NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Video Card Review @ [H]

Tamlin_WSGF said:
If everyone and their cats would have said Nvidia ripped people off with the Titan prices, it would probably have been lowered, regardless of competition. As long as consumers says $1000 is ok, thats what the card is "worth" in the marked.
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But how could or why would anyone say this if there were no directly competitive product? Competition isn't the only thing that affects prices but it is by far the most important factor. If there were a Radeon 8000 series part in the neighborhood of the Titan, say 85% or more of the overall performance of the Titan at $500, there simply would not be a $999 Titan. No ifs, no ands, no buts.

And again, this is not blaming AMD, it's just simple economics and the way this GPU game has been played forever.
 
heatlesssun said:
But how could or why would anyone say this if there were no directly competitive product? Competition isn't the only thing that affects prices but it is by far the most important factor. If there were a Radeon 8000 series part in the neighborhood of the Titan, say 85% or more of the overall performance of the Titan at $500, there simply would not be a $999 Titan. No ifs, no ands, no buts.

And again, this is not blaming AMD, it's just simple economics and the way this GPU game has been played forever.
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You can call Titan a ripoff based upon it having the worst dollar/performance ratio ever as example. It doesn't need to have a directly competitive product to be a ripoff.

Competition is not the most important factor for pricing. The consumer is. It all comes down to what the consumer is willing to pay, even when a company doesn't have any competition at all or lots of competition.

Decades ago, companies build products and then marked them trying to create a demand for them in the marked. Now, companies look at the marked demand and build products accordingly. Competition influence prices, but in the end it depends on what the consumers are willing and capable of paying.

If nobody would have wanted to pay $1000 for the performance Titan offers, Nvidia would have priced the card out of the marked. Regardless if it has competition or not.
 
People that buy this kind of hardware aren't that concerned about price to performance ratios because they know that that number never plays in the favor of those who simply want top-line performance. But they would certainly be interested in a something that was significantly cheaper that offered very similar performance and no doubt that similar product would still not offer a great price to performance ratio.
 
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heatlesssun said:
People that buy this kind of hardware are that concerned about price to performance ratios because they know that that number never plays in the favor of those who simply want top-line performance. But they would certainly be interested in a something that was significantly cheaper that offered very similar performance and no doubt that similar product would still not offer a great price to performance ratio.
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Of course. Also, for the "money is no object" crowd, the discussion about price is pointless.

When Nvidia launches next series, the performance difference would be less and then people will have less incentive to buy the Titan.

But, Titan is sold at $1000 because there are enough people wanting to buy them at this price.

Nvidia is to "blame" (blame is such a wrong word, since they are a business, not a charity) for pricing it at $1000, the consumers buying it to blame for justifying such a price and those patting Nvidia on the back for asking it to blame for maintaining such a price.

Don't blame the competitiors for not being able to buy Nvidia cards cheaper, instead, kick the ones trying to justify the high price for everyone else in the nuts, if you think $1000 is a ripoff.

If you think the Titan is well worth $1000, does it really matter what the competitors offer? ;)
 
I wish the price was more like $800.00.

Having said that I'm buying one. I still have a GTX 580 so this will be a very large upgrade for me. I think the 780 will still be 15% slower than the Titan. Nvidia probably wont match the performance of the Titan with a $500 card until at least the middle of 2014. So the way I see it I'm just buying two upgrades in one go. Plus I had the willpower to skip the 680 gen so I'm just applying that $500 to this upgrade.


At least thats how I'm rationalizing it to myself:)

P.S. if I already had a 680, 7970, or 690 I would wait it out
 
Tamlin_WSGF said:
If you think the Titan is well worth $1000, does it really matter what the competitors offer? ;)
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Of course it does, that's my whole point. What does the competition have to offer? AMD just said they are taking the year off from introducing a new discrete GPU. For the next year top line discrete GPU performance is solely the realm of nVidia. There are no alternatives. There is no competition. As a result best GPU on the planet by a large margin though not as large of a margin that would historically support a $1000 GPU arrives.

"Blame" nVidia for gouging. "Blame" customers willing to pay the price. But for some reason we cannot "blame" the most fundamental and basic principles of capitalistic economics that forever have taught us that where there is no competition pricing invariably is higher than with competition.
 
heatlesssun said:
Of course it does, that's my whole point. What does the competition have to offer? AMD just said they are taking the year off from introducing a new discrete GPU. For the next year top line discrete GPU performance is solely the realm of nVidia. There are no alternatives. There is no competition. As a result best GPU on the planet by a large margin though not as large of a margin that would historically support a $1000 GPU arrives.

"Blame" nVidia for gouging. "Blame" customers willing to pay the price. But for some reason we cannot "blame" the most fundamental and basic principles of capitalistic economics that forever have taught us that where there is no competition pricing invariably is higher than with competition.
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It doesn't matter, if you feel you are getting $1000 worth of GPU. Thats the whole point. Competition makes less incentive to pay $1000 for Titan's worth of performance, but in the end it all has to do with what the consumers are willing and able to pay for the Titan.

If you don't feel ripped off paying $1000 for the Titan, go for it. Don't blame competition for not lowering prices for you if you feel the price is right. Blame Nvidia if you feel they are ripping you off due to the lack of competition. Nobody is forcing them to sell the cards for $1000, its just that people are willing to pay that, so they naturally charge that amount. Its a bit futile blaming the competition for not forcing Nvidia to charge less for their cards.
 
For those NVIDIA video card owners complaining about the price you guys could always make a video smashing your current NVIDIA video card with a hammer and put it on youtube. Then you could go buy 1 or 2 HD7950s. Drastic but very loud and clear and I think it would motivate AMD to get out a new 8000 card soon. :D ;)
 
heatlesssun said:
I agree with what you're saying, but there's no way that a half decent 8000 series would have allowed for a limited production card like the Titan to exist at the price point it does.



The review also says this at the end from Kyle:



Read all of Kyle's remarks at the end of the review. He CLEARLY pointed out AMD in it and that Titan was something nVidia had cooking to deal with AMD but AMD bowed out this year in the discreet GPU market:





Exactly, which goes to my point that this really isn't the same generation as GK 104:
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The t

Ok, for a start the 8000 series will be competing with the 700 series. The Titan is, as the review states, a niche product of a niche market. Like the Ares2 is a niche product for a niche market, like the bugatti veryon is a niche product for a niche market. The price of these products is based on other factors, like cost to produce and r and d. They aren't really produced to make money. Look at Volkswagen, how much money do they make on selling the bugatti veryon? damn all. Just like selling the Ares 2 makes very little, if anything for Asus. And you can be pretty sure Nvidia wont make much from the Titan.

Did you read the whitepaper on the GK110? It was designed for the Tesla market. When Kyle says the GK110 silicon was never designed for the consumer market, that's what he means. It's the same as the GK104 but massive die changes for compute. The Titan is been produced from binned parts from the K20x and now those parts are been shoehorned into a gaming card.

And, yes I did read that part about Nvidia producing the card in response to a perceived threat from AMD. Doesn't that show signs of panic from Nvidia? But never mind that. It still wouldn't make a difference to the price of the Titan, I can't believe Nvidia would price it much better, even just considering from its compute power alone!!
 
Granted but different analysis. The runt frame trick is something new, which exaggerates the fps numbers.
 
I will let my wallet speaks for myself on this one and buy something else (like a mortgage payment). ;)
I admit that it does not make good material to put on youtube but I still get the satisfaction that nVidia will not get my money for their excessively priced products.
 
RadXge said:
I will let my wallet speaks for myself on this one and buy something else (like a mortgage payment). ;)
I admit that it does not make good material to put on youtube but I still get the satisfaction that nVidia will not get my money for their excessively priced products.
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The 680 and Titan are priced a lot more similarly than you may think. 670 to 680 is maybe a 10% performance jump for 25% more. 680 to Titan is roughly a 40% performance jump for 105% more.

I know it still is a price bracket a lot of people are not comfortable with, but the maths work out to show that the Titan cards price point wasn't pulled out of thin air.
 
heatlesssun said:
I am not blaming AMD for anything, I am merely pointing out the effect of competition.
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I will name you a company that has TONS of competition yet is able to over charge based on price vs performance/features just due to a rabid fan base, Apple.

Competition IS important, but it can be trumped.
 
PCduster said:
The 680 and Titan are priced a lot more similarly than you may think. 670 to 680 is maybe a 10% performance jump for 25% more. 680 to Titan is roughly a 40% performance jump for 105% more.

I know it still is a price bracket a lot of people are not comfortable with, but the maths work out to show that the Titan cards price point wasn't pulled out of thin air.
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680 to Titan is 40% jump? Its hard to tell since they used different settings, but I dont think it was 40%.
What about compared to the 7970?

I wish the tests were all done with the same settings, it would give alot better picture.
 
I will be comparing the EVGA Titan on Tuesday to my Lightning Overclocked. Going to set the temp limit to 90c and have an aggressive fan profile and I should be getting at least 1100mhz on the Titan. Then I get my second one on Friday.
 
damstr said:
I will be comparing the EVGA Titan on Tuesday to my Lightning Overclocked. Going to set the temp limit to 90c and have an aggressive fan profile and I should be getting at least 1100mhz on the Titan. Then I get my second one on Friday.
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You are really going to run Titan w/ an i7-930? You spent $1000 without upgrading your CPU? :rolleyes:
 
doz said:
You are really going to run Titan w/ an i7-930? You spent $1000 without upgrading your CPU? :rolleyes:
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I see alot of people buying 2 Titans and planning to use them with some el cheapo 23-24'' monitor.... Sigh... :rolleyes:
 
x3sphere said:
If he's running 1600p or above that CPU isn't going to bottleneck
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it is a general limitation for a few cpu intensive or poorly optimized games. its only a few rare cases but I probably would not spend 1000 bucks on a gpu that I could not get 100% out of in every game.
 
So, all this talk about price, generally lowering price allows one to sell more of a product, that said, the profit has to be there. What does it cost to produce these, and are the yields there? No competition is a good thing every now and then for such an innovative company. From a consumer point of view I would have liked Nvidia to have done the same with this release as the others, but they have clearly defined two separate markets gaming and compute so that probably lead them to do what they did (along with the lack of competition and possible yield issues).

As someone with a single 1920x1200 monitor @ 60Hz, I find the GTX 680 plenty for 60 fps almost always, the only reason to upgrade would be higher rez and/or higher Hz, but that would require a new monitor. If the price were 1 for 1 by performance, meaning a 50% performance increase would be a 50% price, that would put the titan at ~$750. Then I would buy one and sell my 680.
 
I say $1000 price point is bullshit. Why? How can anyone say this is something other than just a new generation of card? Does it provide any more performance increase over last generation than did any other generation over the generation before it? NO.

Almost every new generation has been close to equivalent of the previous generation's SLI or crossfire. Titan is no exception to this. Yet since Nvidia has no current competition to Titan they are RAPING consumers.

To say this is a "specialty card and not for everyone" is just drinking the kool-aid. It is nothing special for a new generation. In fact it is right in line with what we've come to expect for performance increases over the past 10+ years. The only thing out of line is the price.

Anyone who pays this much for this card is only enabling Nvidia to continue to bend us over each time they come out with a new generation.

If no one bought at this point we'd see the price come tumbling down pretty quick.
 
Relativist said:
So, all this talk about price, generally lowering price allows one to sell more of a product, that said, the profit has to be there. What does it cost to produce these, and are the yields there? No competition is a good thing every now and then for such an innovative company. From a consumer point of view I would have liked Nvidia to have done the same with this release as the others, but they have clearly defined two separate markets gaming and compute so that probably lead them to do what they did (along with the lack of competition and possible yield issues).

As someone with a single 1920x1200 monitor @ 60Hz, I find the GTX 680 plenty for 60 fps almost always, the only reason to upgrade would be higher rez and/or higher Hz, but that would require a new monitor. If the price were 1 for 1 by performance, meaning a 50% performance increase would be a 50% price, that would put the titan at ~$750. Then I would buy one and sell my 680.
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that is NOT true if trying to run most of the demanding games on the highest settings or even with a few settings turned down.
 
Tamlin_WSGF said:
You can call Titan a ripoff based upon it having the worst dollar/performance ratio ever as example. It doesn't need to have a directly competitive product to be a ripoff.

Competition is not the most important factor for pricing. The consumer is. It all comes down to what the consumer is willing to pay, even when a company doesn't have any competition at all or lots of competition.

Decades ago, companies build products and then marked them trying to create a demand for them in the marked. Now, companies look at the marked demand and build products accordingly. Competition influence prices, but in the end it depends on what the consumers are willing and capable of paying.

If nobody would have wanted to pay $1000 for the performance Titan offers, Nvidia would have priced the card out of the marked. Regardless if it has competition or not.
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Why should we listen to you when you don't know the difference between "marked" and "market"? :p
 
cannondale06 said:
that is NOT true if trying to run most of the demanding games on the highest settings or even with a few settings turned down.
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But that's only a handful of games though. The question is are we going to see a trend in more games being like crysis 3 or are we in a stagnation state where the games won't progress as much over the next couple years. And also to think about the next gen or two of video cards and the performance boost we'll see out of those.

I do agree Titan is a novelty product for now. But in the next year, I don't see it being worth it. I currently game at 2560X1600 and run sli 660ti's and have no problems with any game I run. Granted I don't play Crysis 3 or Hitman 3, but for games like the Witcher 2, Skyrim, and even battlefield 3 my computer eats it right up. And even if I do get Crysis 3, I understand that I may not be able to max it for a couple of years. Even Titan's probably won't be able to max Crysis 3 at 2560X1600 even in sli. Wouldn't be worth spending $2000 and not being able to max that game out. I'd rather wait and get something that will max it out for half the cost.
 
robble said:
I say $1000 price point is bullshit. Why? How can anyone say this is something other than just a new generation of card? Does it provide any more performance increase over last generation than did any other generation over the generation before it? NO.

Almost every new generation has been close to equivalent of the previous generation's SLI or crossfire. Titan is no exception to this. Yet since Nvidia has no current competition to Titan they are RAPING consumers.

To say this is a "specialty card and not for everyone" is just drinking the kool-aid. It is nothing special for a new generation. In fact it is right in line with what we've come to expect for performance increases over the past 10+ years. The only thing out of line is the price.

Anyone who pays this much for this card is only enabling Nvidia to continue to bend us over each time they come out with a new generation.

If no one bought at this point we'd see the price come tumbling down pretty quick.
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It comes down to $$$.

If I only had $1000 to spend, I would get 2 7970's, have money left over, and more performance.(or use the money left over and buy 3rd party coolers)
 
hdgamer said:
Even Titan's probably won't be able to max Crysis 3 at 2560X1600 even in sli. Wouldn't be worth spending $2000 and not being able to max that game out. I'd rather wait and get something that will max it out for half the cost.
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According to the review it looks like 3 Titans were able to max out Crysis 3 at 5760x1200, so two could probably handle 2560x1600.
 
hdgamer said:
But that's only a handful of games though. The question is are we going to see a trend in more games being like crysis 3 or are we in a stagnation state where the games won't progress as much over the next couple years. And also to think about the next gen or two of video cards and the performance boost we'll see out of those.

I do agree Titan is a novelty product for now. But in the next year, I don't see it being worth it. I currently game at 2560X1600 and run sli 660ti's and have no problems with any game I run. Granted I don't play Crysis 3 or Hitman 3, but for games like the Witcher 2, Skyrim, and even battlefield 3 my computer eats it right up. And even if I do get Crysis 3, I understand that I may not be able to max it for a couple of years. Even Titan's probably won't be able to max Crysis 3 at 2560X1600 even in sli. Wouldn't be worth spending $2000 and not being able to max that game out. I'd rather wait and get something that will max it out for half the cost.
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but who buys a gtx680 to not play demanding games though? games like Crysis 3, Witcher 2, Hitman Absolution, Metro 2033, and Far Cry 3 are examples why people try and buy a fast card. so again he is not even averaging 60fps much less staying above 60 fps in those type games at all.
 
Just my tracking number for my Titan! Trying to arrange to pick it up at the UPS warehouse since its right down the street from my and the Newegg warehouse is only an hour.
 
hdgamer said:
But that's only a handful of games though. The question is are we going to see a trend in more games being like crysis 3 or are we in a stagnation state where the games won't progress as much over the next couple years. And also to think about the next gen or two of video cards and the performance boost we'll see out of those.
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Over the next years, we might see more need for GPU power. Occulus Rift is one of the new things that many expect to become a game changer. Optimally, you should have 60fps per eye on that one. Havok demonstrated GPU accelerated physics for PS4, so we might see more being offloaded to the GPU in the future if that gets ported to PC. Both the Xbox 720 and the PS4 will support DX 11.1, so ports will natively have more features that can be turned up on PC's.

I don't think the need for faster GPU will decrease, but rather increase. :)
 
damstr said:
Just my tracking number for my Titan! Trying to arrange to pick it up at the UPS warehouse since its right down the street from my and the Newegg warehouse is only an hour.
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I got my tracking earlier today as well. Mine is coming FedEx overnight. I'll have it Tuesday afternoon.
 
My impressions after reading this article? Rip-off and too late. This should of cost what the gtx680 did and should been released WAAAAAAYYYYYY sooner. I dont buy into it nvidia, and neither does anyone else (worth listening to).
 
With a very healthy 7970 OC, there needs to be much more than 30-40% over stock for me to even consider this card at the price. For perspective, the X800XT was similarly priced on launch here.

Good to see Nvidia push the envelope a little though.

If gold awards seems to have bought up a bit of a debate between readers, perhaps a separate award for value is needed?
 
N4CR said:
With a very healthy 7970 OC, there needs to be much more than 30-40% over stock for me to even consider this card at the price. For perspective, the X800XT was similarly priced on launch here.

Good to see Nvidia push the envelope a little though.

If gold awards seems to have bought up a bit of a debate between readers, perhaps a separate award for value is needed?
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For single card only yes.

For 800-900 you can get 2 7970's and go past the Titan.

I really want to see how well the Titan scales with 3-4 gpu's compared to the 680/7970.
 
Nice review, looking forward to seeing 3-way and 4-way SLI. Did you buy three 1440p+ screens yet?
 
babochee said:
My impressions after reading this article? Rip-off and too late. This should of cost what the gtx680 did and should been released WAAAAAAYYYYYY sooner. I dont buy into it nvidia, and neither does anyone else (worth listening to).
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Cute, but the chip wasn't ready until relatively recently for ANY release even for Tesla cards, and many people worth listening to far more than yourself like the Titan. Its strength speaks for itself.
 
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