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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Mlok - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link
I've seen this alredy in tables in some other articles, so got to ask: since when is memory clock measured in Gbps? Doesnť make any sense to me, one would say clock is measured Hz, while Gigabits per second goes for bandwidth, hm?nick.evanson - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
The memory clock isn't used for determining processing capabilities, as such, unlike with the GPU core itself, where it is used to determine peak FLOPS, pixel read/writes, etc. In the case of memory, all that matters (on face value) is how much data can be transferred to and from it and this is indicated by the Gbps - the "memory" can shift, say, 7 Gbits per second and because the "bus" is 256 bit wide, the total bandwidth is 1792 Gb/s (or 224 GB/s). So one might ask, why not just quote the bandwidth? This used to be the case, simply because bus width across different vendors and SKUs were remarkably similar compared to the broad variation one sees now.mikable - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link
When's the MXM version coming out?lashek37 - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Has Soon As AMD comes out with their card. Nvidia will unleash the GTX980T.I.😂 Nvidia do this every year lol.Ranger1065 - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
Anandtech is a good site that I have visited frequently since the early 2000s to quench an insatiable appetite for primarily CPU&GPU reviews. However there are now sites out there, one in particular, that are doing it better than Anandtech and consequently I don't spend so much time here.It is now almost a week since the embargo on GTX1080 reviews was lifted and previews aside, there is still a deafening silence from Anandtech. Yes the apologists will argue Anandtech does a deeper review, give them time and all that but seriously when your review is this late, it begins to look like incompetence. Or perhaps you consider your reviews to be elitist, the holy grail among tech websites and that therefore any delay is acceptable? What pressing projects are the GPU staff working on that could explain this state of affairs?
GET IT TOGETHER ANANDTECH YOU USED TO BE BETTER!
vacavalier - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
If you own a 980 Ti... No need to get overly excited/worried about upgrading to this particular GPU, unless you just have to have the "latest and "greatest". Initial testing was done vs. the GTX 980? Rather odd and goes back to my initial statement.On the other hand, if running a 970 (or below) and 980 (apparently, according to NV) or 700 series GPU, this presents a very good upgrade-path.
Time will tell what will happen with that MSRP however, once vendors start doing their add-on's; cooling solutions, factory OC's, software bundles, etc...
lakedude - Tuesday, May 24, 2016 - link
I'm shocked every day that goes by that no GTX 1080 review exists yet. The move to 14-16nm has got to be on of the most highly anticipated in recent history an all we have is a preview?? BTW I don't need a tech site to price check the 6700 CPU for me, i can do that myself.Bang4BuckPC Gamer - Wednesday, May 25, 2016 - link
I thought the main purpose of a review was to give a potential customer an idea of what to expect, and some expert analysis, and some honest judgement on a product and whether or not it's worth your money as a consumer. The card releases in two days and if you don't have a review out by then what is the bleeding pointvzortex - Wednesday, May 25, 2016 - link
"later this week" was over last week. No review?tarqsharq - Wednesday, May 25, 2016 - link
I'm kind of expecting it tomorrow, the day before the product gets into people's hands. I know pre-orders already started, but those people were probably going to buy regardless.