NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Review - The Fastest Gaming Graphics Card Yet

Performance Summary: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is one heck of a performer. Throughout our entire battery of tests, regardless of the game, resolution, or settings we used, the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti performed on par with or slightly better than the monstrous NVIDIA Titan X and roughly 30 % – 35% better than a standard GeForce GTX 1080 Founder’s Edition. Versus AMD’s current flagship GPU, the Radeon R9 Fury X, there is no competition; the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti was nearly 2x faster than the Fury X in some cases.

The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti also has plenty of overclocking headroom and power consumption is in-line with expectations. Our card effectively hit a 2GHz GPU clock (we missed the mark by 1MHz) and power consumption under load was in-line with the Fury X and somewhat higher than the Titan X – which you would expect given the Ti’s higher clocks.

gtx 1080 ti angle
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti - Find It At NVIDIA.Com

Today’s release of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is a bold move by NVIDIA. The company is shaking up the high-end of the enthusiast graphics card market, which will no doubt have an effect on AMD’s impending launch of the Radeon RX Vega. With the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, NVIDIA introduces a graphics card that offers more performance than a Titan X, for nearly half the price -- $699. This launch also pushes the excellent GeForce GTX 1080 down into a $499 price point. In addition, updated GeForce GTX 1080s (and 1060s) are on the way that will leverage Micron’s new, faster GDDR5X memory. When all is said and done, NVIDIA will have essentially re-vamped the upper and mid-range of its product stack, with higher-performing, more affordable graphics cards, which is goodness all around. We should also mention that the GTX 1080 Ti will be part of NVIDIA's current bundle promotion. GeForce GTX 1080 Ti buyers can choose between one of the following free games, For Honor or Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, when cards go on sale.

If AMD has a surprise in store and challenges the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with a next-gen part, keep in mind NVIDIA still has another Pascal-based option in its arsenal. The GP102 GPU used on the 1080 Ti is not the full configuration of the chip – there are unused CUDA cores in there. At this point, the only card NVIDIA offers with a fully-enabled GP102 is the Quadro P6000. Should NVIDIA want to crank things up even further in the gaming graphics card market, the company still has options.

In the end, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is the new king of the hill. It is the fastest consumer graphics card currently available -- bar none.
      
  • Killer Performance
  • Power Efficient For Its Weight Class
  • 11GB GDDR5X Memory
  • Quiet And Overclockable
  • Titan X Performance, For Less $
  • Still Pricey
  • Not A Full GP102

Marco Chiappetta

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com

Related content