The Test

To preface with relevant news, NVIDIA released driver version 388.13 WHQL earlier this week, bringing official support for the GTX 1070 Ti ahead of its release today. In addition, 388.13 brought game ready drivers for Call of Duty: WWII, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, and Need for Speed Payback. For resolved issues, NVIDIA has addressed second monitor blanking, yellow exclamation notices for graphics in Device Manager, and a corner case involving gamestreaming on hybrid notebooks. More details can be found in the 388.13 release notes. 388.13 is available for download on NVIDIA's driver download page.

For our review of the GTX 1070 Founders Edition, we are using NVIDIA's 388.09 driver supplied to us. The 2017 benchmark suite remains almost identical to the one described in the RX Vega review; inconsistent 1080p results for Dawn of War III were resolved and redone, while the Total War: Warhammer results from now onwards reflect the updated built-in benchmark, as Creative Assembly had changed the benchmark in late August.

As always, we try to use the best performing API for a particular graphics card.

CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X @ 4.3GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte X299 AORUS Gaming 7 (BIOS version F7)
Power Supply: Corsair AX860i
Hard Disk: OCZ Toshiba RD400 (1TB)
Memory: G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 4 x 8GB (16-18-18-38)
Case: NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition
Monitor: LG 27UD68P-B
Video Cards: AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (Air Cooled)
AMD Radeon RX Vega 56
AMD Radeon RX 580
AMD Radeon R9 Fury X
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Founders Edition
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition
Video Drivers: NVIDIA Release 388.09 (Press)
AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10.3
OS: Windows 10 Pro (Creators Update)
Meet the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Founders Edition Battlefield 1
Comments Locked

78 Comments

View All Comments

  • Bp_968 - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link

    I know this is an old article but I had to comment on the desktop space being "stagnant". That's mostly true for general consumers and corporate buyers but absolutely not true for med/higher end systems targeted at gamers (and miners). Those two markets are pushing massive demand for high performance desktop CPUs and GPUs (which you can see in AMD and NV's pricing and availability on their GPUs). The year over year performance improvement in CPUs is pretty boring right now but GPUs are still pretty exciting and still seem to have some big leaps left in them. I'm interested in seeing if Intel is going to be able to bring out a capable 3rd option in the discrete GPU space in the next few years. Their track record isn't good so far but having a 3rd player in the GPU/Compute space could really shake things up.

    I'm with you on the Ryzen APUs. If AMD can manage to make an APU with 1050/1060 level performance that fits in a thin and light notebook that could be a real game changer for many of us. I've mostly given up on gaming laptops because they end up being more of a portable then a mobile system and for most things I do on a laptop I'd just prefer the really thin and light setup. If I can manage to get both thin and light *and* decent gaming performance (even if you need to be plugged in to maintain battery life when gaming) then that would be killer.

    The only problem I see is the push for 4k monitors on these little laptops. No APU is going to be able to push 4k anytime soon, but I've never tried gaming at 1080p on a 4k panel and since its still a square pixel at 1080p, it might look fine, in which case it would be a non-issue.
  • Hxx - Thursday, November 2, 2017 - link

    That just makes no sense and heres why. First off, If you're paying over MSRP then you are not paying Intel or Amd or Nvidia or whatever. You are paying that distributor or the retailer or whoever gets those cards from the manufacturer. Second, if the manufacturer quotes an MSRP then this price already covers the costs and whatever the manufacturer wants to charge you for.
    It has nothing to do with whether or not you can afford it. Thats irrelevant. And if you're wondering WHY the vendor charges over MSRP is because 1) they can, 2) they know the demand is high so they know there are suckers like you who are willing to pay.
  • "Bullwinkle J Moose" - Thursday, November 2, 2017 - link

    Higher prices would destroy AMD

    To demand a higher price, they would need to compete with NVidia with cards that ran cooler/quieter, used less power and outperformed NVidia cards for the same price

    That's just not happening anytime soon
  • Hixbot - Thursday, November 2, 2017 - link

    The MSRP seems a bit high. The MSRP is a bit irrelevant as miners will push up the price even further.
    For me, it's a still a good purchase because of the blower cooler which I need for my SFF PC, all other Founder Edition cards are unavailable.
  • Wwhat - Sunday, November 12, 2017 - link

    I think any device relying on Nvidia or AMD drivers/software should reflect that, and they should not dare to sell anything over $500.
  • Samus - Thursday, November 2, 2017 - link

    I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds it ridiculous that the mainstream cards are now $100-$150 more than they used to be...

    These price brackets have just gotten ridiculous. I’d like to go back 15-20 years to when the most expensive cards were $200 (TNT2 Ultra :)
  • Hxx - Thursday, November 2, 2017 - link

    It wasnt like this a year ago. This year we just have a couple phenomenons overlapping and the result is this...a market where the demand is high and supply is low. Maybe next year things will change but this year is not consistent with the past couple years where a videocard would drop significantly in price 6 months after release.
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, November 2, 2017 - link

    I remember splurging on an original TNT with 16MB of VRAM. It was a Diamond Viper V550, I think...but paying $130 or so for it back then felt like an awful lot. It was passively cooled by a tiny little heatsink, but was among the highest performing video cards at the time. Heh, I did want to shove a pair of Voodoo2s in the system behind it for Glide titles. Anyhow, I think economic inflation can account for some of the cost increase in higher end video cards, but certainly not all of it.
  • webdoctors - Thursday, November 2, 2017 - link

    The TNT2 was awesome and the best bang per buck at the time. However, the average price of gas (including state taxes) was $1.14 in 1999.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/204740/retail-...

    Now its $2.14. The Feds have been printing money so fast its essentially become water and diluted. That's why gas and video cards are going up (its true inflation, not the one fed by propaganda outlets). Unless you switch to using the gold standard where it was $290 in 1999 and now its ~$1500.
    https://goldprice.org/gold-price-usa.html

    So really if you wanted to buy the TNT2 today, instead of $200 it would be $400+, in short get the gtx1060 6gb and be happy.
  • RiZad - Monday, November 6, 2017 - link

    counting for inflation they are ~1% more expensive. based on the tnt2 ultra that launched at $299 not $199

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now