Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
4K and HFR, here we come!
If you’re looking to blow the budget on a top-level card, there’s at least some reassurance that you can’t really put a foot wrong when it comes to the GeForce GTX 1080. As with the GTX 1070, AMD doesn’t yet have any Polaris cards that can compete against Nvidia’s flagship, with the Radeon company seemingly content to focus on the midrange and entry-level markets for the time being.
However, given the 1080 is a whopping $400 more than the 1070, the question really becomes one of how excessive you want to get. In other words, should you go for a single GTX 1080 for around $1,050, or splash out another $200 or so for a pair of GTX 1070s.
That depends on your requirements. If you’re gaming at 4K or on a larger ultrawide, a single overclocked GTX 1080 can net you a 60fps average in most games — across our 16-title suite, our 4K average was 60.6fps, while a pair of 1070s in SLI output 69fps.
There are still a lot of caveats with SLI, though, like the need for a beefier PSU (although an 850W will be ample of two 1070s), the fact that game support isn’t universal and, moreover, that SLI tech still doesn’t work with VR. You’ll also want to pick up an HB bridge, for around $60, to ensure the best SLI performance.
The GTX 1080 is the safer, simpler bet, then, and the one we’d recommend for most setups — and if you go the SLI route, be prepared to have to tinker and troubleshoot.