NVIDIA's GeForce GTX Titan Black: No Compromises for Gaming & Compute
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 18, 2014 9:00 AM EST
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX Titan was an absolute beast when it launched. With 7.1 billion transistors and an architecture that separated itself from high-end consumer GPUs, the Titan was worthy of its name. It took 9 months for NVIDIA to make a gaming focused version: the GeForce GTX 780 Ti. Although the 780 Ti gave up double precision floating point performance (FP64) and 3GB of GDDR5, it made up for the deficit by enabling all 15 SMXs and running its memory at a 16% higher frequency. The result was that Titan was a better compute card, while the 780 Ti was better for gamers. You couldn't have both, you had to choose one or the other.
Today NVIDIA is letting its compute-at-home customers have their cake and eat it too with the GeForce GTX Titan Black. The Titan Black is a full GK110 implementation, just like the GTX 780 Ti, with all of the compute focused-ness of the old GTX Titan. That means you get FP64 performance that's only 1/3 of the card's FP32 performance (compared to 1/24 with the 780 Ti). It also means that there's a full 6GB of GDDR5 on the card, up from 3GB on the 780 Ti.
| GTX Titan Black | GTX 780 Ti | GTX Titan | GTX 780 | |
| Stream Processors | 2880 | 2880 | 2688 | 2304 |
| Texture Units | 240 | 240 | 224 | 192 |
| ROPs | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 |
| Core Clock | 889MHz | 875MHz | 837MHz | 863MHz |
| Boost Clock | 980MHz | 928MHz | 876MHz | 900MHz |
| Memory Clock | 7GHz GDDR5 | 7GHz GDDR5 | 6GHz GDDR5 | 6GHz GDDR5 |
| Memory Bus Width | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit |
| VRAM | 6GB | 3GB | 6GB | 3GB |
| FP64 | 1/3 FP32 | 1/24 FP32 | 1/3 FP32 | 1/24 FP32 |
| TDP | 250W | 250W | 250W | 250W |
| Transistor Count | 7.1B | 7.1B | 7.1B | 7.1B |
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm |
| Launch Date | 2/18/14 | 11/07/13 | 02/21/13 | 05/23/13 |
| Launch Price | $999 | $699 | $999 | $649 |
Unlike the original Titan, there are no compromises on frequency. The memory runs at a full 7GHz data rate just like the 780 Ti. The GK110 core and boost clocks are up by 1.6% and 5.6% compared to the 780 Ti, respectively. Compared to the original Titan we're talking about anywhere from a 13.8% to a 19.9% increase in performance on compute bound workloads or a 16.7% increase on memory bandwidth bound workloads.
Gaming performance should be effectively equal to the 780 Ti. NVIDIA doesn't expect a substantial advantage from the core/boost clock gains and thus didn't bother with a sampling program for the Titan Black.
The heatsink looks identical to the original Titan, just in black (like the 780 Ti). We've got dissection shots in the gallery below.
We've heard availability will be limited on the GeForce GTX Titan Black. Cards will retail for $999, just like the original Titan.
The Titan Black should be a no-compromises card that can deliver on both gaming and compute fronts. It's clear that NVIDIA wants to continue to invest in the Titan brand, the only question going forward is what will it replace GK110 with and when.
GeForce_GTX_Titan_Black_Bracket_thumb.jpg)
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TheJian - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
"With 7.1 billion transistors and an architecture that separated itself from high-end consumer GPUs, the Titan was worthy of its name. It took 9 months for NVIDIA to make a gaming focused version: the GeForce GTX 780 Ti."I don't understand this comment. It took ZERO months as the gaming focused version of TITAN is called a GTX 780 as your chart shows with the same 7.1B transistors. It took 9 months to get enough chips to field a FULLY enabled 15 SMX 780TI, and a few extra months to give us the PRO version called TITAN BLACK we have announced here. This is probably because it takes a little longer to get even MORE chips that have fully enabled SMX's AND with all DP stuff working too (or they were just clearing old Titan's? as I see none in stock with a quick check). I could be wrong on that, but I'm guessing today's FULLY FULLY enabled (ROFL) Titan Black takes longer than a just regular fully enabled gaming card with much of the DP units off (does NV just disable/hobble them period, or are they really doing it partially because something isn't working on at least some of them?). They were cherry picking the 780ti chips for 2-3 months before introducing the new card and while doing that probably cherry cherry picked (again, ROFL) even more for Titan Black.
TheJian - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
Well, I guess it took 3 months looking at the chart again...ROFL. But either way these two new cards are on a different chip, so again not related to the OLD titan or 780. Also while they were cherry picking for 780ti, those failed chips ended up in some GTX 780's or Titans.I don't think they'll be all that limited if they sell like the first Titan's. They will up production as needed if they sell out fast just as they did the first go around. The first 100K sold out in days, and I can already see many are out of stock already at newegg etc. Newegg has a superclocked model for $19 extra though. I'm surprised they are in stock while the others are not but maybe they just got them in last. I'm guessing they'll be gone before Friday also. Very nice that they can turn on 3 SMX's and run them ~7% faster without raising watts. GK110 is pretty darn impressive in that regard and well worth the R&D it took it seems.
If AMD hadn't spent on consoles we'd have an answer next week. Also maybe Mantle wouldn't be BETA after 2yrs of dev, still in phases of their drivers, and maybe they'd have a decent CPU to compete with Intel. Bummer. Did I mention I hate consoles? ;) Almost forgot, maybe we'd have something marketable to compete with Gsync also, instead of Freesync that isn't even a product (and really only works on a laptop so far - not free if you need a new monitor right?). Consoles need to die. They give us crappy ports, rob from AMD R&D for drivers/new tech/cpus/gpus, and hold back gaming for nearly a decade with each rev. :(
TheElMoIsEviL - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
Ok not loopy... rather obsessive.TheElMoIsEviL - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
He's a little loopy.beck2050 - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
Thank you! I'll take 4!YazX_ - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
So basically, this card is useless at this price point, there is not a single difference between it and the 780 Ti in gaming performance and yet it costs 1K, i know that its alot better in compute performance, but you can SLI 780 Ti by adding 300$ to the 1K and get double gaming performance and same compute performance as this one.so does it worth it for 1K?? NO
chizow - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
I don't understand the omission of the GTX 780 in your comparison Anand, that was clearly the first gaming focused GK110 chip and released only 3 short months after the original Titan.In any case, it is no surprise Titan Black is launching this time around with significantly less pomp and circumstance, as Nvidia is most likely expecting soft demand this time around as well. The original Titan launched under false pretenses and tricked many early adopters into buying it uncertain whether or not Nvidia would launch another gaming-focused version of GK110. Those early adopters have since been burned not once, but twice by Nvidia since, with this being the 3rd time all in less than 1 year's time.
In any case, I am sure there will be some that must have the latest and greatest, but at least Nvidia won't be selling these under false pretenses as they did with the original Titan. Anyone buying one of these is going into it with eyes wide open.
aggiechase37 - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
So my question would be how this card compares in professional applications like 3D modeling and rendering programs. I wish Nvidia would come out with a solution for people who like to game a little but also would like a professional class workstation.TheElMoIsEviL - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
Loses badly to an AMD R9 290x. That's how it compares in those professional applications overall.3DVagabond - Sunday, February 23, 2014 - link
It's a Geforce, so it still runs on drivers that are optimized for gaming. The DP compute has nothing to do with any 3D modeling apps. They don't make use of it.