NVIDIA Titan RTX Review: A Pro Viz, Compute, And Gaming Beast

Name: NVIDIA Titan RTX
Brand: NVIDIA

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, March 12, 2019, 02:00 PM EDT

How We Configured Our Test Systems: We tested the graphics cards represented in this article on a Gigabyte Aorus X299 Gaming 7 Pro motherboard powered by an Intel Core i9-9980XE 16-core processor and 32GB of G.SKILL DDR4 RAM clocked at 2,666MHz. The first thing we did when configuring the test system was enter the UEFI and set all values to their "high performance" default settings and disabled any integrated peripherals that wouldn't be put to use. The memory's clock and timings were manually dialed in to ensure optimal memory performance at the processor's maximum supported speed of 2,666MHz (without overclocking), and the solid state drive was then formatted and Windows 10 Professional x64 was installed and fully updated. When the Windows installation was complete, we installed all of the drivers, games, and benchmark tools necessary to complete our tests.

We should note that the AMD Radeon RX Vega card was tested in its default "Balanced" power mode throughout. Power Saver (slower) and Turbo (faster) power modes are also available with Vega, which would affect performance, noise output, and peak power consumption.

HotHardware's Test System

Intel Core i9 Powered

Hardware Used:
Intel Core i9-9980XE
(3.0 - 4.3GHz, 18-Core)

Gigabyte X299 Gaming Pro 7
(Intel X299 Chipset)

Radeon VII
Radeon RX Vega 64
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
NVIDIA Titan Xp
Quadro P6000
NVIDIA Titan RTX

32GB G.SKILL DDR4-2666
Samsung SSD 860 Pro
Integrated Audio & Network

Relevant Software:
Windows 10 Pro x64

NVIDIA Drivers: v417.71
AMD Drivers: Crimson v19.1.1 / PRESS

Benchmarks Used:
SiSoft SANDRA GPGPU
LuxMark v3.1
Cinebench
V-Ray
SPECviewperf
VRMark
3DMark Time Spy
3DMark Port Royal
Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War
Final Fantasy XV
FarCry 5

SiSoft SANDRA 2018

Cryptography And Image Processing OpenCL Performance Tests

SANDRA's GPGPU Image Processing benchmark runs through an array of filters on its reference data and offers up an aggregate score, derived from a number of individual results. Its GPGPU Cryptography benchmark churns through an assortment of workloads, and presents individual results for overall bandwidth, AES256 encryption and decryption, and SHA2-256 hashing bandwidth. CUDA and OpenCL code paths are available in these tests; we used CUDA the NVIDIA-powered cards and OpenCL on the Radeon Pro WX cards, so each could put their best foot forward.

The NVIDIA Titan RTX clearly leads all of the other NVIDIA-built solutions in the crypto bandwidth tests, but can't catch the Vega 64 or Radeon VII in two of the three tests. It is only in the Hashing Bandwidth benchmark that the Titan RTX comes out on top.

The Titan RTX takes the lead over all of the other cards we tested in the image processing benchmark, but barely nudged past the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

Tags: Nvidia, graphics, GPU, (nasdaq:nvda), turing, titan rtx

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