Why Nvidia Discontinued The ‘Titan’ Graphics Card Line

Nvidia’s Titan graphics playing cards have been an industry-lauded lineup that any PC gamer could be thrilled to have working alongside their CPU and different peripherals. As soon as hailed for excessive energy and flexibility, the Titan household introduced near-GeForce-levels of efficiency to the desk, on high of delivering chart-topping VRAM provides that put the Titan on virtually the identical degree as Nvidia’s Quadro playing cards. 

However after the Titan RTX hit the market in 2018, Nvidia pulled the plug on the Titan sequence altogether, marking the tip of an period. Why would Nvidia do such a factor, chances are you’ll be asking? The short reply is that Nvidia needed to make it simpler for shoppers to decide on a GPU that most closely fits their wants. Publish-2020, Nvidia had a dizzying array of playing cards to select from — together with the GeForce, Titan, and Quadro — and there was a number of overlap in value and efficiency between all these fashions.

The Titan served as a type of hybrid GPU that delivered most of the similar specs because the GeForce RTX — which is short for Ray Tracing Texel eXtreme — Quadro, and Tesla choices, which made selecting the best card tougher for gaming fanatics and people on the lookout for datacenter deliverables. So, by sweeping the Titan beneath the rug, Nvidia was in a position to simplify its product line and provides every model a extra express objective.

We talked about that the ultimate card within the Titan lineup was the RTX mannequin, launched in 2018. Whenever you put that GPU facet by facet with the GeForce RTX 3090 from 2022, you may discover a lot of similarities, particularly so far as VRAM capability and Thermal Design Energy (TDP) are involved.

With only a slight distinction in energy technology (the Titan RTX pushed as much as 280 watts, whereas the 3090 pushes 350 watts), and the truth that each playing cards dealt with as much as 24GB of VRAM, the RTX and 3090 each delivered high-end gaming efficiency and the type of prosumer horsepower you’d get with a workstation GPU.

By the point the RTX 4090 landed on cabinets in 2022, Nvidia had successfully blurred the road between a shopper graphics card and knowledgeable pc powerhouse. As we speak, the RTX 4090 and 5090 stand as the brand new gold commonplace for gaming fanatics. After which there’s Nvidia’s A100 and B200 GPUs, which characterize the tip of the Nvidia iceberg so far as uncooked computational energy and machine studying go.

Nvidia’s 2018 Titan RTX is an aging graphics card that could be easily sped-up to be used with trendy PC titles like Doom: The Darkish Ages, albeit with just a few graphical tweaks to optimize efficiency — particularly on the subject of ray-tracing and shadow results. This simply goes to point out that a few of Nvidia’s legacy merchandise have an impressive shelf life, permitting older playing cards just like the Titan RTX to ship strong efficiency for resource-heavy PC video games and different software program seven years later. 

The adage “If it ain’t broke, do not repair it” is on the root of Nvidia’s longstanding presence within the GPU market, though a extra becoming phrase is likely to be, “If it ain’t broke, improve and rebrand.” Whereas the Titan RTX is not any extra, its historic energy and efficiency stay on by means of Nvidia’s trendy flagships just like the RTX 5090, A100, and B200. So, the subsequent time you are taking part in a GPU-hungry PC sport, and your Nvidia Ti (short for Titanium) graphics card is chugging alongside fortunately and silently alongside your CPU, you’ll be able to thank the Titan.