$1500 Titan z vs $3000

[yudhi108]

I've been looking at titan z's online and noticed that some are 1500 bucks and some are 3000, but i can't seem to figure out exactly the difference.

[FMod]

It's an obsolete card that's no longer being manufactured (and had an extremely poor price/performance ratio even in its heyday). Some stores dropped their prices, because no one who knows what they're going will pay $3k for it, others didn't, and most don't physically have it in stock anyway.

 

GTX980 is the new high-end card and 2xGTX980 will blow Titan Z out of the water for 1/2 to 3/4 of the price.

 

As an aside, you can generally ask more than one question in one thread.

[Amyr]

Some people managed to get their hands on them before the cards ran out of stock, now they are trying to abuse the fact that the cards are no longer in production. Thus resulting in extremely high prices.

If the seller is legit, like Amazon or EVGA's own site, it should be around 1500USD no matter what. Maybe even cheaper.

 

Titan Z is already expensive as it is. No need to pay even more.

 

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-review/9 (last table titan black vs single 980)

 

980 SLI is roughly equal to Titan Z(which is close 6GB 780Ti SLI(or simply Titan Black SLI) in performance. A good 980 SLI will cost around 1200-1250USD anyway. Titan Z's current official price is 1500USD, not 3 grand.

Not much big of difference considering the fact that Titan Z has more VRAM.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Amyr

[FMod]

Titan Z falls quite a bit behind 2x780Ti due to its much lower clock.

 

980 is further faster than 780Ti. The only time Titan Black matches 980 is in 4K resolution, as it should. Elsewhere, 980 is faster than Titan Black. And Titan Z is slower than 2xTitan Black. Realistically, other than 4K resolution, Titan Z ~= 2x970, not 2x980.

[Amyr]

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_titan_z_review,29.html

 

This is %20 faster on clock and %10 faster on memory compared to a reference 780Ti.

 

780Ti has 925Core/7000Memory by default.

And they managed to get 1137Core/7700Memory on Titan Z.

Even the 780Ti Kingpin Classified comes with 1137Core/7000Memory(pretty much the fastest factory overclocked 780Ti on earth).

 

And check this:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_980_sli_review,24.html

980 SLI OC 3D Mark score: 16514

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_titan_z_review,29.html

Titan Z OC 3D Mark score: 16375

 

Pretty much what I said earlier, Titan Z is roughly equal to 980 SLI in performance...

 

And this is Skyrim(which is why he's buying a new GPU) at 4K:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-review/9

 

And this is our Valley(pretty much the best benchmark tool to measure raw GPU power) benchmark list at LTT.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlC81MjwelBgdDdfZGdPbERhYi1YYjhXZVREX1ZtUFE#gid=2

 

Check the dual GPU table, clock speeds are there, all of them overclocked obviously. 980, 780Ti, Titan SLI all at top side by side.

 

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-GTX-980-3-Way-and-4-Way-SLI-Performance/Skyrim

 

Another poor SLI scaling from 980. You may say that it might be a driver issue but even then these tables won't change much. Some games are even worse than Skyrim.

 

Overall, 900 series are good. But that doesn't justify its weaknesses. 980 is extremely overpriced compared to 970. When you overclock both of them there is like maybe %10 difference at most. But 980 almost has the double price of 970. This is why pretty much everyone is trying to get 970SLI instead of 980 SLI or single 980.

And they are not as powerful as you think. This is why NVIDIA only promotes them as the "most advanced GPU ever made" and not the most powerful.

980SLI will most likely fail against a Titan Z when you use an ENB with heavy DOF and SSAO.

This is mainly because of 900 series having less Shader units(Maxwell shader units are efficient being able to use up to 512 registers while Kepler can only use up to 341 BUT 980 has only 128 Shader units while 780Ti got 240 of them, so it actually sums up to 65536(Maxwell) versus 81849(Kepler) resulting in for Kepler(Titan Z-780Ti) being able to do %25 more tasks) compared to 700 series. Also we don't even know that SLI will cause any problems with ENB or not, I see a lot of people saying 900 series GPUs needs some workaround for ENB...

 

And we never even talked about Titan Z having actually 1.5 times more VRAM.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Amyr

[FMod]

780Ti has 925Core/7000Memory by default.

And they managed to get 1137Core/7700Memory on Titan Z.

Even the 780Ti Kingpin Classified comes with 1137Core/7000Memory(pretty much the fastest factory overclocked 780Ti on earth).

Compare overclocking with overclocking, stock with stock.

Factory o/c is the latter, as you do get it out of the box.

 

Performance-wise, even all the game and 3Dmark benchmarks you've linked (Valley is even further removed from actual gaming than 3Dmark) show 980 ahead of 780Ti and Titan. The best Titan Z manages to do is catch up to 2x980, and only when both become CPU bound. Every card matches every other card when both are CPU bound.

 

 

 

Another poor SLI scaling from 980. You may say that it might be a driver issue but even then these tables won't change much. Some games are even worse than Skyrim.

It's not poor SLI scaling; it's Skyrim.

 

Most of the time, Skyrim doesn't care what your video card is - all its engine, decade-old at its heard, really cares about is how fast your CPU core #1 is. Even a single 780Ti or 980 is too much of a card for Skyrim in 1080p.

 

If you look at multi-SLI lines, their framerate is almost exactly the same in 2560x1440 and 4K. With that much difference in resolution, you'd expect some difference, wouldn't you? But it's Skyrim, so hello there.

Basically, you need to go above 4K (such as to 3x2560x1600) to take benefit of more than 2 cards in SLI, especially in Skyrim.

 

With a modded game, it gets worse. Unless you only install graphics mods and no gameplay mods, the modded game puts further more stress on the CPU. Being CPU bound means it doesn't matter what GPU you have.

 

Realistically, with rare exceptions, a single GTX980 (if you hate SLI glitches) or 2xGTX970 is all one needs for Skyrim.

 

There are very few games that are able to use more than 3GB of memory and 4GB is yet to become needed somewhere. Titan's extra memory wasn't even put there for games, it was put there for CUDA and kept for prestige.

 

 

And need I repeat that the cheapest you can get a Titan Z for is $1,499, if you're lucky; 2xGTX 980 will only set you back $1,100; and 2xGTX970 just $600?

 

The 980 is faster or at least as fast, right now, in any current game (maybe there are exceptions, but overall). The Titanic has some ephemeral advantage of having memory you're never going to use. Anyone buying cards in this class usually replaces their cards long before games come out that have any need for more VRAM.

 

GPU makers know this too, they're not stupid - that's why high-end cards don't come jammed with all the VRAM the board could fit.

And why cheaper cards do come crammed with VRAM beyond foreseeable need - marketing reasons aside, they're also likely to be kept well past their planned lifetime.

[Amyr]

 

Performance-wise, even all the game and 3Dmark benchmarks you've linked (Valley is even further removed from actual gaming than 3Dmark) show 980 ahead of 780Ti and Titan. The best Titan Z manages to do is catch up to 2x980, and only when both become CPU bound. Every card matches every other card when both are CPU bound.

Did you check 4K benchmarks before saying that? While both cards overclocked?

 

 

 

It's not poor SLI scaling; it's Skyrim.

 

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-GTX-980-3-Way-and-4-Way-SLI-Performance/Metro-Last-Light

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-GTX-980-3-Way-and-4-Way-SLI-Performance/Bioshock-Infinite

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-GTX-980-3-Way-and-4-Way-SLI-Performance/Battlefield-4

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_980_sli_review,16.html

 

When you check this links you'll understand that It's not Skyrim's fault at all. Yes, these numbers will change in the future with upcoming drivers, but honestly, it won't make that much difference. Somehow, only Crysis 3 managed to have a proper scaling.

 

 

 

And need I repeat that the cheapest you can get a Titan Z for is $1,499, if you're lucky; 2xGTX 980 will only set you back $1,100; and 2xGTX970 just $600?

 

Oh, I think he forgot to mention. He's not looking to get a brand new Titan Z for 1500USD. He's trying to buy a used one for around 1K. So actually the price/performance will be much better than you think.

 

 

The Titanic has some ephemeral advantage of having memory you're never going to use.

 

That depends, if he has an acceptable use for 6GB VRAM can you really advice him not to get? And before all this started he asked for a dual GPU card around 1000-1500USD. Didn't ask for SLI. Although I really don't know yet if Skyrim treats dual GPU and SLI differently. But nonetheless that was what he asked.

[FMod]

Did you check 4K benchmarks before saying that? While both cards overclocked?

They matched. That's it, all Titan Z managed to do was match 2x980.

 

Oh, I think he forgot to mention. He's not looking to get a brand new Titan Z for 1500USD. He's trying to buy a used one for around 1K.

Has he actually found an offer or is he going to wait for another year till one comes?

 

That depends, if he has an acceptable use for 6GB VRAM can you really advice him not to get?

Very few people have a use for 6GB VRAM.

I can name two categories:

- People doing specialized CUDA work that specifically requires a lot of RAM (and usually you use tens to thousands of cards for that work, not just a few)

- People using multiple displays without Eyefinity/Surround, so VRAM gets split evenly between the displays. Eyfinity and Surround perform quite well even on 2GB cards (no difference from 4GB cards in many games).

 

There are others, but they know who they are.

 

And before all this started he asked for a dual GPU card around 1000-1500USD. Didn't ask for SLI. Although I really don't know yet if Skyrim treats dual GPU and SLI differently. But nonetheless that was what he asked.

SLI and dual GPU cards are the same exact thing. A dual GPU card simply has two cards fitted on the same board, logically the same way two cards would be - you can even use them separately.

 

All the SLI glitches, all the SLI scaling problems, they don't go anywhere from dual-GPU cards. This is why midrange dual-GPU cards died out: a single-GPU solution is better right until the point where there's no single GPU with enough performance.

 

And FWIW 2x980 lets you buy one 980 today, another in 2015 (because rest assured, a 980 won't bottleneck you in 2014), when they'll cost $350 or something. Not to mention the option of a used one. 2x970 even cheaper, 980's only expensive now as a premium for "I want that one!"

 

Then there's resale value. The market for outdated monster cards like Titan Z is a tiny handful of buyers and a tiny handful of sellers. You may spend months looking for one at $1,000, and yet also spend months trying to unload one at $1,000. You need to find that one person in the world that wants a used monster right now.

 

Mass market cards like 970 and 980 are in contrast extremely liquid, you can trade them all day long. Speaking from experience. I've been running SLI cards and updating them every generation for a while now.

 

The cycle's as follows: buy a new card on the release day; buy a second new or used one when the prices drop; sell one or both cards just before the next generation comes out; repeat ad infinitum. Very little effort to sell, very little financial loss outside of actual depreciation.

[Aegrus]

Again very much agreeing with Fmod, the Titan is at this point marketed mostly towards professional graphocs markets, there are much better choices for gamers.

[Thor.]

The Titan z is going to be obsolete when the Maxwell 8gb models come out this year, i suggest you wait it out...

 

the gtx980 8gb vram is soon to replace the titan, and cheaper to.

Edited January 24, 2015 by Thor.