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Graphics Hardware Technology

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX TITAN X Becomes First 12GB Consumer Graphics Card 110

Posted by Soulskill from the impractically-powerful dept.
Deathspawner writes: When NVIDIA announced its GeForce GTX TITAN X at GTC, no one was surprised that it'd be faster than the company's previous top-end card, the GTX 980. But what did impress many is that the company said the card would sport a staggering 12GB of VRAM. As Techgage found, pushing that 12GB is an exercise in patience — you really have to go out of your way to come even close. Additional reviews available at PC Perspective and AnandTech. The latter notes, "...from a technical perspective, the GTX Titan X and GM200 GPU represent an interesting shift in high-end GPU design goals for NVIDIA, one whose ramifications I’m not sure we fully understand yet. By building what’s essentially a bigger version of GM204, heavy on graphics and light on FP64 compute, NVIDIA has been able to drive up performance without a GM204-like increase in die size. At 601mm2 GM200 is still NVIDIA’s largest GPU to date, but by producing their purist graphics GPU in quite some time, it has allowed NVIDIA to pack more graphics horsepower than ever before into a 28nm GPU. What remains to be seen then is whether this graphics/FP32-centric design is a one-off occurrence for 28nm, or if this is the start of a permanent shift in NVIDIA GPU design."
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NVIDIA's GeForce GTX TITAN X Becomes First 12GB Consumer Graphics Card More

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX TITAN X Becomes First 12GB Consumer Graphics Card

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  • 12Gig (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nightshade72 ( 3618953 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2015 @05:05PM (#49279155)
    You sure it's 12Gb and not 11.5? ;-)

  • So, is this a 12GB card or "12"GB card? Will it have 2GB of fast RAM and 10GB of crap behind a I2C bus which only exists for marketing reasons?

    • Re:What portion of the memory is usable this time? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fire_Wraith ( 1460385 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2015 @05:19PM (#49279221)
      It's certainly a legitimate question.

      On the other hand, as I remarked to a friend when discussing graphics cards the other day, it seems to me that none of the numbers on the cards really matter - RAM, Clock Speed, etc. There are so many variables that you might as well say that it has 12 GigaDrawing Cores and 256 SuperShaders with a 1.5 TeraTransit Hop Interval. What really matters is the final performance, using the universal standard measure of FoC(3), aka "Frames (per second) of Crysis3".

      Honestly, when I look at graphics cards (and I'm currently doing so for my next system), that's what matters to me most in comparing them - looking at benchmark results among all the major games. Certainly Nvidia should be telling us up front how the architecture works, and that you have 3.5GB of main/fast memory or whatever, but benchmark statistics from 3rd parties seem to me to not only be more important, but not exactly (or at least not easily) fakeable.

      That said, it's interesting to me that the benchmarks I've seen for this card mark it as inferior to the 295X2, which is not only almost a year older, but significantly cheaper. I'm personally hesitant to go with AMD, as my current experience with AMD drivers on my desktop has been downright horrible, compared to a relatively painless experience with my current laptop running an Nvidia card, but I have to wonder what's going on when Nvidia comes out with something like this, a year later, and at seemingly worse performance.

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2015 @06:14PM (#49279587)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shinobi ( 19308 )

          Yes, there is a point in having 12GiB RAM on the card: There are people who can make use of it, even with existing applications. It's also a good way of driving development. This also ties in with your cluelessness about Compute performance: while DP is low, not all Compute tasks need DP. Signal processing for example is a field where DP is a waste. Take music for example. Softsynths that do physical modelling require a lot of resources, both in terms of processing and RAM, but you only need single precisio

        • Yes, and the reviews I've been looking at included a number of games, including Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite, BF4, the latest Tomb Raider, etc, because you need to see a wider range to get a general idea of the performance. I've actually never played Crysis or any of its sequels, but it's sort of infamous as being a massive graphics power hog, to the point that "My system gets X frames per second of Crysis" became something of a bragging point of how powerful your gaming machine is, hence why I used that as

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          But is there even a point in having 12GB of VRAM at this time?

          Off the top of my head right now..
          Video screen capture / recording with 0 delay
          Raycasting
          High resolution procedural textures

      • Trivial to fake. They put things into the drivers that if it recognizes a benchmark game it turns down or disables certain features to boost frame rates, even where the driver and/or game claims different settings.

        Both AMD and Nvidia have been shown to do this.

      • Re:What portion of the memory is usable this time? (Score:4, Informative)

        by BlueBlade ( 123303 ) <mafortier.gmail@com> on Tuesday March 17, 2015 @09:43PM (#49280491)

        RAM is very important if you use high resolutions. If you game in 1080p, then yeah this won't tell you much. If you have a 4k monitor though, 3GB isn't enough so you can at least look at the RAM to narrow your selection, then look at benchmarks.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by drkim ( 1559875 )

        You are talking about game benchmarks.

        For people editing, doing F/X and CG work, having all those CUDA cores helps (Photoshop, Adobe Premier, Avid, and AfterEffects all can use the CUDA cores for crazy fast rendering).

        And, all that VRAM helps when working with HD and 4K video, especially multiple layers of video.

        AMD doesn't yet offer CUDA processing.

      • I'm personally hesitant to go with AMD, as my current experience with AMD drivers on my desktop has been downright horrible, compared to a relatively painless experience with my current laptop running an Nvidia card, but I have to wonder what's going on when Nvidia comes out with something like this, a year later, and at seemingly worse performance.

        I've actually found the reverse case lately, for my usage. I have a R9 290 in my HTPC and a Geforce 770x. Every time I update my 770x driver, it moves my taskbar to the other screen and resets window sizes, incredibly frustrating and something that shouldn't happen in 2014. Its been a problem for at least 4 years through multiple OSes and different installs. I had this problem on a GF 250, and I've reported the bug multiple times. I also experienced CTDs in Battlefield 3 and about 3 other games, usuall

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      12GB card apparently, because this seems to be upsized 980 rather than 970.

      But if they were to ever make Tital Z LE or similar cut down version to utilize their not fully operational dies, one would have to look very hard into just how much of real memory and how much "marketing memory" such a card would have.

  • Sigh (Score:2)

    by ledow ( 319597 )

    So basically the card is overspecced for no sensible reason and you can't fill that amount of VRAM even at 8K with 8xFSAA (and when you do that, you get 9fps). Even SLI'ing 4 of those together won't get you 40fps at those res.

    So the extra VRAM is entirely, completely pointless and they could have just supplied it with 8Gb (or less!), reduce the price slightly and had done with it and nobody would have noticed any difference.

    Selling point of our product: "We've put in useless shit that you'll never be able

    • Deep Neural Nets will use it, at least the very big, wide, deep ones will.

    • Fuckin 9fps? But, I need at least 120fps for my 3D Vision!

    • Re:Sigh (Score:5, Informative)

      by Goragoth ( 544348 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2015 @05:26PM (#49279269) Homepage

      In case people are confused it is important to point out that the Titan cards aren't aimed at gamers. They are partly a PR stunt for Nvidia (look, we make the biggest, baddest GPU out there), and partly of interest to developers working in graphics research (either developing tech for next gen games, GPGPU research, fluid simulations, and other projects). When you are raycasting massive voxel scenes for example, the 12GB can look rather attractive.

      At the end of the day it is very much a niche product, and calling it a "consumer card" is perhaps a bit of a misnomer. If all you are looking to do is to consume content (i.e. play games) this isn't the card for you, just SLI as many GTX980's as you can afford together and be done with it.

      • Re:Sigh (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Shinobi ( 19308 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2015 @05:36PM (#49279339)

        I know some people who are drooling all over this card for various real-time simulations. The Unified Physics Solver and 12GiB RAM on the card will allow them to push a combination of good graphics and good enough physics, at decent frame rates in real-time, all on a single card. It also makes it easier to develop sim solutions.

      • it's not a bad strategy for the gaming market either (not great, but not bad). it's a developer gateway to including physics simulations in games. rather than cramming in even more pixels (at the point where most people won't even notice them) or cosmetic effects, even adding fluid simulation can create a more significant market differentiation than more anti-aliasing. pushing these cards on the "early-adopter" (read: sucker) crowd opens that door.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by dugancent ( 2616577 )

        Titan cards aren't aimed at gamers

        Correct. They are aimed at suckers.

        • Just because you don't understand the difference between the Titan's FP64 (float64) = 1/3 FP32 (float32) performance versus the FP64 = 1/24 FP32 performance of regular cards doesn't imply that everyone who buys Titan cards is clueless.

          • Too bad the Titan X the article is about has the same 1/32 FP64 as the GTX 980, and NOT the 1/3 FP64 of the previous Titan cards. Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/... [anandtech.com] GP is correct. This card is for suckers. People who want to play at 4k will be far better served by SLI/CF still, everyone else shouldn't be looking at either option, and instead getting the far-less-expensive-and-more-than-adequate-at-2560x1440 R9 290, R9 290x, GTX 970, or GTX980 single cards instead.

      • Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2015 @05:52PM (#49279441)

        The Titan cards ARE aimed at gamers.
        Have you seen the reviews? Did you see the presentation today? Did you see the double precision compute performance? This is not a compute card.
        Quadro = Workstation
        GTX = Gamer
        Titan = Gamer with more money than sense

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Nemyst ( 1383049 )
          There is such a thing as FP32 compute workload. In fact, graphics research is largely concerned about this, since the goal is often to eventually release the research to the mass market, who're going to be using consumer cards.

        • No matter what Nvidia themselves say this isn't a gamer targeted card. It simply doesn't make sense for a gamer to buy, they are far better off with GTX980's in SLI (which outperforms the Titan X in gaming benchmarks significantly).

          Lacking in DP performance does make it less attractive to most GPGPU researchers, but some cases do just fine using SP and most graphics related research certainly does. So let me reiterate: if you are working on research for next generation games and you are working with massive

      • In case people are confused it is important to point out that the Titan cards aren't aimed at gamers.

        Yes, the Titan series is an odd bridge between consumer price/ performance, and professional reliability (ECC RAM) and unhampered double precision performance at painfully professional level prices of the CUDA / GPGPU oriented Quadro and Telsa cards. (Telsa K20 to K80 cost $3500 - $5000 USD approx AFAIK)

        So they are great alternatives for CUDA aware 3D graphics application users who traditionally can't afford a Quadro or Telsa card (are not professional movie / video-game studio artists or CAD designers), a

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        Actually that's exactly what this card is not, they've dropped FP64 performance and basically made a bigger, more badass gaming card. If there's any others who can use it, that's because they don't really need the compute features. This is like Intel's "Extreme Edition" CPUs, the performance/dollar is abysmal but it's not an Xeon. Neither is this a Tesla. This is for the "I can drop $3k on a gaming rig" market. I know people with more expensive hobbies than computers.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Shinobi ( 19308 )

          Just to correct a misunderstanding many people have:

          Not everyone who does compute needs double precision. Many tasks within signal processing only need single precision, for example.

    • Compute might use it. The Titan was traditionally both the top-tier graphics card, as well as the entry-level compute card. They've slashed FP64 performance with this iteration, but FP32 performance is still sky-high, and they're pushing situations like that for using this as a compute card.

      • For compute, multiple GTX cards gets you more performance/$ than the Titan, with the same "LOL DOUBLE PRECISION NOT GONNA WORK" caveat.
        If you're not stuck with CUDA, AMD's offerings are a better choice.

        This isn't a compute card - it's an idiot card. For both games and compute, both Nvidia's and AMD's standard "gamer" cards are a better value.
        The only thing novel about the Titan X is 12 GB accessible by 1 GPU.

        • I do wonder if ridiculous amounts of VRAM may end up being useful in game engines that are currently only on the horizon - for example, Outerra's 1:1 scale planet engine [outerra.com] renders mostly in GPU [moddb.com]. One wonders too about RAM demand of something like Euclideon's "unlimited detail" engine [rockpapershotgun.com] (assuming it isn't vapourware). If we're moving to games that do more in the GPU, then maybe stupid amounts of VRAM might actually get used? Then again, I expect if that were to happen (using complex GPU-based world generators),

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      So basically the card is overspecced for no sensible reason and you can't fill that amount of VRAM even at 8K with 8xFSAA (and when you do that, you get 9fps). Even SLI'ing 4 of those together won't get you 40fps at those res.

      You do realize that 8K @ 12GB is the same as 4K (25% the pixels) @ 3GB? Are you claiming the GTX970/980 is equally overspecced at 4GB(-ish)? I don't think we have 8K monitors yet but make a triple UHD monitor setup and I think you'll make quad-Titan X sweat.

    • "We've put in useless shit that you'll never be able to use anyway! And charged you a premium for it!"

      That's called Marketing.

    • They should have kept the price at $1000 and only put on 8GB, keep the money for profit, it's not like the people who buy them care or make sensible price/performance decisions.

  • Nvidia GM204 Maxwell GPUs May Jump From 28nm to 16nm, Skip 20nm http://www.eteknix.com/nvidia-... [eteknix.com] At 601 mm2 the Titan X will never be cheap because of the low yield. At 16nm this would be something.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      Yeah, I'm sticking with my GTX780 until the 20 or 26nm chips are out. Hopefully something from that range will support top-end graphic settings with decent frames per second on a 4k screen, in which case I'll consider buying one.

  • Here's all you need to know about a 12Gb graphics card. Most games' entire installations aren't 12G let alone the textures.

  • It doesn't really help me. I've been contracted to build a high level gaming system with no stutter/jitter etc. I've been delaying the build looking for Nvidia's answer to the AMD 295x2. The Titan X is good, but the vram is ridiculous. I'll need 2x 980's or 970's to beat the performance of the 295x2 and I don't want to go SLI until the game developers write better code (never) and Nvidia sort out their drivers (improbable). Even the 295x2 has minor stutter issues. I just can't wait for the AMD Fiji chip whi

  • Which is really a shame, numerical simulations would easily make full use of the memory.

    • Re:Useless for budget scientific computing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by godrik ( 1287354 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2015 @10:52PM (#49280771)

      I was at the keynote at GTC this morning and it really depends on what you are doing. If you want to do numerical simulation, it is not very useful because double precision performance is terrible. But if you do data mining, you mostly care about bandwidth and single precision performance. And then 12GB isn't too much. Actually I find it still a bit on the low side. Intel Xeon Phi are featuring 16GB this days. And in the realm of data analysis fitting the data on the accelerator is what make the difference ebetween the accelerator is great and the accelerator is useless.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quax ( 19371 )

        True, when I wrote 'scientific computing' I meant fp64 numerical simulations. Data mining is filed under 'business intelligence' in my mind :-)

        • I do lots of scientific computing (radio astronomy signal processing) on consumer-level NVIDIA cards and it is *all* FP32. These kinds of cards (and the 12GB of mem) could be very useful for my work, and others who do DSP-type of *scientific* computing.

  • Question: In a client/server situation, where do you put the graphics card, in the server to do the rendering, or in the client to run the display?

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