NVIDIA announced its brand new Pascal architecture GPU early May 2016 as the new king of consumer graphics cards, mainly of its greatly improved performance over both GTX 980Ti and GTX Titan X deemed to be the best at the time. Other than the vastly improved performance, NVIDIA has also redesigned the cooler shroud of the card, which now looks like a geometric sculpture with a mix of futuristic accent and is given the name ‘Founders Edition’. The Founders Edition is basically a reference card with a new name, it’s not cherry picked nor factory overclocked, it’s not a limited edition card despite sounding like one. Well, that’s pretty much the brief intro and let’s get back to business!
Graphics Processing | GeForce GTX 1080 |
Core Clock | Boost: 1733 MHz / Base: 1607 MHz (With 2560 CUDA Cores) |
Memory Clock | 10010 MHz |
Process Technology | 16 nm |
Memory Size | 8 GB |
Memory Bus | 256 bit |
Card Bus | PCI-E 3.0 x 16 |
Memory Type | GDDR5X |
DirectX | 12 |
OpenGL | 4.5 |
PCB Form | ATX |
Digital max resolution | 7680×4320 (requires 2*DP1.3 connectors) |
Analog max resolution | 4096×2160 |
Multi-view | 4 |
Output | Dual-link DVI-D *1 HDMI-2.0b*1 (Max Resolution: 4096×2160 @60 Hz) Display Port-1.4 *3 (Max Resolution: 7680×4320 @60 Hz) |
Recommended PSU | 500W |
Power Connectors | 8 pin*1 |
Card size | H=42 L=266.7 W=111 mm |
While NVIDIA discourages SLI setup that goes beyond 2 way SLI, power users, enthusiasts and overclockers who wants to beat the world record or getting better benchmark scores can request this special key from NVIDIA’s website and download it to enable above 2-Way SLI configuration support.
Test Rig Configuration | |
CPU Cooler | Raijintek Triton 240 |
CPU | Intel Core i7 4790K @4.6GHz |
Motherboard | ASUS Maximus Hero VII |
Memory | G.Skill TridentX 2400MHz |
Primary Hard Drive | Crucial M500 120GB |
Power Supply | Be Quiet! Straight Power 10 600W |
Chassis | Vector Bench case |
We mounted the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition on our test bench as above and each and every benchmark is conducted in a room of about 30C° ambient temperature.
Performance
We ran a few graphically demanding games and synthetic benchmarks in our possession on a selected settings at 1080p, which is considered as high for much of our test as usual.The final result of each benchmark is presented in the form of the graph below:
- 248MHz raise on the GPU core clock
- 568MHz raise on the memory clock
- Extra 20% gain on the power
We’ve done a performance comparison with both of the previous king GTX 980Ti and GTX Titan X, and the result of that populated in the following graph:
The GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition might be a reference card, but it’s no doubt a very capable one when it comes to its overclocking capability. With the stated GPU boost clock of 1733MHz, we’ve managed to hit a beefy GPU boost clock of 2113MHz with minimal effort. We’re positive that the GeForce GTX 1080 is more capable that this and can go even further on the GPU clock if it wasn’t because of the Green Light program that puts a limit on the overvoltage. Let’s hope that there will be a custom BIOS soon (hopefully), that further unlocks the capability of the GTX 1080.
Cooling performance is just okay while running on stock speed for both GPU clock and memory clock. If one were to push the GTX 1080 Founders Edition further by bumping up the GPU clock, they will have to deal with either a rather uncomfortable temperature if acoustic performance is on priority, or sacrificing the acoustic performance for the sake of lower operating temperature on full load.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition comes with a pretty steep price of RM3399, a rather big figure that is going to cost most of us an arm and a leg. However, if you’re planning on getting a GTX 980Ti for your gaming rig, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition is still a pretty worthy choice if you’re really into the new reference cooler – it looks good, it’s solidly built and it overclocks pretty well too.
Pros
- Combination of both aesthetics and solid build quality
- Easily overpowered both GTX 980Ti and GTX Titan X
- Good overclocking headroom
- Low power requirement
- Reasonable price for the build quality and performance that it can deliver
Cons
- Temperature can go very high when bumping up the GPU core clock
- Higher price compared to other AiB partner’s card with better cooling design