To Titan or not to Titan.....

  • Thread starter Pako
  • 98 comments
  • 5,309 views
Pako

Pako

Staff Emeritus
16,455
United States
NW Montana
GTP-Pako
GTP Pako
.....that is the question.

Will someone please help me? No seriously, I think I need my head examined.

As if 2 GTX590's isn't enough, I am looking to trade up my 2 GTX590's for either a couple Titans or a couple GTX780's.

With the GTX780 still being an enthusiast card, some are calling it the poor man's Titan. With that kind of price tag, not really sure I would call it the poor man's anything, but still at a third less in price compared to the Titan I get what they are saying.

So what does the Titan offer over the 780's? Twice the ram for starters, 6gb's per card instead of 3gb's. Other than that, is there really any differences? It seems that like clock speeds can be achieved on either card with proper cooling. I would be water cooling which ever way I go. Seems if I want to go back to a triple monitor setup again, the extra ram would be helpful. Hummmmm...... Triple 144mhz monitors sounds nice with vsync at 144FPS. Yeah, that could be cool for sure!

Here's a nice comparative:
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-TITAN-vs-GeForce-GTX-780

Thoughts?
 
Last edited:
I am no expert by any means, but I'll try to help out here. :dunce:

All I can do is compare G3D scores and prices.

A GTX Titan scores 8239. 2 GTX Titans (2-way SLI?) will equal a theoretical G3D score of 16478.

A GTX 780 scores 7860. 2 GTX 780s (4-way SLI I believe) will equal a theoretical G3D score of 15720.

Now, if G3D scores are anything to go by, then 2x GTX Titans should be the better choice, but price is also a factor.

Now, if my math is correct, which it may not be, the GTX Titan x2's score is 4% better than the GTX 780 x2's score. However, 2 GTX 780s would cost around $1300, and 2 GTX Titans would cost around $2000, meaning you are paying $700 more for 4% more performance.

Again, that's going off of G3D scores and prices alone. However, if it were up to me, I'd go with two 780s.
 
I believe the 780 overclocks a bit better due to less cores, and with regards to the memory it depends on what resolution you will be gaming at. 3gb's of vram is plenty at 1080p, but when you SLI cards the vram does not stack. You would only really benifit from 2 titans at a super high resolution or a triple screen setup. Nvidia have said this themselves, that the titan was designed with very high res gaming in mind.

Lol, listen to me, typing on my PC which I needed Pako's advice to make :lol:
 
HD 7990? I mean yeah 🤬 🤬 AMD-drivers, but c'mon it is cheaper, and I find it... exciting... the thing with the drivers... I mean a always-working nVidia is boring, isn't it?;)
 
👍 Well, both cards are single GPU layouts so 2 of the same card will produce 2-way SLI in both cases. Scalability of SLI is also limited so double the power of a SLI configuration does not mean double the performance results.

I have also read that with Boost 2.0, overclocking becomes greatly dependent on cooling capabilities. I have not, however, heard a lot on voltage limitations. I should probably look at the clockability of each card to see where most are coming in at.

As far as ATI? I just don't have the time to "mess" with my system like I did. It just needs to work so I can play. :D
 
Last edited:
I'd definitely go for 2 x 780 (which I am going too in the next couple weeks).

The price difference is so big that the Titan's small performance advantage isn't really worth it.
 
Phoenix
I'd definitely go for 2 x 780 (which I am going too in the next couple weeks).

The price difference is so big that the Titan's small performance advantage isn't really worth it.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I was looking at that as well. Besides the double ram, the 4-6% increase in performance seems too small to merit the 33% price difference. I will say, however, if the Titan is a better overclocker on water and you can increase that performance gap, then it starts to be easier to justify. Just haven't seen a lot of overclocking results on water.
 
Phoenix
I'd definitely go for 2 x 780 (which I am going too in the next couple weeks).

The price difference is so big that the Titan's small performance advantage isn't really worth it.
Click to expand...
Ditto. The price difference for just a tad extra performance really isn't worth it IMHO.

But if you're in the market to spend that much anyway.... hmmm. I don't blame you if you do get the Titans. :dopey:

As a side note, you may wanna wait for when the HD 9000 series cards come out in September/October. The top end card is predicted to have the same performance as the GTX 780 but there might be a surprise.
 
Seems this simple test shows the 780 OC'ed to be the more sensible choice of the two.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1396877/titan-vs-gtx-780-both-overclocked-and-tested-1440p

He was just cooling on air, and showed the superior cooling of the ACX Cooler on the 780. Still leaves me wondering how they would both stack on water.

Ok well.... Isn't this an interesting read:
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/545016/the-geforce-lounge/gtx-titan-users-deserve-better/1

Seems the Titan users feel a little slated for jumping on the bleeding edge to quickly. I get scared when I read about throttling issues. I had much of the same issues with my GTX590's. Don't get me wrong, the 590's are a hell of a card, but don't overclock worth a darn.
 
Last edited:
dice1998
Out of curiosity, have you considered 690's? :lol:
Click to expand...

:lol: Oh man, I am so done with dual GPU cards..... Never again. :grumpy:

Like I've said before, don't get me wrong, the 590 is a heck of card, but in my case, I would been better off with x4 580's instead of x2 590's. The same is true with the 690's. Better off with a couple 680's or even better a couple 780's.
 
ImmalovemaGTR
HD 7990? I mean yeah 🤬 🤬 AMD-drivers, but c'mon it is cheaper, and I find it... exciting... the thing with the drivers... I mean a always-working nVidia is boring, isn't it?;)
Click to expand...

An HD7990 will humiliate every nVidia card. But then there is the micro-stuttering you get from dual-core graphics cards. I heard ATI are heavily working on it, and I wouldn't be surprised if ATI fixes it and the HD7990 will become the card to beat. We will have to wait and see. One thing is for sure, that card is an absolute monster.

On that, GTX780 all the way.
 
Well....kind of learned my lesson about the multi-GPU cards. I'll stick with single GPU cards and stack 'em. :)

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/55577-kfa2-geforce-gtx-780-sli/
In this article, a couple GTX780's in SLI beats the 7990HD in every test. Combined, the two 780's even use less power than the 7990HD. Not only that, there are no micro-stutter inflictions. :)

These Micro-Stutters have plagued me in BF3 since the beginning when running both 590's in quad-SLI. Sure the 3DMark scores have been nice, but with exception to a few games, I've had to run just a single 590 to get smooth game play without stuttering dips in FPS. There is nothing more annoying to be at 140FPS only to have the screen freeze just as you are about to stab someone in the back only to unfreeze waiting to spawn. ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR The amount of anger that rages inside me cannot be measured when this happens....

As I have been typing this out today and thinking through all my options, I guess I will try adding a second PSU to my second GTX590 to see if the micro stutters have anything to do with power deficiencies. I know that a single 590 is working flawlessly, lets see what happens if I provide independent power to the second card. For the Record, a single GTX590 can draw up to 430watts of power. With two of them, an overclocked 3770k, a couple pumps and fans, 6 hard drives and optical drive, I may be pushing the limits on my 1200w PSU. Just sayin......

:D
 
Last edited:
Pako
Seems this simple test shows the 780 OC'ed to be the more sensible choice of the two.
Click to expand...

I think regardless of how you look at it, this will always hold true. It doesn't change, however, that you really want that Titan, or does it? :P
 
Bram Turismo
An HD7990 will humiliate every nVidia card.
Click to expand...
Nah, the 7990 does a good enough job humiliating itself because AMD drivers. Let's just say AMD's multi-GPU driver support is the reason I moved to Team Green...

As for the topic, definitely 780. A Titan isn't $350 faster.
 
I can't find the corresponding article, but I remember reading that the 780 by EVGA or some other company actually achieved slightly better benchmarks than a Titan (in the 5% range or something). As mentioned before, likely due to better cooling and overclocking capacities and Boost 2.0, so going H2O would offset that. I'd still rather go with a 780 SLI, though - I just don't think the Titan is worth additional money.

Just my amateur-ish train train of though, of course :)
 
Well, with all things put into perspective, an OC'ed 780 can perform on pair with a Titan IF you don't need more than 3gb of vRam. If you are pushing some extreme resolutions across multiple monitors, then 3gb just might not be enough regardless of how fast the 780 can render pixels.

With my current setup, I went from my primary 2560x1440 Dell to my Asus 1920x1080 setup but at 144hz. The smoother framerates at 144hz are stunning and with all the different flavors of AA, the image quality still very good. I would like to get a couple more of those Asus monitors and run 5760x1080@144hz at a vsync of 144FPS.

I guess I need to see what the memory requirements will be to achieve those numbers.... At that, I think a pair of 780's may fall short of full performance on the most demanding games.

:cheers:
 
Luminis
And suddenly, my PC feels like a GameBoy :lol:
Click to expand...

Well, my expectations a are nice but probably not realistic. In just looking at the benchmarks of these in SLI, I think 144fps at those resolutions is just asking too much. Then there's dual 790's for quad SLI which is just too much of a gamble as to the support for games being there.
 
Looking forward to see the numbers you get from the dual 780's.

Can't wait to get mines, just need to figure out which manufacturer I should go with.
 
If everything goes as planned, I should have a score to post by Thursday. 👍

What are you thinking? Single 780, SLI, Tri or Quad SLI? Air or Water?
 
Pako
If everything goes as planned, I should have a score to post by Thursday. 👍
Click to expand...
No worries. I'm still gonna wait at least a couple weeks before I buy anything.

Pako
What are you thinking? Single 780, SLI, Tri or Quad SLI? Air or Water?
Click to expand...
I'm gonna go for SLI 780's, and i'm not to familiar with watercooling on GPU's so most likely air cooling. But i'm open to suggestions.

If watercooling is easy to mount, i'm most definitely interested in that.
 
Yep, pretty easy to mount. Might want to wait until I have done some testing to decide if water is even worth it, but yeah you can figure about $150 per card for the water blocks and you can get by with a pretty cheap water kit that includes radiator, hoses, fittings, pump and reservoir for around $150 total.

I'll let you know....
 
ImmalovemaGTR
HD 7990? I mean yeah 🤬 🤬 AMD-drivers, but c'mon it is cheaper, and I find it... exciting... the thing with the drivers... I mean a always-working nVidia is boring, isn't it?;)
Click to expand...

Always working you say? :odd:

I had to go back to my factory drivers after Nvidia's last driver kept crashing my computer, this driver was the first to come with the Nvidia Experience gimick. I have a 560 ti.
 
Pako
Yep, pretty easy to mount. Might want to wait until I have done some testing to decide if water is even worth it, but yeah you can figure about $150 per card for the water blocks and you can get by with a pretty cheap water kit that includes radiator, hoses, fittings, pump and reservoir for around $150 total.

I'll let you know....
Click to expand...

Well i've looked a bit on EVGA's page, and this card seems interesting.

Total price 13000 NOK for 2 cards. (~2200 USD)

But i'll await some results from you and check up some more on the card.
 

Similar threads

Pako
  • Locked
[SOLD] EVGA GTX780 ACX and H20 Cooling included.
Replies
5
Views
988
Pako
Pako
Jump_Ace
Oooh shiny! Which video card should I get for PCars?
Replies
10
Views
843
TB
TB
Sprite
Thinking of a new gaming PC *Yes Another thread*
2
Replies
31
Views
3K
Terronium-12
Terronium-12
Punknoodle
Punknoodle's building a new PC *Update* Now upgrading to an i7 and GTX 1080 :D
2 3
Replies
68
Views
4K
Punknoodle
Punknoodle
R
new gaming rig config - suggestions/ recommendations?
Replies
9
Views
1K
suv139
suv139

Latest Posts

Back