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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TallestJon96 - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Still Waiting on that 960 review :)All kidding aside I'm I'm sure Il'll enjoy this review. Probably buy a 1080 in 2-3 weeks
Sandcat - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Mea culpa.Armus19 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Could you pretty please do the usual HTPC credentials test for 1070, 1080 and 1060 and RX 480 as well pretty please? Otherwise a great review.Xajel - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
I hope to add to this list a new revisit for Hardware Decoding+Encoding capabilities for these new GPU's in comparison to Intel QuickSync and pure Software solutions...JBVertexx - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
Still waiting..... I've been checking all afternoon.....JBVertexx - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
For the 1060 review, that is.....colinisation - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Lovely stuff as always chaps, to the complaints quality takes time.There goes my evening.
i4mt3hwin - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
"As of the time this paragraph was written, Newegg only has a single GTX 1080 in stock, a Founders Edition card at $499."Should be $699
osxandwindows - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Finally!jsntech - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Nice review.On page /30 (Power, Temp, etc.):
"...there is a real increate in power..."