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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TestKing123 - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Sorry, too little too late. Waited this long, and the first review was Tomb Raider DX11?! Not 12?This review is both late AND rushed at the same time.
Mat3 - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Testing Tomb Raider in DX11 is inexcusable.http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/231481-rise-of-t...
TheJian - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
Furyx still loses to 980ti until 4K at which point the avg for both cards is under 30fps, and the mins are both below 20fps. IE, neither is playable. Even in AMD's case here we're looking at 7% gain (75.3 to 80.9). Looking at NV's new cards shows dx12 netting NV cards ~6% while AMD gets ~12% (time spy). This is pretty much a sneeze and will as noted here and elsewhere, it will depend on the game and how the gpu works. It won't be a blanket win for either side. Async won't be saving AMD, they'll have to actually make faster stuff. There is no point in even reporting victory at under 30fps...LOL.Also note in that link, while they are saying maxwell gained nothing, it's not exactly true. Only avg gained nothing (suggesting maybe limited by something else?), while min fps jumped pretty much exactly what AMD did. IE Nv 980ti min went from 56fps to 65fps. So while avg didn't jump, the min went way up giving a much smoother experience (amd gained 11fps on mins from 51 to 62). I'm more worried about mins than avgs. Tomb on AMD still loses by more than 10% so who cares? Sort of blows a hole in the theory that AMD will be faster in all dx12 stuff...LOL. Well maybe when you force the cards into territory nobody can play at (4k in Tomb Raiders case).
It would appear NV isn't spending much time yet on dx12, and they shouldn't. Even with 10-20% on windows 10 (I don't believe netmarketshare's numbers as they are a msft partner), most of those are NOT gamers. You can count dx12 games on ONE hand. Most of those OS's are either forced upgrades due to incorrect update settings (waking up to win10...LOL), or FREE on machine's under $200 etc. Even if 1/4 of them are dx12 capable gpus, that would be NV programming for 2.5%-5% of the PC market. Unlike AMD they were not forced to move on to dx12 due to lack of funding. AMD placed a bet that we'd move on, be forced by MSFT or get console help from xbox1 (didn't work, ps4 winning 2-1) so they could ignore dx11. Nvidia will move when needed, until then they're dominating where most of us are, which is 1080p or less, and DX11. It's comic when people point to AMD winning at 4k when it is usually a case where both sides can't hit 30fps even before maxing details. AMD management keeps aiming at stuff we are either not doing at all (4k less than 2%), or won't be doing for ages such as dx12 games being more than dx11 in your OS+your GPU being dx12 capable.
What is more important? Testing the use case that describes 99.9% of the current games (dx11 or below, win7/8/vista/xp/etc), or games that can be counted on ONE hand and run in an OS most of us hate. No hate isn't a strong word here when the OS has been FREE for a freaking year and still can't hit 20% even by a microsoft partner's likely BS numbers...LOL. Testing dx12 is a waste of time. I'd rather see 3-4 more dx11 games tested for a wider variety although I just read a dozen reviews to see 30+ games tested anyway.
ajlueke - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
That would be fine if it was only dx12. Doesn't look like Nvidia is investing much time in Vulkan either, especially not on older hardware.http://www.pcgamer.com/doom-benchmarks-return-vulk...
Cygni - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Cool attention troll. Nobody cares what free reviews you choose to read or why.AndrewJacksonZA - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Typo on page 18: "The Test""Core i7-4960X hosed in an NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition" Hosed -> Housed
Michael Bay - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
I`d sure hose me a Core i7-4960X.AndrewJacksonZA - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
@Ryan & team: What was your reasoning for not including the new Doom in your 2016 GPU Bench game list? AFAIK it's the first indication of Vulkan performance for graphics cards.Thank you! :-)
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
We cooked up the list and locked in the games before Doom came out. It wasn't out until May 13th. GTX 1080 came out May 14th, by which point we had already started this article (and had published the preview).AndrewJacksonZA - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
OK, thank you. Any chance of adding it to the list please?I'm a Windows gamer, so my personal interest in the cross-platform Vulkan is pretty meh right now (only one title right now, hooray! /s) but there are probably going to be some devs are going to choose it over DX12 for that very reason, plus I'm sure that you have readers who are quite interested in it.