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 ESTDriver Performance & The Test
Alongside the launch of the GTX 1080 Ti, NVIDIA is also touting the performance of their drivers. For most users who have been regularly updating their drivers to begin with, I don’t think there’s anything too surprising here. But because of NVIDIA’s talk of driver performance gains, I’ve already seen some confusion here over whether the GTX 1080 Ti launch driver (378.78) is a special performance driver or not. For the record, it is not.
In their presentation, NVIDIA outlined their driver performance gains in DX12 since the launch of various DX12 games, including Ashes of the Singularity, Hitman, and Rise of the Tomb Raider. All of these games have seen performance improvements, but what’s critical here is that this is over the long-run, since the launch of the GTX 1080 and these respective games.
The 378.78 driver in that respect is nothing special. In terms of driver release, NVIDIA is already a few releases into the R378 branch, so any big code changes for this branch have already been released to the public in earlier driver builds.
In any case, for reference purposes, here’s how performance of the GTX 1080 stacks up now compared to performance at launch.
| GeForce GTX Driver Performance Gains: July 2016 vs. March 2017 (4K) | |||
| Game | GTX 1080 | GTX 980 Ti | |
| Rise of the Tomb Raider |
Even
|
Even
|
|
| DiRT Rally |
+8%
|
+7%
|
|
| Ashes of the Singularity |
+11%
|
+14%
|
|
| Battlefield 4 |
Even
|
Even
|
|
| Crysis 3 |
Even
|
Even
|
|
| The Witcher 3 |
|
Even
|
|
| The Division* |
-7%
|
-9%
|
|
| Grand Theft Auto V |
+2%
|
Even
|
|
| Hitman (DX12) |
+26%
|
+24%
|
|
As was the case with NVIDIA’s data, the performance gains vary from game to game. Some games have not budged, whereas others like Hitman have improved significantly, and outlier The Division has actually regressed a bit due to some major updates that have happened to the game in the same time period. But at the end of the day, these are performance gains that have accumulated over the months and are already available in the latest drivers from NVIDIA.
The Test
For our review of the GTX 1080 Ti, we’re using NVIDIA’s 378.78 driver.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-4960X @ 4.2GHz |
| Motherboard: | ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional |
| Power Supply: | Corsair AX1200i |
| Hard Disk: | Samsung SSD 840 EVO (750GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill RipjawZ DDR3-1866 4 x 8GB (9-10-9-26) |
| Case: | NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition |
| Monitor: | Asus PQ321 |
| Video Cards: | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti AMD Radeon Fury X |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA Release 378.78 AMD Radeon Software Crimson 17.3.1 |
| OS: | Windows 10 Pro |
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
161 Comments
View All Comments
eddman - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Adjusted for inflation: http://i.imgur.com/ZZnTS5V.pngMeteor2 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Great charts!mapesdhs - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Except they excude the Titans, Fury, etc.eddman - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
I, personally, made these charts.No titans because they are very niche cards for those gamers who cannot wait and/or have more money than sense. The following Ti variants perform almost as good as the titan cards anyway.
No radeons because this is an nvidia-only chart. I should've titled it as such. I focused on nvidia because ATI/AMD usually don't price their cards so high.
mapesdhs - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Ok on the Radeon angled, shoulda realised it was NV only. :DHowever, your description of those who buy Titans cannot be anything than your own opinion, and what you don't realise is that for many store owners it's these very top-tier cards which bring in the majority of their important profit margins. They make far less on the mainstream cards. They enthusiast market is extremely important, whether or not one individually regards the products as being relevant for one's own needs. You need to be objective here.
mapesdhs - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Sorry for the typos... am on a train, wobbly kybd. :D Is this site ever gonna get modern and allow editing??...eddman - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
I think I am being objective. Titan cards do not fit into the regular geforce range. They are like an early pass. Wait a few months and you can have a Ti that performs the same at a much lower price.If nvidia never released a similar performing Ti card, I would've included them.
eddman - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Also I don't see how stores and their profits has anything to do with that.Mr Perfect - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link
Nice work on those charts.So there where a couple years where top tier cards where $400 or less. Inflation number normalize that price a fair bit though.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Those days are long-gone, and not just because of profit taking. 16/14nm FinFET GPUs are astonishingly expensive to design and fab. The masks are in the millions, and now everything has to be double-patterned.