Frame Latency with GTX Titan?

[the54thvoid]

Before you all get your knickers in a twist I was about to punch in the "Place Order" command and then got 2nd thoughts for the 20th time in the past two days. My problem is that price and the downgrade I'd be taking from two 7970's running at 1100MHz.

Here's the deal. A lot of sites are starting to talk about latency and frametimes (especially the one I'm about to source). So PCPerspective is having a chat with Nvidia bigwig Petersen about GTX Titan and I'm watching it all interested.

Here is the link to the video.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 6GB Live Review Recap - P...

If you forward to 50 minutes on the video, you'll see Unigine Heaven kick in (plays in background behind precision and afterburner?). Now, my observation is that in the GTX Titan rendering of Heaven, there is considerable stutter.

Now I know there's a lot of bickering going back and forth but I'm so close to buying a Titan but from the shot in the video I am not impressed by the lack of smoothness.

To confirm my non-trolling credentials, I have played FC3 in crossfire and it was noticeably juddery (not annoying but there nonetheless, in fact , very similar to that Heaven display from the video). My crossfire config would not play MoHW, at all. It doesn't like GW2 as much as it could (not full gpu utlisation, with v-sync off). So yes, crossfire isn't perfect, sometimes it's downright shit and it is not a patch on SLI.
But, on the other hand here's a massive concern - AMD have the console market and they're focusing on drivers (they say). My BF3 experience is very smooth. My Crysis 3 experience is excellent. I get no visible stutter as some sites are pointedly claiming I should!

So, back on topic - is that video showing a choppy performance from a $1000 graphic card?

And again, for the cheap seats. I'm posting because I want one (under water) but I'm gravely concerned about splashing such cash on a card that might not actually be that impressive (given that AMD could potentially be the primary concern for all gaming coding given the console developments and their aggressive new marketing with developers).

Thoughts? And please, be constructive.

I would like moderators to actively spank AMD or Nvidia fanatics, especially those posting tripe irrelevant to this thread.

 

[DRDNA]

Nice catch on that! Waiting to hear the results. Thank you for the awareness!

 

[Easy Rhino]

Before you all get your knickers in a twist I was about to punch in the "Place Order" command and then got 2nd thoughts for the 20th time in the past two days. My problem is that price and the downgrade I'd be taking from two 7970's running at 1100MHz.

Here's the deal. A lot of sites are starting to talk about latency and frametimes (especially the one I'm about to source). So PCPerspective is having a chat with Nvidia bigwig Petersen about GTX Titan and I'm watching it all interested.

Here is the link to the video.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 6GB Live Review Recap - P...

If you forward to 50 minutes on the video, you'll see Unigine Heaven kick in (plays in background behind precision and afterburner?). Now, my observation is that in the GTX Titan rendering of Heaven, there is considerable stutter.

Now I know there's a lot of bickering going back and forth but I'm so close to buying a Titan but from the shot in the video I am not impressed by the lack of smoothness.

To confirm my non-trolling credentials, I have played FC3 in crossfire and it was noticeably juddery (not annoying but there nonetheless, in fact , very similar to that Heaven display from the video). My crossfire config would not play MoHW, at all. It doesn't like GW2 as much as it could (not full gpu utlisation, with v-sync off). So yes, crossfire isn't perfect, sometimes it's downright shit and it is not a patch on SLI.
But, on the other hand here's a massive concern - AMD have the console market and they're focusing on drivers (they say). My BF3 experience is very smooth. My Crysis 3 experience is excellent. I get no visible stutter as some sites are pointedly claiming I should!

So, back on topic - is that video showing a choppy performance from a $1000 graphic card?

And again, for the cheap seats. I'm posting because I want one (under water) but I'm gravely concerned about splashing such cash on a card that might not actually be that impressive (given that AMD could potentially be the primary concern for all gaming coding given the console developments and their aggressive new marketing with developers).

Thoughts? And please, be constructive.

I would like moderators to actively spank AMD or Nvidia fanatics, especially those posting tripe irrelevant to this thread.

thats because of the way windows allocates system resources. as soon as you window that benchmark it is going to move ram and cpu resources to whatever program is active. if they disable the windows aero crap i bet you wouldn't see anything. also, run that in fullscreen mode and it would be fine. /thread

 

[15th Warlock]

I have run both Heaven and Valley on dual Titans and didnt see any stuttering, perhaps the video capture caused it while they recorded this video

But don't take my word for it, I invite you to read some of the numerous reviews available, you'll find some of them even compared specifically the latency of this card with others, and it came out on top (or should I say bottom ) in most cases among single GPU cards.

As for going from dual 7970GHz to a Titan, you are not going to see any improvement at the res you game, actually, the only improvement you'll notice is in terms of reduced latency, ergo, less stuttering.

IMHO you should probably just keep your 7970s, the 7970 is a monster of a card, and in most cases a X-fire setup will certainly beat a Titan, why don't you add an extra 7970 for half the money? Not that you need it though

I hope that helps

 

[the54thvoid]

I have run both Heaven and Valley on dual Titans and didnt see any stuttering, perhaps the video capture caused it while they recorded this video

But don't take my word for it, I invite you to read some of the numerous reviews available, you'll find some of them even compared specifically the latency of this card with others, and it came out on top (or should I say bottom ) in most cases among single GPU cards.

As for going from dual 7970GHz to a Titan, you are not going to see any improvement at the res you game, actually, the only improvement you'll notice is in terms of reduced latency, ergo, less stuttering.

IMHO you should probably just keep your 7970s, the 7970 is a monster of a card, and in most cases a X-fire setup will certainly beat a Titan, why don't you add an extra 7970 for half the money? Not that you need it though

I hope that helps

I was actually hoping you'd chip in as i know you have Titans. Yes, TitanS - you greedy bastard!!!

If you've used yours in single set up (no sli) have you found it to be as good as you expected it to be?

If I get one I'll be watercooling so hopefully get way past 1GHz which would claw some ground back over dual 7970's. Plus - no crossfire issues.

 

[15th Warlock]

I was actually hoping you'd chip in as i know you have Titans. Yes, TitanS - you greedy bastard!!!

If you've used yours in single set up (no sli) have you found it to be as good as you expected it to be?

If I get one I'll be watercooling so hopefully get way past 1GHz which would claw some ground back over dual 7970's. Plus - no crossfire issues.

I used it once only for benching in 3dmark11, it blew past my 680, but still not as fast as the fastest 7970 out there

I know others will come and will push this card way beyond me, if you decide to get the Titan, and go with WC you'll certainly be able to go beyond 1200MHz+ I've already pushed my cards to 1179MHz on air

Really glad to hear you're happy with your 7970s, you have a killer system there!

 

[the54thvoid]

You know what rubs though?

Way back, before i got my 7970, i was hoping to hold out for GK100 but that was late, so i went red team. Then when the 690 came out I thought... spend all that extra for 690 or get a 2nd 7970 and i am where I am now.

Spiritually, I was meant to have GK100 (GK110).

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Why are you even contemplating a Titan if your HD7970s are running your games fine, except for maybe Far Cry 3, but that game is known to have near zero multi GPU support. Crap performance for a lot of people? Your going to be spending $1000+ for less performance. Doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[cadaveca]

thats because of the way windows allocates system resources. as soon as you window that benchmark it is going to move ram and cpu resources to whatever program is active. if they disable the windows aero crap i bet you wouldn't see anything. also, run that in fullscreen mode and it would be fine. /thread

Except I run Windows8 that doesn't have Aero. /your idea.





Frame Latency is only really an issue with multiple cards, really. With a single card it is there, but not too abd, really. The issue that makes it bad is that it DOUBLES with Crossfire, or triples, whatever, depending on the number of cards you install.


I SAY BUY THE TITAN, IF YOU GOT THE CASH.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Except I run Windows8 that doesn't have Aero. /your idea.

doesn't matter. windows 8 renders the ui the same way. open any video benchmark. now window it and open up a few other programs. notice that the benchmark video stutters briefly. poor OS code.

 

[cadaveca]

doesn't matter. windows 8 renders the ui the same way. open any video benchmark. now window it and open up a few other programs. notice that the benchmark video stutters briefly. poor OS code.

Can't say I have that problem. I have tonnes of graphs of frame latency, and it's not related. In fact, I can fix it, too:


See here:

The problem with this "problem" is that tonnes of people who don't have any clue(myself included) are addressing the issue. However, I do have more data on this than most, if not all.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

doesn't matter. windows 8 renders the ui the same way. open any video benchmark. now window it and open up a few other programs. notice that the benchmark video stutters briefly. poor OS code.

Can't say I have that problem. I have tonnes of graphs of frame latency, and it's not related.

Yeah, I can't say I experience that either, and I run Windows 7 with Aero.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Can't say I have that problem. I have tonnes of graphs of frame latency, and it's not related. In fact, I can fix it, too:


See here:

http://img.techpowerup.org/130301/firestrike_throttle.jpg


http://img.techpowerup.org/130301/firestrike_almost_there.jpg

The problem with this "problem" is that tonnes of people who don't have any clue(myself included) are addressing the issue. However, I do have more data on this than most, if not all.

hrm, what the video shows is what happens to me all the time when in windows 7. maybe they did fix some things in 8. that doesnt explain the "issue" though. there is no issue. it is just a crappy recording most likely.

 

[cadaveca]

hrm, what the video shows is what happens to me all the time when in windows 7. maybe they did fix some things in 8. that doesnt explain the "issue" though. there is no issue. it is just a crappy recording most likely.

Yeah, there are actually many things going on right now with VGAs that really puzzle me, that might be taken as being an issue with one thing but are really a problem with something else. The whole frame latency thing is a really big issue though, at least if you run multiple cards.

As big of a problem it can be, it won't have me not recommend ANY card. I will just advise users to be ready for problems if they use Crossfire, and that in and of itself isn't new news. You only really need to be concerned with frame rating issues with multiGPU.

 

[AsRock]

Wow, that was doing my head in lol.. I did like when they were on about over clocking the monitor option as i know i can do that with this HDTV although it was only possible in XP\XP64 as vista and 7 don't allow you to do it.

 

[Finners]

What you doing with your 7970's? Haha

Dibs!

I would hold off buying now though mate. Prices have creeped up because stock is low. Wait for the second batch to come through and you should get the less inflated price.

 

[the54thvoid]

What you doing with your 7970's? Haha

Dibs!

I would hold off buying now though mate. Prices have creeped up because stock is low. Wait for the second batch to come through and you should get the less inflated price.

Aye, I know. But Ebuyer have them at £827 (bargain, lol).

 

[qubit]

Don't worry about that stupid, misleading video and just by the Titan if that's the card you want. And can afford...

Easy's advice about the stutters being caused by windowed mode is right. Also, YouTube videos are stuttery anyway to various degrees, so you can't judge a graphics card by looking at one of these.

Trust me, run that card with vsync on in full screen mode and you won't see a stutter in sight!

Also, if you've got that kind of money, you might consider the GTX 690 instead, because it's got rather better outright performance and even costs less at the moment, with all the Titan price gouging going on. Sure it uses SLI, but the problems with dual GPUs is not so pronounced that you'll have many problems with a dual GPU card. Certainly all the dual GPU nvidia cards I bought worked fine. I can't say yay or nay about dual GPU AMD cards because I haven't used them, but AMD have a reputation for driver glitches, so bear that in mind.

I buy most of my stuff from www.novatech.co.uk because they have excellent customer service and have never been let down by them. Can't recommend them enough.

Finally, buy you card online and the Distance Selling Regulations guarantee that you have 7 days to cool off and return it for whatever reason. You just lose out on a bit of shipping cost, which let's face it, is nothing for something at this price.

Buy your Titan/690 and enjoy!

 

[de.das.dude]

why on earth would you go from dual 7970 to a friggin titan! just because its new? the Titan is overpriced(since its just been launched) and overrated. the prices will go down soon though.

 

[qubit]

why on earth would you go from dual 7970 to a friggin titan! just because its new? the Titan is overpriced(since its just been launched) and overrated. the prices will go down soon though.

That's a really good point. I'd forgotten he was getting less performance. Mind you, if he gets two Titans, then the performance will be greater than what he has now. He will also have a severe dent in his bank account.

 

[erocker]

the prices will go down soon though.

Nope.

 

[btarunr]

Single GTX Titan is only 15% slower than HD 7970 GE 2-way CFX at 1600p (close to your 1440p); but could nearly halve the power draw. Plus the performance-consistency of single-GPU. I'd bite.

 

[radrok]

if you decide to get the Titan, and go with WC you'll certainly be able to go beyond 1200MHz

Nope, I'm sorry, you won't get much higher than 1200Mhz because Titan has a wattage block at 260W more or less.

I've yet to see a single Titan go over 1200 Mhz, once you reach a certain power consumption the card will throttle itself.

Basically this card won't need watercooling since you can't push it higher than a certain threshold, maybe a PCB mod or an unlocked BIOS may let us push these cards further, but right now we'll just have to settle at 1100-1200 Mhz.

You could see maybe 20-30 more Mhz due to the fact Titan has the fan power shared with the core.


Anyway I've already bit the bullet since this card is too good to pass, single GPU performing this much? Yes please

 

[de.das.dude]

Single GTX Titan is only 15% slower than HD 7970 GE 2-way CFX at 1600p (close to your 1440p); but could nearly halve the power draw. Plus the performance-consistency of single-GPU. I'd bite.

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_Titan_SLI/images/perfrel_2560.gif

But the dual GPU setup looks SOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!

 

[Crap Daddy]

Spiritually, I was meant to have GK100 (GK110)

Maybe, but GK110 isn't meant for you... "performancelly".