Nvidia doesn’t allow its partners to sell the GeForce GTX Titan Black with proprietary cooling. However, Gigabyte now offers a GHz Edition of the card that comes bundled with its WindForce solution, which you can install on the overclocked board yourself.
We didn't review Nvidia's GeForce GTX Titan Black when it launched. The company didn't see fit to sample press. And understandably, really, since the Titan Black is largely the same as a 780 Ti with 6 GB of memory and the GK110's full FP64 performance. GeForce GTX Titan Black does sport slightly more aggressive reference clock rates. Its base frequency is 889 MHz to the 780 Ti's 875 MHz. Typical GPU Boost is stated at 980 MHz versus 928. But they both sport similar coolers, display outputs, and graphics card power ratings.
Take a look over at Newegg, and you'll find an out-of-stock Asus model matching Nvidia's specification, an out-of-stock EVGA board at the same price point, but overclocked slightly, and a water-cooled EVGA card selling for $300 more and boasting an even more aggressive overclock. Really though, it's hard to see the value in a GeForce GTX Titan Black at $1400 when Radeon R9 295X2s are selling for $100 more.
Gigabyte takes a somewhat different approach to its GeForce GTX Titan Black GHz Edition (how's that for a mouthful?). The company hits the same 1006 MHz base and 1111 MHz typical GPU Boost frequencies as EVGA's $1400 Hydro Copper Signature card. But it does so with air cooling. Pop the top on the packaging and you'll see that Gigabyte ships you a reference Titan Black, per Nvidia's requirements. However, you also get the components needed for a built-it-yourself adventure.
Apparently, Gigabyte went with the old adage that rules are meant to be broken (or, in this case, bent really far). You see, Nvidia doesn’t allow its partners to modify the reference cooling solution, so Gigabyte decided to send the modified cooler along for you to install yourself on the already-overclocked graphics card.
You can still expect to pay dearly for the privilege of owning Gigabyte's take on the Titan Black (it's currently available in Europe and Asia; we're waiting to hear back from Gigabyte on whether it'll ever show up in the U.S.). At least you also get the thrill of tearing the top off of a flagship graphics card and replacing its thermal solution, though. Our aim today is to figure out if the operation is worthwhile.
First, we'll take a peek into the pricey box. Gigabyte provides an abundance of opulent accessories.
In addition to the reference GeForce GTX Titan Black, we find an HDMI cable, a mouse pad, two four-to-six-pin power adapters, a VGA adapter, a driver CD, and the cooling kit that caught my eye to begin with. Gigabyte’s new WindForce 600 cooler employs a number of changes that we'll dig into.
| Model | GeForce GTX Titan Black | Gigabyte GeForce GTX Titan Black GHz Edition | GeForce GTX 780 Ti | GeForce GTX Titan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chip | GK110-430-B1 | GK110-430-B1 | GK110-425-B1 | GK110-400 |
| Shader Units | 2880 | 2880 | 2880 | 2688 |
| SIMD/Texture Units | 15/240 | 15/240 | 15/240 | 14/224 |
| ROPs | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 |
| GPU Base Clock Frequency | 889 MHz | 1006 MHz | 876 MHz | 837 MHz |
| GPU Boost Clock Frequency | 980 MHz | 1111 MHz | 928 MHz | 876 MHz |
| Computing Power SP (GFLOPS) | 5645 | 6399 | 5345 | 4709 |
| Computing Power DP (GFLOPS) | 1882 | 2134 | 223 | 1570 |
| Graphics Memory Transfer Rate | 3500 MT/s | 3500 MT/s | 3500 MT/s | 3004 MT/s |
| Memory Bus | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit |
| Bandwidth (GB/s) | 336 | 336 | 336 | 288.4 |
| Memory Size (GB/s) | 6 | 6 | 3 | 6 |
| PCIe Power Connectors | 6 + 8-pin | 6 + 8-pin | 6 + 8-pin | 6 + 8-pin |
- A GeForce GTX Titan Black You Modify Yourself
- The Gigabyte WindForce 600 Graphics Card Cooler
- Upgrading The Gigabyte GeForce GTX Titan Black
- Dimensions And Pictures: The Upgraded Gigabyte GeForce GTX Titan Black
- Power Consumption: Test Methodology And Idle Measurements
- Power Consumption: Gaming And Full Load Measurements
- Temperatures And Noise
- Performance
- Gigabyte Gets Its WindForce Cooler Right


If you bothered reading the first page you'd know why.
If you bothered reading the first page you'd know why.
"Nvidia doesn’t allow its partners to sell the GeForce GTX Titan Black with proprietary cooling. However, Gigabyte now offers a GHz Edition of the card that comes bundled with its WindForce solution, which you can install on the overclocked board yourself."
This one right? whats the difference between you install it yourself and Gigabyte take the initiative pre-factory installed? or Warranty Void?
If you bothered reading the first page you'd know why.
"Nvidia doesn’t allow its partners to sell the GeForce GTX Titan Black with proprietary cooling. However, Gigabyte now offers a GHz Edition of the card that comes bundled with its WindForce solution, which you can install on the overclocked board yourself."
This one right? whats the difference between you install it yourself and Gigabyte take the initiative pre-factory installed? or Warranty Void?
Ok, for your better understanding:
Nvidia doesn’t allow its partners to sell the GeForce GTX Titan Black with factory-installed proprietary cooling.
Igor Wallossek, I wonder if you could put up a graph for 3D rendering? If you use Blender's BMW scene by Mike Pan (a popular benchmark scene), make sure you properly set the tile size!
Ok, for your better understanding:
Nvidia doesn’t allow its partners to sell the GeForce GTX Titan Black with factory-installed proprietary cooling.
Silly question probably, but why does nVidia allow only EVGA to break this rule, with their hydro copper signature edition you mentioned? Is it just because it's a water cooled model? Do you think nVidia specially signs off on the design?
I'm genuinely curious.
that's what it looks like to me.
> Igor Wallossek, I wonder if you could put up a graph for 3D rendering? If you use
> Blender's BMW scene by Mike Pan (a popular benchmark scene), make sure you
> properly set the tile size!
Arion Bench 2.5.0 would be a better test, because it scales perfectly with
multiple GPUs.
Or the AE CUDA test my friend has created, but it's pretty intense, maybe
takes too long with just one card (about 20 minutes with a single 780Ti).
Ian.
Arion Bench 2.5.0 would be a better test, because it scales perfectly with
multiple GPUs.
Or the AE CUDA test my friend has created, but it's pretty intense, maybe
takes too long with just one card (about 20 minutes with a single 780Ti).
Ian.
I agree. The BMW scene is not the best CUDA benchmark. I just didn't want them to mess it up if they decided to use it. I heard some people complaining about this benchmark, although I don't know if they were right or wrong.
My Titan Black renders the BMW in just over 24 seconds!
For comparison, an Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33 GHz took 16 minutes!
Have you run a Titan Black on that AE CUDA test? If so, I am curious to see the results!
wolverine96 writes:
> I agree. The BMW scene is not the best CUDA benchmark. ...
I've tried it numerous times with various setups, it just seems to behave a
bit weird IMO.
> My Titan Black renders the BMW in just over 24 seconds!
Main problem I find is I can't work out how to make it use all available GPUs.
Is that possible? One of my 580s does it in about 43s, but my system has 4 of
them, so it's a bit moot really. Mind you, I'm using an older version of
Blender (2.61), stuck with it to ensure consistent CPU-based testing.
And as you say, it also involves some CPU stuff (scene setup doesn't use the
GPU).
> Have you run a Titan Black on that AE CUDA test? If so, I am curious to see
> the results!
Alas no, atm I don't have access to anything newer than some top-end 3GB GTX
580s (MSI LX, 832MHz); my system has 4 of them. Final version of the test file
takes 14m 48s to render in AE using 16bpc and 8 samples (ie. just average
quality), so on a Titan Black I'm guessing it would take maybe 25 mins? Hard
to say. Would certainly be interesting to find out. Note the 'max' quality
setting would be 32bpc and 10 samples (likewise, for the full animation, avg
quality is 1080p @ 25Hz, max quality is 50Hz).
I'll sort out the test readme, download archive, web page, etc., next week,
but need to talk to C.A. first about some things. Anyway, here's the rendered
image in original Targa format (just one frame, the default test frame 96, the
last frame in the main animation sequence):
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/cuda.101_Frame96.tga
Here's the file converted to BMP and SGI IRIS/RGB:
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/cuda.101_Frame96.bmp
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/cuda.101_Frame96.rgb
and for those who don't mind losing a bit of quality, here's a 100% JPEG:
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/cuda.101_Frame96.jpg
The full 4 second animation takes hours to compute even at average quality and
is thus intended more as a stress test for those interested in checking that
their system can handle long renders or other GPU tasks without falling over
(I've seen many people asking for a test like this on forums). I suspect at max
quality the whole sequence would take about a week to crunch on my system.
Also interesting for exploring power consumption & energy cost issues for
different GPU configs (load draw on my system during the render is around 920W).
Ian.
Your system with 4 GTX 580's is much faster than mine! (Two GTX 580's is about as fast as one GTX Titan Black.) I guess the only time mine would be faster is if the scene used more than 3GB of RAM. I actually was planning on getting 2 GTX 580's, but then I discovered the Titan Black.
Is that Cycles in those images you posted?
By the way, Blender 2.71 is coming out very soon. In the past 10 versions, there have been some major performance gains for Cycles. I think it's like 30-50% faster in some cases.
> Did you say you are having trouble getting multiple GPU's to work? I only use one
> GPU, but here's a very informative link. More specifically, see this section.
Thanks!! My goof, looks like V2.61 doesn't have the Compute Panel. Will try
the newer 2.70a in a moment... (downloading now)
> Your system with 4 GTX 580's is much faster than mine! ...
Yup, though I suspect your power bill is less likely to make your eyeballs explode.
> ... I guess the only time mine would be faster is if the scene used more than
> 3GB of RAM. ...
I had been hoping we'd see 6GB 780Tis, but seems like that's been killed off. Shame.
> I actually was planning on getting 2 GTX 580's, but then I discovered the Titan Black.
The real advantage of multiple 580s is just low upfront cost. Standard 580s are pretty
cheap (I have four 1.5GB 797MHz models which cost about 400 UKP total), if one's ok
with the VRAM limit. 3GB 580s cost a bit more, but not much more (I've bought/sold
nine Palit 3GB 580s in the past year). The MSI LXs though can be a tad pricey, depends
on luck really I guess. I got mine (five total) for good prices though overall, and they do
oc like crazy (1GHz+ is possible).
> Is that Cycles in those images you posted?
No, it's the RayTrace3D renderer within After Effects.
> By the way, Blender 2.71 is coming out very soon. In the past 10 versions,
> there have been some major performance gains for Cycles. I think it's like 30-50%
> faster in some cases.
Good that they keep boosting it, but a nightmare for benchmarking consistency.
Ok, download done, quick test...
Cycles does the BMW in 11.56s (blimey!), tile size 240x135. Just curious btw,
you mentioned using 512x512 tile size, but surely it'd be optimal to use an even
divisor of the image dimensions in both X and Y? What do you get if you try
a tile size of 240x135?
Ian.