Price / Where to Buy:
US – SRP: US$699 – NVIDIA GTX 1080 Founders Edition
PH – Approx. Php39200
NVIDIA is in under no circumstance pressured to release a new GPU this year. AMD has pretty much served no competition to what is arguably the most fierce competition in the component industry with previous coinciding releases help serve as the foundation of healthy and thriving PC gaming economy. Nowadays, its not the same fierce close releases we saw in the past but NVIDIA is still advancing GPU technology further and with the company advancing VR technology heavily, they needed a GPU for the consumer that could help do the job. Enter the GeForce GTX 1080. With future applications in mind, NVIDIA released the GTX 1080 with the intention of fueling the current trend for VR content. It makes sense as its a potential new revenue stream for their company and this release hits two birds with one stone: a GPU that can handle higher resolution and more demanding applications while also delivering performance required for creating much richer VR experiences.
NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 is by far the most powerful card they release to date and it is by no means rivaled. Today we take a look at the NVIDIA reference design GTX 1080 Founders Edition. NVIDIA basically titled the referenced card to Founders Edition and are now committing to making the card available all throughout the duration of the product. Read on and see more about the flagship GeForce GPU from NVIDIA right now!
ABOUT THE NVIDIA GTX 1080 Founders Edition
NVIDIA’s new Pascal architecture is a remarkable engineering feat and something which has enabled the company to roll-out numerous technologies for various industries like deep-learning and super-computing but as a GPU company, NVIDIA is still regarded as a gaming company and the release of the much anticipated GTX 1000-series graphics cards is something that drives the industry further as it presents new possibilities for gaming content. That said, NVIDIA announced the new GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 on May 5th, 2016 putting to rest numerous rumors on naming and specifications on their new GPU series. Starting off with the new GPU, the Pascal based GP104 GTX 1080, sports 2560 CUDA cores running 1607Mhz and has a Boost clock of 1733Mhz. The card will come with 8GB of GDDR5X memory clocked in at 2500Mhz. The GTX 1080 boasts the highest clock rates ever seen on a GPU to date in comparison to last-generation’s models which came in around 1000Mhz.
The new Pascal GPUs will natively support DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.5. Display options include three DisplayPort 1.4, one HDMI 2.0b, and one Dual-Link DVI connector. The reference GTX 1080 is powered off a single PCI-e power connector and is rated for 180W. NVIDIA designs a new SLI connector dubbed SLI HB (high-bandwidth) which uses both SLI fingers for maximum bandwidth utilization.
SRP for the GTX 1080 is $699 for the Founder’s Edition and will have an MSRP from most AIB starting at $599.
Simultaneous Multi-Projection
This technology has been around since Maxwell but NVIDIA has refined the technology further to increase performance and offer a more efficient way of handling more complex display scenarios. Traditionally, surround displays are rendered as flat planes and are display onscreen as such which gives us a rather unnatural field of view. The same can be said for curved displays. NVIDIA corrects this via the new Pascal GPUs by allowing a better method of adjusting the output image display via simultaneous multi-projection. Another use of the technology is to save up on processing power wherein developers can opt to render images outside of the visual focus area of the user to increase performance.
Ansel
User-generated content is one of the growing trends in gaming right now but streaming and game footage aside, in-game photography and movies created using gameplay footage have been reserved for professionals and specialists who have access and skills in the tools required in this artform. NVIDIA wants to change that by allowing end-users and gamers to create highly-personalized images and footage from games using Ansel: a tool and API coming soon to games featuring the following key capabilities to help you capture in-game moments like never before:
- Free Camera – Compose your shot anywhere, from any angle.
- Post-Process Filters – Adjust the look and mood of your favorite games.
- EXR Capture – Capture in the highest color spectrum for HDR images.
- Super Resolution – Capture every detail with the highest-resolution images.
- 360 Capture – Snap 360-degree panorama images in mono or stereo.
Ansel’s feature set lets players capture image in-game freely without being limited to the current player view. With Ansel, players can rotate the camera and focus on any detail of the current scene to allow maximum creativity in creating that perfect in-game capture. Filters are also available just to set the mood basically allowing you to create Instagram-ish posts straight from any game at the best quality possible. Ansel allows EXR capture for maximum color spectrum for use in Photoshop or other photo-editing software that support the format.
Basically Ansel gives end-users and content creators a level of control unlike anything we’ve had before. Free control over perspective, resolution and quality to provide you with the image to create stunning in-game photography and motion videos from games that support it.
Ansel enables amazing in-game screenshot captures by providing game developers with new NVIDIA driver APIs using GeForce® GTX GPUs. Game support for Ansel is coming soon, and will include titles such as The Witcher 3, No Man’s Sky, The Witness, and more. Ansel will also be supported by all GTX 600 cards onwards.
Product Gallery – NVIDIA GTX 1080 Founders Edition
Overclocking the NVIDIA GTX 1080 Founders Edition
We’re going to dedicate an entire section to overclocking the NVIDIA GTX 1080 in a separate article. For this section we’ll discuss more about the new potential clocks that GPU Boost 3.0 opens up including the ability to scan voltage points and the maximum potential frequency for that point. This allows the new Pascal GPUs to finely allow higher overclocks when GPU Boost 3.0 is in action.
This means that at the best circumstances, Pascal GPUs are able to boost their core clocks much higher than the pre-defined core clocks that GPU Boost 2.0 is capable of. Here is a shot of our graphics card with the maximum boost clocks it attained in our stability test.
PERFORMANCE
Test Setup
Processor: Intel Core i7 4790K
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus VII GENE
Memory: Kingston HyperX Beast DDR3-2133 32GB
Storage: Plextor M6e Black Edition 256GB
PSU: BitFenix FURY 650G
Cooling: Corsair H100
Monitor: LG 42UB820T UltraHD TV
VGA: NVIDIA GTX 1080 Founders Edition
For a full-hardware workout, visit http://www.futuremark.com for our benchmarks of choice.
All test results are taken with maximum in-game preset profiles. AA has been disabled for 4K UHD testing.
We’re currently revising our GPU review database. This chart and tables are temporary and will be updated with our latest testing methodology and results when available. The data presented follow our previous result but have limited the chart to the most recent and relevant products. All results have been taken from repeatable in-game scenes and an average of multiple runs to capture the data presented.
Overwatch Gameplay Video in 4K Ultra HD Epic Settings
TEMPERATURE & POWER CONSUMPTION
To measure both power consumption and heat, we stress the video card and record the peak values for heat and wattage. We use default values on the cards and stress test them using a Kombustor 3’s Lake of Titans X64 test at 1080p fullscreen.
At a glance: The GTX 1080 Founder Edition is touted to be an efficient card and NVIDIA isn’t just boasting when they claimed this. Looking at our results, the GTX 1080 FE by itself averages around 200w draw and the temperatures provided by the reference cooler are relatively similar to the previous NVIDIA card’s we’ve seen before.
CONCLUSION
Let’s break down the verdict:
Performance. Relatively-speaking, NVIDIA has no one else to beat but itself with the GTX 1080 and with GTX 980 Ti squarely being beat by the GTX 1080, this is by far the new performance king on the market. On a more specific perspective, the GTX 1080 performs well beyond 1080p and improves on the playable capabilities of the GTX TITAN X and GTX 980 Ti in 4K. While NVIDIA heavily promotes the GTX 1080 for 4K content, the GTX 1080 brings relatively better performance in 4K than previous generations. NVIDIA has made great strides in providing much better performance in this graphics card and there’s simply no questioning that its the new king.
Build Quality. The GTX 1080 is an engineering marvel. What AIB partner does to it is up to them but as it is, the Founders Edition brings with it great build quality with an excellent design that certainly exudes a real, premium feel.
Functionality. NVIDIA has improved on many of its current feature set but what it does really well is improve performance in 4K and VR allowing the GTX 1080 to let players enjoy games at an unprecedented quality. This together with the new improvements like Ansel and SMP make the GTX 1080 a feature-rich card made for the modern gaming scenario.
Bundle. Varies by AIB.
Value. At $699, NVIDIA is asking for a premium for its so-called Founders Edition reference cooler. The GTX 980 was launched with a $549 price tag and the GTX 980 Ti a $649. That said, they don’t pack as much power as the GTX 1080 but NVIDIA itself has announced that the non-FE GTX 1080 will start selling at around $599 basically admitting to a $100 premium for their reference card.
The NVIDIA GTX 1080 is obviously the new single card performance king and its efficiency is nothing to snuff at. For the Founders Edition, NVIDIA attracts fans of their brand with a stylish new reference cooler that screams the traditional NVIDIA design they love. Performance, quality and efficiency make the NVIDIA GTX 1080 an excellent choice if you’re looking for that signature NVIDIA look together a top-performing card and there is simply no competition out there right now.
Warranty varies by AIB. We give the NVIDIA GTX 1080 our B2G Performance Award!
Price / Where to Buy:
US – SRP: US$699 – NVIDIA GTX 1080 Founders Edition
PH – Approx. Php39200