Nvidia Titan RTX

A gold-plated status symbol for a godlike content creation PC.

- Jarred Walton

AFTER LAST YEAR’S Titan V, we wondered what Nvidia could do to top it. Then the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti arrived, offering better performance and a bunch of new features, at a fraction of the price. “This will not do,” shouted the gods of the old world. And thus was born the Titan RTX.

It was inevitable, though like the rest of the RTX line, Nvidia’s pricing bespeaks an arrogance that comes from sitting unchallenged at the top for far too long. And that reign will undoubtedly continue, because AMD’s Radeon VII (see page 78) isn’t going to topple the RTX 2080, never mind the 2080 Ti and Titan RTX. But who actually needs this card?

For gaming, the answer is no one. At twice the price of the 2080 Ti, this is a classic tale of diminishing returns. Even at 1440p and 4K at ultra quality settings, the Titan RTX is only 5–10 percent faster at best; sometimes not even that. Turning on all the RTX-enabled enhancements doesn’t really change things either—in Metro Exodus with ray-traced global illumination, or in Battlefield V with ray-traced reflections, we’re still looking at a 5 percent advantage.