Nvidia Geforce Gtx 1080 Review Tom's Hardware
Our Verdict
Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition simultaneously ascends the throne equally a new performance king and extends Titan X-grade performance to gamers for $500 less. There is a lot to like if you want to bask your favorite games on a 4K monitor, with a fast-refresh QHD brandish, or in virtual reality. Although some of Nvidia's board partners will offering 1080 Tis with bigger coolers and less noise, its Founders Edition menu remains a favorite for its power to frazzle waste matter heat. We're eager to run into how AMD'due south Radeon RX Vega responds in Q2.
For
- Fastest graphics card available
- Attractive cost versus Titan X
- Centrifugal fan exhausts waste matter oestrus
Against
- Temperature-limited
- Not as placidity every bit some board partner designs
Tom'southward Hardware Verdict
Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition simultaneously ascends the throne as a new performance male monarch and extends Titan X-form performance to gamers for $500 less. There is a lot to like if you want to savor your favorite games on a 4K monitor, with a fast-refresh QHD display, or in virtual reality. Although some of Nvidia'south lath partners volition offer 1080 Tis with bigger coolers and less racket, its Founders Edition card remains a favorite for its ability to frazzle waste heat. We're eager to see how AMD's Radeon RX Vega responds in Q2.
Pros
- +
Fastest graphics card available
- +
Bonny cost versus Titan Ten
- +
Centrifugal fan exhausts waste material heat
Cons
- -
Temperature-limited
- -
Not as quiet every bit some board partner designs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Review
Nobody was surprised when Nvidia introduced its GeForce GTX 1080 Ti at this year's Game Developer Briefing. What really got gamers buzzing was the card'southward $700 price tag.
Based on its specifications, GeForce GTX 1080 Ti should be equally as fast as Titan X (Pascal), or even a bit quicker. So why shave off so much of the flagship's premium? We don't actually have a swell answer, except that Nvidia must be anticipating AMD's Radeon RX Vega and laying the groundwork for a boxing at the high-end.
Why now? Because GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is ready today, Nvidia tells us. And because Vega is not, nosotros'd snarkily add.
Turning A Zilch Into A Hero
There are currently two graphics cards based on Nvidia's GP102 processor: Titan 10 and Quadro P6000. The former uses a version of the GPU with ii of its Streaming Multiprocessors disabled, while the latter employs a pristine GP102, without any defects at all.
We're talking well-nigh a 12 billion transistor scrap, though. Surely yields aren't so good that they all bin into one of those 2 categories, right? Enter GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.
The 1080 Ti employs a similar Streaming Multiprocessor configuration equally Titan X—28 of its 30 SMs are enabled, yielding 3584 CUDA cores and 224 texture units. Nvidia pushes the processor'south base of operations clock rate up to 1480 MHz and cites a typical GPU Boost frequency of 1582 MHz. In comparison, Titan X runs at 1417 MHz and has a Boost spec of 1531 MHz.
Where the new GeForce differs is its back-end. Both Titan X and Quadro P6000 utilise all 12 of GP102's 32-bit retentiveness controllers, ROP clusters, and slices of L2 cache. This leaves no room for the foundry to make a mistake. Rather than tossing the imperfect GPUs, and so, Nvidia turns them into 1080 Tis past disabling i retentivity controller, one ROP partition, and 256KB of L2. The result looks a little wonky on a spec sheet, only it'southward perfectly feasible nonetheless. Equally such, we get a carte with an aggregate 352-bit retentiveness interface, 88 ROPs, and 2816KB of L2 cache, down from Titan X's 384-scrap path, 96 ROPs, and 3MB L2.
Left lone, that'd put GeForce GTX 1080 Ti at a slight disadvantage. But in the months between 1080's launch and at present, Micron introduced 11 Gb/s (and 12 Gb/s, co-ordinate to its datasheet) GDDR5X memories. The college data charge per unit more than compensates for the narrower memory charabanc: on paper, GeForce GTX 1080 Ti offers a theoretical 484 GB/due south to Titan X's 480 GB/s.
Of course, eliminating ane retentivity aqueduct affects the card's capacity. Stepping down from 12GB to 11GB isn't particularly alarming when nosotros're testing confronting a 4GB Radeon R9 Fury X that works just fine at 4K, though. Losing chapters is also preferable to repeating the problem Nvidia had with GeForce GTX 970, where it removed an ROP/L2 partition, but kept the retentivity, causing slower access to the orphaned 512MB segment. In this case, all 11GB of GDDR5X communicates at full speed.
Specifications
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Run into The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition
During its presentation, Nvidia appear that its Founders Edition cooler was improved compared to Titan X's. Looking at this card head-on though, you wouldn't know it. It looks identical except for the model proper name. The combination of materials (namely cast aluminum and acrylic) is also the same, equally is the commanding presence of its 62mm radial cooler.
Nvidia's reference GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is the same size equally its Titan X (Pascal). The distance from the slot cover to end of the cooler spans 26.9cm. From the top of the motherboard slot to the top of the cooler, the bill of fare stands x.5cm tall. And with a depth of 3.5cm, information technology fits nicely in a dual-slot form factor. Nosotros weighed the 1080 Ti and found that it's a little heavier than the Titan X at 1039g.
The top of the card looks only every bit familiar every bit its front, sporting a greenish back-lit logo, forth with one eight- and one six-pin power connector. The lesser is even less interesting; in that location's really goose egg to say most its plain cover.
Some hot air may escape the back of the carte du jour through its open vent. But the way Nvidia designed its thermal solution ensures nearly of the waste heat exhausts out the back.
Nvidia improves airflow through the libation by removing its DVI output. Yous become three DisplayPort connectors and 1 HDMI ii.0 port, while a bundled DP-to-DVI dongle covers anyone still using that interface.
Libation Design
We had to dig deep in our tool box because Nvidia primarily uses thin 0.5mm screws, which fit into the mating threads of special piggyback screws that sit below the backplate. These uncommon M2.5 hex bolts also attach the carte du jour's cover to its circuit board.
1 improvement to the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti became apparent as we started taking the card apart: Nvidia mated the PWM controller on the back of its PCA with part of the backplate using thick thermal fleece. This is a material nosotros don't run into used very frequently, and it'south meant to augment oestrus dissipation. The move would take been even more constructive if Nvidia cutting a hole into the plastic sheet roofing the backplate in this area.
The exposed board reveals ii areas on the left labeled THERMAL PAD 1 and THERMAL PAD 2. However, these do not really host any thermal pads. We don't know if Nvidia'southward engineers deemed them unnecessary or if its accountants decided they were besides expensive. Our measurements will tell.
The cooler's massive bottom plate sports thermal pads for the voltage converters and memory modules, too equally several of the thermal fleece strips we mentioned previously. Those strips connect other on-board components to the libation's bottom plate.
Similar to its other loftier-terminate Founders Edition cards, Nvidia uses a vapor bedchamber for cooling the GPU. Information technology'south attached to the board with four jump bolts.
Lath Pattern & Components
Physically, the first thing you might notice well-nigh the PCA is its full complement of voltage regulators. Nvidia's Titan X (Pascal) had the same layout, but non all of its emplacements were populated. The Quadro P6000, on the other manus, uses this board design. That bill of fare'south viii-pin power connector points toward the dorsum, and you tin can come across the holes for it on the 1080 Ti'southward PCB.
The reverse holds true for retentivity: compared to Titan X (Pascal), one of GeForce GTX 1080 Ti's modules is missing.
A total of eleven Micron MT58K256M321JA-110 GDDR5X are organized effectually the GP102 processor. They operate at 11 Gb/s data rates, which helps recoup for the missing 32-fleck memory controller compared to Titan X. Nosotros asked Micron to speculate why Nvidia didn't use the 12 Gb/s MT58K256M321JA-120 modules advertised in its datasheet, and the company mentioned they aren't widely available still, despite appearing in its itemize.
Nvidia sticks with the uP9511 we've seen several times at present, which makes sense because this PWM controller allows for the concurrent operation of seven phases, as opposed to just six(+2). The same hardware is used for all vii of the GPU's power phases, and they're institute on the back of the lath.
The voltage converters' design is interesting in that it'southward quite elementary: ane buck converter, the LM53603, is responsible for the loftier side, and two (instead of one) Fairchild D424 N-Channel MOSFETs operate on the low side. This setup spreads waste heat over twice the surface surface area, minimizing hot-spots.
For coils, Nvidia went with encapsulated ferrite chokes (roughly the aforementioned quality equally Foxconn'southward Magic coils). They can be installed by machines and aren't push-through. Thermally, the back of the board is a good place for them, though we find it interesting that Nvidia doesn't do more than to assistance cool these components. Stranger however, the capacitors right next to them receive cooling consideration.
The memory gets two ability phases run in parallel by a single uP1685. The high side uses the FD424 mentioned above, whereas the low side sports two dual N-Channel Logic Level PowerTrench E6930 MOSFETs in a parallel configuration. Because the 2 phases are simpler, their coils are correspondingly smaller.
So, what'southward the verdict on Nvidia'south improved thermal solution? Based on what nosotros establish under the hood, information technology'd be safer to call this a cooling reconceptualization. Switching out agile components and using additional thermal pads to more efficiently motion waste oestrus are the most readily apparent updates. The libation itself should perform identically to cards we've seen in the past.
MORE: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Roundup
MORE: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Roundup
How We Tested Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
Nvidia'southward latest and greatest will no doubt exist institute in high-cease platforms. Some of these may include Broadwell-Eastward-based systems. Still, we're sticking with our MSI Z170 Gaming M7 motherboard, which was recently upgraded to host a Core i7-7700K CPU. The new processor is complemented by Chiliad.Skill's F4-3000C15Q-16GRR memory kit. Intel's Skylake compages remains the company'southward most constructive per clock cycle, and a stock four.2 GHz frequency is higher than the models with more cores. Crucial's MX200 SSD remains, every bit does the Noctua NH-12S libation and be placidity! Nighttime Power Pro 10 850W power supply.
Every bit far as competition goes, the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is rivaled but past the $1200 Titan X (Pascal). The just other comparisons that make sense are Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080, the lower-end 1070, and AMD'south flagship Radeon R9 Fury 10. We add together a GeForce GTX 980 Ti to the mix for showing what 1080 Ti can do versus its predecessor.
Our criterion pick now includes Ashes of the Singularity, Battlefield i, Civilization Half dozen, Doom, M Theft Auto V, Hitman, Metro: Terminal Light, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Tom Clancy's The Division, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands, and The Witcher 3. That substantial list drops Battlefield 4 and Project CARS, but adds several others.
The testing methodology nosotros're using comes from PresentMon: Operation In DirectX, OpenGL, And Vulkan. In short, all of these games are evaluated using a combination of OCAT and our ain in-business firm GUI for PresentMon, with logging via AIDA64. If you want to know more virtually our charts (especially the unevenness index), we recommend reading that story.
All of the numbers you meet in today's slice are fresh, using updated drivers. For Nvidia, we're using build 378.78. AMD's carte utilizes Crimson ReLive Edition 17.ii.1, which was the latest at test time.
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