# Drivers Holding Back GTX TITAN-Z Launch



## btarunr (May 14, 2014)

It turns out that drivers are holding back launch of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX TITAN-Z flagship graphics card. That's not to say that drivers for the card don't exist. When tested with ones that do, performance numbers yielded by Hong Kong-based tech print magazine E-Zone, reveal that the card trades blows with AMD's R9 295X2 in too many tests to warrant double its price at $2,999; and that it's also slower in some. The only way NVIDIA can sell the GTX TITAN-Z at that price, is by either making it significantly faster, or reducing the price. It looks like NVIDIA is trying the former, and not by tinkering with hardware specifications, but drivers. NVIDIA believes it can yet salvage the $2,999 pricing of the GTX TITAN-Z, by developing drivers that make the card convincingly faster than AMD's $1,499 offering. Retailers and distributors are being told not to sell their GTX TITAN-Z inventory until NVIDIA releases these drivers. The company didn't mention a date to these retailers. Given its track-record with performance-enhancing drivers, one can give NVIDIA the benefit of doubt. It may yet prevent a "GTX TITANIC-Z" from happening.





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## radrok (May 14, 2014)

This is becoming more and more like a Soap opera 

Just get over with it Nvidia, release the damn card at half the price.

There's no way a driver release can make it much faster than what it is now unless they tinker with IQ settings.


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## TheDeeGee (May 14, 2014)

I think they should have a done 790 Ti instead.


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## INSTG8R (May 14, 2014)

radrok said:


> This is becoming more and more like a Soap opera
> 
> Just get over with it Nvidia, release the damn card at half the price.
> 
> There's no way a driver release can make it much faster than what it is now unless they tinker with IQ settings.



Indeed! It's just SLI not some form of foreign tech...Drivers...


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## bogami (May 14, 2014)

Before we buy GPU card with two processor for little more than the normal cost version. Around 10% more cost.!!!!        Now he's like a poor man would have to pay to a rich man! Delay and poor construction. very low clockt  product can not cope with two titanium black edicion but $ 1,000 more expensive. And outdated outputs, 3 slots ,locked clockeng ..... 
If it exceeds 100% of AMD R9 290X2 (1slot !) would not put so much of it . I canot !!. Namely the Europa gets R9 AMD 290X 2 for only € 1,200.,(However, this is put up! shood be 700$) and the price is falling! 
At such prices will be very little sold.! Stock will not gonna sell! And Maxvell will continue deliberately to be delayed ! 
Where you get the impression that deliberately working against the customer. Only for their own profit, and who we can  do something.! I wish success to AMD just to deliver  greedy iNvida a lesson.


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## Kaynar (May 14, 2014)

Well, I don't think they can make it 2 times faster... cause its 2 times more ridiculously priced than the dual gpu of amd, which is still much more expensive than any previous gen dual gpu at release.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 14, 2014)

Yeah like nvidia we're ever going to blame anything but driver's. 
I could write this soap opera better than them and im a gramma assassin.


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## Selene (May 14, 2014)

Most people don't understand the only reason the 295X does so well vs SLI Titan Blacks is because of the way the chip thermal regulates the clock speeds.
On water where the card run 1100+ on the boost they beat the 295X 90% of the time, I would not be shocked to see them change the drivers so the temps don't cause such a huge clock speed lose as we do now.


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## radrok (May 14, 2014)

Selene said:


> Most people don't understand the only reason the 295X does so well vs SLI Titan Blacks is because of the way the chip thermal regulates the clock speeds.
> On water where the card run 1100+ on the boost they beat the 295X 90% of the time, I would not be shocked to see them change the drivers so the temps don't cause such a huge clock speed lose as we do now.



It still wouldn't warrant twice the price.

And there is not much headroom left in there, considering this is an air cooled graphics card. If they raise clocks above what they are now they can forget their 375W TDP.


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## JTristam (May 14, 2014)

@bogami
Machine translation is not always reliable, right? (locked clockeng? What the hell, man? You made my day )

This $3K card again? It's really a slow day.
Anyway I hope - and I really do hope - Maxwell will make it on time. I'll be pissed if Maxwell is getting sidelined because of this stupid thing. 
Sometimes I think NVIDIA will be better off without JHH...


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## Selene (May 14, 2014)

radrok said:


> It still wouldn't warrant twice the price.
> 
> And there is not much headroom left in there, considering this is an air cooled graphics card. If they raise clocks above what they are now they can forget their 375W TDP.



I 100% agree on the price no matter how the card performs.


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## Prima.Vera (May 14, 2014)

_*Greed *_and _*Vanity*_. 
The 2 biggest sins of mister Jen-Hsun Huang. I wanted to say *stupidity *also, but is not a sin, is more of a quality nowadays...


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## btarunr (May 14, 2014)

Prima.Vera said:


> _*Greed *_and _*Vanity*_.
> The 2 biggest sins of mister Jen-Hsun Huang. I wanted to say *stupidity *also, but is not a sin, is more of a quality nowadays...



I reckon it has more to do with NVIDIA's Gujarati VP of Product Marketing. Gujaratis are like India's Ferengi.

(that was a compliment)


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## HalfAHertz (May 14, 2014)

btarunr said:


> I reckon it has more to do with NVIDIA's Gujarati VP of Product Marketing. Gujaratis are like India's Ferengi.
> 
> (that was a compliment)



Heh.. I think Mr. Jen should focus less on hyping/marketing and more on better architectures and AMD should follow. Seems like we're not getting any node switches any time soon.


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## harry90 (May 14, 2014)

Proof that Nvidia drivers Suck as much as Amd's. 3k price for a card that isnt much faster than 780ti is stupidity.


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## manofthem (May 14, 2014)

btarunr said:


> It may yet prevent a "GTX TITANIC-Z" from happening.



I chuckled a bit at that


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## ssdpro (May 14, 2014)

Performance per dollar "Value" isn't the goal here folks.  The target market for this card is the buyer with no regard for price or value and has no basic cognitive or common sense capabilities - and likely no remaining dignity.  They produce the card in limited quantities at a huge markup just to bring in a little cash for the rebrand manufacturers so they can meet payroll and keep the air conditioning on in the summer while they wait for real new releases.


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## micropage7 (May 14, 2014)

they should offer lower power with great performance card than super duper expensive and only the god knows when it will get launched


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## H2323 (May 14, 2014)

It's just a marketing ploy, Nvidia thinks if they keep it delayed people will wait for it instead of buying the AMD unit now.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (May 14, 2014)

harry90 said:


> Proof that Nvidia drivers Suck as much as Amd's. 3k price for a card that isnt much faster than 780ti is stupidity.



How is that the fault of the drivers? They downclocked the shit out of it.


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## JTristam (May 14, 2014)

harry90 said:


> Proof that Nvidia drivers Suck as much as Amd's. 3k price for a card that isnt much faster than 780ti is stupidity.


Tell that to my NVIDIA cards. I've been using NVIDIA since GeForce 256 and I've never had any issue with their drivers.


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## Hilux SSRG (May 14, 2014)

Driver optimizations will never gain the performance to justify the $3k price point.

I still think they should call it a Quadro and lose some respectability but not more if they leave it as a Geforce.


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## damric (May 14, 2014)

They are probably trying to tweak the turbo boost speeds such that it can somehow beat the 295 handedly while staying within TDP, and keeping fan noise down.

The probable problem is that after a few minutes the thing throttles back and performance tanks.

Will they tune the boost settings to boost just long enough to complete a benchmark?

AMD was wise to go for liquid cooling.


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## 20mmrain (May 14, 2014)

I love Nvidia Cards.... But let Nvidia fall on their face. They need to! 

Cut the price of the card in half and call it a day. There is no way they will be able to improve the driver by that much to warrant the $3k price tag.


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## chinmi (May 14, 2014)

If the driver can make this card go 1.5x - 1.8x faster then 295x2 then it's gonna be a good deal. If not... Totally not worth it.


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## 15th Warlock (May 14, 2014)

harry90 said:


> Proof that Nvidia drivers Suck as much as Amd's. 3k price for a card that isnt much faster than 780ti is stupidity.



I have cards from both manufacturers and Nvidia's drivers have been more stable overall for me.

As for blaming the drivers for the delay of the Titan-Z? I don't buy that,  the card is just two GK110 in one board, my GK110s in SLI have been rock steady for over a year now, yes you need to create new fan profiles and throttle algorithms when your dealing with dual GPU cards, but Nvidia announced this card months ago, they've had plenty of time to do that.

Also, I fully agree that going for dual 780Ti (or 290Xs for that matter) makes a lot more sense


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## MxPhenom 216 (May 14, 2014)

This is just getting better and better......


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## Assimilator (May 14, 2014)

nVIDIA, nVIDIA, nVIDIA. Give up. You lost this round of the dual-GPUs-on-a-stick wars, but it doesn't matter because your 2-year-old architecture is still holding up pretty well against your competitor's 6-month-old one in all other respects. So do us all a favour, admit defeat gracefully, and get back to work delivering Maxwell.


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## Fluffmeister (May 14, 2014)

Assimilator said:


> nVIDIA, nVIDIA, nVIDIA. Give up. You lost this round of the dual-GPUs-on-a-stick wars, but it doesn't matter because your 2-year-old architecture is still holding up pretty well against your competitor's 6-month-old one in all other respects. So do us all a favour, admit defeat gracefully, and get back to work delivering Maxwell.



It's a point well made, a couple of custom 780 Ti's are already cheaper than AMD's power hungry water heater. The market for these cards is tiny and they make far more money on lesser spec'ed pro cards anyway. 

Still, new drivers are always welcome


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## GhostRyder (May 14, 2014)

Assimilator said:


> nVIDIA, nVIDIA, nVIDIA. Give up. You lost this round of the dual-GPUs-on-a-stick wars, but it doesn't matter because your 2-year-old architecture is still holding up pretty well against your competitor's 6-month-old one in all other respects. So do us all a favour, admit defeat gracefully, and get back to work delivering Maxwell.


?  GCN was released before The 6XX series cards from nvidia?  Hawaii is still GCN just with a few new features but it is still the old GCN.

What nvidia is saying is that they are trying to find an easily stable driver overclock for the card that will allow the boost clocks to exceed a point to justify the price.  Problem is that on a single axial fan it's not going to get to far as is.  They are not going to justify the price like this still in the end even if they get the boost clock to 1100mhz (I'd say that would be an extremely best scenario).


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## Sony Xperia S (May 14, 2014)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> This is just getting better and better......



Where?

To me (and not only) the world is becoming ever worse and it will get even worse.

I am so disappointed with so many things, my vision for the world is completely different. Those assholes who lead the world are so stupid. They thing that there is value in things if they are neither good, nor bad, something in the middle.... 

nvidia is a shitty company and the only way to stop them from being ever more shitty, is to stop giving them any money.


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## MxPhenom 216 (May 14, 2014)

Sony Xperia S said:


> Where?
> 
> To me (and not only) the world is becoming ever worse and it will get even worse.
> 
> ...



okay!


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## FrustratedGarrett (May 14, 2014)

Assimilator said:


> nVIDIA, nVIDIA, nVIDIA. Give up. You lost this round of the dual-GPUs-on-a-stick wars, but it doesn't matter because your 2-year-old architecture is still holding up pretty well against your competitor's 6-month-old one in all other respects. So do us all a favour, admit defeat gracefully, and get back to work delivering Maxwell.



What do you mean 6 month-old architecture? GCN came out back in January 2012. GCN is actually a few months older than Nvidia's kepler in that regard.
Oh. and the word architecture denotes the instruction set and register layout of a given finite state machine or processor in this case.  Changing the arrangement of components or making them wider/more complex doesn't equate to changing the architecture, it equate to changing the microarchitecture of a given architecture implementation.


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## INSTG8R (May 14, 2014)

Sony Xperia S said:


> Where?
> 
> To me (and not only) the world is becoming ever worse and it will get even worse.
> 
> ...



Hear a hint, it's called "TECH" Power up! "World vision" has no place in this discussion ANYWHERE...


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## SKL_H (May 14, 2014)

Nvidia won't cut the price or modify anything.
I have a feeling the secrete will be in the drivers....can't wait to see what they will do....


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## D3LTA09 (May 14, 2014)

I think reading between the lines they are saying, shit we cant make this abortion of a product perform any where near its price point no matter what we do with the drivers.


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## RCoon (May 14, 2014)

This is what happens when your Marketing department and Financial department start getting trigger happy and delirious over profit margins while the engineers are frantically glueing chips together from an old architecture and trying to cool it with a single 90mm fan.

Get the abortion over with and learn your damn lesson. No one wants your "engineering feat" crap any more. This driver nonsense is BS, 295X2 takes the cake, but nobody will buy that either because the market is such a small niche.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 15, 2014)

btarunr said:


> I reckon it has more to do with NVIDIA's Gujarati VP of Product Marketing. Gujaratis are like India's *Ferengi.*
> 
> (that was a compliment)


He likes his ears rubbed and kidnaps alien women?


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## Naito (May 15, 2014)

If they do somehow manage to boost drivers, does that mean these performance enhancements will trickle down to other cards with same architecture? Perhaps SLI scaling and stability will be greatly improved too? I mean, I can only really see two things they can do; make drivers much more efficient for the entire architecture (Kepler) and/or improve SLI performance. Both those should benefit all users that meet the criteria.


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## OneCool (May 15, 2014)

Who cares


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## btarunr (May 15, 2014)

TheMailMan78 said:


> He likes his ears rubbed and kidnaps alien women?



When he's not finding innovative ways to rip people off their gold-pressed latinum.


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## Steevo (May 15, 2014)

SKL_H said:


> Nvidia won't cut the price or modify anything.
> I have a feeling the secrete will be in the drivers....can't wait to see what they will do....


So, how much does Nvidia pay you to post this crap? 1 + 1 =2, and that is if scaling is perfect, and it never is, so more like 1.7-1.9 at best, so driver schmivers its still going to be slower with a hot air blower. 


I am so tempted to find old AMD/ATI threads to post links to where they turned into napalm exhibits from the rabid fanboys, I must say this whole forum is getting clean, almost too clean.  Even TMM is calm.


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## Xzibit (May 15, 2014)

Why delay a compute GPU to optimize its gaming performance ? After all enabling FP64 disables boost.

/sarcasm


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## xBruce88x (May 15, 2014)

INSTG8R said:


> Hear a hint, it's called "TECH" Power up! "World vision" has no place in this discussion ANYWHERE...



except the general nonsense forums

also, that card better come with at least 5 AAA games.


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## hardcore_gamer (May 15, 2014)

xBruce88x said:


> also, that card better come with at least 5 AAA games.



...and a BJ.


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## radrok (May 15, 2014)

xBruce88x said:


> except the general nonsense forums
> 
> also, that card better come with at least 5 AAA games.



I'd prefer licenses for CUDA renderers TBH.


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## eroldru (May 15, 2014)

Yeah drivers, of course. If you put your logic aside, drivers can save you. 
But if you think with logic then you understand that 3k for a gaming gpu is plain extravagant. 
Even the 295x2 is overpriced.


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## Relayer (May 15, 2014)

Selene said:


> Most people don't understand the only reason the 295X does so well vs SLI Titan Blacks is because of the way the chip thermal regulates the clock speeds.
> On water where the card run 1100+ on the boost they beat the 295X 90% of the time, I would not be shocked to see them change the drivers so the temps don't cause such a huge clock speed lose as we do now.



The 295X2 does so well because it's a 500W TDP card. A 375W card isn't going to catch it. and nVidia isn't going to dissipate 500W with a single 90mm fan sitting on top of some cooling fins.

I think AMD kept the TDP of the 295X2 a well guarded secret. Even if there were ES versions in the wild that nVidia got reports on, or even working samples, all AMD had to do was have them set to a ~375W TDP. With the dual 8 pin connectors who would have guessed the card, when released, was going to be a 500W card? 

The performance target nVidia would have assumed for the Titan-Z would have been way off.



H2323 said:


> It's just a marketing ploy, Nvidia thinks if they keep it delayed people will wait for it instead of buying the AMD unit now.



It wouldn't be the first time nVidia made that ploy work



LAN_deRf_HA said:


> How is that the fault of the drivers? They downclocked the shit out of it.



It's not the drivers. It's the power/thermal limit.



damric said:


> They are probably trying to tweak the turbo boost speeds such that it can somehow beat the 295 handedly while staying within TDP, and keeping fan noise down.
> 
> The probable problem is that after a few minutes the thing throttles back and performance tanks.
> 
> ...



The other GK110 models already do that, I don't think they are going to be able to pull this off this time.



Fluffmeister said:


> It's a point well made, a couple of custom 780 Ti's are already cheaper than AMD's power hungry water heater. The market for these cards is tiny and they make far more money on lesser spec'ed pro cards anyway.
> 
> Still, new drivers are always welcome



Read THIS review. Play real games, not 3 minute benchmarks, so the cards can warm up properly and settle into their stable boost clocks and the 295X2 kills 780 ti SLI.


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## Fluffmeister (May 15, 2014)

That power consumption


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## radrok (May 15, 2014)

^ Yeah we've reached the point of non-return with 28nm


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## Xzibit (May 15, 2014)

Maybe the new 337.81 drivers give the Titan Z that extra kick


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## eidairaman1 (May 16, 2014)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Yeah like nvidia we're ever going to blame anything but driver's.
> I could write this soap opera better than them and im a gramma assassin.




Nvidia is butt hurt over the Price that AMD fetches for their card, course a Titan gets Overthrown by  an Olympian


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## xBruce88x (May 16, 2014)

radrok said:


> I'd prefer licenses for CUDA renderers TBH.



Now that you mention it... That's exactly what this product should be. They should just brand it a Quadro part and optimize it for workstation use and be done with it.


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## Prima.Vera (May 16, 2014)

xBruce88x said:


> Now that you mention it... That's exactly what this product should be. They should just brand it a Quadro part and optimize it for workstation use and be done with it.


Actually, if you know the know how, you can do it by yourself with a re-flash and new drivers


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## Xzibit (May 16, 2014)

Prima.Vera said:


> Actually, if you know the know how, you can do it by yourself with a re-flash and new drivers



That hasn't worked in awhile. Bin/Firmware/hard-lock, software bypass doesn't unlock anything major either.


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## GhostRyder (May 16, 2014)

Xzibit said:


> That hasn't worked in awhile. Bin/Firmware/hard-lock, software bypass doesn't unlock anything major either.


Yep, sad but true theres alot less goodies these days for people to find a way to open up.  I miss the days of unlocking extra processor cores or flashing cards to the upper model variants (Like the 6950 flashed to the 6970).


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## Steevo (May 16, 2014)

Xzibit said:


> Maybe the new 337.81 drivers give the Titan Z that extra kick



$1800 worth? I bet those drivers come with a magic green fairy who reads to you and snuggles you to sleep while telling you stories of how your money is saving the world from the big bad AMD.


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## cyneater (May 17, 2014)

the GTX titan is abit like a Bugatti veyron.
They made it because they could.
But when you compare it to other super cars it sucks.


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## Fluffmeister (May 17, 2014)

That is a shit metaphor because compared to other super cars the Titan Z is still cheap.


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## Prima.Vera (May 17, 2014)

cyneater said:


> the GTX titan is abit like a Bugatti veyron.
> They made it because they could.
> But when you compare it to other super cars it sucks.


NO.

You cannot compare like that. Bugatti cars never loose their value after 1 or 2 years. On the contrary. Just check with Google how much a Bugatti from 1940 goes for.


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## Steevo (May 17, 2014)

cyneater said:


> the GTX titan is abit like a Bugatti veyron.
> They made it because they could.
> But when you compare it to other super cars it sucks.


More like a Pontiac Fiero, its not as fast, not as good, but we gave it special alloy rims that raised its price to higher than a 911, so it must be better right? Now the driver will make all the difference, right....right....


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## Xzibit (May 17, 2014)

Steevo said:


> More like a Pontiac Fiero, its not as fast, not as good, but we gave it special alloy rims that raised its price to higher than a 911, so it must be better right? Now the driver will make all the difference, right....right....



Drivers make all the difference


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## R-T-B (May 17, 2014)

Xzibit said:


> Drivers make all the difference



If you go too fast, you run into icebergs?

That's what Edward Smith taught me.  Might help in this case though....


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## Fluffmeister (May 17, 2014)

...or he is mad no one talks about his Olympic anymore?


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## R-T-B (May 17, 2014)

Fluffmeister said:


> ...or he is mad no one talks about his Olympic anymore?



You mean the fact that he crashed it...  nah, nvidia drivers are stable, remember? 

That's only partially sarcastic by the way, I've found them to be stable personally but everyone's mileage varies...


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## SKL_H (May 17, 2014)

Steevo said:


> So, how much does Nvidia pay you to post this crap? 1 + 1 =2, and that is if scaling is perfect, and it never is, so more like 1.7-1.9 at best, so driver schmivers its still going to be slower with a hot air blower.
> 
> 
> I am so tempted to find old AMD/ATI threads to post links to where they turned into napalm exhibits from the rabid fanboys, I must say this whole forum is getting clean, almost too clean.  Even TMM is calm.



Dude I just saying it is posible cause most driver updates give GPUs 20% or more perfomace increase in single GPU, so with 2x GK110 its possible that they can reach the perfomance that will make $3K worth it to those who can afford it, Nvidia GPUs have always costed more than AMDs but the number of people who use Nvidia is higher than those who use AMD GPUs.

"Hell I have been using Nvidia GPUs before Gefoce, since those Riva TNT days"


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## Relayer (May 18, 2014)

SKL_H said:


> Dude I just saying it is posible cause *most driver updates give GPUs 20% or more perfomace increase in single GPU*, so with 2x GK110 its possible that they can reach the perfomance that will make $3K worth it to those who can afford it, Nvidia GPUs have always costed more than AMDs but the number of people who use Nvidia is higher than those who use AMD GPUs.
> 
> "Hell I have been using Nvidia GPUs before Gefoce, since those Riva TNT days"



Say what? You mean 2%, don't you?


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## Tsukiyomi91 (May 18, 2014)

the thing is here about Nvidia is that they're expert in visual computing, aka the software realm whereas AMD excels in hardware. So in response to what they've found/heard, the guys are trying their best to make the most out of the flagship card in order to keep the competition with AMD nice & hot.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (May 18, 2014)

been using both AMD & Nvidia cards for some time now... Pretty agree that Nvidia drivers are stable most of the time of release, be it beta, WHQL-certified or Game Ready. Another thing is even though Nvidia is selling their cards slightly more than AMD's offerings, you should know their software divisions are not to take things too lightly. Flexibility-wise, Nvidia's cards are #1 since they pretty much support ALL kinds of OCing utilities like EVGA Precision X, MSI AfterBurner & even vendor's own in-house utilities regardless of what brand & model you use e.g: Leadtek GTX770 2GD5 + EVGA Precision X. AMD still need to polish their software division IF they want to fight against Nvidia in a good way. Otherwise, it will just be another worthless campaign & eventually fail to attract customers/supporters due to their failure to deliver what the consumers wants & demands.


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## Ed_1 (May 18, 2014)

eidairaman1 said:


> Nvidia is butt hurt over the Price that AMD fetches for their card, course a Titan gets Overthrown by  an Olympian


But Nvidia knows that AMD was going to release a multi-core card it was not going to be anything high like 3k , so they knew the track record .
3k is just to much for this card and it should come with Quadro drivers and software .


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## Relayer (May 18, 2014)

Tsukiyomi91 said:


> the thing is here about Nvidia is that they're expert in visual computing, aka the software realm whereas AMD excels in hardware. So in response to what they've found/heard, the guys are trying their best to make the most out of the flagship card in order to keep the competition with AMD nice & hot.





Tsukiyomi91 said:


> been using both AMD & Nvidia cards for some time now... Pretty agree that Nvidia drivers are stable most of the time of release, be it beta, WHQL-certified or Game Ready. Another thing is even though Nvidia is selling their cards slightly more than AMD's offerings, you should know their software divisions are not to take things too lightly. Flexibility-wise, Nvidia's cards are #1 since they pretty much support ALL kinds of OCing utilities like EVGA Precision X, MSI AfterBurner & even vendor's own in-house utilities regardless of what brand & model you use e.g: Leadtek GTX770 2GD5 + EVGA Precision X. AMD still need to polish their software division IF they want to fight against Nvidia in a good way. Otherwise, it will just be another worthless campaign & eventually fail to attract customers/supporters due to their failure to deliver what the consumers wants & demands.



While you seem to think that AMD wins on hardware but nVidia wins on software keep in mind that 2x GK110 should be faster than 2x Hawaii all else being equal. Problem is what's not equal is multi-GPU scaling, which drivers are directly responsible for. So, in this instance it's AMD's superior drivers/software that gives them the win with 2x GPU's that individually are slower. Add to that AMD has released an entire new rendering API that's sent MSFT scrambling to reinvent DX and I think this tired old, "AMD isn't good at software", line really isn't holding up too well.


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## SKL_H (May 18, 2014)

Relayer said:


> Say what? You mean 2%, don't you?



This is one example





Of course it does depend on system configuration as the are many variables that play a role...


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## Relayer (May 19, 2014)

SKL_H said:


> This is one example
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This is marketing. It's not real. The 337.5 drivers were supposed to give another huge boost as well. Think about it, we would never need new hardware if every driver release gave double digit increases.


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## Steevo (May 19, 2014)

Relayer said:


> This is marketing. It's not real. The 337.5 drivers were supposed to give another huge boost as well. Think about it, we would never need new hardware if every driver release gave double digit increases.





SKL_H said:


> This is one example
> 
> 
> 
> ...




http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/1...-shouldnt-trust-manufacturer-provided-numbers


System configurations, like adding another card for SLI where it wasn't supported before?

Also, where is the commentary on why they didn't think of this before? Were the just lazy and not giving the best drivers they could? Did they not care about your money spent on their card enough to deliver before they were forced to?


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## GhostRyder (May 19, 2014)

Steevo said:


> http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/1...-shouldnt-trust-manufacturer-provided-numbers
> 
> 
> System configurations, like adding another card for SLI where it wasn't supported before?
> ...



Most drivers have some level of smoke and mirrors put into them to make them sound better than they should.  Nvidia and AMD are both guilty of this and in actuality it becomes more of a whose pulling the least amount of wool over the peoples eyes.

As far as drivers go, neither side is better than the other especially now a days.  I had people constantly say AMD/ATI drivers were bad in the past and heck I had even not been a big fan of the cards back then.  I ended up buying a pair of HD 6990's finally to give AMD a try and have not had a problem since.  Most of the problems people have with any graphics card I feel is all in their heads or just a state of mind.  If you get told something is better, your more likely to believe or see something that is not there and see it being better even in situations where performance is equal.  Either way, neither company has problems most of the time (Of course there are exceptions) and in all honesty any choice is good at this point.

As far as Titan-Z drivers, I highly doubt much of any increase will come from this if at all to still justify it.  No matter what, at the end of the day its still just a pair of underclocked Titan Blacks in SLI.


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## radrok (May 19, 2014)

GhostRyder said:


> Most drivers have some level of smoke and mirrors put into them to make them sound better than they should.  Nvidia and AMD are both guilty of this and in actuality it becomes more of a whose pulling the least amount of wool over the peoples eyes.
> 
> As far as drivers go, neither side is better than the other especially now a days.  I had people constantly say AMD/ATI drivers were bad in the past and heck I had even not been a big fan of the cards back then.  I ended up buying a pair of HD 6990's finally to give AMD a try and have not had a problem since.  Most of the problems people have with any graphics card I feel is all in their heads or just a state of mind.  If you get told something is better, your more likely to believe or see something that is not there and see it being better even in situations where performance is equal.  Either way, neither company has problems most of the time (Of course there are exceptions) and in all honesty any choice is good at this point.
> 
> As far as Titan-Z drivers, I highly doubt much of any increase will come from this if at all to still justify it.  No matter what, at the end of the day its still just a pair of underclocked Titan Blacks in SLI.



I'm pretty sure you didn't even game on those 6990s because many of the people I know that had multiple 69xx series cards, me included, had so many nightmares with crossfire that was enough to jump ship.

Hell, even Dave which has always rejected to buy Nvidia, now has a Tri 780ti array.

Can't tell for R9 series but I can tell you that up to 79xx series AMD CFX was utterly broken, especially in eyefinity.


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## GhostRyder (May 19, 2014)

radrok said:


> I'm pretty sure you didn't even game on those 6990s because many of the people I know that had multiple 69xx series cards, me included, had so many nightmares with crossfire that was enough to jump ship.
> 
> Hell, even Dave which has always rejected to buy Nvidia, now has a Tri 780ti array.
> 
> Can't tell for R9 series but I can tell you that up to 79xx series AMD CFX was utterly broken, especially in eyefinity.


Umm im pretty sure I did because I played BF3 in eyefinity on them and a few other games (Crysis 2, Arma, etc).  I did not get them when they first came out so maybe there was an issue, but I never had one when I used them except in Far Cry 3 (Which turned out later to be Windows 8's problem and not the cards).

I never played games on an 7XXX series because I never bought any of them for myself so I can't judge on that other than seeing others (Including a friend who had a tri-fire 7950 setup in eyefinity that works just fine).

My R9 290X cards have had 0 issues other than a problem with BF4 Mantle which was BF4's fault.

As far as ive used, besides a few games missing drivers for CFX, I have never had an issue with an AMD card CFX setup.  Same of course I can say with Nvidia products and I would have had GTX 590's had it not been for newegg messing up my order.


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## Relayer (May 19, 2014)

They might have been waiting for proper SST 4k support? That's something that would have been a show stopper for reviewers. Seems strange though to wait until ~24hrs. before release to pull it if they knew they didn't have proper SST driver support.

As far as people having issues with drivers in general. There is also more tolerance given if we "like" something, and less if we are apprehensive to begin with. When I read where people say something like, "I knew I never should have bought (insert brand). I owned one in 1994 and they were crap then. They've always been crap." I agree with them, they never should have bought it. The other side is if someone likes a brand or product they are often willing to overlook subtle flaws. When I was a kid my dad owned an XK-E roadster. He loved that car. It didn;t matter that it leaked oil a bit and you had to dismantle and clean and sync the carbs every couple of weeks, he loved it anyway.


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## SKL_H (May 19, 2014)

Relayer said:


> This is marketing. It's not real. The 337.5 drivers were supposed to give another huge boost as well. Think about it, we would never need new hardware if every driver release gave double digit increases.



In some instances it is true that the numbers wont be what most people will get, but that's it the are many variables that play a role in the performance you get, think about it games patch, even the OS itself, ram configuration, CPU.
you will find people saying I have xxxx motherboard, xxxx cpu, and xxx gpu, and I am getting errors in games xxx and xxx I had to rollback my drivers, but another person who has the same xxxx motherboard, xxxx cpu, and xxx gpu says "installed with not problems", this means what AMD/NVIDIA show the maximum _theoretical_ performance that can be gained.
its like Wi-Fi speed never expect exactly 350Mbps


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## Xzibit (May 19, 2014)

SKL_H said:


> In some instances it is true that the numbers wont be what most people will get, but that's it the are many variables that play a role in the performance you get, think about it games patch, even the OS itself, ram configuration, CPU.
> you will find people saying I have xxxx motherboard, xxxx cpu, and xxx gpu, and I am getting errors in games xxx and xxx I had to rollback my drivers, but another person who has the same xxxx motherboard, xxxx cpu, and xxx gpu says "installed with not problems", this means what AMD/NVIDIA show the maximum _theoretical_ performance that can be gained.
> its like Wi-Fi speed never expect exactly 350Mbps



Those aren't general numbers either.  They are % only pertaining to games they took the time to optimize on.

PC Perspective got burned by just that.  One of there podcast the guys were making fun of Ryan for believing Nvidia marketing of the DX11 optimize driver.


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## The Von Matrices (May 21, 2014)

Jen-Hsun Huang is sure trying to spin the Titan-Z news.  Excerpted from a May 19 CNET interview:



*In other gaming topics, there are reports you killed or delayed Titan Z, your new high-end GPU.*
_Huang: No, no, that's silliness.
_
*So it's still on time?*
_Huang: Yeah.
_
*$3,000 is a lot of money for a GPU. What do you do to make sure that for someone who buys it, it's not irrelevant two or three years down the road?*
_Huang: In fact, most of the customers that buy Titan Zs buy it every year.
_
*Do you anticipate that happening even with the $3,000 pricing?*
_Huang: Yeah. And the reason for that is the people who buy Titans and Titan Zs have an insatiable need for computing capability, graphics computing capability. So either they got tired of using just a 1,080p monitor and they just bought a 4K. My Titan all of a sudden's not enough. For a 4K monitor, a $3,000 to $5,000 monitor, I need something bigger to drive it. So that's Titan Z._


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## Relayer (May 21, 2014)

The Von Matrices said:


> Jen-Hsun Huang is sure trying to spin the Titan-Z news.  Excerpted from a May 19 CNET interview:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, I've seen spin. That's pretty common and acceptable marketing in this day and age. Straight out lying though, is different. Everyone knows beyond anything Huang can deny that Titan-Z is delayed. Why didn't the interviewer call him out? They know when the original NDA was up and the original planned release date was, why don't they just look at him and say, "We know that isn't true. Care to rethink that last statement and try again?"

He does understand his market though. The people who buy Titan and Titan-Z don't hold onto their cards for years (for the most part). They are like iPhones, as soon as a new one is out they have to have it.

The $3000 to $5000 4K monitors must be the ones he's planning on adding Gsync too and charging double for. 

Also, too bad for him that his cards aren't the best for these ultra hires monitors.
/rant.

Sorry, I find his attitude really annoying. Can't argue with his ability to market his product, his company, and himself, though.


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## GhostRyder (May 21, 2014)

The Von Matrices said:


> Jen-Hsun Huang is sure trying to spin the Titan-Z news.  Excerpted from a May 19 CNET interview:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So they are using the excuse of charging this much as saying people who buy those products will buy it every year?  So what can we infer from that, they are going to drop support for a 3k card after just a year to get people to buy the next one (sarcasm).  A bunch of "attempted" damage control if you ask me.


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## SKL_H (May 21, 2014)

Wow good marketing abilities, but what can I say won't be buying it rather buy Titan or Titan Black if I were to have the money, but even if the Z was $3500 the would always be people who will buy it
I am that Jen-Hsun Huang is aware that the price tag is too much.


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## Xzibit (May 21, 2014)

> *$3,000 is a lot of money for a GPU. What do you do to make sure that for someone who buys it, it's not irrelevant two or three years down the road?*
> Huang: In fact, most of the customers that buy Titan Zs buy it every year.



He must have a time machine or did we miss Titan Z releases in the past ?



> *$3,000 is a lot of money for a GPU. What do you do to make sure that for someone who buys it, it's not irrelevant two or three years down the road?*
> Huang: In fact, most of the customers that buy Titan Zs buy it every year.
> 
> *Do you anticipate that happening even with the $3,000 pricing?*
> Huang: Yeah. And the reason for that is the people who buy Titans and Titan Zs have an insatiable need for computing capability, graphics computing capability. So either they got tired of using just a 1,080p monitor and they just bought a 4K. My Titan all of a sudden's not enough. For a 4K monitor, a $3,000 to $5,000 monitor, I need something bigger to drive it. So that's Titan Z.



Interesting he thinks people who buy a 1080p monitor which can range form $99-$400 at the most will jump to a $3k-$5k monitor and purchase a $3k GPU yearly.

This makes me think Nvidia went into pharmaceuticals and Jen-Hsun Huang is self testing.


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## Prima.Vera (May 22, 2014)

Xzibit said:


> This makes me think Nvidia went into pharmaceuticals and Jen-Hsun Huang is self testing.



LOL. He's just testing the human stupidity on how many idiots can pay for his ridiculously overpriced stuff.


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