The real reason Titan Z delayed/failed?

Yeah it sure was mistake to remain with sane TDP budget for dual gpu card.
 
Yeah right, $3K for a card which performs similar or less than a competitors product at half the price is surely an embarrassment for NVIDIA, not to mention inferior cooling and very poor choice of video connectors compared to the 295X2. Glad AMD gave NVIDIA a good wakeup call.
 
And it comes with an hdmi cable...

It needs a price cut. Similar performance as the 295x2 for double the price.
 
Last edited:
I'll eat dirt if that card maintains +1GHz while gaming. That'll be why the specs say 706MHz base 876MHz boost. This card will throttle badly under heavy long term load.
 
Yeah ill just buy a 780ti and play everything on high at 1440p just fine.
 
CUDA developers. It does what the K6000 does at a fraction of the price. The 780ti sli isn't in the same league for this type of work.

The price can't be defended though since NV really fucked up in their marketing - they should not have mentioned gaming at all in their marketing. But they did, and are now getting a backlash as a result. Purely their fault.
 
CUDA developers. It does what the K6000 does at a fraction of the price. The 780ti sli isn't in the same league for this type of work.

The price can't be defended though since NV really fucked up in their marketing - they should not have mentioned gaming at all in their marketing. But they did, and are now getting a backlash as a result. Purely their fault.

Two titan blacks! TWO TITAN BLACKS!
Who gives a flying fuck about 780tis for a workstation.
 
CUDA developers. It does what the K6000 does at a fraction of the price. The 780ti sli isn't in the same league for this type of work.

The price can't be defended though since NV really fucked up in their marketing - they should not have mentioned gaming at all in their marketing. But they did, and are now getting a backlash as a result. Purely their fault.

Pretty much.

Question though - do the K6000 and other professional cards offer gaming in their lineup, or does one have to purchase a GeForce card?
 
Pretty much.

Question though - do the K6000 and other professional cards offer gaming in their lineup, or does one have to purchase a GeForce card?

The impression I have, is that Quadro level cards are designed specifically for professional applications and do not use Geforce drivers. Geforce drivers are aimed at gaming, Quadro, well...not so much. Also some quadro cards don't have much in the way of display outputs, they are designed much different than geforce cards. So while they *might* be able to game, they just don't get the driver or software attention for gaming. It's just basically CUDA/professional work, essentially. I'm sure some games run fine, but the Titan cards are essentially hybrid cards that can do both gaming and CUDA development.

That changes nothing though. I still think NV massively fucked up their marketing of Titan Z. The backlash is 100% completely their fault, even though the price could be considered justifiable for a CUDA developers toolkit card. For gaming? It isn't even worth half of 3000$. In the context of gaming , everyone will look at it as sort of a "GTX 790" even though it does more than that (CUDA wise) but from a pure gaming perspective. Not worth 3000$. I think NV should have just done their Titan Z marketing way differently. Maybe NV is just too accustomed to selling gaming-centric parts and did that as status quo. I don't know. Either way it was stupid.
 
The impression I have, is that Quadro level cards are designed specifically for professional applications and do not use Geforce drivers. Geforce drivers are aimed at gaming, Quadro, well...not so much. Also some quadro cards don't have much in the way of display outputs, they are designed much different than geforce cards. So while they *might* be able to game, they just don't get the driver or software attention for gaming. It's just basically CUDA/professional work, essentially. I'm sure some games run fine, but the Titan cards are essentially hybrid cards that can do both gaming and CUDA development.

That changes nothing though. I still think NV massively fucked up their marketing of Titan Z. The backlash is 100% completely their fault, even though the price could be considered justifiable for a CUDA developers toolkit card. For gaming? It isn't even worth half of 3000$. In the context of gaming , everyone will look at it as sort of a "GTX 790" even though it does more than that (CUDA wise) but from a pure gaming perspective. Not worth 3000$. I think NV should have just done their Titan Z marketing way differently. Maybe NV is just too accustomed to selling gaming-centric parts and did that as status quo. I don't know. Either way it was stupid.

Still...... Why this over dual Titan blacks? They are cheaper, likely perform better and cost much less.
 
Still...... Why this over dual Titan blacks? They are cheaper, likely perform better and cost much less.
From a marketing perspective, I would guess that they see a gap in their product line-up and that it translates into money on the table for AMD to gobble up. They can market the card as "professional" or try to appeal to miners with or gamers, as they've chosen. Remember that there are some emotion driven decisions in this market, and that capitalizing on a $3000 msrp product is easy when you have a loyal fanbase after the absolute superlative their preferred brand has to offer.

TLDR: This is a product for rich kids and fanboys with more dollars than sense.
 
Still...... Why this over dual Titan blacks? They are cheaper, likely perform better and cost much less.

Professional level CUDA development wise, these folks are much less concerned with costs, and the Titan Z allows more parallel cards to be used in a chassis in tandem. The market the card is really aimed at, professional CUDA developers, don't nickel and dime as do some PC gamers. That's my guess. But yeah it is stupid from a gaming perspective. It's clear that this card does way more than PC gaming. But it should not be bought for PC gaming, that much is obvious. Make no mistake, any gamer that buys a Titan Z for gaming over the 295X2, well I wouldn't know what to say really. It would be pretty stupid for anyone to do that, the 295X2 is clearly better for gaming at that price.

Personally, after seeing Nvidia's financial results last week, i'd have to assume that they know what the hell they're doing. Obviously they're selling a ton of cards to the professional and CUDA development market and their financial results very much show that. They had, IIRC, a commanding lead across nearly all GPU sectors such as professional sales and mobile. They have over an 80% share in both of those markets. Yet the PC gamer on average will just see it as a gamers card that is overpriced (and this is NV's fault), and that is a completely fair assessment. But I suspect NV will sell these cards just fine to the target demographic, NV is generally pretty good at these things. That doesn't change their mistake in terms of mentioning gaming on their website, that shouldn't have happened really.

The card does more than gaming. But NV fucked up in their marketing it as a gamers card, so here we are. Forum backlash. But the real intended market won't care and will still buy it, i'm guessing.

Don't get me wrong. I still maintain that NV was really fucking stupid to even mention gaming and the Titan Z in the same sentence. The forum backlash across the internet is completely 100% understandable. They fucked up for sure.
 
Last edited:
It's cute that people think Titans are in direct competition with the 295X2. That's like saying my hammer sucks because it doesn't work like my screwdriver. Different cards for different markets.

Let's see how price/performance looks when you compare the Titan to the Firepro line.
 
That's essentially what i've been saying all along, greatly condensed :) . The card is for CUDA developers and the price is understandable given that. But NV mentioned gaming on their website and that is 100% the reason for the backlash happening, and the backlash is completely understandable and fair. Someone at NV's marketing department probably needs to be axed for being an idiot, essentially - gaming should not have been mentioned as the reason to get a Titan Z. But they did for whatever reason and they look pretty stupid to gamers as a result.
 
Meh... At $1,500 or $3,000 they are out of my and many if not most others' price ranges, so it doesn't matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.
 
Only thing which bugs me is nvidia wants to release this card under their geforce brand which they push as their gaming cards.

If this card was meant for the professional segment then they should release it under their quadro line, which uses ECC memory.

Or invent a new semi-professional line of products with non-ECC vram.

It's this "in-between" product description which seems to not be working.
 
Seems to not be working. To who? AMD fans that want to poo poo on it? I guess so. Judging from nvidia's financials and their commanding lead in the professional market, i'd take a guess that they know what they're doing since they're selling a ton of cards. But if we want to sperg over minor details to find reasons to poopoo on a card, because hey just because, oh well. I think NV will sell the cards just fine. If NV thought they couldn't sell it to CUDA developers at 3000$, well, it wouldn't be 3000$. If they thought ECC RAM was required for the intended CUDA demographic, they would put ECC RAM on it.

Of course this won't change the forum backlash. And like I said, the backlash is well deserved. NV created it by their own doing and their own stupidity, so here we are. But what I don't think is that NV will have difficulty selling them to CUDA developers. As I said, I highly suspect that given they know how to create cards for that market and sell a ton of them for 80%+ market share, they're pretty good at these things. If CUDA developers scoffed at 3000$, well it wouldn't be 3000$. If CUDA developers wanted ECC RAM, well they would have ECC RAM. One thing NV knows how to do is create products aimed at the intended market. And sell a ton in the process Only this time, their marketing dropped the ball big time by mentioning gaming (I feel like a broken record here. ;) ) What is confusing is that NV did not mention gaming for the Titan Black. But they did for Titan Z. I wonder what the hell made them do that, pretty silly really.

No, that doesn't change the card being a fucking ripoff for gaming. Anyone buying a dual GPU card for gaming should clearly get the 295X2, no question. I just would be mind boggled at anyone buying a Titan Z for gaming.
 
I agree with the point others have made, that the marketing was the likely culprit. However, I think the real issue with the marketing was putting out the price.

Nvidia had already put out $1k gaming cards and people gobbled 'em up. With AMD availability so poor at the time, Nvidia made a mistake of overwhelming arrogance by thinking "These rubes'll buy anything we huck at 'em, so just stick two Titans on one PCB and sell it at triple the price". AMD's reponse was "Here's something faster than that at half the price". Now, NV's stuck with two choices: Delay indefinitely for undefined reasons (which we already know), or release it anyway at a much reduced price, which will automatically cause backlash of its own when everyone asks "if it's $1500 now, then why the fuck was it announced at $3k? Oh, right, unmitigated greed."
 
Don't the Quadro cards use a different BIOS that optimizes their usage for specific applications that aren't games?

It wouldn't make sense to use a Quadro card for gaming, or even a Titan Z if it's primarily targeting programs that need high DP performance and CUDA-based programming. But, marketing it as both a workstation card and a gaming card, and pricing it at or near $3000 is a bit ridiculous, honestly. A smart buyer would get two 780 Ti for that price and put it in SLI or a 295X2. A smart buyer working with GPGPU calculations and programming would likely get one Tesla K20 or two Firepro W8000 and Crossfire them for just under the price of one Titan Z.

Somewhere Nvidia lost focus on what the intended purpose of this card is for. Is it for gaming? Is it for 3D rendering, GPGPU, and CUDA applications? Does $3000 justify it for a gaming card or a workstation graphics card?

Nvidia needs to rethink the position this card slots into and price it appropriately.
 
Well it's clear that NV's marketing had a momentary lapse of sanity by mentioning gaming. I do have to do a double take at anyone suggesting that NV doesn't know what the hell they're doing in terms of design. If the cards didn't fit for the intended market, they would add whatever is needed to make it work. I said it before but if NV felt the intended CUDA developer would need ECC RAM or a different BIOS, or any of that garbage, they would have put it on there. But they didn't, and I think they know how to create these products since they're selling very well in the professional market. If they didn't know what they were doing, they would not have a commanding professional GPU market share - past 80% last I checked. Here we are in a forum debate with those who (probably) don't know much about the intended development / design segment anyway - I don't pretend to be the expert here, but NV knows who they're selling to, so i'd assume they would create the product in accordance with that. So , again, I have to do a double take when anyone suggests that NV should have added "X" when they probably don't know while NV probably...does. I mean who's the expert on the intended market. Are you? Am I? Nah. NV knows their market though i'm guessing. Even though they completely should axe some folks in whatever marketing dept. they have.

Basically, it is what it is. Their marketers are idiots. I've given AMD flak for their marketing in the past, but NV is pretty much over the top in stupid marketing right now. But the product itself is likely to sell fine to developers using CUDA. No offense or anything, but If you feel otherwise, well, you should contact NV and put a resume in to be one of their engineers. ;) I just don't get how everyone is suddenly the expert on how to design a card for professionals. If it needed all of the stuff you mentioned, it would have it. I don't think it's off base to state that.

I don't mean to sound harsh or anything, it truly is NV's fault that this backlash is happening. 295X2 is clearly the better dual GPU gaming card. But it isn't the better CUDA development card. (obviously) ;) Nv marketing the Z towards gaming just makes them look like fools really. I think that's the summation of what happened.
 
Last edited:
I think right now the only people who even keep track of the Titan Z are gamers.

The reason why the original Titan sold so well when it was released is because it was the fastest gaming card with NO competition. Being a single GPU also really helped because dual GPU doesn't scale well with every game. People were willing to pay the increased markup purely for gaming purposes because it was the best at the time.

The Titan Z however doesn't have the same ideal situation going for it. It is pretty much the worst possible time for it to be released. The R9 295x2 was released right before the Titan Z's intended release with a built in water cooling setup and increased clocks for $1,500. Not only is the Titan Z not the fastest gaming card, it cost 2x as much as a card that is superior in speed and cooling.

Nvidia was caught off guard and delayed the Titan Z's release for risk of embarrassment. I am sure right now they are pretty much back to the drawing board. For the Titan Z to succeed with the same similar success of the Titan, it will have to be the fastest gaming card by a good 10-30% and priced not far off the $2000 mark. Even then, $2,000 is 2x the price of the original Titan and the those who bought the Titan may not be able to afford the Titan Z. I don't think that situation will happen and most likely, the Titan Z is pretty much dead.

Those who need to use it for CUDA and computation work would likely just buy the fastest or most efficient card they can afford at the time, which may or may not be the Titan Z.
 
Last edited:
TLDR: This is a product for rich kids and fanboys with more dollars than sense.

Wholly agreed. As much as I love computer hardware and PC gaming, I can think of a hell of a lot of things that $3K is better spent on in one go. This product is for professionals, or enthusiasts with a huge wallet burning a hole through their pants.
 
Last edited:
The impression I have, is that Quadro level cards are designed specifically for professional applications and do not use Geforce drivers. Geforce drivers are aimed at gaming, Quadro, well...not so much. Also some quadro cards don't have much in the way of display outputs, they are designed much different than geforce cards. So while they *might* be able to game, they just don't get the driver or software attention for gaming. It's just basically CUDA/professional work, essentially. I'm sure some games run fine, but the Titan cards are essentially hybrid cards that can do both gaming and CUDA development.

That changes nothing though. I still think NV massively fucked up their marketing of Titan Z. The backlash is 100% completely their fault, even though the price could be considered justifiable for a CUDA developers toolkit card. For gaming? It isn't even worth half of 3000$. In the context of gaming , everyone will look at it as sort of a "GTX 790" even though it does more than that (CUDA wise) but from a pure gaming perspective. Not worth 3000$. I think NV should have just done their Titan Z marketing way differently. Maybe NV is just too accustomed to selling gaming-centric parts and did that as status quo. I don't know. Either way it was stupid.

The drivers go both ways. While Quadro/Tesla don't use Geforce drivers, and therefor aren't optimized for gaming, Titan/Titan-Z don't use pro drivers optimized for professional applications. Should your Geforce card/drivers crash running a non supported application you have no support because the drivers are not certified.
 
Professional level CUDA development wise, these folks are much less concerned with costs, and the Titan Z allows more parallel cards to be used in a chassis in tandem. The market the card is really aimed at, professional CUDA developers, don't nickel and dime as do some PC gamers. That's my guess. But yeah it is stupid from a gaming perspective. It's clear that this card does way more than PC gaming. But it should not be bought for PC gaming, that much is obvious. Make no mistake, any gamer that buys a Titan Z for gaming over the 295X2, well I wouldn't know what to say really. It would be pretty stupid for anyone to do that, the 295X2 is clearly better for gaming at that price.

Personally, after seeing Nvidia's financial results last week, i'd have to assume that they know what the hell they're doing. Obviously they're selling a ton of cards to the professional and CUDA development market and their financial results very much show that. They had, IIRC, a commanding lead across nearly all GPU sectors such as professional sales and mobile. They have over an 80% share in both of those markets. Yet the PC gamer on average will just see it as a gamers card that is overpriced (and this is NV's fault), and that is a completely fair assessment. But I suspect NV will sell these cards just fine to the target demographic, NV is generally pretty good at these things. That doesn't change their mistake in terms of mentioning gaming on their website, that shouldn't have happened really.

The card does more than gaming. But NV fucked up in their marketing it as a gamers card, so here we are. Forum backlash. But the real intended market won't care and will still buy it, i'm guessing.

Don't get me wrong. I still maintain that NV was really fucking stupid to even mention gaming and the Titan Z in the same sentence. The forum backlash across the internet is completely 100% understandable. They fucked up for sure.

I don't care about gaming, the 295x2 or their marketing.
I'm well aware professionals are prepared to pay a premium.

I'm just trying to find out where this card fits in the professional market

So
What sort of chassis would a Cuda developer use?
 
give me a 2-slot size 6gb.780 ti X2 for $1500 or less , I don't care the compute power.

and yah, beside the obvious DP1.2 please also include Hdmi2.0 that would be great.
 
I don't know what they were thinking, marketing this as a Titan product. They really should have released two SKUs: the GTX 790 (two 780 cores) at around $1200, and the GTX 790 Ti (two 780 Ti cores) at around $1500. This would have earned a bit more respect from the gaming community. Two Titan cores on a 3 slot card is a silly idea, as it won't fit in many ITX chassis, but it will cover up the 3rd slot on the board, which is usually the second fully-enabled 16x PCI-E slot on professional/workstation boards...


I really don't see the point...
 
Until NVIDIA gets some real competition they will keep making $3000 or even $5000 cards.
 
Until NVIDIA gets some real competition they will keep making $3000 or even $5000 cards.

Isn't the R9 295X2 a real competitor to the Titan Z (in term of gaming performance)? The R9 290 and R9 290X are also very competitive to 780 and 780 Ti right now. If I'm going to get a new GPU, 100% it will be the R9 290X. Too bad I got one 780 Ti when the mining craze was high with the 290X's lack of supply & over inflated price :mad:
 
Its simple. They needed to come up with a new line of hybrid cards that are task built, and give it a new naming scheme. Done. Calling it TitanZ was just an obvious attempt to fool gamers with more money than brains.
 
Back
Top