The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founder's Edition Review: Bigger Pascal for Better Performance
by Ryan Smith on March 9, 2017 9:00 AM ESTHitman
The final game in our 2016 benchmark suite is the 2016 edition of Hitman, the latest title in the stealth-action franchise. The game offers two rendering paths: DirectX 11 and DirectX 12, with the latter being the case of DirectX 12 being added after the fact. As with past Hitman games, the latest proves to have a good mix of scenery and high model counts to stress modern video cards.
Wrapping things up on the gaming side, we have Hitman. While several DX11 games have added DX12 over the last year, Hitman is perhaps the most interesting case both for driver optimization purposes, and just what the developers have been able to wring out. For the latest generation of cards, the game’s DX12 performance is more or less a wash; it’s not consistently better than DX11 in GPU-bound scenarios. However once we get CPU-bound, the threading and CPU overhead improvements of DX12 make themselves felt, improving performance on even the all-powerful GTX 1080 Ti at 1440p.
By the numbers then, under DX12 the GTX 1080 Ti picks up 24% over the GTX 1080, which is actually a smaller than average gain. Against the GTX 980 Ti however, NVIDIA’s latest card leads by 83%, making for a very strong generational improvement.
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ryvoth - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Solid card release from NVIDIA too bad our costs in Canada suck due to the dollar.mapesdhs - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Ditto the UK. Sites keep mentioning an RRP of $700, but in the UK it's the equivalent of more like $900+.Meteor2 - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link
Don't forget the US doesn't have VAT. Or a NHS.Mr Perfect - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Wait, so Pascal is going to have a two year lifecycle as-is? There won't be a refinement cycle like Fermi to Kepler? That's a little disappointing.Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Fermi technically had a 2-year lifecycle. The only reason it was special is because the original silicon had issues, and NV opted to fix it.There are still yearly product refreshes, but GPUs are too expensive to develop (and the underlying manufacturing process too slow to advance) to do top-to-bottom new GPUs every single year.
supcaj - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Disappointed to STILL not see ANY VR-related benchmarks in the suite. VR rendering has unique rendering requirements, and a huge margin of gamers have moved or are planning to move to VR during the lifetime of this card.r3loaded - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Hey, 'member when top-tier GPUs costed $499? I 'member!eddman - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
http://i.imgur.com/pGKlskP.pngMr Perfect - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
I'd love to see how that compares father back, adjusted for inflation. My rose tinted goggles have me remembering top-tier GPUs launching for $400 or less back in the early 2000s, but who knows how that compares to 2017 dollars.eddman - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
http://i.imgur.com/OU6612c.pngThere are a lot of inflation calculators online. Like this: https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
A geforce 2 ultra was $705 in 2017 dollars!