Nvidia Unveils New Pascal-Based Titan X Graphics Card Priced at $1200

HIGHLIGHTS

• The new Titan X is positioned above the GeForce family for the first time
• Nvidia claims it is 60 percent more powerful than the previous Titan X
• It will be avialable from August 2 in the US, with other countries soon after

Speaking at a gathering of deep learning experts at Stanford University, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang confirmed that the company will be launching a new flagship Titan series graphics card based on the same new Pascal architecture as the recent GeForce GTX 1080, 1070 and 1060 GPUs. The new card will be called Nvidia Titan X, apparently dropping the GeForce branding for the first time since the Titan series debuted. It will be priced at an incredible $1200 (approximately Rs. 80,515 before taxes and duties) and will be targeted not only at the world's most demanding gamers, but also at researchers and corporations developing tools for deep learning and artificial intelligence.

Architectural details are light at the moment. Nvidia has not confirmed the codename of the new GPU, which is undoubtedly larger than the GP104 which both the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 are based on. The new Titan X has 12 billion transistors in the form of 3,584 programmable CUDA cores. It runs at up to 1.53GHz and can achieve throughput of 11 Teraflops. It will also have 12GB of high-speed GDDR5X memory on a 384-bit wide bus resulting in 480GBps of memory bandwidth.

Nvidia claims performance is 60 percent faster than the previous GeForce GTX Titan X. Maximum power draw is rated at 250W through one 8-pin and one 6-pin PCIe connector. The card itself is a standard 10.5 inches long and uses a beefier version of the vapour-chamber cooler that the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders' Edition uses.

The Titan X will support all architectural features that were announced at the time of the GTX 1080 launch, including simultaneous multi-projection, which allows the GPU to render the same frame from multiple perspectives within a single pass rather than requiring multiple passes for each. This is highly useful for VR and multi-monitor applications. Nvidia's Ansel tool for high-quality in-game screenshots is also supported.

The Titan X will also support two-way SLI using Nvidia's new high-bandwidth bridge, in keeping with the company's new strategy restricting it to high-end cards. Display outputs will include DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b, and dual-link DVI-D.

The new Nvidia Titan X will go on sale in the US on August 2, with global availability to follow. It will be available only through Nvidia's own website and a handful of authorised system builders.