Unboxing & Review: Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming

The Pascal architecture based GPU, NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1080 took the crowd by storm with its beefy performance which claimed by NVIDIA, capable of slaying both the GTX 980Ti and GTX Titan X that is known as the top performing graphics card at the time. Million thanks to both Gigabyte VGA and Ban Leong Technologies Sdn Bhd for the care package containing one of Gigabyte’s latest G1 Gaming branded GeForce GTX 1080!

The Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming is expected to come ready as a factory overclocked graphics card, but to keep up with the latest trend as well the interest of the end users, Gigabyte has given the card a new look as well as a touch of bling with customizable RGB lightings. With no further adieu, let us proceed with the test and see if the GTX 1080 G1 Gaming is more than just a good looking graphics card from Gigabyte!

(The Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming is retailed at RM 3259)

Specifications

Unboxing

The new G1 Gaming packaging has a much more distinguished appearance compared to how it used to look when Gigabyte first announces the branding.    

Prominent features such as Gigabyte’s signature WINDFORCE cooling technology, GPU Gauntlet Sorting, 16.8M customizable RGB lighting can be found at the back of the box. 

Much to our surprise when it comes to the accessories included, Gigabyte includes only a quick guide and a drivers CD. 

The GTX 1080 G1 Gaming looks nothing like any previous G1 Gaming graphics card with plain black shroud – it looks much better! G1 Gaming has previously been criticized that the branding is nothing but a failed mock-up just so Gigabyte can have its own gaming brands like MSI Gaming Dragon or the ASUS Republic of Gamers. The orange stripes on the new shroud mark a supposed identity for the G1 Gaming brand, something that is supposed to be done since the beginning.  

The fan blade retains the striped design from the past G1 Gaming graphics card that greatly reduce the fan noise, Gigabyte has further enhanced the fan blade design which boasts a 23% improved air flow compared to the older design.

Underneath the shroud, we can clearly see the 3 copper heat pipes which are in direct contact with the GPU die for better heat dissipation.

The LED on the side of the shroud is now RGB and it can be customized using the Gigabyte Xtreme Engine software.

Gigabyte has also added a ‘Fan Stop’ LED indicator at the side of the shroud to alert the user when the fan isn’t spinning without having to go through the trouble of removing the side panels just to check on the status of the cooler fans.

Unlike any other cards from NVIDIA partner that we’ve seen during Computex 2016, the Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming requires only one 8-pin PCIe power connector to power up.

The metal backplate has been a well-known trait for a high-end graphics card, not only as a decoration that makes the card looks good, it also act as an enhancement on the graphics card rigidity, preventing the PCB from sagging over time.

SLI fingers are still available on the card, but as NVIDIA discourages any setup beyond 2-way SLI, NVIDIA, and its partners has released a new SLI bridge that is supposed to support only 2-way SLI and improved performance compared to the older version of SLI bridge that used to comes along as an accessories with the motherboards.

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.

The display output option is pretty common nowadays, 1 x DVI-I connector, 3 x DisplayPort and 1 x HDMI port.

Performance Test

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 Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming 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:

Overclocking
We ran the same graphically demanding games and synthetic benchmark on 1080p with the highest achievable clock speed for both its memory and GPU that is stable enough to be able to complete each benchmark with the following values:

• 165MHz raise on the GPU core clock
• 535MHz raise on the memory clock
• Extra 8% gain on the power

That’s not much gain in terms of overclocking compared to NVIDIA’s reference design GTX 1080, but hey, we’re still managed to hit that beefy 2100MHz clock speed during our benchmark session. 

Performance Comparison With NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition
We’ve done a performance comparison with a Founders Edition of the GeForce GTX 1080 and the result of the clash between the two beast cards is as following:

Temperature

Temperature wise, we’ve observed temperature record of 36°C during idle and 68°C on load, which turns out to be quite impressive. The loading temperature can be further lowered to 66°C if one would prefer better cooling performance by sacrificing the acoustic performance.

Verdict
The GTX 1080 G1 Gaming is no doubt a very capable graphics card that can easily tame any game titles that heavily taxes on the GPU. Compared to the reference GTX 1080 with 1733MHz on boost, the GTX 1080 G1 Gaming is factory overclocked to 1835MHz on boost for that extra performance without breaking a sweat if you’re not really comfortable with overclocking the card. 

If you’re a risk taker who is willing to overclock the card for that extra free performance boost, you’ll be sure to hit at least 2000MHz on the GPU clock without having to worry about the temperature – the cooler is doing a great job on keeping the temperature under 75°C. However, due to the limitation on voltage raise, we’re only able to go for an extra 8% raise and a limited 165MHz and 535MHz raise on both GPU clock and Memory clock but still managed to achieve a pretty beefy result of 2100MHz on the GPU clock on boost.

The targeted SRP of RM 3259 is somewhat lower than what we’ve predicted from a few months back, but the price is still pretty steep to most of us and it’s definitely going to burn a hole in your wallet. Still, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 G1 Gaming is still a pretty capable card regardless of performance and price if we were to compare it to both GTX 980Ti and GTX Titan X that performs lower and cost few hundred bucks more. 

Pros

• Comes factory overclocked
• Overpowered both GTX 980Ti and GTX Titan X
• Excellent cooling performance 
• Reasonable price for the performance that it can deliver

Cons

• Limited overclocking headroom
• No extra accessories included