Conclusion
Conclusion
Unlike many of the other conclusions I’ve written in the last few months, this one is actually going to cut right to the chase and leave it at that. The reason for this is quite simple actually: the TITAN X stands completely alone in its own little self-made Never Never Land of performance, price, power consumption and future potential. It is hugely capable yet will prove to be a bridge too far for the vast majority of buyers.
For the sole purposes of this review I’m looking at the TITAN X from a pure and unadulterated gaming standpoint. In the coming days I’ll be addressing what NVIDIA’s new flagship has to offer for professionals interested in more compute-oriented tasks. However, in terms of gaming there’s plenty to talk about since this thing isn’t a barn burner in terms of achievable framerates, it’s a fully-fledged thermonuclear attack. If it wasn’t for the heavily overclocked processor beating at the heart of my system I’m positive many of the games would have encountered a CPU bottleneck at 1440P. Let me say that again: the Pascal-based TITAN X has the somewhat unfortunate capability to become processor-limited at 1440P with absolutely maxed-out settings. That’s astounding.
If we’re talking about real-world gameplay performance, the TITAN X is able to provide framerates that are simply mind boggling. We’re talking about 30% to 50% higher than a GTX 1080 Founders Edition which was already a high water mark for current generation DX11 and DX12 throughput. In many scenarios its minimum framerates were faster than the GTX 1080’s averages and it overclocks like the dickens too with 1900MHz well within reach.
Compare it to the fastest AMD card right now, the Fury X, and the TITAN X is a good 60% to 90% faster while requiring just 18W more from your power supply. Of all the metrics you’ve seen in this review, the performance per watt status is the one that impressed me the most. I also have a feeling that given the current state of the GPU market, this card could stay perched atop its totem pole for the foreseeable future too. It is just that far ahead of anything else.
When reviewing this kind of product it is quite easy to get caught up in the excitement of a free sample and massive benchmark numbers while forgetting about the fact something like the TITAN X costs real money. A lot of money too given the $1200 price tag and the fact this is the most expensive single GPU card in living memory.
I’ll freely admit to being a bit giddy once I started to process the FCAT numbers but with the card staring me in the face, I’m forced to put myself into a buyer’s shoes. So would I spend $1200 on a graphics card like this? Probably not but that’s solely because my conscience (ie: the girlfriend) would look at me and insist I was absolutely daft for even contemplating another PC-related purchase before we redo the kitchen or I put a ring on her finger. Or both. Them’s the breaks…..
Now if I would listen to that little devil on my other shoulder and risk eternal damnation in my own household, there’s no doubt the TITAN X would provide some comfort at least. The amount of heat it puts out could warm my room on those cold winter nights, the soothing muted roar of its fans could lull me to sleep and….ok enough of that!
Let’s just say that if I had the disposable income or wherewithal to royally piss off She Who Must Be Obeyed and plop down $1200 on this GPU, I would do it. It is preposterously, ludicrously fast and truth be told even though the performance per dollar metrics really aren’t great, particularly when you take pre-overclocked GTX 1080’s into consideration, they certainly aren’t debilitating to the TITAN X’s outlook either. The deep learning community and gamers with cash to burn will lap it up regardless.
Comments about any leading edge product will typically see two extreme and very vocal sides to the debate. One side will lambaste it because it is an ultra high performance item which is unabashedly expensive, proving that company xyz can and will charge whatever they want for a product they know will sell to a niche market. The other side will look at something like the TITAN X and think about buying it
because it is a no-holds-barred ultra high performance GPU which is unabashedly expensive. Somewhere between those is a unique subset who will see the TITAN X as a killer productivity tool. Neither side will be wrong in their opinions since they simply have different sets of wants and needs.
With all of this being said, I am going to sit back and look at the TITAN X for what it is: an expensive technological tour de force which thumbs its nose at withholding performance for the sake of price. It simply says “I’m doing it my way”, then drops the mic and walks away.
