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 | |||
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
262 Comments
View All Comments
lashek37 - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link
I have a Evga 980T.I from Amazonwumpus - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
Looks like I get to eat my words about posting "doom and gloom" about a Friday 6pm press event. They didn't have any real "bad news" (although the reason for refusal to demonstrate 'ray traced sound' was clearly a lie. You can simply play the sounds of being in various places to an audience as easily as in a movie as in VR). I wouldn't call it terribly great news either, just the slow and steady progression of a company without competition.Looks like it competes well enough against the existing base of nvidia cards. It also appears that they don't feel a need to bother worrying about "competition" from AMD:( (Note that Intel appears to spend at least as many mm and/or transistors on GPU space as this beast. What they don't spend is power (Watts) and bandwidth. The difference is obvious (and I can't see them trying to increase either on their CPUs).
One thing that keeps popping up in these reviews is the 250W power limit. This just screams for someone to take a (non-founders' edition) reference card and slap a closed watercooling system on it. The results might not be as extreme as the 390, but it should be up there. I suspect the same is true (and possibly moreso unless deliberately crippled) on the 1070.
rhysiam - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
"Note that Intel appears to spend at least as many mm and/or transistors on GPU space as this beast"I don't think that's accurate at all. To my knowledge Intel haven't released specific die size or Transistor counts since Haswell. But the entire CPU package of a 4770K is ~1.4B transistors (~one fifth of a GP204 GPU). Anandtech estimated ~33% of the die area (roughly 500M transistors) was dedicated to the 20EU GT2 GPU. Obviously the GT2 is hardly Intel's biggest graphics package, but even a larger one like the 48EU GT3e package from the Broadwell i7-5775C must surely still have significantly fewer transistors than a GP204.
rhysiam - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
I mean GP104 of course.bill44 - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
When you do a full review, could you spear a thought to some of us, who are not into gaming.I would like to know about audio side (sample rates supported etc.) as an example, and a proper full test for using it with madVR (yes, we know it supports the usual frame rates etc.).
Some insights into 10/12bit support on Windows 10 (not just for games & madVR DX11 FSE) inc. generic programs like Photoshop/Premiere etc.
On a side note: if you're not into gaming, but prefer 4K@60p dual screen setup with 10bit colour, which GPU is best?
bill44 - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
forgot to add.Tomshardware does not mention any of this.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1...
vladx - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
Why would you want a beast like GTX 1080 for work in Photoshop and rest of Adobe's suite? It'd be just a big waste of money.bill44 - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
Architectural changes.By the end of the year, there will be some 4K HDR monitors. Maybe even 120p. If I want to edit in Premiere with dual 4K HDR 120p screens, or I prefer a 5k screen over a single cable connection, what are my GPU choices? DP 1.3?
I also mentioned 10bit support (not Quattro) and madVR. It's not this card (specifically) I'm interested in, but the architecture. There will be cheaper cards in the future for sure, however, they will use the same tech as here. Hence my curiosity.
dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
The performance can be very useful in Premiere and After Effects for both viewport rendering and export.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link
"Some insights into 10/12bit support on Windows 10 (not just for games & madVR DX11 FSE) inc. generic programs like Photoshop/Premiere etc."You're still going to want a Quadro for pro work. NVIDIA is going to allow 10bpc support in full screen OpenGL applications, but not windowed applications.