NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Pictures Leak, Pascal GeForce In The Wild With Updated Coolers

There's been a ridiculous amount of hype surrounding NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce series, which is based on the Pascal architecture. At the company's recent GPU Technology Conference, we learned that the first shipping Pascal card is the ultra-powerful Tesla P100. While that card is designed strictly for compute purposes (there are no video outputs), we're sure to see a GeForce that will match the P100 in terms of specs. If so, that means we could see a card that's theoretically twice as fast as the GeForce TITAN X without having to go the dual-GPU route.

Well, the rumors surrounding the new card (or cards) isn't slowing down, which means that the launch could be coming soon. While rumors should always be treated with a fair amount of skepticism, these particular ones are coming so hot and heavy now that it's hard to believe that a launch won't happen soon. That's especially the case thanks to the latest leak, which shows off the shrouds of both the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070.

If these designs do make it to the retail cards, they're undoubtedly going to be some of the most aggressive designs ever seen, with their angular and bulky shape. The shroud doesn't actually look that much different from the reference coolers NVIDIA's been using since the GTX 780 (the GTX 690 used a similar design). Having used those designs for a couple of generations, NVIDIA's apparently gone back to the drawing board to figure out what it would take to improve on its now-iconic coolers, and settled on a design that's as aggressive as the performance.

As aggressive the look might be, not everyone is on board. It almost looks too aggressive, perhaps even a chore to handle given its lack of flatness. We're at a point in time when people can make some pretty convincing mock-ups, so we must be careful about treating this leak as gospel.

If one thing proves true from all of this, let's hope it's that the first Pascal-based GeForces are near.. and that the first top-end card doesn't end up being called 1080, when it will clearly be designed for 4K or ultra-wide gaming. Oh the confusion that will ensue...