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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MrSpadge - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
An HBM2 equipped vega(n) rabbit?eek2121 - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Before you do that though, you should test Ryzen with the Ti. Reviewers everywhere are showing that for whatever reason, Ryzen shines with the 1080 Ti at 4k.just4U - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
I did a double take there as I actually thought you type pull a rabbit out of my a... Was like ... wait, what?? (..chuckle) Anyway, good review Ryan. I read about the Ti being out soon.. didn't realize it was here already.Drumsticks - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Nice review Ryan.I can't wait to see what Vega brings. I'm hoping we at least get a price war over a part that can sit in between the 1080 and Ti parts. I would love to see Vega pull off 75% faster than a Fury X (50% clock speed boost, 20% more IPC?) but wow that would be a tough order. Let's just hope AMD can bring some fire back to the market in May.
MajGenRelativity - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
I'm also extremely interested in seeing what Vega brings as well. My wallet is ready to drop the bills necessary to get a card in this price range, but I'm waiting for Vega to see who gets my money.ddriver - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
It will bring the same thing as ever - superior hardware nvidia will pay off most game developers to sandbag, forcing amd to sell at a very nice price to the benefit of people like me, who don't care about games but instead use gpus for compute.For compute amd's gpus are usually 2-3 TIMES better value than nvidia. And I have 64 7950s in desperate need of replacing.
MajGenRelativity - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
That's a lot of 7950s. What do you compute with them?A5 - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Fake internet money, I assume. And maybe help the power company calculate his bill...ddriver - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Nope, I do mostly 3D rendering, multiphysics simulations, video processing and such. Cryptocurrency is BS IMO, and I certainly don't need it.MajGenRelativity - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
I'm assuming you do that for your job? If not, that's an expensive hobby :P