NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Powered Maingear SHIFT

Name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan
Brand: NVIDIA

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, February 19, 2013, 09:00 AM EDT

NVIDIA took a somewhat different approach during the lead-up to the launch of the GeForce GTX Titan. Not only was the GK110 GPU powering the card previously announced, but in terms of sheer performance alone, the Titan may or may not outpace the roughly 10 month old, dual-GPU GeForce GTX 690, depending on the workload. What the GeForce GTX Titan does offer, however, is the ability to fit into more form factors than the GTX 690 and it sets a new high-bar in terms of ultimate performance in ultra-high-end systems.

What you’ll see from a number of NVIDIA’s key system partners moving forward are new flagship and small form factor systems, all powered by the GeForce GTX Titan. As it stands today, there is no more powerful graphics setup than a 3-Way GeForce GTX Titan configuration. At the same time, the Titan’s lower TDP, cooler configuration, and acoustic profile make it well-suited to boutique small form factor systems as well.

Maingear SHIFT Super Stock with GeForce GTX Titan Tri-SLI

To evaluate the GeForce GTX Titan, we were initially provided an absolutely gorgeous Maingear SHIFT Super Stock system, decked out with three Titans and a slick white and green paint job that would make even the most ardent auto enthusiast envious. An unforeseen issue with its motherboard ultimately prevented us from fully evaluating this new SHIFT configuration, but we’ll revisit it at some point in the future. One of the main reasons we were sent this high-end SHIFT system was because its 3-Way SLI setup supplanted Quad-SLI with a pair of GeForce GTX 690 cards as the premiere NVIDIA-based graphics configuration. A single GeForce GTX Titan may or may not outpace a single GTX 690 all of the time, but three GK110s is more powerful than a quartet of GK104s.

The GeForce GTX Titan also allows systems builders to offer killer graphics performance in form factors that couldn’t accommodate the GeForce GTX 690. Not only does the GeForce GTX Titan have a 20% lower TDP than the GTX 690, but it’s .5” shorter, and its cooler configuration exhausts hot air outside of a system. The GeForce GTX 690 exhausts some air outside of a system, but dumps the rest into the case. The GeForce GTX Titan is also quieter than previous high-end GeForce GTX 600 series cards, which is another desirable aspect for SFF rigs.

Companies like Maingear, Falcon Northwest, Digital Storm, iBuyPower, Origin and others will all be offering small form factor systems powered by the GeForce GTX Titan.

Tags: Nvidia, Gaming, graphics, GTX, Maingear, Kepler, Titan, GK110

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com