Rating a $1,000 Graphics Card

The GeForce GTX Titan is in a master class of what is technically possible correct now, and although that makes information technology a fairly niche product, it'south a niche product that had no trouble manhandling the other top unmarried-GPU cards by Nvidia and AMD, which should draw plenty of attending from well-funded enthusiasts.

Compared to the GTX 680, the GTX Titan averaged 42% faster in our frames per second testing and 29% faster in our frame fourth dimension testing. At its worst, the Titan was only ten% faster than the GTX 680 in Crysis 3, simply in games such equally Far Cry 3, Sleeping Dogs and Hitman: Absolution, information technology was more than than fifty% quicker.

Information technology also dispatched the HD 7970 GHz Edition with an average of 30% more frames per second and 25% improve frame latency. The average frame rate gap was narrowed to 13% when testing Sleeping Dogs, but even in that worst case scenario, the Titan still offered considerably better overall frame fourth dimension operation.

Similarly, the GTX 660 Ti SLI cards were largely in line with the Titan's fps, but they were xv% slower in terms of latency, while the dual Hard disk drive 7950 Boost cards may have offered 21% more fps, but the Titan had 21% faster frame times, which means you'd become smoother gameplay regardless of the fps data.

Overall, the Titan gave a remarkable showing, but information technology's one affair to admire its performance and another thing entirely to spend $1,000 on it. At that price, buying a Titan doesn't make a whole lot of sense for near users given that a pair of GTX 660 Tis in SLI will deliver a comparable gaming experience for effectually $400 less.

Furthermore, for the same rate the GTX 690 -- which we also believe to exist overpriced -- is faster still. That said, if you lot gave me the option of the GTX 690 or the GTX Titan I would pick the Titan every fourth dimension. Every bit we've said repeatedly in past reviews, unmarried-GPU solutions are less of a hassle to deal with.

With that in listen, if you accept $1,000 called-for a hole in your pocket, a pair of GTX 680s is probably your all-time bet, every bit the SLI performance will be fantastic and a single GTX 680 is however a very capable graphics carte when SLI back up isn't upward to snuff, which can be the case fairly ofttimes among new game releases.

So, where does the Titan fit in? We think the point is to go at least two, if not three, for playing games at farthermost resolutions well beyond 2560x1600. When you get right down to information technology, this is a card for the same folks who purchase Intel's Farthermost Edition chips, except they're actually getting something special here.

Pros: Best (and fastest) single-GPU graphics carte du jour on the marketplace. Efficient and elegant solution inside and out.

Cons: Steep pricing means the Titan is reserved solely for the i%. You can practise almost as well with a cheaper GTX 660 Ti SLI setup.