Nvidia quietly launches Titan Black graphics card, rolls out new GeForce drivers

[Shawn Knight]

Nvidia’s flagship Titan graphics card quietly received a refresher today with the launch of the Titan Black. I say quiet because Nvidia didn’t even publish a press release on the matter (a blog post got the job done), instead electing to focus their attention on the new Maxwell architecture.

Nevertheless, the new Titan Black is here and it features modest updates across the board (no pun intended). The clock speed is up from 837MHz to 889MHz, boost clock is now at 980MHz versus 876MHz on the original Titan and the 6GB of 384-bit GDDR5 memory now operates at 7GHz instead of 6GHz. The stream processor count is also a tad bit higher, too, at 2880 versus 2688 from last year.

The card is available starting today for $999, the same price the original Titan launched at.

In related news, Nvidia also rolled out new GPU drivers. Version 334.89 WHQL are said to boost performance by as much as 19 percent in F1 2013, up to 18 percent in Sleeping Dogs, up to 16 percent in Hitman Absolution and up to 15 percent in Company of Heroes 2.

The new drivers also include new SLI profiles for Assassin's Creed Liberation HD, Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry, Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut and The Crew. Additionally, Nvidia has included new 3D Vision profiles for Shadow Warrior, The Stanley Parable, Walking Dead 2, World Rally Championship 4, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, and Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon.

To download just choose the drivers for your platform:

• Nvidia GeForce Graphics Driver 334.89 for Windows XP 32-bit
• Nvidia GeForce Graphics Driver 334.89 for Windows XP 64-bit
• Nvidia GeForce Graphics Driver 334.89 for Windows 7/8/Vista 32-bit
• Nvidia GeForce Graphics Driver 334.89 for Windows 7/8/Vista 64-bit
• Nvidia GeForce Notebook Graphics Driver 334.89 for Windows 7/8/Vista 32-bit
• Nvidia GeForce Notebook Graphics Driver 334.89 for Windows 7/8/Vista 64-bit

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/55720-nvidia-quietly-launches-titan-black-graphics-card-rolls-out-new-geforce-drivers.html

 

[GhostRyder]

Well I lost my bet on the price...

Kinda overpriced for what it is, in reality you might as well just stick with the 780ti since 3gb is more than enough for even the higher end of the sprectrum. Maybe we will see some 4gb 780ti Cards in the future from EVGA or the likes that will be priced better.

Kinda Surprised they just slipped this card into the market with nothing being even talked about.

Truthfully im waiting to see what the supposed 790 is going to be (780 X2 or 780ti X2) because since 290X's are still on the rise for miners, it might be a good idea to just sell them off and grab a 790 or 2 or a pair/trio of 780ti's.

 

[Jad Chaar]

I wonder how OCable the card is now with the boosted clocks. I imagine the 8+6 pin will bottleneck it. @dividebyzero any ideas?

 

[GhostRyder]

I wonder how OCable the card is now with the boosted clocks. I imagine the 8+6 pin will bottleneck it.

Its just a 780ti with 3gb more VRAM on it essentially minus a few alterations that make it the Titan. 1200mhz will probably still be around normal peak.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Its just a 780ti with 3gb more VRAM on it essentially minus a few alterations that make it the Titan. 1200mhz will probably still be around normal peak.

True.

 

[Guest]

The Titan is the most gorgeous card I have ever seen to date. Pure class IMO

 

[BlueDrake]

The Titan is the most gorgeous card I have ever seen to date. Pure class IMO

Funny to say that, given a lot of the 700 series share the design. Obviously various 700 series cards from third party vendors, will have OC's and their own unique cooling designs but not all.

 

[dividebyzero]

Maybe we will see some 4gb 780ti Cards in the future from EVGA or the likes that will be priced better.

You won't ever see a 780 Ti with an asymmetrical memory configuration. Clamshell mode using 16-bit I/O on the backside memory IC's is too low.
And no, there won't be any 6GB 780 Ti's either. The larger framebuffer is one of the main segmentation factors. It is also the reason that you wont see a 12GB Titan - since 12GB is reserved for Tesla.

Kinda Surprised they just slipped this card into the market with nothing being even talked about.

Not really. The card isn't aimed at gamers - at least not 99.99% of them. If you want/need a 6GB framebuffer then you're likely using the machine for visualization (Blender etc.), and people using pro cards are well aware of the release schedule, as well as frequenting their own specialist forums.

I wonder how OCable the card is now with the boosted clocks. I imagine the 8+6 pin will bottleneck it. @dividebyzero any ideas?

8+6 pin doesn't really bottleneck the 780 Ti unless you're looking at extreme overclocking. The bigger drawback would be the reference cooler causing downclocking - although that is fairly minor in relation to some other reference design blower/shrouds. Depending upon what the actual boost clock is (it is usually somewhat higher than the minimum advertised).
As for overclock potential - maybe slightly less than than the 780 Ti, since the extra 3GB of vRAM will take 15-20W of the power budget. You're probably looking at about 1100-1150MHz if staying within the Nvidia voltage guideline.
As an idea of what is achievable, Hardware. info clocked FOUR Titan Blacks to 1089 MHz (base), 1180 MHz (boost), 7200 MHz (effective memory). Here's their quad-SLI Titan Black review.

 

[amstech]

No one admits more incompetence then the person who talks about Titan being overpriced due solely to it's gaming performance.

 

[GhostRyder]

You won't ever see a 780 Ti with an asymmetrical memory configuration. Clamshell mode using 16-bit I/O on the backside memory IC's is too low.
And no, there won't be any 6GB 780 Ti's either. The larger framebuffer is one of the main segmentation factors. It is also the reason that you wont see a 12GB Titan - since 12GB is reserved for Tesla.

You say that, but thats only an assumption, unless Nvidia themselves forces a no then the choice is up to the vendor to release such a card. We already experience cards with double the memory.

No one admits more incompetence then the person who talks about Titan being overpriced due solely to it's gaming performance.

Noone admits more fanboism than someone justifying 100 bucks per extra gigabyte of GDDR5 ram and an increased single precision and double precision performance

 

[dividebyzero]

You say that, but thats only an assumption, unless Nvidia themselves forces a no then the choice is up to the vendor to release such a card. We already experience cards with double the memory.

Well no it isn't. Both Nvidia and EVGA's Jacob Freeman have already made the it pretty clear. Seems like every five minutes someone asks the question and we go through the whole 6GB unicorn rumourfest again. Add in all the numbnuts who didn't realize that the Titan Black was in the works and assumed the new SKU would be a 780 Ti variant and I can see how some people might not want to let it go.

EVGA's product manager, Jacob Freeman commenting one of the many "Will it happen?" threads (in this case some mocked-up boxart concept).

...there are no plans to ever bring it to market. In fact it never existed in an actual product form

Noone admits more fanboism than someone justifying 100 bucks per extra gigabyte of GDDR5 ram, increased double single precision and double precision performance

Maybe you should head over to the Blenderartists, VRAY, MentalRay, and Autodesk forums and tell them they don't know what they're doing (Bear in mind the newer Blender builds are further optimized for Titan/Titan Black so don't base your admonishment on the old builds). Titan is pushed pretty hard as a CUDA dev tool as well which ties in with the interest in Blender, VRAY etc.

As you should be able to see, the Titans framebuffer and FP64 rate give a considerable speed up over the 780 Ti .

and a change to 1/3 FP32.

FP32 is full rate (1:1) just as it is for every GPU made for the last 9 or so years. I believe the ratio you're looking for is 1:3 for FP64

 

[GhostRyder]

Well no it isn't. Both Nvidia and EVGA's Jacob Freeman have already made the it pretty clear. Seems like every five minutes someone asks the question and we go through the whole 6GB unicorn rumourfest again. Add in all the numbnuts who didn't realize that the Titan Black was in the works and assumed the new SKU would be a 780 Ti variant and I can see how some people might not want to let it go.

Ok thats one, now what about MSI, gigabyte, PNY, and Asus all of which have done double Ram variants of popular Nvidia cards. So unless Nvidia puts a foot down and says no they have just as much chance as anyone.

As you should be able to see, the Titans framebuffer and FP64 rate give a considerable speed up over the 780 Ti .

Yes in a few Cuda development tools as I mentioned above, does not justify the price either way. A few changes/add ons to the same card all for a nominal 300 extra dollars. Its just a Boss Hogg style scam...

FP32 is full rate (1:1) just as it is for every GPU made for the last 9 or so years. I believe the ratio you're looking for is 1:3 for FP64

I edited that over an hour before you posted, I noticed the typo...

 

[Guest]

Dear techspot, we demand a review about Titan Black as soon as possible.. please hear our plea

 

[dividebyzero]

Ok thats one, now what about MSI, gigabyte, PNY, and Asus all of which have done double Ram variants of popular Nvidia cards.

Name one company that has a 6GB 780 let alone a 6GB 780 Ti ? There isn't one. There won't be one unless AMD allow vendor 8GB 290X's and Nvidia changes its stance. What the AIB's want is immaterial, they will abide by Nvidia's edict to protect the market. A lucrative market MSI, PNY, and Asus also benefit from.
And BTW, why would any ven destroy their own Titan/Titan Black markets? They wouldn't.
Show me one 6GB GTX 780 or 780 Ti, or any verified vendor statement saying that one is due for release. You're arguing for the sake of it. The 780 has been in the market for 10 months - not one single 6GB card while the Titan remains in the product stack. That should be a clue.

Yes in a few Cuda development tools as I mentioned above, does not justify the price either way.

As I said, maybe you should go tell all the visualization forums all about it. I'm pretty certain that they would come to the same conclusion that I have- namely that you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

 

[VitalyT]

I wouldn't spend that much money on a video card at this point, because DisplayPort 1.3 is due to be released within 2-3 month, which will be a significant new chapter for video cards to initiate proper support of 4K and up to 8K resolutions. Expect corresponding updates from both NVidia and AMD to use the new protocol and to bump up video memory further, possibly twice on the high-end cards.

 

[GhostRyder]

Name one company that has a 6GB 780 let alone a 6GB 780 Ti ? There isn't one. There won't be one unless AMD allow vendor 6GB 290X's and Nvidia changes its stance. What the AIB's want is immaterial, they will abide by Nvidia's edict to protect the market. A lucrative market MSI, PNY, and Asus also benefit from.
And BTW, why would any ven destroy their own Titan/Titan Black markets? They wouldn't.
Show me one 6GB GTX 780 or 780 Ti, or any verified vendor statement saying that one is due for release. You're arguing for the sake of it. The 780 has been in the market for 10 months - not one single 6GB card while the Titan remains in the product stack. That should be a clue.

Has every Vendor said that they are not creating one? Nope, therefor its more than possible just like How powercolor made the devil 13 dual GPU card way before the 7990 that was not announced till late or how theres 6gb 7970 card. Plenty of opportunity for one unless NVidia firmly says no and makes the companies not do it.

As I said, maybe you should go tell all the visualization forums all about it. I'm pretty certain that they would come to the same conclusion that I have- namely that you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

How about you get a clue you don't know what your talking about? Defending a 1k card because they add an extra set of ram and adjust the card/add a feature or two in the mix which apparently takes you over an hour to find information to justify. Trying to justify it with things similar like Like Cuda Blender and saying well that justifys the price hike because Nvidia can re purpose the same GPU with a few changes in feature set to make it valued at 1k is just trying to justify spending the money.

Also im apparently not the only one who shares that viewpoint that the Titans and Titan black are just a joke for extra cash. I can find an extra use for anything, should we talk about how the half priced AMD card is almost 3/5 as good at many of the features you claim not Cuda related even in your post. Or should we also speak how the fact you can Mine with a 290X 2 times as much as the 780ti would justify it being 150 bucks more, no it doesn't. Guess AMD should just throw 4more gigabytes or ram on a card and change the double and single precision up then charge an extra 300 bucks because thats apparently justifiable. You can spam extra feature sets all you want does not justify the price of a card called the GTX Titan Black.

 

[dividebyzero]

I wouldn't spend that much money on a video card at this point, because DisplayPort 1.3 is due to be released within 2-3 month, which will be a significant new chapter for video cards to initiate proper support of 4K and up to 8K resolutions. Expect corresponding updates from both NVidia and AMD to use the new protocol and to bump up video memory further, possibly twice on the high-end cards.

It's old tech in any case. All Maxwell GPUs -including the just released GTX 750/750 Ti feature Dynamic Parallelism and Hyper-Q...two features previously reserved for GK 110 only.
Plus, if you follow the breadcrumbs...
Exhibit A: Nvidia announced at the official launch that GM106 (28nm) follows shortly, followed by GM206/204 -likely replacements for the GTX 780/770/760.
Exhibit B: This article regarding TSMC http://focustaiwan.tw/news/atod/201312050035.aspx-including this titbit:

A senior TSMC executive revealed recntly that the company will begin 20nm production in the first quarter of 2014, contributing to the company's revenue in the following quarter.
Industry sources said TSMC's 20nm production capacity has been booked up with orders from industry giants including Apple Inc., Qualcomm Inc., Xilinx, Altera, Supermicro, NVIDIA, MediaTek and Broadcom Corp.

Which gels with the rumour mill talk that this present generation of cards might not last long in the spotlight.

Has every Vendor said that they are not creating one? Nope, therefor its more than possible just like How powercolor made the devil 13 dual GPU card way before the 7990....

Nvidia isn't AMD.

Defending a 1k card because they add an extra set of ram and adjust the card/add a feature or two in the mix which apparently takes you over an hour to find information to justify

Whose "defending" and "justifying"? I am pointing out that people buy the card. A simple browse of the render forums shows that this is the case. Since this seems beyond you, here's a forum members Octane renderer

As usual you're (badly) interpreting what I've said rather than reading what I've said....as usual...getting all upset and defensive...as usual

I can find an extra use for anything, should we talk about how the half priced AMD card is almost 3/5 as good at many of the features...[rant snipped]

It might have slipped by you, but this is a thread about an Nvidia card- specifically the GTX Titan Black. Feel free to post in the appropriate thread all you know about AMD cards - I'll give it all the due consideration it deserves...assuming I have a spare 90 seconds and any interest.

 

[GhostRyder]

Which gels with the rumour mill talk that this present generation of cards might not last long in the spotlight.

Which would even more point to the fact Titan black is not worth near that much especially if the current gen gets phased out very soon.

Nvidia isn't AMD.

Really would not have guessed...Just because they are different companies does not mean the practices always have to be different.

Whose "defending" and "justifying"? I am pointing out that people buy the card. A simple browse of the render forums shows that this is the case. Since this seems beyond you, here's a forum members Octane renderer
As usual you're (badly) interpreting what I've said rather than reading what I've said....as usual...getting all upset and defensive...as usual

As per usual your on your trying to shove your opinions down peoples throats which has been very common thing you do. You also have a tendency when someone disagrees with you to start referring to them as lesser being's. Your saying the cards price is justified because of "insert reason here" which is defending the product.

Anyone can justify the price of a card by saying it has "Insert certain feature with cool name" and throw a different price tag on it. R9 290X can mine great and excels at OpenCL, well by the logic here we should slap a higher price tag because certain features make it worth that much more. How about an extra 300 dollars to cover more ram and those "extra" features and let change some of the priorities. No, having said features is part of it and saying its worth more would not justify AMD going "Well we should charge an extra 300 bucks because its better at this set of features". The fact that Titan exists with the GTX branding is to line wallets. Its a Hybrid card, its not directly the GTX side (well actually it mostly is) and its not fully the work station side.

Its an attempt to fool gamers who don't spend time looking up gaming benchmarks or who don't look at enough to think that this card is the best thing ever invented. The extra features are just tacked on to make it appeal to the other end spectrum for more uses and to justify the price, it sure as heck does not cost them much more to make than the 780 or 780ti.

Many people share my opinion, and an opinion is an opinion.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

When all is said and done I think you've gotta have rocks in your head to even consider blowing $1000 on a card just to play games. I could find a lot more useful things to waste that kind of moolah on.

 

[cliffordcooley]

As per usual your on your trying to shove your opinions down peoples throats which has been very common thing you do.

A graphics card being worth more, because it does more is not an opinion.

When all is said and done I think you've gotta have rocks in your head to even consider blowing $1000 on a card just to play games.

Thats just it, the Titan is not a gaming card. DBZ has been trying to tell everyone this, everytime he post about the Titan. He has commented several times, the Titan is a computing card. It may not be worth **** with Bitcoins, but that is not the only computing projects that need processing power.

 

[dividebyzero]

Your saying the cards price is justified because of "insert reason here" which is defending the product.

Nope. You got it wrong again. Quelle surprise.
I haven't said anything about the cards price. Not. One. Thing.
Neither am I defending the product. Comprehension fail on your part.

What I stated is that people who have a use for the card, buy the card. It is actually a rather simple concept.

Bleating on about feature set, price, or what AMD's doing doesn't change the fact that the Titan finds a home with people who have a use for it. Argue as much as you want to, but companies don't put out hardware with the expectation that it wont sell

I have 4500+ posts here, and I have not criticised a single piece of hardware chosen by anyone here- namely, because everyone's needs are individual to them - application usage, pricing, availability, personal preference, resell, ego, as nauseam.
You on the other hand continue to post on a forum thread regarding a product you don't like and wont consider buying - and judge any potential buyer into the bargain.
That is rather sad.

It may not be worth **** with Bitcoins, but that is not the only computing projects that need processing power.

It will never be a "go to" for mining, but CUDA miner is a making some progress. Reducing the cores-per-compute units is definitely helping in that regard, as the 750 shows

(Extremetech review]

 

[GhostRyder]

Nope. You got it wrong again. Quelle surprise.
I haven't said anything about the cards price. Not. One. Thing.
Neither am I defending the product. Comprehension fail on your part.

What I stated is that people who have a use for the card, buy the card. It is actually a rather simple concept.

Bleating on about feature set, price, or what AMD's doing doesn't change the fact that the Titan finds a home with people who have a use for it. Argue as much as you want to, but companies don't put out hardware with the expectation that it wont sell

I have 4500+ posts here, and I have not criticised a single piece of hardware chosen by anyone here- namely, because everyone's needs are individual to them - application usage, pricing, availability, personal preference, resell, ego, as nauseam.
You on the other hand continue to post on a forum thread regarding a product you don't like and wont consider buying - and judge any potential buyer into the bargain.
That is rather sad.

No the only sad thing is that your the first one to start an argument every time something does not follow your belief. I said I don't think the price is justified and I am more entitled to my belief. The saddest person here is the one who starts every argument because I don't share your biased opinion.

People will justify buying anything, that's why there are games costing 50k and cars for 300k or more. Whether or not it's worth it is an opinion.

P.s don't lie, you have critiqued almost every AMD card release including the 7990.

 

[dividebyzero]

P.s don't lie, you have critiqued almost every AMD card release including the 7990.

Do you have some kind of learning disability?

I have 4500+ posts here, and I have not criticised a single piece of hardware chosen by anyone here

Whose talking about the hardware? I was referring to the user base

Its an attempt to fool gamers who don't spend time looking up gaming benchmarks or who don't look at enough to think that this card is the best thing ever invented.

Aside from the obvious issue that most people dropping a $1000 on a graphics card probably know full well what they're in for, there is also the fact that many people don't even use the card for gaming. I'd actually dare to say that the average GTX Titan buyer might be somewhat more knowledgeable than most given the professional uses the card is put to.

But yeah, carry on misreading and yakking.

 

[captaincranky]

Since my best VGA at the moment, is Intel's HD-4000 IGP in my Core-i3, I wouldn't even be allowed to troll in this thread, would I......?

 

[dividebyzero]

Since my best VGA at the moment, is Intel's HD-4000 IGP in my Core-i3, I wouldn't even be allowed to troll in this thread, would I......?

The bar has been set pretty low, I think you're safe!
At least your posting wouldn't cause me to wince at the grammar, punctuation, and logic.