690 or Titan?

[Gregster]

You are a special kind of troll. There was no 2 year gap ever when Nvidia didn't beat it's own flagship chip with a faster one.

I forgot to say that I linked techPowerup's benching. I know you respect their reviews as you mentioned in another thread about how good and professional they are.

Not sure why you didn't show those as well and instead chose a site which I can't speak the language? Surely you would have looked at techpowerups site first? Maybe you did and quickly moved on

 

[wolvers]

I don't really get why you felt the need to post those TPU graphs anyway. All they do is show how completely random multi-GPU scaling is with triple screens, and it certainly does nothing to make Titan's price look any more reasonable.

 

[Oblivion]

This is my biggest gripe with Titan. I don't mind the best stuff having the worst prices, but being more than twice as expensive as a setup that, 90%+ of the time, is quite a bit faster is bonkers. There's no justification for it at all.

I can't remember that ever being the case before. My 5850s were ~10% cheaper than a 480 and maybe 20-25% faster when scaling allowed, but that's as good as I can remember (xfire4870s vs GTX285?).

I see that OcUK have stock of Titans now, I wonder if the initial rush of people who want the best has tailed off.

Its seems people main argument against crossfire though is the idea that they are crippled with stability problems and you cant play a lot of games with CF enabled. This is just total tosh, pure and simple, maybe when CF and SLI first hit the scene this was the case, but its now 2013. For an old game just use one card and because its an old game a single modern GPU will chew through it no probs, at stock settings. For newer games they release driver updates pretty fast. The point to all this is though when it works the scaling and performance is amazing. When you add in the £400~ saving vs a titan its madness to say £400 is a worthy premium. Withdraw that money in cash and hold it in your hand sometime, its a lot of money. Plus i personally think crossfire looks better having two cards filling up the case and mobo slots nicely. When the titan comes down in price, which it will do, then it will be the right time to get one, or two but i think it has to come nearer £500-600 first. Which it will do.

All this is just my opinion... It interesting to see the leaps and bounds both AMD and nVidia are making though...

 

[wolvers]

Yeah, I had a good experience with xfire too. I totally get the argument for the single GPU and paying a little more, or getting slightly less overall performance, because it is simpler and sometimes less hassle. In this instance though the price difference is way too big, it's just stupid really. It's a shame because everything technically about Titan is spot on IMO.

 

[Gregster]

I would rather pay a premium and have something work "out the box" than pay less and have to fiddle with cfg files/selecting which driver for each game/zero core/computer not waking up...etc.

I plugged one Titan in, installed the latest drivers and benched a quick run. I then popped the second Titan in, plugged the other 2 monitors in and enabled "span display with surround" and straight away it worked, no messing around or fiddling needed.

 

[humbug]

I got bored so i crunched some numbers based on gregsters slides.

WoW
7970GE 40.3 / Titan 58.8 = +45%

Sleeping Dogs
7970GE 37.3 / Titan 43.6 = +18%

Skyrim
7970GE 41.2 / Titan 44.6 = +8%

Star Craft II
7970GE 146.8 / Titan 204.1 = +40%

Metro2033
7970GE 18.5 / Titan 25.1 = +35%

Max Payne 3
7970GE 41.5 / Titan 53.3 = +30%

Hitman Absolution
7970GE 16.4 / Titan 24.7 = +50%

Far Cry 3
7970GE 16.6 / Titan 20.9 = +25%

F1 2012
7970GE 62.7 / Titan 66.3 = +6%

Diablo 3
7970GE 121.8 / Titan 161.8 = +32%

Crysis 2
7970GE 28.0 / Titan 40.5 = +35%

Crysis
7970GE 23.1 / Titan 28.1 = +25%

Black Ops 2
7970GE 72.4 / Titan 100.6 = +28%

Borderlands 2
7970GE 47.4 / Titan 74.7 = +60%

BF3
7970GE 35.1 / Titan 44.7 = +28%

Arkhan City
7970GE 39.4 / Titan 59.5 = +45%

Alan Wake
7970GE 38.1 / Titan 48.2 = +27%

Assasin's Creed 3
7970GE 25.6 / Titan 27.0 = +5%

for those of you who hate Maths, To get the average (mean value) from a group of numbers you add them up and then divide the resulting number by the amount of individual numbers there are.

so, 542 divided by 18 = 30.1 mean

Based on TPU's benching results a single Titan is on average 30.1% faster than a single 7970GE.

 

[Oblivion]

Based on TPU's benching results a single Titan is on average 30.1% faster than a single 7970GE.

Yes dude no one is disputing that. But look at the price difference. £350-400 vs £900.

Now do the same for a single titan and two 7970GE (which still work out cheaper than a single titan).

 

[Oblivion]

Even two 7950s with a mild overclock (compared to what they can achieve) for a total of £500 beat a £900 titan. That's the issue here.

Whether the price premium of having all the power in a single card instead of two is worth it is down to the individual spending the money...

 

[humbug]

Yes dude no one is disputing that. But look at the price difference. £350-400 vs £900.

Now do the same for a single titan and two 7970GE (which still work out cheaper than a single titan).

30% is 30%, a significant chunk.

As i said before, its an elite GPU with an elite price, Rolls Royce vs Audi, Mechanics, Electrics..... underneath they are identical, its an A8 in a posh frock costing 3x as much.
Given the choice which car would you rather have?

Edit, Bentley not Rolls Royce, thats BMW, but same argument...

 

[spoffle]

I would rather pay a premium and have something work "out the box" than pay less and have to fiddle with cfg files/selecting which driver for each game/zero core/computer not waking up...etc.

For someone who's never used AMD cards, you seem to know a lot about how they work, even more than the people who have AMD cards!

 

[spoffle]

I always come onto this forum thinking it's an enthusiast forum and then people moaning about the fact the very top end part are so expensive!

Isn't the top end of everything usually expensive?

Well traditionally, enthusiast doesn't mean spending silly money on the most expensive stuff for a disproportional gain in performance.

Look at the name of this forum, "overclockers", that's usually the domain of the enthusiast. Instead of spending silly money, spend less and overclock the crap out of it for even more performance.

Throwing money at stuff has never been the domain of the enthusiasts.

 

[Gregster]

For someone who's never used AMD cards, you seem to know a lot about how they work, even more than the people who have AMD cards!

I use an AMD card in my laptop and it is troublesome. I don't see how you can make a statement of saying I have never used an AMD card when you know nothing of my past usages.

Welcome back from your suspension

 

[Oblivion]

30% is 30%, a significant chunk.

As i said before, its an elite GPU with an elite price, Rolls Royce vs Audi, Mechanics, Electrics..... underneath they are identical, its an A8 in a posh frock costing 3x as much.
Given the choice which car would you rather have?

Edit, Bentley not Rolls Royce, thats BMW, but same argument...

But 30% for well over double the price!... i agree its one of those products where money is not the deciding factor, you buy it because you want to own the fastest SINGLE gaming card in the world.

For the rest of us we can enjoy the same/better performance for much, much less, and have been doing so for at least 6 months now...

The titan is a great card, but not for the price.

 

[spoffle]

Well of course. Single experience = absolute experience. Surely you should know better than that? Everyone has trouble with a peice of hardware at some point, regardless of brand.

 

[humbug]

Well traditionally, enthusiast doesn't mean spending silly money on the most expensive stuff for a disproportional gain in performance.

Look at the name of this forum, "overclockers", that's usually the domain of the enthusiast. Instead of spending silly money, spend less and overclock the crap out of it for even more performance.

Throwing money at stuff has never been the domain of the enthusiasts.

Not getting enough performance? spend more money.... erm? no! Overclock the sucker!

Thats what i always thought enthusiasts were about.

 

[Oblivion]

Well traditionally, enthusiast doesn't mean spending silly money on the most expensive stuff for a disproportional gain in performance.

Look at the name of this forum, "overclockers", that's usually the domain of the enthusiast. Instead of spending silly money, spend less and overclock the crap out of it for even more performance.

Throwing money at stuff has never been the domain of the enthusiasts.

This is exactly right. Enthusiast to me is getting something and pushing it to its limits and beyond and enjoying beating things costing a lot more. Enthusiast means you enjoy the tinkering. If you just want to have a black box in the corner and never touch it but spend lots of money in the process then this is why iMacs exists and xboxes for gamers etc.

 

[spoffle]

Not getting enough performance? spend more money.... erm? no! Overclock the sucker!

Thats what i always thought enthusiasts were about.

This is exactly right. Enthusiast to me is getting something and pushing it to its limits and beyond and enjoying beating things costing a lot more. Enthusiast means you enjoy the tinkering. If you just want to have a black box in the corner and never touch it but spend lots of money in the process then this is why iMacs exists and xboxes for gamers etc.

Exactly, in fact, that sort of thing has been used by Apple in their marketing since their early days.

Which is why I joke about their stuff being fisherprice, my first computer

 

[Gregster]

Well of course. Single experience = absolute experience. Surely you should know better than that? Everyone has trouble with a piece of hardware at some point, regardless of brand.

You are doing well. So far you have accused me of never owning an AMD card and secondly assuming that I should know better. Sure you get problems with both but Nvidia has been far less problematic for me (note the word "me") and for this reason, I prefer to stick with less problematic systems. If that doesn't sit well with you, tough!

 

[sand_dune]

Of course I cherry picked the graphs from 2 pages ago. But there are pretty many graphs arent they? I actually used about HALF.

But don't forget that it was compared to 7970 Toxic that has massive clocks (1200core while titan barely overclocks). And reference titan was some 10-15% quicker.

Also Gregster you can't have your personal opinion. Because it is not possible for Titan to be the fastest for 2 years. Because Nvidia will surely beat it with a quicker one as they have ALWAYS done in much less time!

 

[humbug]

This is exactly right. Enthusiast to me is getting something and pushing it to its limits and beyond and enjoying beating things costing a lot more. Enthusiast means you enjoy the tinkering. If you just want to have a black box in the corner and never touch it but spend lots of money in the process then this is why iMacs exists and xboxes for gamers etc.

And have you looked at what you get inside iMac's these days?

A friend is a Mac fanatic, he spent £1.500 on a 27" iMac, with a GTX 650M in it...

As many times before, i told him he's completely off his trolley.

He just wants something that will do the job and thats it, he thinks Mac's are the best thing in the world for that, as if PC's can't... while never in his life has he ever actually owned one.

Apple love pepole like him, i told him that to