NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN BLACK

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN BLACK occupies a peculiar spot in the benchmark database: its average score of 9385 places it at the 45th percentile of all GPUs, yet its nearest rivals are a mix of mobile chips and professional workstation cards. The data indicates a card that was formidable at launch but has since been overtaken by more efficient architectures, sitting within a razor-thin 2.6% performance band of its closest competitors.

Benchmark Performance

The GTX TITAN BLACK’s aggregate benchmark score of 9385 tells a story of narrow margins. Against its closest rival, the AMD Radeon R7 M380 (avg score 9313), the TITAN BLACK holds a mere 0.8% lead — a statistically insignificant gap that suggests these two very different cards perform nearly identically in the aggregate. The margin tightens further against the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, where the TITAN BLACK trails by exactly 1% (9477 vs 9385). This is a striking result: the GTX 980, a later-generation card, edges out the older TITAN-class product in overall average scores.

The gap with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M is similarly narrow at 1.1% (9490 vs 9385), which is remarkable given that the 850M is a mobile part. The TITAN BLACK only manages a more comfortable 1.6% lead over the professional NVIDIA Quadro K5000 (9235 vs 9385). These deltas are all within noise for different benchmark workloads, indicating that the TITAN BLACK’s raw compute advantage is not translating into decisive wins in the current benchmark suite.

Drilling into specific tests reveals the card’s character. In PassMark’s DirectX 9 test, the TITAN BLACK scores 133, which is its strongest legacy API result. DirectX 11 performance drops to 73, while DirectX 10 falls to 47. The DirectX 12 score of 34 is notably weak, suggesting limited asynchronous compute capabilities. Compute workloads show a PassMark GPU compute score of 3726, while the 2D graphics score is 595. The Geekbench results are more flattering: 28810 in Vulkan, 27076 in OpenCL, and 24172 in Metal. These numbers indicate that the card performs better in modern compute abstractions than in rasterization-focused DirectX tests.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The GTX TITAN BLACK does not include dedicated ray tracing cores or tensor cores; the FACT PACK lists both as null. This is a Kepler-generation architecture (GK110B chip) built on TSMC’s 28 nm process, and its feature set reflects that era. For API support, the card offers DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175. The DirectX 12 support is at the feature level 11_1, which means it lacks certain modern DirectX 12 Ultimate features such as hardware ray tracing, mesh shaders, and variable rate shading. The absence of tensor cores also means no DLSS or other AI-accelerated features.

The card’s compute capabilities are substantial for its generation: 2880 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs. Pixel rate is 58.80 GPixel/s and texture rate is 235.2 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance at 5.645 TFLOPS. However, these raw numbers do not translate into competitive DirectX 12 performance, as evidenced by the PassMark score of 34. The 7,080 million transistors on a 561 mm² die with a density of 12.6M per mm² highlight the physically large, power-hungry design of the Kepler architecture.

Who Should Consider It

Benchmark results indicate that the GTX TITAN BLACK is suitable for scenarios where DirectX 9 and OpenGL workloads dominate, given its PassMark DirectX 9 score of 133. For users running legacy applications or older game titles that rely on these APIs, the card still provides respectable performance. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 27076 and Vulkan score of 28810 suggest that compute-oriented tasks using these APIs will run reasonably well.

However, the data cautions against this card for modern DirectX 12 gaming. The PassMark DirectX 12 score of 34 is dramatically lower than the DirectX 9 score, indicating poor scaling with modern rendering paths. Users targeting high resolution or high settings in current titles should look elsewhere. The card’s 45th percentile standing across all GPUs reinforces this — it is below median performance. The 6 GB VRAM and 384-bit bus provide capacity for high-resolution textures, but the execution units are not efficient enough in modern workloads to deliver playable frame rates at demanding settings.

How It Compares

vs AMD Radeon R7 M380: The TITAN BLACK leads by 0.8% in average score (9385 vs 9313). This is a nominal victory against a mobile-class GPU, which is underwhelming for a desktop TITAN product. The two cards are effectively tied, meaning the TITAN BLACK offers no meaningful performance advantage in aggregate benchmarks.

vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980: The newer GTX 980 surpasses the TITAN BLACK by 1% (9477 vs 9385). While the margin is small, the GTX 980 achieves this with likely lower power consumption and newer architecture features. This delta indicates that generational efficiency improvements have offset the TITAN BLACK’s larger die and higher transistor count.

vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M: The mobile GTX 850M edges out the TITAN BLACK by 1.1% (9490 vs 9385). This is a surprising result — a laptop GPU outperforming a desktop TITAN-class card in aggregate scores. It underscores how far mobile GPUs have come and how the TITAN BLACK’s strengths are not captured well by the current benchmark suite.

vs NVIDIA Quadro K5000: The TITAN BLACK leads the professional Quadro by 1.6% (9385 vs 9235). This is the largest margin among its nearest rivals, though still modest. In workstation tasks that favor the Quadro’s driver optimizations, the gap might reverse, but the raw benchmark data favors the TITAN BLACK.

Memory Subsystem

The GTX TITAN BLACK comes with 6 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s. The memory clock is 1750 MHz, which translates to 7 Gbps effective. This memory configuration was generous for its time and remains relevant for capacity-hungry workloads. The 6 GB capacity allows for large texture sets and high-resolution assets without running out of VRAM, which is critical for 4K textures and multi-monitor setups.

However, the bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s, while substantial for a 2014 card, is now modest compared to modern GPUs. At high resolutions like 4K, the combination of 48 ROPs and this bandwidth may become a limiting factor. The pixel rate of 58.80 GPixel/s suggests that fill-rate-bound scenarios at extreme resolutions could expose bottlenecks. For 1080p and 1440p gaming in older titles, the memory subsystem is more than adequate, but the data shows that the execution units struggle with modern DirectX 12 workloads regardless of memory capacity.

FAQ

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the GTX TITAN BLACK?

A: The launch MSRP is 999 USD.

Q: Does the GTX TITAN BLACK support hardware ray tracing?

A: No. The FACT PACK lists no ray tracing cores for this GPU, and its DirectX 12 support is limited to the 11_1 feature level, which does not include DXR.

Q: How does the GTX TITAN BLACK perform in DirectX 12 compared to DirectX 9?

A: The PassMark DirectX 12 score is 34, while the DirectX 9 score is 133. This indicates the card is roughly four times faster in legacy DirectX 9 workloads than in modern DirectX 12 scenarios.

Q: What is the transistor count and die size of the GK110B chip?

A: The chip contains 7,080 million transistors on a die size of 561 mm², manufactured on TSMC’s 28 nm process.

Q: Which API provides the highest Geekbench score for this card?

A: The Geekbench Vulkan score is 28810, which is higher than the OpenCL score of 27076 and the Metal score of 24172.

Q: What is the card’s percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The GTX TITAN BLACK ranks at the 45th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 9385.

Power and Cooling

The GTX TITAN BLACK has a TDP of 250 W, which is substantial by modern standards. The suggested PSU rating is 600 W, indicating that a robust power supply is required for stable operation. The card uses a dual-slot cooling solution and requires one 6-pin and one 8-pin power connector. These power requirements are consistent with its high transistor count of 7,080 million and large die size of 561 mm². The physical dimensions are 267 mm in length (10.5 inches), 111 mm in height (4.4 inches), and 38 mm in width (1.5 inches), which means it will fit in most mid-tower cases but may obstruct adjacent PCIe slots in smaller builds.

The 250 W TDP places significant thermal demands on the cooling solution. The dual-slot design provides adequate cooling for the GK110B chip, but users should ensure proper case airflow. The power connector requirement of 1x 6-pin and 1x 8-pin is standard for high-end GPUs of this era. The 600 W PSU recommendation provides headroom for the card’s peak power draw, though users with power-hungry CPUs may want additional margin. The card’s production status is end-of-life, which means replacement cooling parts may be difficult to source.