Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1080 Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts

Price

Currently, the Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1080 is available from AWD-IT for £629.99 including delivery. Initially, this seems like an extortionate amount of money for a graphics card which could be superseded by the GTX 1080Ti in the coming months. However, you have to look at the market trends and how much other manufacturers are charging for custom GTX 1080 models. More specifically, it’s not uncommon for GTX 1080 cards to cost over £650 and editions sporting heavy factory overclocks can exceed £700.

This is partly due to low supply and the recent Brexit vote might have contributed towards retailers increasing prices. The most balanced way of judging value is to assess the Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1080 against similar units. As strange as this sounds, the graphics card is excellent value and because it has a higher factory overclock than competing models while being cheaper. Therefore, if you’re looking for a GTX 1080, it’s a solid investment.

Overview

NVIDIA’s Pascal line-up has dawned in a new era of high-performance graphics cards which consume very little power. Despite this, consumers are expected to pay a hefty premium to access the top-tier models such as the GTX 1080 and new Titan X. Unfortunately, this situation is compounded even further in the UK and prices are unpredictable which makes analysing the price to performance ratio quite challenging. Evidently, the GTX 1080 is a major step forward towards 4K gaming but it’s still lacking the horsepower to remain above 60 frames-per-second while employing demanding presets. Heck, even the Titan X cannot achieve this and it’s likely that stable 4K gaming won’t be a possibility until the next architecture.

Even though I’m dismayed by the GTX 1080’s price point, it’s an exceptional piece of hardware and custom models continue to impress. The Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1080 is the highest performing card I’ve encountered thus far and enjoys a decent lead over the Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1080. This is due to the exceptionally high factory overclock which very few models can hope to compete with. In an ideal world, I would have preferred the boost clock to average over 2000MHz, but it’s very close and doesn’t fluctuate too much. Interestingly, the graphics card enjoyed a massive lead when benchmarking Doom which seemed a little suspect. However, the frame-rate varies so quickly which can cause a larger discrepancy than usual. Overall, I was amazed by the GPU’s ability to almost reach the maximum 200 frames-per-second during 1080p testing.

The Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1080’s appearance is going to divide opinion because the colour scheme isn’t suitable for the core gaming demographic. In the majority of cases, consumers select a red and black theme which creates a wonderful contrast. Saying that, the fixation on the red and black colour scheme can make building a system with another combination quite challenging. Personally, I quite like the innovative blend of colours and admire any company which takes a risk to conjure up something different. In particular, the white shroud compliments the blue highlights quite well and the GameRock branding adds a more spectacular touch. Furthermore, the RGB lighting is implemented in a sophisticated manner and each colour really glistens. Of course, your viewpoint may vary but I’m pretty fond of the GPU’s visual design.

It’s important to remember the graphics card is massive and requires 3-slots. This stems from the dual heatsinks and 5 copper heat pipes. While the cooling solution is exceptional, it does increase the weight and size substantially. Subsequently, you have to take into account the possibility of SLI in the future or chassis restrictions before purchasing. At least the hefty size has a major benefit as the load temperatures remain low while the noise output is fairly minimal. It’s certainly not the quietest I’ve encountered, but the large heatsinks allow the fans to spin at lower RPMs values.

In terms of overclocking, the graphics card has a good amount of headroom beyond the impressive factory overclock. Throughout the testing process, I was able to increase the boost clock by 167MHz and the memory was stable with a 418MHz improvement. When configured, the graphics card managed a few extra frames although it didn’t really alter the user-experience. In Doom, there was a good performance boost but this is down to the frame-rate fluctuations explained earlier.

Pros

• Attractive backplate
• Brilliant cooling solution
• Dual BIOS
• Excellent build quality
• Fantastic factory overclock
• G-Panel is a handy extra
• Impressive overclocking headroom
• Premium circuitry
• Relatively quiet
• Staggering performance
• Stunning RGB lighting
• Wonderful presentation

Cons

• 3-slot design
• Colour scheme might not be suitable for certain builds

“The Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1080 offers stupendous performance and is one of the fastest GTX 1080 cards on the market. Not only that, it’s built to a very high standard and costs less than a large number of premium GTX 1080 designs.”

Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1080 Graphics Card Review

Thank you Palit for providing us with this review sample.