The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 & GTX 1070 Founders Editions Review: Kicking Off the FinFET Generation
by Ryan Smith on July 20, 2016 8:45 AM ESTCrysis 3
Still one of our most punishing benchmarks 3 years later, Crysis 3 needs no introduction. Crytek’s DX11 masterpiece, Crysis 3’s Very High settings still punish even the best of video cards, never mind the rest. Along with its high performance requirements, Crysis 3 is a rather balanced game in terms of power consumption and vendor optimizations. As a result it can give us a good look at how our video cards stack up on average, and later on in this article how power consumption plays out.
This being the first cycle we’ve used the Very High settings, it’s humorous to see a $700 video card getting 35fps on a 3 year old game. Very High settings give Crysis 3 a level of visual quality many games still can’t match, but the tradeoff is that it obliterates most video cards. We’re probably still 3-4 years out from a video card that can run at 4K with 4x MSAA at 60fps, never mind accomplishing that without the MSAA.
The GTX 1080 does however at least get the distinction of being the one and only card to crack 30fps at 4K. Though 30fps is not suggested for Crysis, it can legitimately claim to be the only card that can even handle the game at 4K with a playable framerate at this time. Otherwise if we turn down the resolution, the GTX 1080 is now the only card to crack 60fps at 1440p. Very close to that mark though is the GTX 1070, which at 58.1fps is a small overclock away from 60fps.
Looking at the generational comparisons, GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 lead by a bit less than usual, at 62% and 51% respectively. The GTX 1080/1070 gap on the other hand is pretty typical, with the GTX 1080 leading by 27% at 4K, 23% at 1440p, and 21% at 1080p.
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Ryan Smith - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
The prices listed are based on checking Newegg daily for the past week. The sub-$429 cards have never been in stock when I've checked.powerarmour - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Lulz how late?jabbadap - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Great thorough review.You have a funny typo on the fast sync page:
" Fast Sync doesn’t replace either Adaptive Sync or G-Sync"
I think you meant Adaptive Vsync, not that VESA standard which nvidia does not support.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Right you are. Thanks!bill44 - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Where can I find a FULL review please?Thanks
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
"Where can I find a FULL review please?"This article was an excerpt of the full review. The complete, 5 volume set on GTX 1080 will be available at your local book store in October. ;-)
catavalon21 - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
AwesomeAndrewJacksonZA - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Cool! Thanks Ryan! Did you reach your stretch goals on your Kickstarter campaign so that you can afford the scanning electron microscope for great photos?bill44 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Thanks Ryan.I was on about audio. Not for games, but for my music playback (SACD, DVDA) with different sampling rates that includes 88.2 and 176.4Khz. I can't find FULL specifications for the 100 series GTX cards that include this information, or any decoding capabilities. I was looking for the GTX 1060 for HTPC use with madVR.
Where can I find out about audio and sampling rates? MadVR capabilities?
Ryan Smith - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
As far as I know, audio capabilities are the same as on the 900 series. Unfortunately I don't have more detail than that right now.