Throwback Thursday – Geforce GTX Titan turns six years old

After launching the “Kepler” architecture in the spring of 2012 with the Geforce GTX 680 graphics card at the forefront, rumors began to flourish that Nvidia was brooding on much more powerful donations. It would reportedly be about the full-scale “Kepler” circuit GK110, which would take the step from the corporate market and be implemented in a consumer product for gaming performance beyond the ordinary.

The rumors turned out to be true and a year later Nvidia launched the Geforce GTX Titan – the first, but certainly not the last card in the Titan family. The model was based in accordance with previous data on the graphics processor GK110 in a slightly cut-down variant. This meant a circuit that was almost twice the size of the GK104 in the Geforce GTX 680 with as many as 7.1 billion transistors.

► Read SweClocker’s review of Geforce GTX Titan

In terms of specifications, the card offered 2,688 CUDA cores, up from 1,536 on the Geforce GTX 680, as well as a currently hefty amount of graphics memory of 6 GB GDDR5. This resulted in a very juicy price tag around SEK 9,000. Combined, it was a graphics card that outperformed basically everything in the consumer market, with the exception of some models with dual graphics circuits in SLI / Crossfire.

The Geforce GTX Titan also paved the way for the Geforce GTX 700 series, which would to some extent be based on the giant circuit GK110. It was partly about the Geforce GTX 780, where the circuit was cut further to push the price, but also the popular worsting Geforce GTX 780 Ti which was gifted with full-scale GK110 with 2,880 CUDA cores and faster graphics memory.

Nvidia’s Titan family still lives on today as models in the top performance and price range. Last out was this autumn’s Titan RTX with the full-featured “Turing” circuit TU102 and 24 GB of GDDR6 memory under the hood. With a price tag of a little insane SEK 28,490, that model makes the original Titan card look almost affordable.

This is how the Geforce GTX Titan performs in 2019

Anyone who pocketed SEK 9,000 six years ago for a Geforce GTX Titan certainly expected the model to last longer than the average graphics card before an upgrade was required. But how does the worst of 2013 actually cope in today’s games when it comes to modern graphics solutions?

To find out, we dug a Geforce GTX Titan out of hiding and pushed it into SweClocker’s usual graphics card review testing system for a series of fast performance tests.

In synthetic 3DMark, it’s really no surprise that the Geforce GTX Titan lands at the bottom of the table, but it’s still fully respectable performance that is presented in terms of model age. The card is located just behind the best-selling Geforce GTX 970, while the Geforce GTX 780 Ti with full-featured GK110 gives about 10 percent higher numbers.

In terms of modern models, for example, the mid-range Radeon RX 590 offers just over 47 percent better performance than the Geforce GTX Titan, while the Geforce RTX 2060 presents 90 percent higher numbers in round robins.

As we move towards Battlefield 1, interestingly enough, a Geforce GTX Titan can maintain an average level above 60 frames per second in 1,920 × 1,080 pixels resolution with the detail settings twisted to the ceiling. However, the model again lands at the bottom of the chart, where both the Geforce GTX 780 Ti and the Geforce GTX 970 offer over 12 percent higher performance.

Anyone who chooses to throw away SEK 3,000 on an upgrade to the Radeon RX 590 can here enjoy a performance boost of approximately 40 percent. Another thousand bucks gives 90 percent higher frame rate with a Geforce RTX 2060.

Even in Destiny 2, the Geforce GTX Titan manages to maintain an average frame rate of just over 60 FPS, although this drops below heavier parts of the sequence. The model lands at the bottom of the field, where for example the Geforce GTX 970 offers 13 percent higher performance. For this year’s model Geforce RTX 2060, it’s almost doubled the performance of this game against the Geforce GTX Titan.

The final stop on Rise of the Tomb Raider and Geforce GTX Titan is now slipping below the 60 FPS line at 1080p resolution. A Geforce GTX 780 Ti shows around 11 percent better performance than Nvidia’s old worst, while the mid-range model Radeon RX 590 offers 33 percent higher frame rate. One step up to the Geforce RTX 2060 again gives roughly doubled performance.

Still a good playing card after six years

The Geforce GTX Titan was, to say the least, an impressive graphics card when it was launched in 2013, and with the results in hand from today’s tests, it is clear that the model can actually present full playable performance in 1,920 × 1,080 pixel resolution in modern titles. Anyone who can imagine picking down the detail control one step can in many cases stay above the 60 FPS line even six years later.

As pure curiosity, the undersigned sat on this particular model until the spring of 2018, until a change to a monitor with a higher resolution and high refresh rate finally forced an upgrade on the graphics front. At 1080p, however, it was never a major problem to run fresh game titles with a good frame rate with a relatively nice amount of eye candy.

While the Geforce GTX Titan was the fastest graphics card with a single graphics circuit for its time, it is not possible to hide under the chair that it was at the same time, to say the least, very expensive. At that time, however, there was at least some form of reasonableness to pocket the extra thousand bucks to be in the top performance top, which can not say about today’s generation of Titan cards.

Were you one of those people who bought the original Geforce GTX Titan? Share your experiences in the comments section of this article!

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