The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founder's Edition Review: Bigger Pascal for Better Performance
by Ryan Smith on March 9, 2017 9:00 AM ESTDriver Performance & The Test
Alongside the launch of the GTX 1080 Ti, NVIDIA is also touting the performance of their drivers. For most users who have been regularly updating their drivers to begin with, I don’t think there’s anything too surprising here. But because of NVIDIA’s talk of driver performance gains, I’ve already seen some confusion here over whether the GTX 1080 Ti launch driver (378.78) is a special performance driver or not. For the record, it is not.
In their presentation, NVIDIA outlined their driver performance gains in DX12 since the launch of various DX12 games, including Ashes of the Singularity, Hitman, and Rise of the Tomb Raider. All of these games have seen performance improvements, but what’s critical here is that this is over the long-run, since the launch of the GTX 1080 and these respective games.
The 378.78 driver in that respect is nothing special. In terms of driver release, NVIDIA is already a few releases into the R378 branch, so any big code changes for this branch have already been released to the public in earlier driver builds.
In any case, for reference purposes, here’s how performance of the GTX 1080 stacks up now compared to performance at launch.
| GeForce GTX Driver Performance Gains: July 2016 vs. March 2017 (4K) | |||
| Game | GTX 1080 | GTX 980 Ti | |
| Rise of the Tomb Raider |
Even
|
Even
|
|
| DiRT Rally |
+8%
|
+7%
|
|
| Ashes of the Singularity |
+11%
|
+14%
|
|
| Battlefield 4 |
Even
|
Even
|
|
| Crysis 3 |
Even
|
Even
|
|
| The Witcher 3 |
|
Even
|
|
| The Division* |
-7%
|
-9%
|
|
| Grand Theft Auto V |
+2%
|
Even
|
|
| Hitman (DX12) |
+26%
|
+24%
|
|
As was the case with NVIDIA’s data, the performance gains vary from game to game. Some games have not budged, whereas others like Hitman have improved significantly, and outlier The Division has actually regressed a bit due to some major updates that have happened to the game in the same time period. But at the end of the day, these are performance gains that have accumulated over the months and are already available in the latest drivers from NVIDIA.
The Test
For our review of the GTX 1080 Ti, we’re using NVIDIA’s 378.78 driver.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-4960X @ 4.2GHz |
| Motherboard: | ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional |
| Power Supply: | Corsair AX1200i |
| Hard Disk: | Samsung SSD 840 EVO (750GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill RipjawZ DDR3-1866 4 x 8GB (9-10-9-26) |
| Case: | NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition |
| Monitor: | Asus PQ321 |
| Video Cards: | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti AMD Radeon Fury X |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA Release 378.78 AMD Radeon Software Crimson 17.3.1 |
| OS: | Windows 10 Pro |
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deathtollwrx - Wednesday, April 19, 2017 - link
I upgraded from aAsus 1080GTX 8oc and it made a huge difference for me.
OW was 110 fps now running about 155
OldManMcNasty - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Ok is it me but why are all the games old AF? AND why is the 800-pound gorilla named BF1 missing from just about every review?stardude82 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Quick search pulls up many BF1 benchmarks for the 1080 Ti...bill44 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Thanks Ryan, nice review.Still missing info/specs on Audio (inc. supported sampling rates), which, I suspect, you still not have at hand.
I have asked about this in the past.
hughw - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Does the 1080 Ti have dual DMA channels as the Titan X does?MarkieGcolor - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Nvidia is so gay. I don't understand why people complain that intel's chips slowly optimize over the years. You seriously want your hardware to depreciate 50% every year?Meteor2 - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link
That's one way to look at it! But lose the homophobia.prateekprakash - Sunday, March 12, 2017 - link
Hi,After going through the well written review, I think: wouldn't it be nice if AIB partners (atleast one of them) released a blower type card with 3 slots, so that it could include a heftier heatsink, yet exhaust heat out? That way I could consider putting it in a congested chassis and not worrying about thermal throttling. PS: here in India, my zotac gtx 1060 mini reaches 78° c even in open air!
PocketNuke - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
GP106-GP102 have the same 4x int8 performance according to this article:https://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/mixed-p...
panicp - Sunday, October 15, 2017 - link
I have a GTX 1080Ti and to date, I've been using FSX which apparently devotes more use to the CPU than the GPU. I've just loaded P3D - and it really does look super smooth. The temp maxed out around 85 degs - and my monitoring software was having kittens showing me temps in the RED zone.Can thus GPU continue to run at this temp indefinitely? For unlimited hours?
Is it going to damage the card in the long run?
I'd appreciate your kind advice.