Overclocking, Power Consumption, Noise Testing
Overclocking the GeForce GTX Titan X is identical in process to overclocking the GTX 980 and other NVIDIA cards that implement GPU Boost technology. Using software like EVGA's Precision X or MSI Afterburner, you adjust the power target, set a clock speed offset and run some stability tests. After spending a few hours adjusting GPU and memory clock rates, here is where we settled with our Titan X sample.
With a GPU offset of +215 MHz, the updated base clock goes from 1000 MHz to 1217 MHz and the "typical" boost clock is now 1291 MHz. I was able to push another 1.0 GHz on the memory too, running it at 8.0 GHz.
Clock speeds were pretty consistent, actually running the GM200 GPU at 1392 MHz during our overclocked testing. The overclocked results are actually more stable the than the stock clock speeds, indicating that you might get some added performance out of the Titan X just by moving the power target higher than 100% without adding a clock offset.
What does that extra clock speed get you? In our Metro: Last Light testing, we received an 11% increase in average frame rate, jumping from ~67 FPS to 75 FPS!
Power Consumption Comparison
The new GeForce GTX Titan has a 250 watt TDP so we will obviously see higher power consumption than the GTX 980.
Our standard power testing shows some interesting results. The system power consumption with the GTX Titan X is 375 watts, 84 watts more than the GTX 980 in the same test. Worth noting is that the Hawaii GPU is still power hungry, using 47 watts more than the GTX Titan X despite often falling behind the new NVIDIA flagship in performance by as much as 45-50%! The R9 295X2… it uses even more. Yes, the card is a better performer than the Titan X but that costs you an additional 269 watts of power to feed those two GPUs!
We are still perfecting our more advanced power measurement methods, but the results we show you below are a sample. With these, you are seeing real-time power draw over time measured over the PCI Express bus, and the ATX power connections.
Click to Enlarge
The blue line representing the GTX Titan X never actually hits its 250 watt TDP in Metro: Last Light and instead stays around the 200-225 watt range. The single GPU R9 290X from AMD's Radeon line crosses 275 watts several times but the real banger here is the R9 295X2. That beast of a card consumes as much as 425 watts in our Metro: Last Light testing and in truth, in games like BF4 and Crysis 3, that number breaches 500 watts… often.
Sound Level Testing
The cooler configuration on the Titan X is pretty much a known quantity at this point and the sound levels it produces are just slightly ahead of the GTX 980. A note on the R9 290X result here: that is using an ASUS DirectCU II cooler, not the awful reference blower cooler.
very overpriced for what you
very overpriced for what you get, I was hoping they’d incorporate a 512bit memory interface and stick with double precision
They’re already pushing over
They’re already pushing over 600mm2 on the GPU. They seem limited by what they can do on the 28nm process.
Oh…oh god…MOTHER OF
Oh…oh god…MOTHER OF GOD…
http://www.imagebam.com/image/4dccee397912995.
It seems like most newer
It seems like most newer games work quite well with multiple gpu set-ups. At some point there is going to be little difference between 2 gpus and one gpu at twice the size except price. Two smaller gpus will probably be cheaper since the yield on a ~600 square mm part is not going to be good. For most of the games tested, a multi-gpu system is cheaper and better performing. Power is more, but with multi-gpu systems you are running multiple, independent high speed memory systems instead of a single memory system. Stacked HBM is supposed to be much more power efficient, so multiple smaller gpus with HBM may be the the best option eventually. Both the Titan X and the 390X are going to be priced out of the mainstream market. They are interesting to read about, but I doubt many people here are considering actually buying one.
Performance per dollar is
Performance per dollar is HORRIBLE, this is the card for people who have so much money they honestly don’t know what to do with it.
“As a hardware enthusiast,
“As a hardware enthusiast, it’s impossible to not fall in love with the GeForce GTX Titan X.”
Yes it is. Because despite what your “funny nvidia infomercial”, which you dare call a test, this card is a freaking rip-off.
It’s nothing more than this generation’s GTX580 3GB. Except that one was 550$. It’s gain over previous gen, be it performance or power efficiency, are nothing more than 780 over 580 or 580 over 280.
The fact the GTX 560Ti was 250€ and the 580 3GB 550€, and now the 960 Ti (oop, 980) is 550€ and the 980 (oops, TitanX) 1000€ should make any hardware enthusiast think twice before writing piles of advertising shit.
Wow, angry much ?
AMD
Wow, angry much ?
AMD overclocked one of their stupid bull cpu’s, then sold it on NewEgg for freaking $800.
I was LOL’ing so hard – a bunch of amd fanboys bought it, then it found to be flaky and a supreme power hog, then the price plummeted… to like $300, slightly above the best doggy cpu ad had
I mean how could amd rebrand then raise the price 300% ?
Now THERE’S A RIPOFF ! IT WASN’T EVEN A NEW CPU !
At least nVidia makes a new MONSTER product with MONSTER RAM, instead of overclocking a failed dog then scalping fanboys.
The 295X2 just killed another
The 295X2 just killed another weak Titan.
The 295X2 is still top of the food chain.
The weak Titan X is too weak for 295X2.
AMD continues to bleed market
AMD continues to bleed market share and profits on discrete GPUs.
Nvidia gains market share in discrete and now holds a 76% to 24% advantage over AMD.
http://jonpeddie.com/news/comments/gpu-shipments-marketwatch-q4-2014-charts-and-images
AMD cuts the prices over and over again yet more gamers are choosing Nvidia over AMD.
Nvidia has high margins on the Titans (and they do sell out) whereas AMD has low margins on the 295X2 (2x GPUs, expensive cooling, more layers on PCB, etc) and still can’t get people to buy it. So sad (for AMD).
Fanboys make me laugh. If you
Fanboys make me laugh. If you don’t want what the Titan X offers, don’t buy it. If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it. But laughing and saying the 295X2 is still the best is just stupid. The 295X2 is 12.4B transistors and 600W of power that can only keep itself cool with an unwieldy CLC. AMD’s only selling for 700 bucks because nobody wants them. Is it still the fastest single PCB solution? Well, yes, but only sometimes… only if CF is implemented correctly. The 295X2 comes with so many compromises that nvidia clearly feels like they can charge a $450 premium over the GTX 980, and until AMD has something that can compete directly on a single GPU basis, its going to stay that way. Oh, and a bunch of sketchy leaked slides and rumors about the 390X mean nothing. If you’re using the 390X as proof of AMD’s superiority you’re a joke. Call me when the reviews drop.
PS- owner of 2 290x’s speaking
Prices at this level have
Prices at this level have very little to do with market demand or much of anything else. The volume of these super ridiculous high end cards is so low that they are mostly a marketing tool. Nvidia releases this Titan x with probably 2x the amount of ram that it could actually use and gets a lot of media attention ahead of any AMD releases. They are not going to make much on actually selling these things, especially since it doesn’t have high compute performance. They will certainly have a cut down version of this chip that will be a more reasonable price eventually.
For people actually willing to spend the money on this much performance, the r9-295×2 is still the better deal. I don’t care much about the number of transistors and such. The AMD solution is cheaper and performs better. Most gamers don’t care that much about the power consumption either unless it makes the card excessively noisy. I don’t see much of any reason that a gamer would buy a Titan x over the 295, so why wouldn’t you say that the 295 is still the better card? It seems that most modern games are handling dual gpu fine, and older games probably don’t need this level of performance anyway.
Agreed, despite your being
Agreed, despite your being too cowardly to register.
The transistor counts tell
The transistor counts tell you something about where each company is in terms of technology, but you’re right that they don’t matter directly. Instead it has a knock-on effect for the power and cooling requirements. Despite what AMD fanboys keep telling me, power DOES matter. Installing a CLC is a big logistical pain in the ass and fan speed needs to compensate to keep things cool. I couldn’t stand the fan noise on my 7970’s, let alone the 290X’s so I built a full custom loop just to shut them the hell up. Might not have needed to do that with more efficient cards that can run quieter on air.
And as far as performance, I have lots of recent games that still only use 1 GPU reliably. How many games have serious, sometimes gamebreaking issues at launch with SLI or CF? Happens a lot… flickering textures, stuttering, framerates bouncing all over the place or just straight up crashes. Titanfall and Evolve come to mind immediately. So yea, if everything is working the 295X2 is a better perf/$ card, but its so much more dependent on software that there will always be value in a single GPU solution. How much is up to you, but people who keep squawking about the 295X2 would have you believe otherwise.
So now crossfire always works
So now crossfire always works and amd drivers don’t suck….
SELL IT TO THE CARPETBAGGER BRO.
Stop talking sense!
Stop talking sense!
deleted. Was going to say
deleted. Was going to say deleted self, but that would have been ambiguous.
Yes the 295x has compromises
Yes the 295x has compromises
BUT I want one, but it won’t fit into the cases I own, as I already have watercooling CPU units inside. If they were Air cooled they would be flying off the shelf at that price point. Thats why most AMD ers are just doing crossfire.
PS. (I run AMD and Nvidia)
Priced here in Ireland @ 1250
Priced here in Ireland @ 1250 euros (Including tax 23%).
I want one, (Well 2 in SLI), but not ever at that price.
980 TI is basically going to be this card with less ram and speed aligned as to what the AMD 390x does. Prob june/july
So wait and see, seems to be the thing to do.
(If rumors are true then the TITAN X is about AMD 390x speeds)
PS. Never seen so may review cards issued………..
PPS. Guess I didn’t win the draw………..secret word was dress (Red)
I see a future with 3-phase
I see a future with 3-phase 208 and liquid nitrogen tanks.
Comon guys, Titan X
Comon guys, Titan X benchmarks on vanilla Skyrim? 🙁 Nobody buying Titan X is going to care about vanilla Skyrim performance on 1440p. Maybe 4k vanilla, but better, 1440p with mods.
Want to post a score for EVGA
Want to post a score for EVGA super-clocked version of this card. With factory settings and without additional overclocking I got on Fire Strike Extreme: Score: 8281, Graphics score: 8884 which is about 10% higher that reference card.