The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Preview: A Look at What's to Come
by Ryan Smith on May 17, 2016 9:00 AM ESTFirst Thoughts
Wrapping up our preview of the GeForce GTX 1080, I think it’s safe to say that NVIDIA intends to start off the 16nm/14nm generation with a bang. As the first high-end card of this generation the GTX 1080 sets new marks for overall performance and for power efficiency, thanks to the combination of TSMC’s 16nm FinFET process and NVIDIA’s Pascal architecture. Translating this into numbers, at 4K we’re looking at 30% performance gain versus the GTX 980 Ti and a 70% performance gain over the GTX 980, amounting to a very significant jump in efficiency and performance over the Maxwell generation.
Looking at the bigger picture, as the first vendor to launch their 16nm/14nm flagship card, NVIDIA will get to enjoy the first mover’s advantage both with respect to setting performance expectations and with pricing. The GeForce GTX 1080 will keep the performance crown solidly in NVIDIA’s hands, and with it control of the high-end video card market for some time to come. NVIDIA’s loyal opposition, AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group, has strongly hinted that they’re not going to be releasing comparable high-performance video cards in the near future. Rather the company is looking to make a run at the much larger mainstream market for desktops and laptops with their Polaris architecture, something that GP104 isn’t meant to address.
The lack of competition at the high-end means that for the time being NVIDIA can price the GTX 1080 at what the market will bear, and this is more or less what we’re looking at for NVIDIA’s new card. While the formal MSRP on the GTX 1080 is $599 – $50 over what the GTX 980 launched at – that price is the starting price for custom cards from NVIDIA’s partners. The reference card as we’ve previewed it today – what NVIDIA is calling the Founders Edition card – carries a $100 premium over that, pushing it to $699.
| GeForce GTX 1080 Configurations | ||||
| Base | Founders Edition | |||
| Core Clock | 1607MHz | 1607MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 1733MHz | 1733MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 10Gbps GDDR5X | 10Gbps GDDR5X | ||
| Cooler | Manufacturer Custom (Typical: 2 or 3 Fan Open Air) |
NVIDIA Reference (Blower w/Vapor Chamber) |
||
| Availability Date | June 2016? | 05/27/2016 | ||
| Price | Starting at $599 | $699 | ||
While the differences between the reference and custom cards will be a longer subject for our full review, the more immediate ramification is going to be that only the Founders Edition cards are guaranteed to be available at launch. NVIDIA can’t speak definitively for their board partners, but at this point I am not seriously expecting custom cards until June. And this means that if you want one of the first GTX 1080s, then you’re going to have to pay $699 for the Founders Edition card. Which is not to say that it’s a bad card – far from it, it’s probably NVIDIA’s finest reference card to date – however it pushes the card’s price north of 980 Ti territory, some $150 higher than where the GTX 980 launched in 2014. For those who can afford such a card they will not be disappointed, but it’s definitely less affordable than past NVIDIA x80 cards.
Anyhow, we’ll be back later this week with our full review of the GeForce GTX 1080, so be sure to stay tuned.
| Spring 2016 GPU Pricing Comparison | |||||
| AMD | Price | NVIDIA | |||
| $699 | GeForce GTX 1080 FE | ||||
| Radeon R9 Fury X | $609 | ||||
| $589 | GeForce GTX 980 Ti | ||||
| $429 | GeForce GTX 980 | ||||
| Radeon R9 390X | $399 | ||||
| Radeon R9 390 | $289 | GeForce GTX 970 | |||
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Beararam - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
Also, chart shows the 780 having 256 bus width. Is definitely 384.FMinus - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
Can we get a table comparing OCed GTX 980Ti to a stock and OCed GTX 1080 in the final review?strafejumper - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
1 more request - later on update with the new game Overwatch - this comes out May 24yhselp - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
", and in time-honored fashion NVIDIA is starting at the high-end."Come on, at least acknowledge the fact NVIDIA are actually releasing a video card based on medium-sized GPU - the GTX 1080 - and marketing it as a flagship with a price to match, even more.
No need to comment on the fact; no need to criticize NVIDIA for seeking huge margins in the consumer sector ever since Kepler, delaying the real high-end GPU, or any such thing. Just let your readers know the GTX 1080 is based on a mid-sized GPU which is not the GP100 flagship to come from the get go.
A true time-honored fashion for NVIDIA would be releasing a new architecture with the biggest GPU and charging $500 from day one. Something that last happened with Fermi.
nevcairiel - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
It beats every other GPU on the market, if thats not high-end... High-end is a moving target, its whatever is the fastest at the time of writing.Certainly, it could be faster - it always can be. But GP100 just doesn't have the availability yet. They could wait longer and then launch your true "high-end" first, but instead we get new toys sooner, which is always a good thing.
yhselp - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link
On the contrary, nowadays we get more performance late, and we pay double for it. We used to get the large-sized GPU first, with a new architecture - just like the GTX 480 - ever since Kepler, however, we've had to wait a year after release. In the meantime, NVIDIA have been charging flagship money for the medium-sized GPU - like the GTX 460 - and releasing the vulgar, super-high margin Titan somewhere in-between. Essentially, by the time the 780 Ti, the 980 Ti, the Titans and even the very cut-down 780 came out, they were already outdated products as far as technology goes, but still carried a premium price tag. Why is that so hard to understand?As far as performance goes - of course a new architecture on a new node will be significantly faster, there's nothing amazing about that. That doesn't mean a video card based on a mid-sized GPU should be marketed as a flagship, as the best thing since sliced bread, and carry such gruesome price premium - $700 for "irresponsible performance" - give me a break! - the only irresponsible thing is blind consumers eating this up. That's why we need competition.
Keep making excuses for big companies, and see how they keep increasing pricing, delaying products, cutting features, and doing whatever the hell they want. Guess who gets screwed as a result of this - that would be you, and me, and every other consumer out there. So keep at it.
yhselp - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link
Just to clarify a bit more: going into Kepler NVIDIA were quite nervous about how consumers would react to all this, and although journalists, including Anandtech, noted that the GTX 680 was not a direct successor to the GTX 580, but rather the new GTX 560 Ti, and as such was essentially twice as expensive, it didn't seem to bother consumers perhaps because, as you say - it's so new and fast. Whether it's really because consumers are misinformed, don't care, or a combination of both is irrelevant - it's now history. NVIDIA managed to get away with it. It has been that way ever since. And now, with Pascal, they're looking to expand on it all and charge even higher - up to $150 extra as noted at the end of this article. They might be looking to establish a great premium for overclocking capabilities as well. A sort of Intel K-series, but on top of a product that is already very expensive.The Titan-class cards are just the other side of this story. After a successful GTX 680 launch, NVIDIA decided to try and do the same with the large-sized Kepler GPU. On top of delaying the flagship product - the GK110 - they decided to, again, charge essentially double. And thus the original Titan was born. They were so nervous about it that they decided to enable serious compute performance on it so that if it fails in the consumer sector, it'd sell in the compute world. It outlived their wildest dreams - apparently, people were not only willing to throw money at them, but didn't know any better either. And so we put the writing on the wall, and we've been reaping the "benefits" ever since. It looks like we'll do the same again.
lashek37 - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
I'm selling my 980T.i and buying this beast.anybody on board?😂😉Lolimaster - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
If you got a ti, theres no reason to "upgrade" to this card.Wait Vega or the 1080ti.
Iamthebst87 - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
If you do I'd wait till AIB card become available. The reference 1080 OCs like crap compared to Maxwell. The 980ti reference OC got about 20%-25% performance gain on OC, the 1080 gets about 10%-12%. If you have an AIB 980ti you might even be getting more on the OC. So to sum it up an AIB OC 980ti is only slightly slower 15%-20% than a OC 1080.