Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Review

Performance Analysis

With no AMD competition, the main comparison is GTX 1080 and, when we have the card back in the labs, the Titan X. Cutting to the chase, it's 28 percent quicker than aftermarket, overclocked 1080, so Nvidia's 35 percent figure (referring to stock 1080) is believable. It tends to have a bigger percentage lead at 4K, but only by a few points.

For what it's worth, the Fury X comparison is even more vivid. On average frame rates it's 85 percent quicker. In DX12 games it has more advantage at 4K, but in Vulkan and DX11 the advantage is bigger at 1440p. 4GB is clearly a limit for the Fury X – see the BF4 result for confirmation.


Power, temp, noise observations. Efficient as usual. Cooler seems just about adequate, and not too loud but partners will most likely be cooler/quieter, also probably larger. Max fan speed on our sample is about 50 per cent, or some 2400 RPM, while it boosts to around 1600MHz under sustained load. Expect this number to rise with partner cards.

Conclusion

In most ways, this conclusion was a foregone one. Still without competition at this end of the GPU market until Vega (hopefully) delivers some, Nvidia has remained the only real choice for users seeking the most powerful GPU experiences for quite some time. Our testing demonstrates that the GTX 1080 Ti has more or less delivered on its 35 percent improved performance figure relative to the GTX 1080, and, we can presume, the new card has a small lead on the previous graphics champ, the Titan X. There's no denying that this is yet another awesome GPU, and it's the new undisputed king of the consumer graphics market, especially once the factory overclocked models arrive. With it also seeming to retain the awesome overclocking potential Pascal has become known for, it's difficult as enthusiasts not to be excited by this card.


£700 is serious cash for a GPU, let's not forget – you can build an entire decent gaming PC within that budget. Still, price drops are always welcomed by consumers, so the more affordable GTX 1080 and pricing for the GTX 1080 Ti that's high but not excessive relative to the performance on offer are good moves by Nvidia. Part of us still feels that the real story of this launch is that Nvidia has made £700 feel like a somewhat decent value proposition for a flagship GPU. Don't think we're being too cynical, however; we love the GTX 1080 Ti, but the GPU market is clearly in a very different place to not so long ago. It appears the effects of maturing production processes for Pascal and GDDR5(X) are starting to be felt, but even so we do feel Nvidia could have sold a significant amount of these cards at an even higher price – there's no alternative, after all, and previous launches have shown that there's a considerable sum of people willing to pay.

The new pricing doesn't appear to be a means of anticipating Vega either, as that's still a good few months away. Maybe GTX 1080 sales were slowing, but there's also renewed interest in building a PC right now given that many will have been waiting to see what AMD's Ryzen CPUs brought to the table. If nothing else, they certainly appear to be a decent value offering, so Nvidia is likely looking to push users towards its higher-end cards with any savings made by buying Ryzen.

Enough of our waffling, though. Expensive though it is, the GTX 1080 Ti is the new GPU performance king, and it delivers strongly on every other front – what else is there to say?