Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti vs Titan Xp

So the GTX 1080 Ti’s reign as fastest graphics card was short lived. For about a month it was the fastest consumer graphics card you could buy, but that honour has now been taken by the new Titan Xp.

We knew it was coming, just like last year’s Titan X eclipsed the GTX 980 Ti, but whether or not you consider it a ‘consumer’ graphics card is another matter.

In any case, the Titan Xp is here and we’re comparing it against the GTX 1080 Ti for specs and price. 

Next year, or possibly later in 2017, it’s rumoured that the next generation of GeForce cards will be launched. Read more about Nvidia Volta.

Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti vs Titan Xp: Price and availability

The GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition, which is essentially Nvidia’s own card, costs £699 from Amazon, or $699 if you’re in the US.

That’s hardly cheap – you can buy an entire PC for less – but the $1200 Titan Xp certainly makes it look like good value.

The UK price is marginally less in pounds – £1,159 to be precise.

It’s only available direct from Nvidia at the moment but will shortly be on sale through various system builders as well.

Check out our roundup of the best graphics cards to buy if you’re looking for an upgrade.

Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti vs Titan Xp: Design and features

Oddly, the new card looks identical to the old one, even down to the Titan X lettering – it doesn’t say Titan Xp.

The main reason for the similarity is because, underneath, these are basically the same card, just tweaked.

The Titan Xp is based on the same GP102 graphics processing unit as the 2016 Titan X (and the GTX 1080 Ti) but has 30 SMs (streaming multiprocessor units) enabled rather than 28 for the Titan X (and GTX 1080 Ti).

This means it has the ‘full’ complement of 3840 CUDA cores, and its RAM has also been boosted to give a bandwidth of almost 550GB/s compared to 480GB/s for the Titan X and 484GB/s for the GTX 1080 Ti. There’s still the same 12GB quantity as the old card though, and 1GB more than the GTX 1080 Ti.

Power requirements remain the same, and Nvidia says you need a minimum of a 600W PSU to run the card, the same for all three cards.

Physically, the Xp has the same dimensions as the GTX 1080 Ti and Titan X at 267x111mm. You can buy an SLI bridge in 2, 3 or 4-slot widths for £35.99.

Performance remains to be seen, but it will take the crown from the GTX 1080 Ti, which had already taken it from the 2016 Titan X. Whether the increase is worth spending over £400 extra over a GTX 1080 Ti is debatable – most gamers will be just fine with a GTX 1080 for under £500 without even stepping up to the £700 Ti model.

If you already have last year’s Titan X beating away in your PC, then you might be doubly annoyed that there are now two new, faster cards. But you can still rest easy in the knowledge you have one of the quickest cards around and there’s really no need to upgrade. Yet.

Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti vs Titan Xp: Specifications

Mac compatibility

At last, Nvidia has promised Mac drivers for Pascal this month – April – which will not only work with the Titan Xp, but all 10-series GeForce cards, which means we will surely see an upgraded Mac Pro soon enough.