NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN: Windows 8.1 vs. Ubuntu 13.10 Linux

Last week on Phoronix there was the first Linux review of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti that also included results from other GeForce GTX 700 GPUs -- including the TITAN -- and earlier Kepler and Fermi GPUs while on the AMD side was a range of Radeon graphics card up to and including the AMD Radeon R9 290. For today's Linux review to kick off a new week of benchmarking is a closer look at the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN when running Ubuntu Linux and comparing the OpenGL performance to Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro x64.

The GeForce GTX TITAN launched this past February as the first GeForce 700 series graphics card powered by the GK110 GPU that went on to power the GTX 780 series. Nine months after the launch, the GTX TITAN is still commanding a $999 USD price-tag, but that will get you a graphics card with 6GB of GDDR5 video memory on a 384-bit bus, the GK110 core is running at 837MHz with a 876MHz Boost frequency, and there's 2688 CUDA Cores. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN boasts approximately 4800 GFLOPS of single-precision power and 1500 GFLOPS of double precision compute power; the double-precision performance is much greater than any of the other GeForce 700 series graphics processors.

While the GeForce GTX TITAN has been around for several months now, only earlier this month did I finally receive a review sample out of NVIDIA. It's great to see NVIDIA's marketing department finally taking more interest in Linux; thanks! The GeForce GTX TITAN will also be found in some of Valve's forthcoming Steam Machines prototypes.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti's cooler is based on the same cooler that premiered with the GTX TITAN: it works very well and looks fantastic if you're running an open-air or windowed system. The display connections on the GeForce GTX TITAN include two dual-link DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort outputs. An 8-pin and 6-pin PCI Express power connectors are required for feeding enough power to the ultra high-end GPU.

For Linux gamers last week's review of the GeForce GTX 780 Ti showed the performance of that GK110 graphics card to be superior while being priced at just ~$699 USD. The GeForce GTX TITAN's $999 price hasn't been reduced since the TITAN still has its own advantages even with the GTX 780 Ti and the AMD Radeon R9 290X also being a fierce competitor on Windows. The GeForce GTX TITAN's benefits include greater double-precision performance and 6GB of GDDR5 video memory over 3GB on the GTX 780 Ti.