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
webdoctors - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
No, its because the dollar is worthless and real inflation is off the charts. Once we make the dollar great again, we'll see prices come down.eddman - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
The only reason that we had $500 cards is because of the fierce competition from ATI back then.Whenever ATI's cards couldn't compete, or could but were not launched yet, nvidia jacked the prices up. I don't know why people forget the $600 8800 GTX or $650 GTX 280. Take a look at the link I posted above.
mapesdhs - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
What I miss is being able to buy a couple of well-priced mid-range cards that beat the high-end, with good scaling. I couldn't afford the 580 when it was new, but 2x 460 SLI was faster and served nicely for a good while. With support & optimisations moving away from SLI/CF though (lesser gains, more stuttering, costly connectors, unlock codes, etc.), a single good GPU is more attractive, but the cost way up the scale compared to 5 years ago.Have a look at the Anand review for the 280 though, it shows what I mean: 2x 8800GT SLI was faster than the 280, but $200 cheaper and with excellent scaling. I had 2x 8800GT 1GB before switching to the two 460s. Today, mid-range cards don't even support SLI (GTX 1060).
Ian.
Meteor2 - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link
What about two RX480s? Can they top a 1080?aryonoco - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
The 780 Ti was released in November 2013.The 1080 Ti is being released now, in March 2017.
So 3.5 years later, Nvidia's flagship consumer card has improved 260% while using pretty much the same amount of power and generating pretty much the same level of noise.
If this continues, I can see that in the next few years, all sort of software will find a way to utilise the GPU more, not just games and neural networks.
Nvidia has a lot to be proud of. Their execution in the past few years has been Apple-esque.
Meteor2 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Reflected in their share price!virtuastro - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
@Ryan SmithCan you test Intel i7 7700K, Intel-E Processors, and Ryzen 7 1800x with a GTX 1080ti in benchmark? :)
Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Unfortunately no. We don't have a central office; I'm in the US with the GPUs, and Ian is in the UK with the CPUs. He's working on game testing for Ryzen Part 2, but we likely won't be able to include the GTX 1080 Ti.virtuastro - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Aw dang. Thanks for answer anyway. :DMeteor2 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
FedEx?