Introduction
The power race is about to kick up yet another gear this week, as Nvidia prepare to launch their new flagship consumer gaming graphics card; the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. The new high-end card features the GP102 GPU used in the Titan X, delivering a staggering 3584 CUDA cores, 224 Texture Units, a 352-bit memory controller, and a massive 11GB of GDDR5X memory. The boost clock is more than 85% higher than that of the GTX 980, and while it’s a few years old, the 980 is hardly a slouch in gaming tasks. It’s also clocked to deliver around 35% performance improvement over the GTX 1080, the biggest boost for any Ti series card to date! So we’re expecting nothing short of exceptional performance from this graphics card.
The card may look like the current GTX 1080, but the internal hardware is quite the step up. The card can boost up to 1582 MHz and even has more overclocking potential above that, said to be able to reach around 2GHz with the right cooling. The higher clocks are likely made possible by the new and improved cooler too, it may look the same, but this time it packs a new vapour chamber design. Overall, the card is expected to reach a 35% improvement over the performance of the GTX 1080.
Hardware Overview
- 12B Transistors
- 1.6 GHz Boost, 2 GHz OC
- 28 SMs, 128 Cores Each
- 3584 CUDA Cores
- 28 Geometry Units
- 224 Texture Units
- 6 GPCs
- 88 ROP Units
- 352 bit GDDR5x
“The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, delivers even more performance than the TITAN X– it’s the ultimate gamer GPU! Gamers who want the very best performance for the latest DirectX 12 and Virtual Reality games will love the new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.” – Nvidia
Packaging and Accessories
The box for the GTX 1080 Ti is beautifully designed and compact too, much smaller that most of the graphics cards that we usually see. It’s a simple design, but the box feels pretty durable overall.
The lid lifts off the top, revealing the card protected by a layer of thick foam padding. We took off the anti-static bag already, but you get the idea.
There’s not an enormous amount in the box, just the usual documentation, but it’s all very nicely presented.
Finally, you’ll find the GPU itself, as well as a DP to DVI adaptor cable. That’s the basics covered, let’s take a closer look at this card, as I’m sure you’re all eager to see the features and performance in greater detail.
Nice review. Looks like a solid card. But where is John Williamson? Have not seen him write in a while? Is he still writing for the site?
Sadly he has had some serious health issues but we hope that he will be back in the near future.
Thank you for the reply. If you see/talk to him, wish him all the best and tell him his readers are looking forward to his return.
I will. Thanks for the kind words.
Hmmm
NVidia has had almost a year to come out with this “New” card, and given its still sky high price of $700 (700 bucks is only “cheap” to the people selling these cards..) it is an underwhelming release at best. And take a look at the 250 Watt power demand, which will surely surge past 300 watts when overclocked. How quickly the NVidia fan boys (and if the 10 reviews I have seen thus far are any indication, the online PC reviewer establishment as well) forget the endless whining and complaining about the R9290X power and heat performance. The shoe apparently now fits when it is on the other foot…………… Without question, in this regard the 1080ti is a giant step backward.
So basically if you have a GTX1080 right now and are playing at 1080P there really isn’t any compelling reason to shell out $700 to get a 15% bump in performance. Not to mention you may have to upgrade your power supply and case cooling. And if you look at the performance delta in aggregate even at 1440 the cost/benefit isn’t stellar either.
These numbers look eerily similar to AMD’s Ryzen 7 gaming numbers. Things don’t get really interesting until you get to 4K. However, right now if 4k is where you play, this is best card on the market, at least until Vega shows up. But the fact remains that the 1080ti is nothing more than year old technology in the form of a cut down Titan. We really
need AMD to hit Vega out of the park to get NVidia off its butt……