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 ESTGPU 2016 Benchmark Suite & The Test
As this is the first high-end card release for 2016, we have gone ahead and updated our video card benchmarking suite. Unfortunately Broadwell-E launched just a bit too late for this review, so we’ll have to hold off on updating the underlying platform to Intel’s latest and greatest for a little while longer yet.
For the 2016 suite we have retained Grand Theft Auto V, Battlefield 4, and of course, Crysis 3. Joining these games are 6 new games: Rise of the Tomb Raider, DiRT Rally, Ashes of the Singularity, The Witcher 3, The Division, and the 2016 rendition of Hitman.
| AnandTech GPU Bench 2016 Game List | ||||
| Game | Genre | API(s) | ||
| Rise of the Tomb Raider | Action | DX11 | ||
| DiRT Rally | Racing | DX11 | ||
| Ashes of the Singularity | RTS | DX12 | ||
| Battlefield 4 | FPS | DX11 | ||
| Crysis 3 | FPS | DX11 | ||
| The Witcher 3 | RPG | DX11 | ||
| The Division | FPS | DX11 | ||
| Grand Theft Auto V | Action/Open World | DX11 | ||
| Hitman (2016) | Action/Stealth | DX11 + DX12 | ||
As was the case in 2015, the API used will be based on the best API available for a given card. Rise of the Tomb Raider and Hitman both support DirectX 11 + DirectX 12; in the case of Tomb Raider the DX12 path was until last week a regression – a new patch changed things too late for this article – and meanwhile the best API for Hitman depends on whether we’re looking at an AMD or NVIDIA card. For now Tomb Raider is benchmarked using DX11 and Hitman on both DX11 and DX12. Meanwhile Ashes of the Singularity is essentially tailor made for DirectX 12, as the first DX12 game to be designed for it as opposed to porting over a DX11 engine, so it is being run under DX12 at all times.
Meanwhile from a design standpoint our benchmark settings remain unchanged. For lower-end cards we’ll look at 1080p at various quality settings when practical, and for high-end cards we’ll be looking at 1080p and above at the highest quality settings.
The Test
As for our hardware testbed, it remains unchanged from 2015, being composed of an overclocked Core i7-4960X housed in an NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition case.
| 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 Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 AMD Radeon RX 480 AMD Radeon Fury X AMD Radeon R9 Nano AMD Radeon R9 390X AMD Radeon R9 390 AMD Radeon HD 7970 |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA Release 368.39 AMD Radeon Software Crimson 16.7.1 (RX 480) AMD Radeon Software Crimson 16.6.2 (All Others) |
| OS: | Windows 10 Pro |
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jcardel - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
This is excactly the same situation as me. I got a 770 sitting in my rig, and am looking hard at the 1070, maybe soon. Although my 770 is still up to the task in most games, I really play only blizzard games theese days and they are not hard on your hardware.My biggest issue is really that it is rather noisy, so I will be looking for a solution with the lowest DB.
Great article, it was totally worth waiting for.. I only read this sort of stuff here so have been waiting till now for any 1080 review.
Thanks!
D. Lister - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Nice job, Ryan. Good comeback. Keep it up.Saeid92 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
What is 99th procentile framerate?Ryan Smith - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
If you sorted the framerate from highest to lowest, this would be the framerate of the slowest 1%. It's basically a more accurate/meaningful metric for minimum frame rates.Eris_Floralia - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
This is why I love Anandtech. Deep in reviews. Well I even wanted to be one of your editors if you have the plan to create a Chinese transtate version of these reviews.daku123 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Typo on FP16 Throughput page. In second paragraph, it should be Tegra X1 (not Tesla X1?).Ryan Smith - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Eyup. Thanks!Badelhas - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Great detailed review, as always. But I have to ask once again:why didnt you do some kind of VR Benchmarks? Thats what drives my choises now, to be honest.
Cheers
Ranger1065 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
After over 2 months of reading GTX1080 reviews I felt a distinct lack of excitementas I read Anandtech kicking off their review of the finfet generation. Could it
prove to be anything but an anticlimax?
Sadly and unsurprisingly...NOT.
It was however amusing to see the faithfull positively gushing praises for Anandtech
now that the "greatly anticipated" review is finally out.
Yes folks, 20 or so pages of (well written) information, mostly already covered by other tech sites,
finally published, it's as if a magic wand has been waved, the information has been presented with
that special Anandtech sauce, new insights have been illuminated and all is well in Anandtechland again.
(AT LEAST UNTIL THE NEXT 2 MONTH DELAY.) LOL.
I do like the way Anandtech presents the FPS charts.
Back to sleep now Anandtech :)
mkaibear - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
You've hit the nail on the head here Ranger.The info which is included within the article is indeed mostly already covered by other tech sites.
Emphasis on the "mostly" and the plural "sites".
Those of us who have jobs which keep us busy and have an interest in this sort of thing often don't have the time to trawl round many different sites to get reviews and pertinent technical data so we rely upon those sites which we trust to produce in-depth articles, even if they take a bit longer.
As an IT Manager for (most recently) a manufacturing firm and then a school, I don't care about bleeding edge, get the new stuff as soon as it comes out, I care about getting the right stuff, and a two month delay to get a proper review is absolutely fine. If I need quick benchmarks I'll use someone like Hexus or HardOCP but to get a deep dive into the architecture so I can justify purchases to the Art and Media departments, or the programers is essential. You don't get that anywhere else.