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 ESTGrand Theft Auto V
The latest edition of Rockstar’s venerable series of open world action games, Grand Theft Auto V was originally released to the last-gen consoles back in 2013. However thanks to a rather significant facelift for the current-gen consoles and PCs, along with the ability to greatly turn up rendering distances and add other features like MSAA and more realistic shadows, the end result is a game that is still among the most stressful of our benchmarks when all of its features are turned up. Furthermore, in a move rather uncharacteristic of most open world action games, Grand Theft Auto also includes a very comprehensive benchmark mode, giving us a great chance to look into the performance of an open world action game.
On a quick note about settings, as Grand Theft Auto V doesn't have pre-defined settings tiers, I want to quickly note what settings we're using. For "Very High" quality we have all of the primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, with the exception of grass, which is at its own very high setting. Meanwhile 4x MSAA is enabled for direct views and reflections. This setting also involves turning on some of the advanced redering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but it not increasing the view distance any further.
Otherwise for "High" quality we take the same basic settings but turn off all MSAA, which significantly reduces the GPU rendering and VRAM requirements.
GTA V is another game that in recent times has favored NVIDIA GPUs, and as a result the GTX 1080 enjoys a solid standing here. At 61.4fps, the card becomes the first card to crack 60fps at 4K, albeit at only High quality. For very high quality, it becomes the first card to crack 30fps, both reinforcing how much of an improvement the card is over the previous generation and at the same time highlighting that it’s still going to have to make quality tradeoffs for 60fps at 4K.
Second to only the GTX 1080 is of course the GTX 1070. 4K is arguably out of the question, but at 1440p it can do just better than 60fps, making it the second card to do so. And though largely symbolic, it manages to do so when the GTX 980 Ti could not.
Looking at the generational improvements, GTA shows slightly better than average scaling with the new Pascal cards. GTX 1080 holds a anywhere between a 61% and 71% lead over the GTX 980, with particularly good gains above 1080p. Meanwhile GTX 1070 averages just shy of 60% over its GTX 970 counterpart.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
200 Comments
View All Comments
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.