Nvidia GTX Titan

[Chaz]

Tech of Tomorrow (the Titan Vs. 690 benchmark video producer) plans a multi monitor benchmark with the Titan, 690, 7970 3 and 6GB, 680 4GB and other cards. For those of us that use Eyefinity or Surround, this test will be more relevant.

 

I just recently upgraded from a 6970 to a 7970 6GB. Freakin day and night comparison. Eyefinity (59xx X 1080) struggled at times with 2GB, even at modest graphic settings. Now, everything is maxed and I'm doing 30 to 60 fps (v-sync limited) in DCS, BF3, Rise of Flight. I am pleasantly surprised that BF3 on ultra settings is running an avg of 40-50 fps on 64 player maps. Arma 3 on max settings still runs 20-30, given it's in Alpha stage.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Chaz

[SkateZilla]

(Nvidia basically have single GPU market for themselves ATM so they really don't have to think about the price)

 

Problem is It's gonna be in limited distribution soon, so the first runs were given to press, 2nd runs were given to retailers and 3rd runs were given to Partners (eVGA etc).

 

Eventually it will be out of stock.

 

Titan was finalized as a way to move the Tesla K20 Stock they had sitting around.at about $3,000 a pop:

The K20 GPU had features disabled, but had no impact on cost, the chip is being sold at 1/3 of the price simply to move the chips.

The only reason HyperQ and other advanced features were disabled, was to Stop Professional GFX Customers from buying up all the Titans for Pro Use.

Basically they disabled needed Features in Pro GFX to separate the card from the Pro Market, to ensure it was bought for gaming.

Other than some disabled features the K20 is intact, the PCB also undergoes changes as well as the BIOS's, to Change the name and part ID,

To Allow the Drivers recognize them as a separate Device as the rest of the K20 Family, thus removing the Pro GFX Driver functions that would do nothing but clog a system down for Gamers.

 

So they are taking the Powerful K20, Disabling the features to keep it in the gaming market and not as a cheap Pro Card, and to remove un-needed driver functions that do more harm than good.

Edited March 16, 2013 by SkateZilla

[danilop]

Yeah, they've disabled features to keep K20 at the top, but still Titan destroys any other sanely priced card for scientific calculation purpose - there is no competition here. They even nicknamed it "Ph.D lust" :D:

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6774/nvidias-geforce-gtx-titan-part-2-titans-performance-unveiled/3

 

As always, you enter law of diminishing returns when start to chase ultimate performance, so the major complaint from the consumer market (cost) is the valid one.

 

Titan is definitely not for everyone - for boutique gaming mini-builds and "cheap" scientific computation on the desktop there is hardly any competition ATM.

 

It's a positive step in the right direction and it will force AMD to come up with something even better for less money.

 

Competition is a great thing ... :)

 

P.S.

I think there is a market for Titan level of performance, even at this high price point, so it would be wise for Nvidia to find a way to up / sustain the production of (crippled) GK110

Edited March 16, 2013 by danilop

[SkateZilla]

Yeah, they've disabled features to keep K20 at the top, but still Titan destroys any other sanely priced card for scientific calculation purpose - there is no competition here. They even nicknamed it "Ph.D lust" :D:

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6774/nvidias-geforce-gtx-titan-part-2-titans-performance-unveiled/3

 

As always, you enter law of diminishing returns when start to chase ultimate performance, so the major complaint from the consumer market (cost) is the valid one.

 

Titan is definitely not for everyone - for boutique gaming mini-builds and "cheap" scientific computation on the desktop there is hardly any competition ATM.

 

It's a positive step in the right direction and it will force AMD to come up with something even better for less money.

 

Competition is a great thing ... :)

 

P.S.

I think there is a market for Titan level of performance, even at this high price point, so it would be wise for Nvidia to find a way to up / sustain the production of (crippled) GK110

 

AMD is in no Rush, they have press preview HD8900s going out soon.

[cichlidfan]

AMD is in no Rush, they have press preview HD8900s going out soon.

 

With drivers that work to follow a week or so later. :D

[TZeer]

One of my GTX 580 is out of action. Bought a 7970 GHz Edition to replace my single 580... Was disappointed by the performance. It had a slightly higher FPS, but when I shot some rockets the FPS dropped to below 30. As soon as the smoke cleared the FPS went back up. Put my 580 back in again, ran the same test, even spammed more rockets, and no such drop with the GTX 580.

 

Returning the 7970, and possible wait for something else.

[Slayer]

Recieved the TITAN yesterday and spent all evening re tweaking all my sims. All I can say is it is amazing. No benchmarks to show yet but DCS wise I'm never below 60-80 FPS with 3 screens @ 5880x1080, Thats with everything on max.

 

The weird thing is TSSAA is chopping about 20 FPS off so turning it off normal average FPS is in the 70-90 range (A-10 and P-51) it really skyrockets when flying SU-25T. On my 680 there was hardly a drop in FPS at all with TSSAA but on or off I was running around 35-45 FPS average. Probably just because it's the first release of he drivers for this card would be my guess.

 

Edit: If anyone cares X-plane 10.2 x 64 using about 3.8GB vieo mem~close to max settings~ You still can't max this out on todays hardware. The shadows look like garbage as they did on my 680, not sure how to correct that yet....

Edited March 16, 2013 by Slayer

[SkateZilla]

With drivers that work to follow a week or so later. :D

 

Press Previews get early preview drivers :p

[jctrnacty]

To Pay 1000 bucks for Graph. Card you must be real fan. For me its a waste money:-)

[danilop]

...

 

I'm never below 60-80 FPS with 3 screens @ 5880x1080, Thats with everything on max.

 

...

 

Great!

 

Now we have to wait and see what's the Titan capable off in DCS with multiple screens in 1440p / 1600p (say 7680x1600). It shouldn't go below 40 FPS on MAX according to 3 way 1080p test

 

P.S.

Congrats on your purchase. :thumbup:

[Vlerkies]

Waiting (rather impatiently) for my one.

 

Not interested in sli/xfire stutters, can't wait.

[faro06]

To Pay 1000 bucks for Graph. Card you must be real fan. For me its a waste money:-)

 

Thanks for this really great info from your side.

[Hubris]

I'll wait for AMD to release their next gen. cards to see if I want to purchase the Titan.

[Chaz]

 

The Sapphire can be purchased for $600 at Newegg and Amazon - not $700 as stated in the video. So keep the price in mind when reviewing the benchmarks. $600 vs. $1000

Edited March 19, 2013 by Chaz

[SkateZilla]

like i said, the gaps on some of the games can be closed and erased with over clocking,

 

Then again they gaps can be expanded by OCing the Titan if you got the Thermal and Voltage headroom.

 

 

The part people dont realize, is the Titan is a HUGE chip, it's not a regular GPU; V6 vs V8/V10 if you will

Edited March 19, 2013 by SkateZilla

[danilop]

And with Titan improved drivers / new games optimized for unique GK110 architecture, gap will be widened ...

 

BTW, fresh rumour of upcoming Titan "light" card:

 

http://exophase.com/59000/rumor-nvidia-prepping-slimmed-down-gk110-with-5gb-vram-possible-gtx-780/

 

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-preparing-cut-geforce-gtx-titan-gk110-gpu-2496-cores-launch-expected-q3/

 

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/29175/rumortt-nvidia-working-on-second-gk110-based-consumer-gpu/index.html

Edited March 19, 2013 by danilop

[SkateZilla]

the ram and stuff has nothing to do with the cost.

 

The coast is where it's at because nVidia cant afford to eat more than 2/3 off the price. but they needed to do something to move the H20 Chips just sitting around doing nothing.

 

so they are eating roughly $2000 a card, disabling features to keep companies from buying them up instead of the $3000 counterpart.

 

stripping some ram and laser cutting off part of the GPU wont make it cheaper.

 

i doubt the H20 GPU's will ever be laser cut to sell them cheaper.

[_Dredd]

Mm this is interesting, I'd sell my 7970 and consider this if I can get my MSAA settings, cockpit mirrors etc back for that much improved FPS. especially with the resolution Im running at which is lower horizontally by 3x vertically to your settings.

 

Any chance you can throw another monitor into the mix to test 3x1 for higher vertical resolution.

 

What improvement but TSSAA apply anyway?

 

Recieved the TITAN yesterday and spent all evening re tweaking all my sims. All I can say is it is amazing. No benchmarks to show yet but DCS wise I'm never below 60-80 FPS with 3 screens @ 5880x1080, Thats with everything on max.

 

The weird thing is TSSAA is chopping about 20 FPS off so turning it off normal average FPS is in the 70-90 range (A-10 and P-51) it really skyrockets when flying SU-25T. On my 680 there was hardly a drop in FPS at all with TSSAA but on or off I was running around 35-45 FPS average. Probably just because it's the first release of he drivers for this card would be my guess.

 

Edit: If anyone cares X-plane 10.2 x 64 using about 3.8GB vieo mem~close to max settings~ You still can't max this out on todays hardware. The shadows look like garbage as they did on my 680, not sure how to correct that yet....

[Slayer]

Mm this is interesting, I'd sell my 7970 and consider this if I can get my MSAA settings, cockpit mirrors etc back for that much improved FPS. especially with the resolution Im running at which is lower horizontally by 3x vertically to your settings.

 

Any chance you can throw another monitor into the mix to test 3x1 for higher vertical resolution.

 

What improvement but TSSAA apply anyway?

 

You asked for it:

 

 

Transparency anti-aliasing:

TrAA describes AA types such as Transparency Multi-sampling Anti-aliasing (TMSAA) and Transparency Super-sampling Anti-aliasing (TSSAA) that are designed to handle flat pictures with see-through areas (Billboards, Decals or Point Sprites in 3D graphics lingo) differently from real 3D models.

In a 3D scene, there are two main ways of displaying items that have see-through areas, such as a tree. If the tree must appear real from all angles, a 3D model is used. But if the tree is seen from only one angle or from far away, one may be able to get away with displaying just a flat picture of a tree in that location, thereby rendering the scene faster. TrAA applies to such flat pictures.

TrAA exists because flat pictures are not handled well by MSAA. This is because flat pictures do not have any geometry associated with them and AA methods other than SSAA derive most of their samples from geometry.

TMSAA: Allows MSAA to eliminate aliasing on transparent textures for a minimal performance hit. Performance hit at a given number of samples is constant regardless of the amount of the screen covered by transparent textures. Works by adding an alpha test to MSAA. So effectively it's as if MSAA thinks that transparent texture edges are geometry edges.

TSSAA: Huge performance hit. Performance hit depends on the number of pixels covered by transparent textures and the number of samples you use. May cause transparent textures to become blurry. Can be less effective then TMSAA sometimes. This works by rendering to multiple offscreen buffers in passes. If the alpha test fails it runs the pixel shader once for each buffer. If the alpha test passes it runs the pixel shader once and fills the same slot in all of the buffers with that color. The buffers are resolved the same way SGSSAA is. This is because SGSSAA is just a hack that causes the alpha test to always fail and therefore apply SSAA to all pixels.

 

Source: http://www.overclock.net/t/1329979/anti-aliasing-the-basics

 

I think what it boils down to in regards to DCS (correct me if I'm wrong)is because of the flat tree models, decals and damage textures etc. Could be the only way they could get decent AA. In reality it looks better but you have to look very closely to tell the difference.

 

 

I do have a 4th monitor hooked up adding that to the mix at 5880x1848 ( can't use fullscreen- only able to to that with surround displays only. A-10 and SU 25 (1st instant action misssions) about 22 FPS with TSSA on and about 35 with it off. everything else is maxed out including mirrors on etc. Over 3.5GB video mem being used 99% GPU.

 

Performance is way better with just the surround displays in full screen.

Edited March 22, 2013 by Slayer

[_Dredd]

Hmmm, tempting. So tempting.

[Terrorvogel]

@Slayer

 

Are you running CPU and Titan at stock speeds or are they overclocked with your specified FPS?

 

Because of currently using a big highflow-watercooling, it would be very interesting for me, if there is some overclocking headroom possible compared to your already very nice FPS with Titan.

 

I´m gonna build a similar system, like yours, in future but only with 4-core i7-3820.

Do you think there are any overall system performance advantages at this time with 6-core i7-3930K? Because i don´t really expect multicore support of DCS in near future and the 4-core only costs half price and is supposedly better overclockable.

 

 

Regards

Terrorvogel

[TZeer]

I'm currently running a i7-3820 @ 4,6GHz, I'm also getting my GTX Titan tomorrow or Monday.

 

I'm only running single monitor @ 2560x1440, but I'll let you know the performance I get with it.

 

Do you think there are any overall system performance advantages at this time with 6-core i7-3930K

 

Nope, not in DCS. It's also lower clocked at default speed. 3820 is 200Mhz faster on the speed. I would go with the 3820, or maybe wait for the Ivy Bridge-E that will come this year.

Edited March 22, 2013 by TZeer

[Vlerkies]

TZeer, congrats mate :thumbup:

 

I ordered mine month ago, but I live on the dark continent so it takes some time :cry:

Maybe next week, maybe the one after that but I cant wait.

[Quirkitized]

I'm currently running a i7-3820 @ 4,6GHz, I'm also getting my GTX Titan tomorrow or Monday.

 

I'm only running single monitor @ 2560x1440, but I'll let you know the performance I get with it.

 

 

 

Nope, not in DCS. It's also lower clocked at default speed. 3820 is 200Mhz faster on the speed. I would go with the 3820, or maybe wait for the Ivy Bridge-E that will come this year.

 

I am interested to hear your results since you had two 580s, as do I. I am hoping to hear good things :thumbup:

[Slayer]

@Slayer

 

Are you running CPU and Titan at stock speeds or are they overclocked with your specified FPS?

 

Because of currently using a big highflow-watercooling, it would be very interesting for me, if there is some overclocking headroom possible compared to your already very nice FPS with Titan.

 

I´m gonna build a similar system, like yours, in future but only with 4-core i7-3820.

Do you think there are any overall system performance advantages at this time with 6-core i7-3930K? Because i don´t really expect multicore support of DCS in near future and the 4-core only costs half price and is supposedly better overclockable.

 

 

Regards

Terrorvogel

 

I don't OC the TITAN for DCS yet as I think DCS is mostly limited by CPU. There but is definitely some OC headroom with this card though for other games.

 

No advantage to the extra cores but the CPU has more cache and is fully unlocked. I built last year and the chip you want wasn't available so I went 1 step down from the extreme. My only watercooled component is my CPU ( C-100 cooler) I run at 4.4 GHZ ( performance above this seems to have diminishing returns and the increased power usage and heat doesn't seem worth the additional risk) I've had it cranked to 5Ghz with a small A/C blowing on my computer to increase the cooling but I'm just too paranoid running that fast :P

 

EDIT: Sidenote for anyone that cares~ X-Plane 10.2 x 64 ate all 6 gig of memory on the TITAN with close to max settings - Guess that ends the argument that a game will never need/use that much~

Edited March 22, 2013 by Slayer