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 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.
Of all of the games in our benchmark suite, Ashes is perhaps the most unusual. Besides being built for low-level APIs like DirectX 12 from the start, its rendering optimizations scale very well with resolution. As a result it takes a lot of rendering power to play Ashes with all the bells & whistles turned on, but once you can reach that point, going to 4K isn’t too much harder.
In any case, the GTX 1080 Ti becomes the first card to crack 60fps at 4K in this game. In doing so it’s 27% faster than the GTX 1080, and 71% faster than the GTX 980 Ti. Performance has actually reached a point that if we drop to 1440p, we start being CPU-limited a not-insignificant percentage of the time. So the GTX 1080 Ti outright needs 4K to really put its best foot forward.
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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!