NVIDIA TITAN RTX

Launched on December 17, 2018, the NVIDIA TITAN RTX is a Turing-architecture flagship built on a 12 nm process at TSMC, featuring a TU102 chip with 18,600 million transistors on a 754 mm² die. It carries a launch MSRP of 2,499 USD and holds a percentile rank of 75 among all GPUs, indicating that the data places it comfortably ahead of roughly three-quarters of the database's tracked graphics cards.

Benchmark Performance

The average benchmark score for the TITAN RTX stands at 31,676 points, a figure that serves as the central reference point for its performance class. In the specific 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, the card achieves a score of 3,794, which demonstrates its capability in modern DirectX 12 workloads. The Geekbench results further contextualize its compute abilities: it scores 148,755 in OpenCL and 132,180 in Vulkan, with the OpenCL result leading the Vulkan score by roughly 12.5%, a gap that hints at driver optimizations or architectural scheduling differences between the two APIs.

The Passmark suite provides a broader view of the card's legacy and compute performance. The G3D score of 20,491 is the standout figure among these tests, while the GPU Compute score of 10,034 is roughly half of that, suggesting a substantial divergence between graphics rasterization throughput and general-purpose compute workloads. Older DirectX benchmarks show a peculiar pattern: DirectX 9 scores 223, DirectX 10 drops to 147, and DirectX 11 recovers to 189, while DirectX 12 falls to 88. This non-linear progression indicates the card's architecture was heavily optimized for modern APIs, with the DirectX 12 score being particularly low relative to the G3D result — a discrepancy that may reflect specific test conditions or driver paths rather than raw hardware limits. The G2D score of 860 is modest, underscoring that 2D performance is not a priority for this class of hardware.

How It Compares

The nearest rival in the database is the AMD Radeon Pro 570X, with an average score of 31,682. The TITAN RTX trails this card by a negligible 0.0%, meaning the two are effectively tied in aggregate benchmarks. This is a striking outcome given the TITAN's positioning as a workstation-class GPU, as the data shows no performance advantage over a lower-tier professional card in raw average scores.

The Intel Arc Pro A30M scores 31,894, placing it 0.7% ahead of the TITAN RTX. This is a narrow lead, but it is notable that a mobile-oriented Arc Pro part edges out the TITAN in the aggregated metrics. The delta suggests that the TITAN's raw compute power does not translate into a decisive win across all tested workloads, possibly due to the older Turing architecture lacking some optimizations present in newer designs.

Against the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000, which averages 31,401 points, the TITAN RTX leads by 0.9%. Both cards share the TU102 chip and 24 GB of VRAM, yet the TITAN's slight edge in average scores indicates that its higher boost clock of 1770 MHz provides a measurable, albeit small, advantage over the Quadro's more conservative tuning. This result reinforces the idea that the TITAN is essentially a repurposed professional card with gaming-oriented firmware.

The NVIDIA GRID M60-1Q trails with an average score of 31,220, putting the TITAN RTX 1.5% ahead. The GRID M60 is a virtualized GPU solution, so its proximity in scores is surprising; however, the data shows the TITAN maintains a consistent lead, likely due to its newer architecture and higher memory bandwidth of 672.0 GB/s versus the older Maxwell-based GRID design.

Power and Cooling

The TITAN RTX carries a thermal design power of 280 W, which is a substantial requirement for a dual-slot card. The suggested PSU rating is 600 W, meaning the system power supply must be able to handle the card's peak draw along with other components. Power is delivered via two 8-pin connectors, a standard configuration for high-end cards of this generation, ensuring that the 280 W envelope is fed through multiple rails. The dual-slot cooler is designed to dissipate that heat within a standard chassis footprint, though the 267 mm length and 116 mm height indicate that case compatibility requires attention to clearance. Given the 12 nm process and the high transistor count, the 280 W figure reflects the power-hungry nature of the TU102 die, and the data suggests that users should not attempt to run this card on a lower-wattage PSU without risking instability.

FAQ

Q: What is the average benchmark score of the NVIDIA TITAN RTX?

A: The average benchmark score is 31,676 points, based on the aggregated data across all tracked tests.

Q: How does the TITAN RTX compare to the AMD Radeon Pro 570X?

A: The two cards are statistically tied, with the TITAN RTX trailing by 0.0% in average score (31,676 vs. 31,682).

Q: What is the memory bandwidth and bus width of this card?

A: It features a 384-bit bus with GDDR6 memory rated at 672.0 GB/s, paired with 24 GB of VRAM.

Q: What is the recommended power supply wattage?

A: The suggested PSU is 600 W, and the card requires two 8-pin power connectors.

Q: Does the card support DirectX 12 Ultimate?

A: Yes, the API list includes DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), along with OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

Q: What is the pixel and texture fill rate?

A: The pixel rate is 169.9 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 509.8 GTexel/s, driven by 96 ROPs and 288 TMUs.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The TITAN RTX is equipped with 72 RT cores and 576 tensor cores, a combination that was pioneering for its time. The RT cores are dedicated to ray-traced workloads, while the tensor cores accelerate AI-based features such as deep learning super sampling and other neural network tasks. The FP32 throughput is 16.31 TFLOPS, with FP16 reaching 32.62 TFLOPS via a 2:1 ratio, meaning the tensor cores can halve the precision for twice the compute rate. The API support includes DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which is a key requirement for hardware-accelerated ray tracing in modern games, alongside Vulkan 1.4 and OpenGL 4.6. The display outputs are comprehensive: one HDMI 2.0, three DisplayPort 1.4a, and one USB Type-C, allowing for multi-monitor setups and VR headset connectivity. The 12 nm process and 18,600 million transistors suggest a dense design, but the data does not indicate any specific ray tracing benchmark scores, so the practical performance in RT-heavy titles must be inferred from the raw compute and RT core counts alone.

Who Should Consider It

The benchmark data positions the TITAN RTX as a card for users who need high VRAM capacity and strong compute throughput. With a percentile rank of 75, it outperforms 75% of all tracked GPUs, making it suitable for 1440p gaming at high settings and capable of handling 4K resolutions in less demanding titles. The 24 GB VRAM is the standout feature, offering headroom for texture-heavy workloads, but the average score of 31,676 suggests that it is not a top-tier performer by modern standards. Users targeting maximum frame rates at 4K with ray tracing enabled may find the card lacking, given its age, but those running compute tasks such as machine learning or scientific simulations could benefit from the 576 tensor cores and 16.31 TFLOPS FP32. The DirectX 12 score of 88 in Passmark is a warning sign for heavily optimized DX12 games, so users should prioritize titles that leverage Vulkan or older APIs. Ultimately, this card is best suited for professionals who need the memory capacity and can tolerate the 280 W power draw, rather than gamers seeking the absolute fastest rasterization.

Memory Subsystem

The memory configuration is a defining characteristic of the TITAN RTX. It ships with 24 GB of GDDR6, which was an enormous amount at launch and remains substantial today. The 384-bit bus width provides a wide path for data transfer, and the bandwidth of 672.0 GB/s is achieved through a memory clock of 1750 MHz, with an effective data rate of 14 Gbps. This bandwidth is critical for high-resolution textures and large datasets, as it allows the 4608 shading units to fetch data without bottlenecking. The pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 509.8 GTexel/s are directly dependent on this memory bandwidth, and the data shows that the combination supports 4K gaming in many scenarios. However, the aging GDDR6 technology means that newer cards with faster memory or larger caches may outperform it despite similar VRAM sizes. For workloads that exceed 24 GB, such as massive 3D renders or AI training on large batches, the card is limited by capacity rather than bandwidth — a trade-off that the data cannot resolve, as no larger consumer card existed at the time. The 672.0 GB/s figure is a hard ceiling for memory throughput, and users pushing beyond 4K or using multi-GPU setups will likely encounter this limit before the shading units are fully saturated.