Why no Titan X Pascal?

voidshatter · 16 Jan 2017 at 19:27

I've been away from paying attention to the hardware community for a while. Every time I needed to upgrade, I just simply buy a few copies of the top-end graphics cards and do SLI/CrossFire and get it running for like 2-3 years (like 2-3 generations) without worrying about performance. I know it's not efficient but I'm lazy

This time I've been trying to buy the top-end graphics cards, but I don't seem to be able to find any retailer selling the Titan X Pascal. What's wrong with it? The only place that seems to have these in stock is geforce.co.uk. Not even the long-term nVidia partner EVGA makes water-cooled solutions for it.

Is it because the Titan X Pascal is now phasing out, and getting replaced by something new (with imminent announcements)?

Yaayuh! · 16 Jan 2017 at 19:32

Pascal Titan X has only been available from nVidia direct since launch.

Reality|Bites · 16 Jan 2017 at 19:37

Due to the fact that they are made to order? and they don't want another Titan Z scenario where they have a stock pile of card in the retail market and no one is silly enough to pay for them?

Minstadave · 16 Jan 2017 at 19:39

Reality|Bites said:
Due to the fact that they are made to order? and they don't want another Titan Z scenario where they have a stock pile of card in the retail market and no one is silly enough to pay for them?

Made to order or just Nvidia wanting to keep the card with the highest profit margin all to themselves?

voidshatter · 16 Jan 2017 at 19:48

Interesting.

I have noticed that nVidia is selling the Titan X Pascal in the UK through Digital River Ireland Ltd. Their terms of sale says

17. GOVERNING LAW AND JURISDICTION

17.1 These Terms shall be governed by English Law and we both agree to the non exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England over the Terms and any matter related to them, and all proceedings shall be conducted in English.

I have had unhappy returns procedure with Digital River before regarding a faulty Lenovo laptop. Maybe this is a way they setup to prevent geeks from getting the overclock gems by "trial and return" with retailers?

Panos · 17 Jan 2017 at 12:56

Yep. In addition to the almost 1200 quid price tag

Rezident · 17 Jan 2017 at 13:28

Only available directly from Nvidia. Nvidia is moving to a very “closed” system which is good for Nvidia and bad for everyone else – G-sync instead of FreeSync, Shield, GameStream, GeForce Experience, mandatory registration, planned obsolescence etc. etc. They are really twisting the knife in our backs now that there is no high-end competition.

DarrenM343 · 17 Jan 2017 at 17:28

I don't mind them being nvidia only to be honest. The price of the 1070 and 1080 direct hasnt changed since launch and is competitive so it's not as if they're charging a premium when bought via them. We don't know the full facts, maybe they just didn't want TXP's being put out there at an even higher price by etailers due to limit numbers being available and possibly affecting sales negatively?

lordfletch · 17 Jan 2017 at 17:51

DarrenM343 said:
I don't mind them being nvidia only to be honest. The price of the 1070 and 1080 direct hasnt changed since launch and is competitive so it's not as if they're charging a premium when bought via them. We don't know the full facts, maybe they just didn't want TXP's being put out there at an even higher price by etailers due to limit numbers being available and possibly affecting sales negatively?

with the founders edition of the 1080 ,they charged a premium did they not ?

Minstadave · 17 Jan 2017 at 17:55

lordfletch said:
with the founders edition of the 1080 ,they charged a premium did they not ?

Yeah they simply took the normally cheapest card - the blower OEM version, called it a "Founders Edition" and charged more than the third party cards. Smooth moves Nvidia.

nashathedog · 17 Jan 2017 at 18:41

lordfletch said:
with the founders edition of the 1080 ,they charged a premium did they not ?

Minstadave said:
Yeah they simply took the normally cheapest card - the blower OEM version, called it a "Founders Edition" and charged more than the third party cards. Smooth moves Nvidia.

That was an example of Nvidia taking advantage when they knew there was no competition for the 1070 & 1080 so they had free reign to do what they wanted, The saddest thing about it is no-one will make a point of buying the competition when an alternative is available in protest, They'll simply bend over and wait for the incoming Ti, Ouch!

Reality|Bites · 17 Jan 2017 at 18:58

Would people not be better going SLI GTX1080 rather than TXP?

darket · 17 Jan 2017 at 19:04

No because crossfire and sli is a total faff and thats when it works.

The golden days of dual gpu setups are long gone, developers cba to support it properly these days and i think amd and nvidia are moving slowly away from it too.

Panos · 17 Jan 2017 at 19:24

Reality|Bites said:
Would people not be better going SLI GTX1080 rather than TXP?

Yes but SLI these days isn't that better than CF, on the contrary.
However £1200 for 2 cards that will work some times, or £1200 for a single card but not that powerful, that will work always? (again ofc indeed isn't double the performance).

However I would point also to the situation where 2 used FuryX (or Nanos) make more sense, considering they cost less than a single GTX1080, and except Tomb Raider which is a VRAM gobbler, they are as fast if not faster than the TXP! At half the cost.

But many argue the following:

darket said:
No because crossfire and sli is a total faff and thats when it works.

The golden days of dual gpu setups are long gone, developers cba to support it properly these days and i think amd and nvidia are moving slowly away from it too.

which is partially correct.
But again. From one hand you buy 2 GTX1080s for what? more fps?

You can buy a Gsync monitor and a single card for the same money, and be happy. (same applies to AMD and Freesync).

The technology works and is superb for what it is.
And believe me a single GTX1080 is more than enough for 2560X1440 WITH GSYNC. But not without gsync.

Hence I sold mine, and moved back to my trusty Nano and the Freesync abilities of my monitor. Rather having 60-70fps and freesync than 80-90fps without. (Same applies to gsync).

DarrenM343 · 20 Jan 2017 at 07:53

lordfletch said:
with the founders edition of the 1080 ,they charged a premium did they not ?

1080 FE has always been £619 from NVidia since release, the aftermarket cards or most of them are much higher than that are they not?
Although the aftermarket cards may be a bit quieter there's some evidence that they clock no higher than the FE cards and I suspect in many cases the coolers and shroud (or lack of) are actually cheaper to manufacture than that on the FE cards so you're paying a lot for a slightly quieter running card.Remember, not everyone wants hot air blown into the case either.

Anyway

, the point I was trying to make is that the FE cards from NVidia are as cheap or cheaper than the FE cards bought elsewhere and always have been- that's what I was saying! How much is an EVGA 1080 FE card for example?An ASUS 1080 FE? Longer warranty maybe but that's a fair wack more than £619 which has stayed the same no matter where the £ has gone in relation to the $.Look at the online etailers, I doubt you'll find many 1080 FE's for less than what NV are selling them for direct.

We don't know why exactly NV has not allowed others to sell the TXP but it "might" be because it's a high priced product and they wanted to keep a cap on the price (not allowing others to slap on top whatever amount they wanted due to being made in lessnumbers or supply and demand affected), which would tie in with the fact that they sell 1070 & 1080 FE cards themselves at decent prices. They'd also need to give everyone stock too of the high priced product.

smogsy · 20 Jan 2017 at 08:10

I think they want to sell TxP them selves is so the likes of MSI etc can't change small components such as vrm that has not been verified by Nvidia affecting qaulity in their halo product.

Changing a single component on a board can have big impact remember ref 290s memory? I see this as qaulity assurance + good money

Minstadave · 20 Jan 2017 at 10:13

smogsy said:
I think they want to sell TxP them selves is so the likes of MSI etc can't change small components such as vrm that has not been verified by Nvidia affecting qaulity in their halo product.

Changing a single component on a board can have big impact remember ref 290s memory? I see this as qaulity assurance + good money

But that always happened in the form of reference boards. They were shipped to the third party brands fully assembled and they just stuck a sticker on the. And boxed them.

Curlyriff · 20 Jan 2017 at 10:37

Yeah I feel it was just a quantity thing because of the costs and controlling stock as needed for them. It means they could keep the binned chips and use as needed to order.

Silent_Scone · 20 Jan 2017 at 12:28

I love my TX, does 2130Mhz.

Digital River are useless, though.

smogsy · 20 Jan 2017 at 17:16

Minstadave said:
But that always happened in the form of reference boards. They were shipped to the third party brands fully assembled and they just stuck a sticker on the. And boxed them.

Im pretty sure, but happy to be wrong
OEMs have the bomb and they manufacturer the boards to Nvidia spec. That's why some OEMs get stock later than others. Which what caused AMD 290 issues they changed the memory as stock was low from other memory manufacturer

If Nvidia create them all they will use only approved components