Custom GeForce GTX 1080 Round Up With ASUS, EVGA, And Gigabyte

Performance Summary: All three of these custom GeForce GTX 1080 cards are strong performers. Due to their higher clocks, all three outperformed NVIDIA’s Founder’s Edition, and all three cards were able to overclock past 2GHz with minimal tweaking – higher clocks are likely possible with additional tuning. At their respective out-of-box settings, the ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 STRIX OC technically offers the best overall performance, followed by EVGA’s offering and the Gigabyte GeForce GTX G1 Gaming, which were right on-top of each other throughout testing. But the deltas separating the three cards are relatively small. Although benchmarks will show slight differences, performance isn’t really the key differentiating factor with these three cards.

As of this writing, the ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 STRIX OC can be found for about $799. The EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Superclocked Edition is roughly $649. The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 G1 Gaming is $649 as well. All of the cards have 3-year warranties, customizable RBG lighting, and custom coolers that are more than up to the task of keeping the GP104 cool. For hardcore tweakers, the ASUS card has an additional power feed, GPU controlled fan headers, and a massive cooler, so there will be some additional headroom in regard to its power budget and cooling. But, there is a significant price premium for this particular model (lower-clocked models are also available). If money is no object and you’ll leverage its additional features though, the ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 STRIX OC is an absolutely killer graphics card. You could save quite a few dollars going with the EVGA or Gigabyte cards, however.


The EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Superclocked Edition with ACX 3.0 cooling would look the best in a windowed case in our opinion, viewing the card from the top down. We dig the large badge and how the shroud wraps around the card. It’s got a significant factory overclock, some fun goodies in its accessory bundle, is highly tunable, and its price point is competitive.

Gigabyte’s GeForce GTX 1080 G1 Gaming is a great all-around card as well. It is the lowest profile and slimmest card of the bunch, it is completely silent at idle, it runs very cool, and its price is competitive as well. There wasn’t much included with the card, but its customizable lighting and XTREME Engine Utility are nice additions.

The bottom line is ALL of these graphics cards kick ass. Enthusiasts will have their favorites, of course, but any one of them would be great in a high-end gaming rig. We have no trouble recommending all three, without reservations. If you put a gun to our head and made us choose one, considering all of the factors mentioned above, we’d lean towards EVGA’s offering due to its competitive price, aesthetics, and the goodies thrown in, but the Gigabyte card is a good value relative to other GTX 1080 cards as well. And if money was no object, the ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 STRIX OC is a hardcore tweaker’s dream GPU.