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 |
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mapesdhs - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
It would be delayed for a month by their Customs lunacy. :DMeteor2 - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link
I'd love to see an Anandtech investigation of what pairings of CPU and GPU really do give the best FPS/price ratio. Could a 1080 Ti bottleneck an i5, for an example? Would a 7600 be ok but a 2500 choke?Gc - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti ...."Ti" is a clever marketing name for a penultimate card.
11GB further emphasizes that it is leading buyers toward the ultimate.
Ranger1065 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Great review, well done Anandtech.TheJian - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Should be interesting to see how AMD does with 8GB for Vega.Looks like the best Vega can hope for is a tie and they themselves (Raja) said they only had enough software engineers to be working on Vulkan drivers. So that means Dx11/OpenGL and possible DX12 won't be very good, or could take ages to catch up if AMD doesn't make some money to hire more people. I really hope Vega launch doesn't end up like Ryzen (motherboards all over the place having issues, and SMT etc issues in games). I think I'll wait out Vega and maybe even 1080r2 with GDDR5x & faster clocks before jumping. Also have to wait for AMD to fix ryzen if they can. At least the motherboard part, as sites like PCper think the game part will stay the same forever. AMD talking Ryzen rev2 already (that fixes things) makes me think PCper etc are correct.
Still, an exciting time for hardware and a great time to buy a PC this year. Even the low end is getting a major boost probably. The 1060 is low to me no point in spending under $200 if you want to really game IMHO, faster speeds, GDDR5x, could be interesting. That combo could make a really great HTPC. I wonder how much faster 1060 will get. Pity it seems AMD has no access to GDDR5x as nvidia is using it all.
Just read Hardocp's review, 30-35% faster than 1080. Much the same as here. AMD has a rough road ahead (so do their shareholders). That said, competition is good :)
Ken_g6 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Hm, 11GB RAM, 11Gbps, 11.3 TFLOPs. Why do I get the impression Marketing wanted to use the phrase "goes to eleven" for this card? Did they announce it with Spinal Tap music?Ryan Smith - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
They did not. Though clearly they should have.mapesdhs - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Even SGI did this. IIRC:"audiopanel -spinaltap"
Changes the scale to 11. :D
oranos - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
pretty meh if you own a gtx 1080 already. higher TDP, lower base clocks.justaviking - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
30% faster is "meh"?