z; some of the wealthier gamers that can spend $6k+ on a gaming machine may just run with the Titan Z due to familiarity with the brand or a desire to use other features like G-Sync.
But there are obviously users that have a lot more money to invest into a gaming machine and would consider cards in this price range, and for those, the GTX Titan Z just isn't a good choice. The AMD Radeon R9 295X2 is the better multi-GPU solution offering both better gaming performance (sometimes by a significant amount) and better value for your dollar. AMD has made a lot of progress with their multi-GPU frame pacing software updates and they are really showcased in the R9 295X2 that requires it. In fact, in some places the frame pacing performance of the Hawaii GPUs is better than that found in the GK110 parts on the Titan Z. This is something that NVIDIA is working to fix and take back that particular crown.
For users that wish to stay inside the NVIDIA ecosystem but want the performance of the graphics combinations tested here, the pair of GeForce GTX 780 Ti cards are much better option. They perform better than the GTX Titan Z in many instances and only cause a problem in a handful of places when running at 4K with that pesky 3GB memory capacity per GPU. And if that is a big concern, you could also jump up to a pair of GeForce GTX Titan Black cards (each with 6GB of memory) for a cool $1000 each. In fact, with a pair of 780 Ti or Titan Black cards you'll actually be able to support two 4K DisplayPort monitors as well, something you cannot do on the Titan Z.
In some ways, NVIDIA isn't being pressured to compete on pricing in any market. Even though the AMD Radeon R9 series of cards has had advantages in performance per dollar for a long time, and that AMD has had some impressive bundle programs at the same time, NVIDIA has maintained or gained marketshare, depending on who you ask. I bet that many inside the company simply don't see the need to change the direction or pricing of products without some pressure from the gamers that are actually spending the money.
NVIDIA was put in a tight spot with the GeForce GTX Titan Z. It was announced in late March, when the company was unsure what AMD's plans were for the dual-GPU market. When the R9 295X2 launched with a water cooler and 500 watt TDP at half the price, the world was flipped for NVIDIA. More than likely the company attempted to increase TDPs and get clock speeds high enough to compete with AMD's new addition to the market (maybe a cause for the delay) but it wasn't able to pull it off. Rather than eat crow and scrap the card, NVIDIA instead is pushing forward and targeting the Titan Z to very unique and specific markets. What I would love to see from NVIDIA is a version of the Titan Z that disables double precision floating point capability (the same difference between the GTX 780 Ti and the Titan Black) and allows them to sell it for $1500 without looking bad for investors and fans. Will they though? No clue.
There are several reasons to bash on the Titan Z including performance and price, but the design of the card is still impressive. The looks and style, in addition to the sound levels and power consumption, do give the card some strengths. It just isn't enough to recommend over the Radeon R9 295X2.
more accurately result when
more accurately result when putting 780 ti from 1020 palit
or ghz cause 295×2 is already factory overclocked
Two OC’d Titan Blacks if you
Two OC’d Titan Blacks if you need compute. Two OC’d 780 ti s for gaming. Check out the inno ichill 780 ti which runs OC in the high 50s on AIR!!! AMD can only dream with their power hungry space heaters. Titan Z is for the I don’t care what it costs crowd and Nvidia has been pretty good holding that segment.
2 titan blacks stock is fast
2 titan blacks stock is fast then 1 titan z stock. And the titan z is basically 2 titan blacks in one package.
Any info on usable ram? its
Any info on usable ram? its advertised as 12GB, but is all of that usable or is it merely 6GB mirrored?
I don’t like AMD going
I don’t like AMD going outside the power specifications, but that is the only thing that really makes the product make any sense. Nvidia stayed within the 375 W limit, so they have lower performance than the 780Ti in SLI. Given the high price, there isn’t much of a reason for this card to exist.
These dual gpu cards seem to really only be for marketing, rather than a real product. AMD made dual gpus closer to a real product by actually enabling full speed by using water cooling. It still doesn’t make much sense (higher price for same performance) unless you are building a space constrained system. The Titan Z fails at being a marketing/publicity stunt since it obviously can not compete with the 295×2 in performance. AMD and Nvidia want to stay in the public consciousness, even when they do not have a (real) new product to release. These cards will be super low production volume, but they obviously generate a lot of publicity. Since AMD beat them to market with the 295×2, they do not want any publicity, since this has turned to negative publicity.
These dual gpu cards will not really make sense until they actually connect the gpus together to allow them to share memory and act more like a single gpu. To share memory, they need really high bandwidth interconnect (~100 GB/s), which is probably doable between chips so close together. I have been wondering if they could just shrink the memory controller and use the pins for interconnect instead, or even make them programmable to allow the same chip so be used in a single gpu card with full width memory interface or in a multi-gpu card with narrower memory interface. This would also allow use of less memory. Designing and producing such a design may not be feasible right now due to the low volume nature of the super high-end gpu market though. I don’t think it is that useful for the compute market due the way compute gpus are being used (parallel independent task).
So i am glad i built my dream
So i am glad i built my dream machine with 3 gtx blacks that cost me as 1 z. i know it is overpriced, compared to 780ti, which is also overpriced, but running them underwater gave me huge potential for oc and smooth 4k. it was just a dream machine that i don’t plan to swap for the forthcoming years. To my opinion, graphic cards should not be priced more than 400$ i don’t believe there is no room for profit even for the z if this was the price target.. anyway, just an opinion.
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Actually after Watchdogs came
Actually after Watchdogs came out it has shown 3gb at Ultra Settings just doesn’t cut it anymore when developers push the limits.
I’m ready to build my Rig soon but tired of waiting for GTX880 with 8gb. If the 880s are not due out until Christmas I may just go ahead with ASUS Strix GTX780 6gb in SLI.
good test!
good test!
I don’t know who made the
I don’t know who made the decision to price this card at $3000. It can’t even outperform AMD’s $1500 card. This card should be sold for $1500 if not less.
As much as I hate to admit it, I think Nvidia would be unstoppable if it capitalizes on the Maxwell GPUs. The 750Ti is an impressive GPU and that was just the tip of the iceberg
They are just about equal
They are just about equal while the 780Ti’s are running at 876Mhz. Too bad you can easily get cards that run 1300 or even 1400 on water. Just imagine the performance gap they would have with +50% clockspeed on the nvidia cards 😀 What a joke
Note: FLOPS are primarily
Note: FLOPS are primarily important to people mining for Bitcoins or for protein folding. It means very little in the way of gaming.
With that being said, I think the only way that the TITAN-Z would pull ahead of other SLI/Crossfire setups is at 8K resolutions because of its immense 12GB of VRAM and 768-bit bus. Even then, I’m not sure that the ROPs, shaders and texture procs on the TITAN-Z would be able to keep up with that resolution.
I honestly think these cards’ target audience is those planning on mining, and that’s why they justify the exorbitant price tag despite the lackluster gaming performance but with a notable increase in teraFLOPS performance.
I’ve seen a bunch of vendors
I’ve seen a bunch of vendors dropping the price significantly on the TitanZ, Alienware had a TitanZ half off promotion and now CyberPower is giving 500.00 off the price. Has this made this card a better value? Trying to price a new system, have about 4g to spend. I do not want to put it together myself or support it, I am laaaaaazy.