Print
In the land of video cards, Nvidia's GTX Titan is generally considered the king. The original gangster came out in February 2013, followed by the Titan Black a year later, each sporting an unprecedented 6GB of RAM, 7 billion transistors, and more shader processors than you could shake a stick at (eventually tipping the scales at 2880). Nvidia capped it off in March 2014 with the Titan Z, which put two Titan Black GPUs on one card. And now it's been nearly a year since we've seen activity from them on the super-premium end. But the company hasn't been idle. Today we got up close and personal with this obsidian brick of magic, the GTX Titan X.
How close? This close:
Unfortunately, we were forced to double-pinky swear that we wouldn't give you any specifics about the card just yet, other than the fact that it's got 12GB RAM, eight billion transistors, and is probably the fastest video card on Earth. But we can confirm that it was running several live demos on the show floor of the Game Developers Conference this week, conducted by Epic, Valve and Crytek. This is obviously not going to be a paper launch -- the card is already here. The Titan X is just waiting in the wings until it can get a proper introduction at Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference, which starts on March 17th. In the meantime, we took some nifty photos for you. Hope you brought a bib for the drool!
JimmyD1964
March 15, 2015 at 12:58pm
I heard they were ask about the VRAM amount, TMU and ROP count, the response was "I don't know?"? ?
The Spec sheet will read "To be Determined by Consumer"
ROFL.
When ask about price, the response was "twice what it should be"
Cancer_Ridden_Lung
March 09, 2015 at 9:42am
Here's a few questions I have...
1. Price?
(Probably $1,000 but you never know.)2. 3rd party coolers?
(Blower fans suck. They probably won't allow it for some insane reason but you never know.)3. 1st/3rd party waterblock version?
(If so when will it release?)4. Will the card support overvoltage via EVGA precisionx or a similiar tool?
5. What is the max TDP?
6. What is the max safe temperature?
ddg4005
March 08, 2015 at 6:34pm
That card looks scrumdelicious but where's the backplate? I hope it ships with it given the hefty price tag!
RUSENSITIVESWEETNESS
March 08, 2015 at 11:22am
Let me take a wild guess:
Another 5% card that exists only to maintain their highest price point?
Was I close? Bet I was....
Too bad most consumers don't get the gist of a non-compete agreement.
TheImpaler
March 06, 2015 at 1:01pm
Why are top cards still coming with DVI? Not knocking DVI, just curious.
NormStovall
March 08, 2015 at 2:51pm
I'm imagining it's for testing purposes. I'm sure some devs- especially indie game devs - use regular gaming cards for creating games.
cldmstrsn
March 06, 2015 at 11:54am
Cool! It looks exactly like my 780 just black. I am more interested in the specs and price but more than likely its out of my price range.
John Pombrio
March 06, 2015 at 2:59am
Only a third of PCs ( I am assuming this is both laptops and desktops) have a discrete GPU. 66% of PCs use the built in graphics to the CPU, heh.
SuperSATA
March 06, 2015 at 8:58pm
I figured that percent would actually be even less then that, considering all the PCs in offices and the ones casuals use.
nodster
March 06, 2015 at 10:52am
Take out all of the PCs used for business and see what your percentages are.
John Pombrio
March 06, 2015 at 2:54am
Top of the line card with 8 billion transistors and 12GB of memory but still only uses one fan and a 8 and 6 pin power connection. Amazing.
Gikero
March 06, 2015 at 12:37pm
Does Nvidia not allow their partners to make version of the Titan series?
JimmyD1964
March 15, 2015 at 1:04pm
More money for Nvidia if they take the full profit for themselves.
What do they call that? Oh yea, GREED!
VRCircle
March 05, 2015 at 10:03pm
Since this card is currently demoing VR demos at GDC and will probably be included in NVIDIA marketing. Will you be adding any VR orientated benchmarks?
Would love to see some added!
THE_REAL_MAVERICK
March 05, 2015 at 9:35pm
Its interesting how Nvidia has slowly increased its price on the "best" video card. Remember when the 8800GTX Ultra was $600. That was top of the line, you couldn't get a better high end gaming card. Kinda bugs me that they keep handing the carrot out there for us to see, but never reach. Just release the full version of the card, not these gimped 780s and 980s. Give us the real deal if you want to beat AMD for good.
That being said, I am starting to really like the AMD camp. Just got my first AMD card since the 5870 era and I'm quite surprised at how good the experience has been.
NavarWynn
March 08, 2015 at 10:41am
We don't want Nvidia to beat AMD for good. I don't care which fanboy side you sit on, that's bad news all around.
AMD makes fine video cards, Nvidia is about a generation ahead (and so is 'better'). But if, all the sudden, AMD cards were not on the market, Nvidia's only competition would be Intel (LMFAO) and that would likely result in stagnation of performance, and increasing prices (with dramatically increased profits for Nvidia!). Companies don't work this hard to compete unless they have to - because doing so costs money, truckloads of money.
dgrmouse
March 08, 2015 at 1:27pm
NavarWynn said, "We don't want Nvidia to beat AMD for good. I don't care which fanboy side you sit on, that's bad news all around."
Please, convince me why this is the case. There are many cases where I have many purchasing options with awful pricing (eg cell phone plans) and many cases where I have few purchasing options with superb pricing (eg trash pickup). Please, show me evidence that competition is really hurting NVidia's bottom line or dominating their retail pricing.
John Pombrio
March 06, 2015 at 2:49am
My GTX980 runs everything I can throw at my 2560-1440 28 inch monitor. $550. Runs dead quiet, sips power, and has all the ports I could ask for. Frankly, the only people that need more than this are folks that are pushing 4K monitors, dual+ monitors, or want the fastest.
As for "beating" AMD, AMD has had decreased graphics cards sales this past year by -10% while NVidia's has been growing by about 5%. I'd say AMD is getting "beaten".
Thiazolium
March 06, 2015 at 10:00am
Article doesn't even mention AMD. Where's the comparison to AMD's offerings in the article?
jason2393
March 05, 2015 at 8:48pm
This Titan X I can't afford will go great with the three 4K monitors I can't afford!
Soon...
Arthur Dent
March 05, 2015 at 8:46pm
I'm sure it's really just 11.5GB, so the performance will be pretty terrible.
nsvander
March 05, 2015 at 8:29pm
I have 2 regular Titans and it's a pisser that when shelling out 1K per card they can't even include a backplate. This is a super high end card you're telling me they can't throw a $20 back plate on it?
JimmyD1964
March 15, 2015 at 1:49pm
I heard they made one , but it was only 3" long. (chuckle)
But, they were laughing tears on the cards trying to install them, so they gave up, so they wouldn't damage the cards.
I think you can order them for $90 if you really want one. (Haaaaaaa)
They are advertised at 12.5" long. :/)
Nosaj Lief
March 06, 2015 at 10:54am
Probably because they know that most of us who purchase them are just going to rip off those reference coolers and backplates anyway to wrap it in a full coverage waterblock.
Peanut Fox
March 05, 2015 at 11:30pm
The other end of this is you've got 2k to spend on cards, and you wanna rage over 40 bucks for back plates :P
dgrmouse
March 06, 2015 at 8:45am
It's a legitimate complaint, considering how much press attention the boards get. I've never, that I can recall, seen the backside of a Titan in a review - only praise for how slick the housing looks.
hornfire3
March 05, 2015 at 8:22pm
you lucky b@$t@rd$... Hey what can I say? You're a hardware testing/reviewing company.
and those 970 jokes... I swear they're gonna coming again.
John Pombrio
March 06, 2015 at 2:53am
And all due to paper specs. The GTX 970 has been benchmarked t'hel and was on everyone's must buy list. Suddenly, the card runs slower now?
JimmyD1964
March 15, 2015 at 1:39pm
No. Just not what was sold on specs.
Kind of like buying a 4 core processor , later finding it's only 3.
Or buying a car and later walking around it to see it only has 3 wheels. So, everyting is Ok until you turn left. Or try to use 3.5 to 4GB and find it drops from 400Gbps to 6Gbps.
Now, do you get it ,John?
But,,But,,but nobody uses more than 3.5 anyway!
Ok and how much is ADVERTISED on this new card? Uhh..12? OK maybe 11.
How much do I need again? Uhhh, 11???
What about yesterday when I needed 3.5?
Well...games needed lots less way back then...uhhh..yesterday.
This just gets funnier.
NavarWynn
March 08, 2015 at 10:57am
If anything, the whole controversy exposed how poor a benchmark, 'benchmarks' often actually are.
Most rely on between 1 and 7 games/benchmarks (MPC for example did 6 games plus 1 'benchmark' for the 980) IF they benchmark at all!
Did MPC even bother to benchmark the 970 at all?
PCWonder
March 06, 2015 at 6:15am
This is the funny part. The card came out everyone loved it. The benchmarks told of an awesome card for an awesome price and people bought it and said it was a great card. It comes out that .5 G of RAM is handled differently now we have lawsuits and nothing but whining and complaining. This is why I hate people.
JimmyD1964
March 15, 2015 at 2:08pm
Here is a fact for you, If you look around enough, you will see the Memtest on the VRAM (970) it runs over 400Gbps up to 3.5GB, then drops to 6 Gbps at 3.5 to 4GB.
And YEA! I would call that HANDLED differently. Ha Ha. Kind of like only having one leg and calling it differently shoed!
AFDozerman
March 07, 2015 at 7:54am
No. The card came out and choked on games that it shouldn't have. People wondered what was going on. Benchmarks revealed the problem. Nvidia lied and tried to cover it up. People pressed the issue. NV changed their story. People continued pressing the issue. NV finally admitted to what they did.
Are we also just gonna gloss over the fact that the 970 doesn't have as many ROPS as was advertised?
I legitimately want to get rid of my 650 just on principle alone.
devin3627
March 06, 2015 at 7:34am
no one has ever warned us that the 4gb on a videocard cant be used. NOWHERE on the net is it mentioned the reality of ram bottlenecking. hell, if we could hack the card firmware so that it wouldnt go the extra .5 mb. but it breaks the game because even the game will utilize that extra ram and it will lower FPS and destroy the experience over .5 gb.
