Titanic Pixels.

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As 2012 drew to a close,  the GPU rumour mill was rumbling amidst Stories that our old friend Giant Green Eyes was preparing to reveal his latest and hugely anticipated work of art.

Speculation was a little vague regarding what eventually would succeed Nvidia’s GTX 680.  Initially, it appeared that the predictably titled “GTX 780” would be designed around a new chip, the GK114, a further refinement of  Kepler architecture  and would offer a modest performance increase of approximately 15%.

Several months of radio silence led us to February 2013, when further confusion was added by suggestions that this card would also bear the name “Titan” and in fact, feature a chip that had already  made its debut in the professional market, the 7.1 billion transistor GK110.

As it turns out, the GTX 780 and the “TITAN” are actually two separate cards, the former is now set to be unleashed during summer, though which chip it will house remains uncertain.  So, where does this mysterious “Titan” fit in?

Last summer, Nvidia brought us its super-expensive pixel cruncher, the  GTX 690 which was the first reference deign to incorporate  two unencumbered flagship GPUs on a single card.  Though Its Crimson nemesis, AMD, never officially countered, several notable vendors including HIS, Club3D and Powercolor decided to exploit a potentially lucrative niche and assembled the HD 7990, which featured two bona-fide 7970’s crammed onto one PCB

Inevitably, the debate over superiority was both fervent and ultimately, inconclusive.  For while a convincing case could be made for the 7990’s overall edge in performance, it is surely marred by a peak  power consumption well over 200w higher than the 690, a card Nvidia expressly  fine tuned for efficiency as well as raw pace.

In the quest for single GPU supremacy, a similar picture emerged.  The GTX 680 has discreetly captained Nvidia’s  battalion for almost a year and was a more than worthy response to AMD’s HD 7970, though barely a month passed before AMD literally pulled a fast one in the form of the 7970 “GHz Edition”.  It might have been no more than a standard 7970 with increased core and memory frequencies but that proved enough to nose ahead of its rival. albeit again at the significant cost of energy efficiency.

With the Titan, it is Nvidia’s clear intention to settle both the performance and efficiency battle and produce what might possibly be the definitive Single GPU card of the 28 nm era.
The GK110 emerged in November last year and represents the pinnacle of “Kepler” architecture.  As one might expect, Its design closely resembles that of GK104 chip which powered the GTX 680 , save for a clutch of crucial deviations. 

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