The dual-GK110 video board should be reaching stores right about now

Apr 24, 2014 09:55 GMT  ·  By

NVIDIA may have formally introduced the GeForce GTX Titan Z dual-GPU graphics adapter weeks ago, but the product isn't selling yet. In fact, it won't be until next week, although at least now we can start looking forward to it.

With all the product delays going on and problem that TSMC has run into on the manufacturing front, we half feared the product would be pushed back.

Sure, the Titan Z doesn't really have anything to do with the 20nm manufacturing process from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, so it was pretty safe.

Still, with both NVIDIA and AMD forced to essentially redesign their next GPUs, the roadmap is going through transformations.

The Titan Z escaped ETA modifications because it was already known that sales would start this month or the next.

Besides, AMD is already shipping the Radeon R9 295 X2, its dual-Tahiti board, so NVIDIA can't exactly afford to hold its own back.

Not that it's likely for any competition to begin between the two. The Titan Z costs twice as much as the R9 295 X2 after all, owing primarily to the 12 GB of GDDR5 VRAM (AMD's board has 8 GB).

Anyway, in case you want a recounting of the technical assets of the upcoming beast of a video board, here they are.

Since there are two GK110 graphics processing units, the total CUDA core count is of 5,760 (2,880 CUDA cores per chip).

Also, the board features 480 texture mapping units (240 x 2 TMUs), 96 raster operating units (48 x 2 ROPs), and a total memory interface width of 768 bits (384 bits x2).

The 12 GB of GDDR5 VRAM is divided into two, with each GPU controlling 6 GB through their respective 384-bit interfaces we mentioned above.

Finally, the cooler is a massive thing, with a single fan but thick enough to take up three PCI Express memory slots instead of the usual two. Oh well, it means more room for the connectors. You can see the dual-DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort connectors clearly on the rear panel.

The cooling technology is actually a step behind the one AMD selected for the R9 295 X2, which is a hybrid model with dual-waterblocks. It makes the price difference between the AMD adapter ($1,500 / €1,500) and NVIDIA's own card ($3,000 / €3,000) even bigger.

Anyway, NVIDIA is living up to its promise that the GeForce GTX Titan Z will be available in April, even if it did delay things as long as possible (look forward to April 29).