NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080
All hail Pascal, the new king!
LADIES AND GENTS, Pascal has landed. The 16nm FinFET hero has finally arrived. It’s the first in a new lineup of graphics processors that transcend the charms of the ultimately limited 28nm manufacturing process. And, today, we can confirm exactly what this little beauty holds within, and what the GTX 1080 means for Nvidia’s next generation of bunker-busting GPUs. Even Kanye West is jealous of these babies.
So, what are we talking? 2,560 CUDA cores, 160 texture units, 64 ROPs, 9 TFLOPS of performance, a stock boost clock running at 1,733MHz, and 8GB of GDDR5X VRAM running at a solid 10,000MHz on a 256-bit memory bus. Glamorous, eh? What does that mean for the uninitiated? Think of it this way: A Titan X is capable of producing 7 TFLOPS, a GTX 980 Ti 6.5 and the nowlowly 980 can just about pump out 5.3. So spec for spec, the new GTX 1080 should slay its predecessor twice over.
Criticisms? Firstly, the GTX 1080 doesn’t harbor the big Pascal GP100 core architecture found in Nvidia’s high-end Tesla P100 graphics cards, announced earlier this year. No, this is GP104, akin to a scaled-down variant of Maxwell. But that’s by no means a bad thing—Maxwell has incredible overclocking potential. On top of that, we’ve yet to see any hint of HBM 2.0; although we’re expecting to see mainstream production roll out this year, it’s likely we won’t see a new generation of Titan or Ti field this bandwidth-munching monster until nearer winter.
That’s not to say the 1080 lacks memory power. In fact, this is the first GPU to feature Micron’s GDDR5X standard. Packing higher frequencies, higher capacity per chip, and better power efficiency, the 1080 has 8GB of 10,000MHz on a 256-bit memory bus, enabling a max bandwidth of 320GB/s. But enough specs, how does she perform?
As far as the thermals and power draw go, this is interesting. Overall, the GTX 1080 has a higher TDP than the 980, coming in at 180W, as opposed to 165W. However, temperatures are still quite low, with the card ramping up to 82OC with GPU boost. Of course, you can increase that limit to 91OC, similar to last-gen. What is notable is the cooling system. The single blower fan on the 1080 spins at a far lower rpm than the 980, so temperatures tend to ramp up higher before the fan kicks in, no doubt to save our ears from unnecessary noise. 1080P? HA! In game, the GTX 1080 stomps on every GPU to date. Short of SLI/CrossFire configurations, and multi-GPU cards such as AMD’s Radeon Pro Duo, there isn’t much in the way of competition. It makes 4K gaming accessible. By no means is it a flawless 60fps experience in AAA titles, but we’re almost there. Drop the unnecessary AA from our benchmarks at 4K (thanks, pixel density), and you can easily hit a 60fps average. That said, in FarCryPrimal,The Division, and AshesofTheSingularity, average frame rates were into the forties, with minimum frames not dropping below 20. At 1080p, it wasn’t uncommon to see minimum rates in the 80s.
Our biggest gripe is with the price. For this particular card, the Founder’s Edition, you have to fork out an additional $100. For the extra moolah, you net yourself a pretty box, the signature metallic shroud, and access to the 16nm GPU two weeks earlier than the AIB cards. The core is incredible, performance exceptional, but the pricing scheme just ludicrous.