Purely observationally, based on the data we have presently collected, it would appear that the Titan V has two primary behaviors: (1) Applications which are built atop low-level APIs and asynchronous computational pipelines appear to process more efficiently on the Titan V; (2) the Titan V appears to host more cores than some of these applications (namely D3D11 titles) can meaningfully use, and that is demonstrated fully upon overclocking.
Given that overclocks in D3D11 applications produce performance uplift of ~20% (in some instances), it would appear that the high core count becomes more of a burden than a benefit. The GPU needs the faster clocks, and can’t access or leverage its high core count in a meaningful way. The result is that the Titan V begins to tie with the Titan Xp, and that the 1080 Ti closes-in on the Titan V. In lower-level API games, however, the Titan V pulls away by large margins – 27% to 40%, in some cases. The gains are big enough that we retested numerous times on numerous cards, but they remained. Our present analysis is that these applications are better able to spin-off multiple, simultaneous, in-flight render jobs across the high core count, whereas the tested Dx11 titles may function more synchronously.
As for the Titan V specifically, it can certainly be used for games -- but only in the context of, "I bought this thing for work, and sometimes I play games." If you're just gaming, clearly, this isn't the right purchase.
