[Various] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Review Thread

[Arachnotronic]

I am pretty sure they are not releasing it now, cause they dont have to. 1080 is already faster than previous gen and there is no competition either to release anything faster than GP104. If there was, i am pretty sure we would see GP102 already by now, or simply GP104 would be bigger than 314mm2 and have more cores.

In other words, all that is happening is pre-planned and does not happen ad hoc. Watch GP102 to be released sometimes later, most likely next year and be pretty much GP104 + 1/3. Pretty much same scenario as GTX980 -> 980Ti.

I think NVIDIA's execution in recent years has gotten a lot better, but I think people aren't remembering that just a few years ago NVIDIA wasn't anywhere near as good relative to AMD as it is now.

NVIDIA needed to rush a fully-enabled GK110 to market in order to compete with Hawaii. NVIDIA won the performance crown by a little bit, had a little better performance/watt, but it had to sell a substantially larger chip in order to do it (551mm^2 vs 438mm^2, IIRC).

Before GK110, NVIDIA had the performance lead with GK104 but lost it a little while after once AMD put out the 7970 GHz Edition. GK110 in cut down forms helped it maintain the performance crown until Hawaii, but that's clearly a less-than-ideal solution. NVIDIA needed something more like, well, a GK102. Something with a lot more graphics/single precision grunt without the DP area waste.

With Maxwell, things turned sharply in NVIDIA's favor. Maxwell is much more efficient than older Kepler chips as well as any of the AMD Hawaii chips. Doing the specialized GM200 also helped NVIDIA make sure that it didn't lose the performance crown to Fiji which frankly was a very technologically interesting chip that, had GM200 not been so good, could have easily been the 2015 champ.

Anyway, it wasn't too long ago that NVIDIA was struggling to maintain the performance crown relative to AMD. NVIDIA now has a comfortable lead over AMD and I think that "sitting" on salable silicon, especially if it could be slotted in at higher price points than what NVIDIA is currently able to offer, would be a huge mistake.

 

[crisium]

By the way, what's happening to the polished Nvidia marketing machine. Did you see this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNCfn4y8dBw

I really like this. They come clean that FE = reference, just a rewording. But they get into "premium" materials used by Nvidia.

They get into talking abour having a reference card $100 more than MSRP, and what kind of message that send about the AIB partners.

Journalist "So you're saying your partners put low quality materials on their cards"
Nvidia "We know partners will have products out there at this price, even above this price".
"We don't want to set the price, we don't want to be the high price guy, we don't want to be the low price guy... we want... in the middle of the pack"

And here I thought MSRP was setting the price.

Oh, it's funny. Don't worry guys, Nvidia being $100 above MSRP isn't saying the partners cards are inferior, they will also have products more than $100 above MSRP. Very comforting.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I really like this. They come clean that FE = reference, just a rewording. But they get into "premium" materials used by Nvidia.

They get into talking abour having a reference card $100 more than MSRP, and what kind of message that send about the AIB partners.

Journalist "So you're saying your partners put low quality materials on their cards"
Nvidia "We know partners will have products out there at this price, even above this price".
"We don't want to set the price, we don't want to be the high price guy, we don't want to be the high price guy... we want... in the middle of the pack"

And here I thought MSRP was setting the price.

Oh, it's funny. Don't worry guys, Nvidia being $100 above MSRP isn't saying the partners cards are inferior, they will also have products more than $100 above MSRP. Very comforting.

Why is it so hard for people to grasp that the "Reference" cooler may actually just be more expensive to build than a bog-standard low-quality blower? For reference, here's what the GTX 680's cooler looked like:

Much lower quality than the "Founders Edition" cooler.

 

[crisium]

Can you detail which components on this card make it more expensive than the materials used in MSI Lightning, Gigabye Windforce, and ASUS Strix which do not command a $100 premium?

 

[lilltesaito]

Why is it so hard for people to grasp that the "Reference" cooler may actually just be more expensive to build than a bog-standard low-quality blower? For reference, here's what the GTX 680's cooler looked like:

Much lower quality than the "Founders Edition" cooler.

Why set the MSRP to $599 if the the "Founders Edition" cooler can hardly keep the card at reasonable temps? If a cheaper cooler was put on it, wouldnt it throttle a lot? I don't think it would be wise to buy one at $599 if it is going to be slower than 980ti because of the lower clock speeds it would be running at.

Edit: Should of also said something about the noise level with the temps.

 

[badb0y]

Bruh, I just read the PCGH review of the 1080 and they put it up against a 1500 MHz Titan X and a 1430 MHz 980 Ti and the performance difference is pretty damn small. I would say the Titan X is probably faster most of the time. The GTX 1080 FE can't OC for crap, literally 10-15 minutes into the session it chokes and goes back down to like 1600 MHz.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

Why is it so hard for people to grasp that the "Reference" cooler may actually just be more expensive to build than a bog-standard low-quality blower? For reference, here's what the GTX 680's cooler looked like:

-snip-

Much lower quality than the "Founders Edition" cooler.

And the GTX 980 had what amounts to the same cooler for $150 less, and of course AIBs offered vastly superior boards and coolers for very small (relative to the 'founder's' tax) premiums. It has little if anything to do with the cost of cooler. Not to mention some AIB's reusing the 670/680 cooler but only offering equally small discounts.

But hey "craftsmanship" (?????), so it's np. It's interesting that HSFs mass produced on assembly lines can really be considered "crafted" at all, especially since it's basically the same as the Titan cooler which we've had for years.

 

[Grooveriding]

NCIX already has stock of the 1080 listed from most major AIBs. All are the crappy reference (founders) cards. The stock situation could change in the next week, but their reps are saying the stock isn't even in yet and have listed what is coming. Could very well be nothing but reference cards at launch with the $100 markup.

I want to see how this launch plays out and whether or not it is just reference cards with the markup available on launch day. Cashing in for the early adopters tax. Reviews are showing that cooler is garbage, throttling, high temperatures and loud. Really the opposite of premium. Just a barely adequate reference card.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

I have a feeling that there really are no real improvements over the 980 cooler, just a meaningless, easy redesign to make it feel more premium, allowing them to push the craftsmanship buzzword, prompting consumers to rationalize the extra charge.

 

[.vodka]

And the GTX 980 had what amounts to the same cooler for $150 less, and of course AIBs offered vastly superior boards and coolers for very small (relative to the 'founder's' tax) premiums. It has little if anything to do with the cost of cooler.

But hey "craftsmanship" (?????), so it's np. It's interesting that HSFs mass produced on assembly lines can really be considered "crafted" at all, especially since it's basically the same as the Titan cooler which we've had for years.

On top of that, have a look at the craftsmanship that has gone to the reference card. This is TPU's sample

AT's sample has some capacitors missing on the 12v input on top of an already lightly populated board:

"Oh, you were going to use the card with a waterblock and overclock the crap out of it? Too bad, the VRM as it is will limit you, fully populating it would have cost too much. While we're at it, we'll charge you an extra $100 for that."






Something like this should have been the founder's edition, a top of the line overengineered and properly cooled card:

Custom cards will be of this calibre and will be much more deserving of a $700 price tag. I don't think they're going to try to pull this crap again with the 1080Ti or Volta's equivalent cards once they are released.

I have a feeling that there really are no real improvements over the 980 cooler, just a meaningless, easy redesign to make it feel more premium, allowing them to push the craftsmanship buzzword, prompting consumers to rationalize the extra charge.

I want to see how this launch plays out and whether or not it is just reference cards with the markup available on launch day. Cashing in for the early adopters tax. Reviews are showing that cooler is garbage, throttling, high temperatures and loud. Really the opposite of premium. Just a barely adequate reference card.

Exactly. The same cooler in styling and functionality has been reiterated and reused as it appeared on the GTX770, dual GPU cards, Titans, and Ti cards. At this point in time after a few years it's probably as cost optimised as it's ever going to be vs the first cards it was used on.

This is a shameless money grab, that's all. Sadly people are going to fall for it.

 

[Pneumothorax]

On top of that, have a look at the craftsmanship that has gone to the reference card. This is TPU's sample

AT's sample has some capacitors missing on the 12v input on top of an already lightly populated board:

"Oh, you were going to use the card with a waterblock and overclock the crap out of it? Too bad, the VRM as it is will limit you, fully populating it would have cost too much. While we're at it, we'll charge you an extra $100 for that."






Something like this should have been the founder's edition, a top of the line overengineered and properly cooled card:

Custom cards will be of this calibre and will be much more deserving of a $700 price tag. I don't think they're going to try to pull this crap again with the 1080Ti or Volta's equivalent cards once they are released.

That awesomely overengineered MSI's power stage is what the $999 Titan X should've had on it's release reference board.

As long as the launch cards sell out within minutes and/or the retailers are able to price gouge it will continue. Why do you think Apple is able to charge premium prices all day long for flagship phones locked to 16gb of memory? Because their customers will lap it up all day long.

 

[maddie]

Remember when people thought they caught Nvidia with their pants down with fury x? Launch 980ti! Nice try.

Remember when people thought they caught Nvidia pants down with Polaris? Pascal with the quick attack!

Nvidia isn't someone you're going to surprise with 0 counter.

I don't underestimate Nvidia's ability to respond, but you make it seem as if they are a "let there be light" company. You can't bend the laws of physics and engineering by proclamation.

A 600mm^2 die will be very problematic to fab for some time to come and there's very little Nvidia can do to accelerate this process. You practically assigning deity status to them notwithstanding.

They can be caught by surprise and have been. DX12 and Async Compute appearing to be one. VR latency another. They will never admit the truth and even lie, Maxwell can do async compute, but they have been caught out at times and are not omnipotent.

By the way, this great Pascal release has the look of a very rough presentation, not a polished one. Cards not holding clocks. Money grab for the FE. Extremely poor communication. Inflated performance claims. Etc.

Having said all of that, I admit that many card purchasers will only buy GeForce cards, all else be damned.

 

[wingman04]

That's pretty disappointing on Gamers Nexus reviews where they show massive throttling of their 1080 after about 10 minutes of usage. So they said the Founders Edition card was great for benchmarking, but for extended periods of gaming the throttling was really noticeable.

I'm thinking the problem is Boost 3.0 it is more aggressive with a cool chip at first to pass the benchmarking.

So you're now telling me it's unreasonable for Nvidia to price gpus based on what the market can pay? Why should Nvidia let scalpers benefit? After all Nvidia is a for profit company and by nature of demand we know people will buy across a large number of prices.

Auctioning the first 100-1000 gpus would give Nvidia the most profit.

Trust me. Nvidia will continue this style of premium pricing for early adopting?

What are you the gatekeeper of telling people what pricing model is exploitive but not too exploitive of Nvidia to use? Why shouldn't there be 2 founders models, the day 1 the day (release date unknown,) day +60 days after that, models? Allow Nvidia to get the max profit out as many people as possible.

I don't see how you can defend the founders model but then just decide to draw the line in the sand somewhere. If you're going to do something like this, you're going to continue down this line because it's profitable and works.

Expect more dynamic pricing from Nvidia because it's the intelligent thing to do.

All great greed always comes to a end.

 

[3DVagabond]

Eh, I think not putting your best foot forward leaves you vulnerable to surprises from the competition.

There will be some who double dip, but I doubt that they represent much more than a small fraction of the overall PC buying public.

I think my strategy this time around will be to buy one 1080 for each of my gaming systems. Once 1080 Ti or whatever comes out, I'll use two 1080s in SLI in one system and a single 1080 Ti in another.

Once I get a hint that the next gen is imminent, I will unload all of those GPUs and use an iGPU until the new stuff comes out. Rinse and repeat.

If Big Pascal isn't going to launch until Q1/2017 I doubt many 980ti owners are going to wait. They'll buy now and then buy again when the 1080ti releases. We've already seen it happen the prior two gens.

 

[3DVagabond]

The stock speed is not advertise as max clock. It is advertised as base and boost clock.

And the reference cooler is quieter than custom 290X and 390X cards:
1080: http://www.hardware.fr/articles/948-13/nuisances-sonores-temperatures-photos-ir.html
290X: http://www.hardware.fr/news/13513/radeon-r9-290-290x-customs-nos-1ers-tests.htmlhttps://www.google.de/?client=firefox-b#q=hardware.fr+290x+custom&gfe_rd=cr
390X:http://www.hardware.fr/focus/110/msi-radeon-r9-390x-gaming-8-go-test.html

Do you really think this cooler is acceptable?

It's a poor cooler. Just because it's not historically poor, doesn't make it an effective design.

 

[3DVagabond]

So you're now telling me it's unreasonable for Nvidia to price gpus based on what the market can pay? Why should Nvidia let scalpers benefit? After all Nvidia is a for profit company and by nature of demand we know people will buy across a large number of prices.

Auctioning the first 100-1000 gpus would give Nvidia the most profit.

Trust me. Nvidia will continue this style of premium pricing for early adopting?

What are you the gatekeeper of telling people what pricing model is exploitive but not too exploitive of Nvidia to use? Why shouldn't there be 2 founders models, the day 1 the day (release date unknown,) day +60 days after that, models? Allow Nvidia to get the max profit out as many people as possible.

I don't see how you can defend the founders model but then just decide to draw the line in the sand somewhere. If you're going to do something like this, you're going to continue down this line because it's profitable and works.

Expect more dynamic pricing from Nvidia because it's the intelligent thing to do.

And when it does happen expect some people to still defend it. Then expect others to just wait it out and buy from them anyway. Then expect others to wait for AMD to launch and buy nVidia when they drop their prices yet again. Rinse-Repeat.

 

[linkgoron]

Eh, I think not putting your best foot forward leaves you vulnerable to surprises from the competition.

There will be some who double dip, but I doubt that they represent much more than a small fraction of the overall PC buying public.

I think my strategy this time around will be to buy one 1080 for each of my gaming systems. Once 1080 Ti or whatever comes out, I'll use two 1080s in SLI in one system and a single 1080 Ti in another.

Once I get a hint that the next gen is imminent, I will unload all of those GPUs and use an iGPU until the new stuff comes out. Rinse and repeat.

I would assume that there are many double-dippers. A lot of people want the best card available, no matter the cost.

Even if there are no "double dippers" (and there are many IMO), the fact is that releasing the 1080 @ 700$ gives them the option to release a 1080ti at 800-900$ with some proponents saying that they're still improving perf/$ so who cares.

I don't think that people would've accepted them releasing their top card 1080ti @ 800-900$ and the 1080 @ 700$, however once the 700$ price point is already settled for the 1080 it will look more acceptable for the 1080ti to be at 800-900$.

 

[3DVagabond]

Amd has no answer for the 1070/1080...there is no need to launch a ti/Titan Nvidia is sitting on it until before the vega launch. Then they'll sell it too.

I have 2 years of precedent on my side. There is nothing you have presented showing Nvidia will do the opposite of what theyre doing for the 3rd year in a row. Sorry. Nvidia is right on this one. You're not arguing against me you're arguing against Nvidia. Good luck arguing against a money making machine. When you run a business more successful than Nvidia maybe you can chime in and say Nvidia isn't doin what it can to maximize profits. Right now, I trust Nvidia to know how to maximize profits more than you.

If Nvidia believes in the double dip, then it's real.

I've read rumors that nVidia is experiencing teething issues with the interposer cracking. I don't think they could release a GP100/102 right now even if they wanted to.

Not that they would want to. We are going to be on this node for a long time. The industry needs to milk it as much as they can or they'll have long droughts with nothing new and exciting to sell people.

 

[sontin]

Do you really think this cooler is acceptable?

It's a poor cooler. Just because it's not historically poor, doesn't make it an effective design.

A poor cooler which is better than nearly all AMD Hawaii custom cards. :thumbsup:
At least the blower isnt putting the heat back into the case and heat up every other component and itself.

 

[3DVagabond]

On top of that, have a look at the craftsmanship that has gone to the reference card. This is TPU's sample

AT's sample has some capacitors missing on the 12v input on top of an already lightly populated board:

"Oh, you were going to use the card with a waterblock and overclock the crap out of it? Too bad, the VRM as it is will limit you, fully populating it would have cost too much. While we're at it, we'll charge you an extra $100 for that."

Are these honestly two different review samples of the "same" model card? I've never seen anything like this. I'm really astounded.

 

[3DVagabond]

A poor cooler which is better than nearly all AMD Hawaii custom cards. :thumbsup:
At least the blower isnt putting the heat back into the case and heat up every other component and itself.

Let's try this again. Do you think this is an acceptable cooler? Is it OK that it runs in excess of 82°C and runs into it's thermal limiter? Do you think it's what a $700 premium card should do?

 

[Cookie Monster]

Im quite sure at ATF, the discussion of "requiring benchmarks that run after the card is warm" because of the throttling aspect has been discussed ever since the introduction of the boost feature.

Please correct me if i am wrong but this was talked about for the GTX680, 780 etc I think. Seems almost like de ja vu (even by the same posters on both sides.. !). Interestingly, its always been a non-issue same as the throttling debate around Hawaii and co.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Why is it so hard for people to grasp that the "Reference" cooler may actually just be more expensive to build than a bog-standard low-quality blower? For reference, here's what the GTX 680's cooler looked like:

Much lower quality than the "Founders Edition" cooler.

Exactly.

GTX680/770 lowend cooler.
GTX980 ok cooler.
GTX1080 vapor based cooler.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Why set the MSRP to $599 if the the "Founders Edition" cooler can hardly keep the card at reasonable temps? If a cheaper cooler was put on it, wouldnt it throttle a lot? I don't think it would be wise to buy one at $599 if it is going to be slower than 980ti because of the lower clock speeds it would be running at.

Edit: Should of also said something about the noise level with the temps.

I expect the claim comes from people who never owned reference.

The temperature follows the fan profile. Its not meant to run "cool". Its meant to run as silent as possible.

And no, its not slower than a GTX980Ti and no its doesn't throttle

 

[ShintaiDK]

Something like this should have been the founder's edition, a top of the line overengineered and properly cooled card:

No it shouldn't, while you can argue about you want more than 225W on the reference card. Selling a reference card with that TDP and no blower design sets its own limits. Dumping 180W of heat or in that area sets a certain expectation to your case.