Nvidia has announced the Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Black, an updated version of its flagship card, which should again put the Titan name at the top of the single-GPU performance charts.
The new graphics card uses an overclocked version of the same Kepler GPU as in the
GTX 780 Ti and backs it up with 6GB of GDDR5 memory. It's this large amount of memory combined with full-speed double-precision calculations that marks this card out as, like the original Titan before it, more of a low-cost alternative to a professional Tesla card, rather than simply a fast gaming card.
That said, whereas the original Titan has since been superseded for gaming performance by the GTX 780 Ti, the Titan Black should also be the fastest card for that use too.
At the heart of the Titan Black is the same Kepler GK110 GPU as in the
GTX Titan, GTX 780 and GTX 780 Ti, but here it is fully enabled and overclocked too. This means it contains 5 Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs) each with a full compliment of three Streaming Multiprocessors (SMX) for a total of 2,880 CUDA Cores, and it runs at 889MHz. The original Titan is missing one SMX so has only 2,688 CUDA Cores and runs at 826MHz. The GTX 780 Ti also has 15 SMX and 2,880 CUDA Cores but runs slightly slower, at 876MHz, and has greatly reduced double-precision processing speed.
Nvidia states the Titan Black will have single-precision performance of 5.1 TeraFlops and double-precision performance of 1.3 Tera Flops. This compares to 4.5 TeraFlops and 1.3 TeraFlops for the GTX Titan and 5 TeraFlops and 210 GigaFlops for the GTX 780 Ti. Nvidia reduces the double-precision speed of its non-Titan cards in the driver, making them run at 1/8 of what they're capable of.
Other specs include a boost clock speed of 980MHz and memory speed of 7.0Gbps. The boost clock is an increase over both the GTX Titan and the GTX 780 Ti, though the memory speed is only an increase over the original Titan, with the GTX 780 Ti already employing 7.0Gbps memory.
Externally the GTX Titan Black will appear identical to all of the above cards with the same silver and black cooler with its clear window over the heatsink. It will also use one 6-pin and one 8-pin power power connector, as its 250W TDP is the same as the the other GK110 cards. Video outputs will consist of 2 x DL-DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2.
The Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Black is available immediately and is priced similarly to the existing GTX Titan at around £800. It will also replace the old card so there's the potential for picking up a bargain as old stock is sold off.
A review sample of the Zotac GTX Titan Black has just landed in our offices so expect a review in the coming days.
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