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 ESTAshes of the Singularity
Sorely missing from our benchmark suite for quite some time have been RTSes, which don’t enjoy quite the popularity they once did. As a result Ashes holds a special place in our hearts, and that’s before we talk about the technical aspects. Based on developer Oxide Games’ Nitrous Engine, Ashes has been designed from the ground up for low-level APIs like DirectX 12. As a result of all of the games in our benchmark suite, this is the game making the best use of DirectX 12’s various features, from asynchronous compute to multi-threadeded work submission and high batch counts. What we see can’t be extrapolated to all DirectX 12 games, but it gives us a very interesting look at what we might expect in the future.
Once again the top spot is uncontested by the GTX 1080. However after that, things become more interesting. On the whole, Ashes is a game that favors AMD GPU over NVIDIA GPUs, and as a result the GTX 1070 does not get to lock in second place. Rather that goes to the last generation Fury X. AMD designs are very ALU-heavy, and I suspect Ashes is capable of putting those ALUs to good use, something most other games struggle with. That said, if we normalized this for price or power consumption, then the Pascal cards would be well in the lead, but it does show that on an absolute basis, GTX 1070 isn’t going to outrun the best of the last-gen cards all the time.
Meanwhile it’s interesting to note that one of the more unusual aspects of the engine behind Ashes is that it’s relatively resolution insensitive. That is, performance only drops moderately as we increase the resolution. This means that we need a GTX 1070 to sustain better than 60fps at 1080p, but that same card is still getting better than 40fps at 4K, a resolution with 4x the pixels.
Finally, looking at our NVIDIA cards on a generational basis, even without their commanding lead, the two Pascal cards show the expected generational gains. GTX 1080 improves on GTX 980 by between 65% and 70%, and GTX 1070 improves on GTX 970 by between 53% and 58%.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
200 Comments
View All Comments
Matt Doyle - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Same page, "The latter is also a change from GTX 980, as NVIDIA has done from a digital + analog DVI port to a pure digital DVI port.""NVIDIA has gone"?
Matt Doyle - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Rather, "Meet the GTX 1080" page, second to last paragraph.Matt Doyle - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
"Meet the GTX 1080..." page, "...demand first slow down to a point where board partners can make some informed decisions about what cards to produce."I believe you're missing the word "must" (or alternatively, "needs to") between "demand" and "first" in this sentence.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Thanks!supdawgwtfd - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Didn't even finish reading the first page. The bias is overwhelming... So much emotional language...Good bye Anandtech. Had been a nice 14 years of reading but it's obvious now you have moved to so many other sites.
Shills who can't restrain their bias and review something without the love of a brand springing forth like a fountain.
Yes i created an account just for this soul reason...
The fucking 2 month wait is also not on.
But what to expect form children,
BMNify - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Then just GTFO you idiot, on second thoughts crying your heart out may also help in this fanboy mental break down situation of yours.catavalon21 - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
You're joking, or a troll, or a clown. I complained about the time it took to get the full article, (to Ryan's credit, for the impatient ones of us just looking for numbers, he noted a while back that GPU bench was updated to include benchmarks for these cards), but this is exactly the kind of review that often has separated AT from numerous other sites. The description of the relatively crummy FP16 performance was solid and on point. From NV themselves teasing us with ads that half precision would rock our world, well, this review covers in great detail the reset of the story.Yeah, I know guys, I shouldn't dignify it with a response.
atlantico - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Anandtech have always been nvidia shills. Sad they can't make a living without getting paid by nvidia, but they're not alone. Arstechnica is even worse and Tomshardware is way worse.brookheather - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
Typo page 12 - "not unlike AMD’s Pascal architecture" - think you mean Polaris?brookheather - Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - link
And another one on the last page: it keep the GPU industry - should be kept.