Given that the Titan X is clocked ~12% lower than the GTX 980 at stock, we were hoping for around a 40% performance bump and thankfully that’s close to reality as the Titan X was 37% faster than the GTX 980 at 2560x1600 and 36% faster at 4K UHD. The Titan X was also 47% faster than the R9 290X on average at 2560x1600 while it was just 36% faster at 3840x2160. At 2560x1600 the Titan X’s results were relatively competitive with AMD’s dual-GPU R9 295X2 mainly due to poor scaling. In some instances, drivers could be to blame, but there were situations where the R9 295X was clearly CPU limited. While the Titan X was just 8% slower than the R9 295X2 at 2560x1600, it was 22% slower at 3840x2160. It’s not completely fair to compare the Titan X to a water-cooled dual-GPU card, nonetheless the top-end Radeon remains a serious contender for hardcore gamers at $700+.
Now, at $999, the Titan X is aiming at the no-compromise gamer. It’s ~80% more expensive than the GTX 980 while delivering 40% more performance, so prospective buyers are set to pay a massive premium. Meanwhile, the new Titan is 47% faster than the R9 290X at 2560x1600, but that hardly justifies spending almost three times as much. The R9 295X2 can be had for as little as $700, which is a heck of a deal considering the cooling it comes with, though with the headaches that often arise from multi-GPU gaming, we could see someone spending more on what is technically a slower albeit painless and more straightforward solution. Meanwhile, AMD’s R9 290X is still the best choice for those wanting the best value flagship. There’s no denying that the Titan X delivers remarkable performance and despite already witnessing first-hand just how efficient Maxwell is, we still thought this card would be more power hungry than it turned out to be. It’s nice to be repeatedly impressed on this front. Ultimately the Titan X delivers. It’s not a great value, but if it sells out like the original Titan did then it doesn’t need to be. Cons: Expensive, gets somewhat hot under load.
