Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Review: The Mad King of GPUs

[emmzo]

I mean really, how can one not be impressed? Playable 4k at 700 bucks/euros. 19% faster than Titan X, 60% faster than GTX980! Imagine a 1080ti or a Titan X2! I feel a Core2Duo situation here.

 

[Evernessince]

Score 100/100?

- AMD's Async shaders implementation is superior compared to Nvidia's.
- This card is using GDDR5X memory, so first HBM2 card will receive at least 150/100?
- DirectX 12 support is about same level as Maxwell, again AMD is miles ahead.

Giving perfect score somethiong is just ridiculous as it leaves no room for improvements. Some of which already exists or will soon become. Nvidia fanboy score spotted.

- Well the first point is correct.

-The card does use GDDR5X which is the best out there reliably at this present. Thats how reviews work, you review compared to what exists today, not what is coming in the future.

- How many games even support DX12? No doubt Nvidia were working hard getting this out and now they have the easier job of adding better support and drivers for DX12 gaming.

Just my thoughts. Its aggressive pricing - lets be honest, they are kicking their 1000 dollar cards out of the market and saying by a 1080. Thats ballsy and you get great 4k performance. These are the releases that companies should be creating, yet we normally get the 10% increments for 75% more cost. This is a positive move all round, and at the current time of writing, is worthy of the 100/100.

HBM is on the Fury and Fury X, don't get how you can say GDDR5x is the best out there. If they were grading based on GDDR5x being the best they sure messed that up.

 

[Evernessince]

Sure it's a nice card but is it worthy of a perfect 100 score? I very much doubt it. Personally the GTX 1070 interests me more, you're not going to sacrifice much in the way of anything and the price more than makes up for the sacrifices but even that card wouldn't be a perfect 100.

Yeah, to me a 100 would be fixed DX 12 performance and very low temps. I read the review on tom's hardware and the temps are easily going to 84-85 under load and DX 12 performance on Ashes isn't great. This is in a test system mind you so real world temps could very well be in excess of this. We'll have to wait for 3rd party cards in order to overclock because the stock cards have no headroom to do so.

The performance improvement is great but it's what everyone expected.

 

[hahahanoobs]

- Well the first point is correct.

-The card does use GDDR5X which is the best out there reliably at this present. Thats how reviews work, you review compared to what exists today, not what is coming in the future.

- How many games even support DX12? No doubt Nvidia were working hard getting this out and now they have the easier job of adding better support and drivers for DX12 gaming.

Just my thoughts. Its aggressive pricing - lets be honest, they are kicking their 1000 dollar cards out of the market and saying by a 1080. Thats ballsy and you get great 4k performance. These are the releases that companies should be creating, yet we normally get the 10% increments for 75% more cost. This is a positive move all round, and at the current time of writing, is worthy of the 100/100.

- 256-bit GDDR5X may be best right now but 384-bit or 512-bit GDDR5 should be even better. So using your logic, let's assume this card uses 28nm instead of 16nm. 28 nm would be "best available" so it would not lower score? Despite that "best available 28nm tech" is over 4 years old? This also answers your comment about "we normally get the 10% increments for 75% more cost", Nvidia and AMD went with 28nm way too long.

- If I spend 700$ for graphics card, I expect it to be good even after some time. Or should these cards be tested with only DirectX 9 games because DirectX 11 games are still very few compared to DX9 games?

As for last section. This card shows nothing impressive. Even using same architechture and just switching from 28nm to 16nm should give much better results. This is FIRST 16nm card, and if it receives 100/100, what should be given to second batch 16nm cards?

Just making product little better than previous one is very far from perfect. Also this card has undeniably some features missing that alone make perfect score unjustified.

Two words: "Overclockers Dream"

If I pay $650 for a card, I expect it to overclock better than a toaster.

 

[HardReset]

I'm not trolling, honestly, but what would you consider as 100/100? There is only so much these companies can do. This is a huge leap in terms of the processing of the chips 16nm. OK, given the styling of the card looks like every other GTX card, but the way they design cards these days you dont even see the card once it's installed.

How about putting more CUDA cores (like 50% bigger die) and wider memory bus? That would be much faster and so better, right?

There were some little extras, not just the extra power. There is now MUCH better support for multiple displays so there should be less tearing, blurring, orientation of the surround screens. There is also Ansel, Super Resolution, VRWorks updates, Simultaneous Multi-projection (this is realllly cool), ASync Compute, new memory compression, HDR for gaming and encoding and more....

So add all of these extras, as well as the biggest leap in card raw power for at LEAST 3 years, they deserve some kudos.

Also, I was curious, what would you have given it out of 100 and why?

In fact, architechtrurally Pascal is very small improvement over Maxwell. Many of those "new features" need spesific software support and as I already mentuined, async compute is about five years behind AMD.

That "biggest leap" comes almost entirely from 16nm process, so that is nothing fancy, that is expected.

I would give at most 80/100. While Maxwell showed big improvements over Kepler, Pascal this is just Maxwell with very little improvements made with 16nm process.

I simply cannot believe you have omitted one of the most important benchmarks in your review - VR performance!
Why are there no VR benchmarks when Nvidia have claimed that Pascal performs especially well here with its simultaneous multi projection and VR is pretty much the future of gaming?

Simultaneous Multi Projection requires spesific software support so it's benefits are to be seen.

 

[DDG4005]

Or two if you were super well heeled.
You threw money away on Titan X's? Tough break man. I'd be crying into my pillow every night if I did that.

I'm getting good frame rates in Crysis 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Doom with the graphics in each game maxed out without my systems breaking a sweat; it was definitely money well spent.

 

[HardReset]

Saying this card is a "little better" is by far an understatement and you know it. Compared to every other available GPU it's faster and at a reasonable price point, while consuming less power, thus giving it a perfect score...

That is LEAST you would expect when comparing high end 16nm card against high end 28nm cards.

Your just hating for the sake of hating because you can, or because of another reason most people can see without me having to point out. Perhaps save the perfect score for the board partners design that doesn't come at a price premium, but those are not available yet so they can't be considered yet, but I'm sure when does come out they will also get perfect scores, and once again you will be upset about it right?

Even this model is not available yet. I expect that quite soon we will see GTX 1080 cards that are:

- Faster than this one
- Equipped with better cooler than this one

As this receives 100/100, what score would those better ones get? 120/100?

So, by your logic, NOTHING should ever get a 100/100, because something better is ALWAYS coming down the road?

While 28nm manufacturing tech was around for over 4 years, HBM2 is likely to come in six months. So your logic does not apply.

At this moment, the 1080 is a 100/100 contender. It is faster than any other single GPU, often by a huge margin, and does so while sipping juice compared to even maxwell.

And? What else you would expect from 16nm card compared to 28nm cards??

It has a framebuffer big enough to satisfy gaming needs for the next few years, and OCes very well, considering the limitations of it's cooler. Performance should be even better than this with nicer heatsink/watercooling. if being the king of GPU land for the foreseeable future, while being more efficient than everything else on the market in FPS/$, perf/watt, and pure performance alone, isnt enough to get a 100/100 score, then nothing is, and the rating system would be broken at that point.

HBM2 cards will beat this one. Also, 16nm tech alone means this card will be more efficient etc. Even Maxwell with zero improvements made with 16nm tech would be enough for that, something many here don't seem to realize. There is also many weaknesses in this card so perfect score proves that rating system is indeed broken.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Seriously the GPU market is not stagnate, yet we still find faults. Come on guys be happy the market is still getting better.

 

[Evernessince]

I'm getting good frame rates in Crysis 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Doom with the graphics in each game maxed out without my systems breaking a sweat; it was definitely money well spent.

He was speaking from a price / performance perspective. If it's worth it to you then that's all that matters.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Yeah, to me a 100 would be fixed DX 12 performance and very low temps. I read the review on tom's hardware and the temps are easily going to 84-85 under load and DX 12 performance on Ashes isn't great. This is in a test system mind you so real world temps could very well be in excess of this. We'll have to wait for 3rd party cards in order to overclock because the stock cards have no headroom to do so.

The performance improvement is great but it's what everyone expected.

Actually the performance is higher than I expected but then there are no DX 12 titles to test with yet.

 

[Jaycomputers]

Well this is interesting gtx 1080 is a great card but mainly gets 15 to 20 more fps in games so where does that leave the gtx 1070 considering it is also supposed to be faster than the 980ti and Titan x? If it manages to get even half of the frame difference say like 8 to 12 fps faster that makes it a much more better card. Don't think I would pay a 250 premium for just 6 or 7 fps. But we shall see

 

[Evernessince]

Actually the performance is higher than I expected but then there are no DX 12 titles to test with yet.

Yeah, we really need more DX 12 titles. Comparing everything to ashes is becoming monotonous.

 

[Experimentongod]

My two cents:

This card is in an awkward position:

- 1440p => looks like it's overkill, therefore no real reason to upgrade if you already have a "proper" 1440p card (980Ti)
- 4K => I see some games getting >50FPS, but it's not enough for 100% smooth gameplay

Probably the VALUE king for 1440p will be the GTX 1070 and for proper smooth gameplay @ 4K you will need a 1080Ti

 

[MoeJoe]

Perfect score.
High price.
Marginal 'real world' performance difference.

Not interested.

 

[Nobina]

Beast card but not a 100/100. What if there was a card released tommorow with same performance but 5C cooler and less power consumption? Would that card be a 102 or something? That's one of the reasons you never give anything a perfect score.

 

[DDG4005]

My two cents:

This card is in an awkward position:

- 1440p => looks like it's overkill, therefore no real reason to upgrade if you already have a "proper" 1440p card (980Ti)
- 4K => I see some games getting >50FPS, but it's not enough for 100% smooth gameplay

Probably the VALUE king for 1440p will be the GTX 1070 and for proper smooth gameplay @ 4K you will need a 1080Ti

I'm not sure anything above a GTX 1080 will be able to sustain 60fps at 4K either. Not unless it's using HBM2 memory.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Beast card but not a 100/100. What if there was a card released tommorow with same performance but 5C cooler and less power consumption? Would that card be a 102 or something? That's one of the reasons you never give anything a perfect score.

Just because something gets a 100/100, doesn't mean something better won't ever exist. Should the 980 have gotten a 0/100 because the 1080 would exist one day?

Its like everybody here forgot how rating systems work just because Nvidia hit it out of the ball park with the 1080, so everyone has to find something to hate on.

 

[deemon]

So we are finally ready for a no compromise 1440p gaming. Good. Also sad we didn't reach 4k yet

 

[Brian Duffee]

Beast card but not a 100/100. What if there was a card released tommorow with same performance but 5C cooler and less power consumption? Would that card be a 102 or something? That's one of the reasons you never give anything a perfect score.

Just because something gets a 100/100, doesn't mean something better won't ever exist. Should the 980 have gotten a 0/100 because the 1080 would exist one day?

Its like everybody here forgot how rating systems work just because Nvidia hit it out of the ball park with the 1080, so everyone has to find something to hate on.

Im blown away by the hate, and I agree with you. When you are graded on something, you look at what is done and how well it is done. If the product is well executed and excels at all levels then it should be rated as such. Nothing is ever perfect and a 100/100 is not saying that it is the best card ever and that ever will be. What it is saying is that the product that was delivered hit excellent marks on all gradable areas and makes an impact without sacrifice. When they give perfect scores out in the xgames, they don't shut down the games and send everyone one home. It is a way to let people know that what happened was of excellent quality. Someone behind them can also get a perfect score if they also deliver an excellent performance. All TechSpot is saying here is that this card is a well executed product and provides top end production with overclocking headroom without having to sacrifice little to nothing. For a product to deliver those results, they should get a perfect score. If you deliver on your promises without compromise, what else do you expect?

 

[Kenrick]

Wow. those numbers speaks the fact. Now to retire my gtx770. 100 score seems realistic. Who would have thought that 14xxp resolution is in our hands right now with that price.

Prepare for the influx of worried AMD fury users.

 

[Boilerhog146]

Quit the whinninggggg ,about the price of the cards ,Bunch of phoney enthusiasts, if you have to complain about these low prices of cards in todays market,YOU DON'T Deserve to own one. ya should have to throw down at least a grand for the top card,IMO. like back in the Day, BFG tech 512 meg 6800 ultra anyone ,999.00 u.s. . 1299.00 can.at the time .and I allways buy in pairs.. you kids are lucky today..stick to the midrange and complain about that instead ,sorry for the rant,but some are complaining for the sake of it .and have no clue what they are complaining about,,,bring on a pair of 1080 ti's,whats this 1440 p stuff.I been at 2560 x1600 ,for almost 10 years now.lol I'm OLD..and so are my 2 x 4 gig 670's. I'm just happy I held off on the 7/9/titan series cards as long. woohoo,, great article BTW,

 

[Evernessince]

Im blown away by the hate, and I agree with you. When you are graded on something, you look at what is done and how well it is done. If the product is well executed and excels at all levels then it should be rated as such. Nothing is ever perfect and a 100/100 is not saying that it is the best card ever and that ever will be. What it is saying is that the product that was delivered hit excellent marks on all gradable areas and makes an impact without sacrifice. When they give perfect scores out in the xgames, they don't shut down the games and send everyone one home. It is a way to let people know that what happened was of excellent quality. Someone behind them can also get a perfect score if they also deliver an excellent performance. All TechSpot is saying here is that this card is a well executed product and provides top end production with overclocking headroom without having to sacrifice little to nothing. For a product to deliver those results, they should get a perfect score. If you deliver on your promises without compromise, what else do you expect?

The problem is the card doesn't deliver in all areas. DX 12 performance is still up in the air (and given the recent documents released about the render pipeline DX 12 performance will likely remain similar to Maxwell) and the GPU temps are nowhere near what Nvidia was showing. 84-85 at load is not the 69-72 Nvidia was showing off at their event. Pascal is essentially 16nm Maxwell as the architectural improvements aren't amazing.

What you essentially have is the same thing AMD has right now, really fast cards that run hot and don't overclock well on stock cooler.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I never laughed so hard reading comments here before. Thank you. Thank you all.

 

[Evernessince]

Quit the whinninggggg ,about the price of the cards ,Bunch of phoney enthusiasts, if you have to complain about these low prices of cards in todays market,YOU DON'T Deserve to own one. ya should have to throw down at least a grand for the top card,IMO. like back in the Day, BFG tech 512 meg 6800 ultra anyone ,999.00 u.s. . 1299.00 can.at the time .and I allways buy in pairs.. you kids are lucky today..stick to the midrange and complain about that instead ,sorry for the rant,but some are complaining for the sake of it .and have no clue what they are complaining about,,,bring on a pair of 1080 ti's,whats this 1440 p stuff.I been at 2560 x1600 ,for almost 10 years now.lol I'm OLD..and so are my 2 x 4 gig 670's. I'm just happy I held off on the 7/9/titan series cards as long. woohoo,, great article BTW,

They still have cards in that price range so it's not just back in your day. I don't see how calling people whiners is a point for high prices. Calling names does not equal an argument nor is pricing back in your day. The market changes.

 

[Questors]

So much for the 1080 providing twice as much performance as a Titan X. The tech community has been spewing the hyperbole from Nvidia like mind controlled trolls. "Nvidia said that the GTX 1080 offers two times the performance of the company's current flagship Titan X, while delivering three times the power efficiency."
OMGZZ!! Teh 1080 es here an et es dis menny finngerz more fasterer den deh titanik Xee ting, cuz enveddiyah saiz sew! en dey wount exajj..egxaj...dat wurd wut meen beeg storee!