ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 Ti OC Overview

Introduction

Last year, NVIDIA introduced to the world, their latest and greatest GPU architecture, codenamed Pascal. The new Pascal GPU powered everything from enterprise level supercomputer chips to blazing fast GTX 10 series graphics cards. Utilizing the 16nm FinFET architecture, NVIDIA unleashed a new generation of graphics cards that delivered the highest clock speeds on any consumer GPU to date, the fastest graphics processing capabilities and a wide range of memory technologies that were supported by these chips like HBM2 and GDDR5X.

A year has gone by since NVIDIA launched the fastest consumer graphics card, the GeForce GTX 1080, but NVIDIA is not stopping there. This year, NVIDIA has introduced a new flagship product, one that will offer even higher performance than the GeForce GTX 1080. Meet the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, a juggernaut GPU that is in a class of its own. Today, I'll be testing the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 TI OC variant and would like to thank ASUS for arranging this sample for our review.

Meet the GeForce 10 Series - Now Featuring The Behemoth GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

With Pascal, NVIDIA launched a new generation of GeForce cards, the GeForce 10 series. The GeForce 10 series comprises of Pascal based GeForce GTX 1080, GTX 1070, GTX 1060, GTX 1050 and now the GTX 1080 Ti. All cards feature the same Pascal DNA and aim at the entire top-to-bottom segment of the gaming market.

NVIDIA also launched the Titan X (Pascal) last year and the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti has a lot of resemblance to that car, except the latter comes at a lower price and features a better tuned core design for increased gaming performance.

NVIDIA GeForce 10 Pascal Family

Graphics Card Name	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 3 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080	NVIDIA Titan X	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	NVIDIA Titan Xp
Graphics Core	GP107	GP107	GP107	GP106 / GP104	GP106	GP106 / GP104	GP104	GP104	GP104	GP102	GP102	GP102
Process Node	14nm FinFET	14nm FinFET	14nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET
Die Size	132mm2	132mm2	132mm2	200mm2	200mm2	200mm2	314mm2	314mm2	314mm2	471mm2	471mm2	471mm2
Transistors	3.3 Billion	3.3 Billion	3.3 Billion	4.4 Billion	4.4 Billion	4.4 Billion	7.2 Billion	7.2 Billion	7.2 Billion	12 Billion	12 Billion	12 Billion
CUDA Cores	640 CUDA Cores	768 CUDA Cores	768 CUDA Cores	1152 CUDA Cores	1280 CUDA Cores	1280 CUDA Cores	1920 CUDA Cores	2432 CUDA Cores	2560 CUDA Cores	3584 CUDA Cores	3584 CUDA Cores	3840 CUDA Cores
Base Clock	1354 MHz	1392 MHz	1290 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1607 MHz	1607 MHz	1417 MHz	1480 MHz	1480 MHz
Boost Clock	1455 MHz	1518 MHz	1392 MHz	1708 MHz	1708 MHz	1708 MHz	1683 MHz	1683 MHz	1733 MHz	1530 MHz	1583 MHz	1582
FP32 Compute	1.8 TFLOPs	2,3 TFLOPs	2.1 TFLOPs	4.0 TFLOPs	4.4 TFLOPs	4.4 TFLOPs	6.5 TFLOPs	8.1 TFLOPs	9.0 TFLOPs	11 TFLOPs	11.5 TFLOPs	12.5 TFLOPs
VRAM	2 GB GDDR5	3 GB GDDR5	4 GB GDDR5	3 GB GDDR5	6 GB GDDR5	6 GB GDDR5/X	8 GB GDDR5/X	8 GB GDDR5	8 GB GDDR5X	12 GB GDDR5X	11 GB GDDR5X	12 GB GDDR5X
Memory Speed	7 Gbps	7 Gbps	7 Gbps	8 Gbps	8 Gbps	9 Gbps / 10 Gbps	8 Gbps	8 Gbps	11 Gbps	10 Gbps	11 Gbps	11.4 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	112 GB/s	84 GB/s	112 GB/s	192 GB/s	160 GB/s	224 GB/s / 240 GB/s	256 GB/s	256 GB/s	352 GB/s	480 GB/s	484 GB/s	547 GB/s
Bus Interface	128-bit bus	96-bit bus	128-bit bus	192-bit bus	160-bit bus	192-bit bus	256-bit bus	256-bit bus	256-bit bus	384-bit bus	352-bit bus	384-bit bus
Power Connector	None	None	None	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power
TDP	75W	75W	75W	120W	120W	120W	150W	180W	180W	250W	250W	250W
Display Outputs	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b
Launch Date	October 2016	May 2018	October 2016	September 2016	August 2018	July 2016	June 2016	October 2017	May 2016	August 2016	March 2017	April 2017
Launch Price	$109 US	$119 US-$129 US	$139 US	$199 US	TBD	$249 US	$349 US	$449 US	$499 US	$1200 US	$699 US	$1200 US

The Pascal GPUs were designed to deliver a generational leap in performance over its predecessors by embracing the latest FinFET process. The increasing demand of graphics performance in high-end gaming PCs and also the emergence of Virtual Reality market have opted graphics manufacturers to focus on next generation of DirectX 12 and Vulkan graphics while delivering increased performance to drive high-resolution, HDR capable displays.

Using the TSMC 16nm FinFET process, the Pascal GP102 GPU was crafted for GeForce gamers and offered in two products that stand a class apart from their predecessors like the 980 Ti and GTX Titan X. Right now, we are going to give you a run through of the entire GP102 GPU which is the heart of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card.

NVIDIA GP102 GPU Dissected - A More Tamed Version of NVIDIA's Flagship GP100 GPU

NVIDIA has gone all out with the specifications of their grandest graphics card to date. The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti features the same Pascal GP102 GPU featured on the NVIDIA Titan X but is better than that in all ways possible. The NVIDIA GP102 Pascal GPU packs 12 Billion transistors and has 6 graphics processing clusters of which two are disabled. This adds up to a total of 28 SM units with 128 cores each. The card is geared to power compute and memory hungry gaming applications at higher resolutions with tons of texture and geometry processing power.

The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti features 3584 CUDA Cores, 224 Texture Mapping Units and 88 ROPs. These are clocked at a base clock of 1480 MHz and boost clock of 1582 MHz which can go as high as 2 GHz with overclocking. The Pascal cards are built to overclock like crazy and custom models will further boost the clock rates on availability day.

The Pascal FinFET architecture allows significant increase in clock frequency. The reference GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is clocked at 1506 MHz base anad 1683 MHz boost clock. The model ASUS sent us is clocked much higher thanks to their factory overclocked specs.

The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti delivers 12 TFLOPs of compute performance on its stock configuration. All of this circuitry is housed in a 471mm² die size which is impressive. As for performance, you would be delighted to hear that the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is 35% faster on average and up to 40% faster than the GeForce GTX 1080 in gaming benchmarks. The GTX 1080 Ti’s blazing fast even comes at the same price of the original GTX 1080, at just $699 US.

The card also features a 11 GB GDDR5X VRAM that run across a 352-bit bus interface. NVIDIA has shipped their flagship with the fastest G5X solution to date. The Titan X (P) used 10 GB/s models while the 1080 Ti makes use of the new 11 GB/s memory chips which results in a cumulative bandwidth of 484 GB/s that’s going to be on par with SK Hynix’s HBM2 memory launching in Q2 2017. The card is powered by a 8+6 Pin power configuration and has a rated TDP of 250 Watts.

For those who are wondering what to do with the massive 11 GB frame buffer? Well, NVIDIA is touting this card as a 5K ready frame buffer so you can enjoy your favorite games at even higher resolutions then was ever possible before.

With the new compression and tiled caching system, the bandwidth on GTX 1080 Ti can be boosted up to 1200 GB/s which is more than what’s achievable with HBM2 as of right now.

 In addition to better performance, NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is also packing new technology features such as compression and tiled caching boost bandwidth, tiled rendering, DirectX 12 Flex and Flow, NVIDIA Aftermath (A New Tool To identify cause of GPU crashes) and Shadowplay Highlights which will further boost gamer experiences running GeForce hardware.

Faster clocked GDDR5 memory still offers great performance and loads of bandwidth to the card. There are tons of features enabled on the Pascal cards such as Compute Preemption, memory compression, simultaneous multi-projection which you can read in our detailed post here. Also, NVIDIA has launched the full fat configuration of the GP102 GPU on the latest NVIDIA Titan Xp graphics card which was just launched a few days ago.

NVIDIA GeForce 10 Pascal Feature Slides:

The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 Ti OC comes with a beefy, triple fan cooler. This is ASUS’s latest DirectCU III cooling system that combines Super Alloy Power II components. These deliver the best stability and overclocking results under any circumstance. The card is further built in ASUS’s industry-leading Auto-Extreme process which ensures the best quality for graphics cards.

ASUS’s triple slot behemoth comes with ASUS AURA RGB LED support and features a fully custom PCB that has a 10+2 Phase super alloy power II design. Clock speeds are configured in two models, gaming and overclock.

The Gaming mode profile is enabled by default and features 1569 MHz base and 1683 MHz boost clocks with a memory clock of 11010 MHz. The overclock profile can be enabled to gain clock speeds of 1594 MHz base, 1708 MHz boost for the core and 11100 MHz for the memory. The card comes with dual 8-Pin connectors and should cost around $749 US.

The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 Ti OC comes in a large rectangular box. The box has the stylish STRIX label on the front along with a picture of the card and several marketing labels. Features such as DirectX 12, Gameworks, Ansel and VRWorks are labeled on the front along with ASUS, Aurasync and OC edition marketing logos.

The back side of the box contains overview of the various features along with the graphics cards specs. Some key information about ASUS's Maxcontact technology that provides 2x more contact with GPU for improved thermal transfer is listed on the back. There's also detailed overview of Wing-Blade Fans, ASUS Aura Sync, ASUS Fan Connect II, ASUS Auto Extreme Technology and GPU Tweak II.

The new GeForce 10 series graphics are also fully compatible with NVIDIA GeForce Experience technology allowing for on-the-go Game-Ready driver updates, Optimized Game Settings and the ability to Capture, Share, Screenshot and broadcast games.

Accessories in the package include a 6-Pin to 8-Pin molex connector, a quick set- up guide, ASUS cables tie and a driver disk. It’s always better to download the latest drivers for your NVIDIA graphics cards from the official GeForce webpage to stay updated.

Out of the box, the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti OC (ROG STRIX) is one big graphics card. It's tremendous in size and we can also expect the same in terms of performance. That’s about it as far as the package is concerned and we move over to the unboxing section where we will get a detailed look at the card and other aspects of the product.

ASUS's ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti is a triple fan behemoth. It measures 11.73" (length) x 5.28" (width) x 2.07" (height). The cooling extends all the way to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation. It is recommended that a case with 2.5 free slot space is required for proper functioning of cooling on this card.

In terms of design, we are looking at a gorgeous, all matte black shroud which comes with a unique and very industrial build design. The card has three fans on the front, all of which are 90mm and come with ASUS's patented Wing Blade design that offers 105% higher air pressure and operates 3x quieter than the reference cards.

On the back of the card, we spot an extremely good looking ROG STRIX backplate that comes integrated with ASUS Aura Sync lighting. We will get to the Aura Sync part in a bit but just looking at this gorgeous backplate shows that the card is going to offer a serious punch. There are cut outs in screw placements and we can spot a unique texturing across the backplate in silver lining.

There's more to the fans than just being silent and offering more airflow. The Wing-Blade design is also IP5X-Certified, offering resistance to dust and small particles that can enter the GPU assembly. The dust resistance improves reliability and offer longer lifespan. The fans also feature 0dB technology which means that the fans will not spin unless the hit a certain temperature threshold. In the case of the ROG STRIX 1080 Ti, that's 55C (Degrees).

The shroud comes with cut outs the implement ASUS's AURA Sync lighting. Each of the six cut outs comes with LEDs that light up and can be modified through the AURA RGB Lighting software. The software allow for several different lighting modes and full RGB colors (up to 16.8 million).

The GTX 1080 Ti GPU comes with two SLI gold fingers which technically mean that the card supports 4-Way SLI but that has changed in the GeForce 10 series. While 4-Way SLI support is physically present, there are little applications that can even scale well on 4 or even 3-Way SLI. NVIDIA recommends the use of 2-Way SLI with the new high-bandwidth SLI bridge for the best scaling and SLI performance in games that support Multi-GPU. For those who are still interested in 3 or 4 Way SLI can register at NVIDIA’s site for a SLI key to enable support on their cards.

Display connectivity on the ASUS ROG STRIX 1080 Ti OC includes two Display Port 1.4 (4K @ 120 Hz), two HDMI 2.0b (4K @ 60 Hz) and a single DL-DVI which means that it is capable to support all next-gen displays with new standards such as HDR, VR and multi-res / multi-screen panels.

The ROG STRIX GTX 1080 TI OC features a custom PCB which means the power circuitry is entirely non-reference. Power is provided through a dual 8-Pin connector configuration which means we are looking at a maximum power input of 300W. The card has a official TDP of 250W but the premium components make sure that every bit of juice gets supplied to core, memory and VRMs when overclocked.

There are four LEDs that are located on the PCB, right on top of the power connectors. These indicate whether power is being provided to the slots or not. A white LED indicates that optimal power is being fed to the card while the second LED lits up in red when power is not being fed or something is wrong with the power supply, leading to the graphics card.

ASUS has placed a voltage measuring points for the graphics card, right next to the power connectors. These are ideal for overclockers and enthusiasts who want real-time information on voltage that is being fed to the card while putting the card under extreme overclocking loads.

On the back of the card, we can spot multiple 4-Pin connectors which are part of ASUS Fan Connect II system. This system offers two 4-Pin, hybrid controlled fan headers that could be connected with PWM and DC type fans for better system cooling. ASUS has even added an AURA Sync RGB header on their graphics card which can be attached to an LED strip for PC lighting and customization.

The side of the GPU where the power connectors are located comes with a LED lit "Republic of Gamers" logo. This section of the shroud is fully compliant with ASUS's AURA Sync RGB lighting system.

ASUS has done a mighty impressive job with the heatsink which comes in two sections. The large triple fan shroud pushes air down towards a large heatsink that offers 40% more heat dissipation area which allows for 30% better cooling performance. The MaxContact technology inside the fan is 10% flatter to the traditional heat spreader and comes with 2x more GPU contact area. A total of six copper heat pipes run through the dual heatsinks, pushing out heat from the GPU surface.

The PCB is covered with a die-casting that offers increased heat dissipation for the memory and VRMs while also offering increased reinforcement. The circular vented heat pipes make sure that heat load is equally distributed among the heatsink blocks.

The ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC features a powerful 10+2 phase Super Allow Power II design. This enhanced PCB design offers improved efficiency, reduced power loss and is able to achieve thermal load levels that are 50% cooler than previous designs.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 Ti OC AURA Sync Gallery:

Following is a look at the different lighting modes that this card is able to display with the ASUS AURA Sync lightning feature.

We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. Latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used from AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 10. All games that were tested were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC Test Platform:

CPU	Intel Core i7-7700K @ 4.5 GHz
Motherboard	Gigabyte AORUS Z270X-Gaming 8
Video Cards	ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC (Overclock) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition (Reference) MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Armor X OC (Overclock) MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning OC (Overclock) XFX Radeon R9 Fury X (Reference)
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z Series 32GB (4 X 8GB) CL16 3600 MHz
Hard Disk	Samsung 960 EVO 500 GB M.2 NVMe
Storage Disk	Seagate 3 TB (7200 RPM) Hard Disk Drive
Power Supply	Corsair RM 750X Gold Plus
Drivers	NVIDIA GeForce 378.92 WHQL / AMD Radeon Software Crimson Relive 17.4.1
Operation System	Windows 10 64-bit Anniversary Edition

• All games were tested on 2560×1440 (2K) and 3840x2160 (4K) resolutions.
• Image Quality and graphics configurations have been provided in the screenshots below.
• Games with PhysX were benchmarked with the settings on Low or off for fair comparisons.
• The "reference" cards are the stock configs while the "overclock" cards are factory overclocked configs provided to us by various AIB partners.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 Ti OC Overclocking:

For overclocking, I pushed the core to +100 MHz beyond it's overclock profile and +300 MHz on the memory. The end result was the memory bandwidth boosting beyond 510 GB/s and the core boost beyond 2070 MHz under gaming load. No power limit was increased but I could have gained an extra overclock bit from it.

DOOM

In 2016, Id finally released Doom. My testing wouldn’t be complete without including this title. All cards were capable to deliver ample frame rates on 1440p resolution using Nightmare settings so my focus turned over to 4K. Here, the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is almost twice as fast as the Fury X and the 980 Ti on the highest 4K resolutions. Same can be said for the 1440P results.

Ashes of The Singularity

NVIDIA and AMD have been tweaking performance of their cards for Ashes of the Singularity since the title released. It was the first to make use of DirectX 12 API and the first to leverage from the new Async compute technology that makes use of the DX12 renderer to improve performance. Here, the GTX 1080 Ti deliver a good increase over the GTX 1080 at both 4K and 1440P resolutions. The AMD cards have had a slight edge with the title since launch but nothing new in the high-end department has come out from the red team since Fury X. We will test this title again once Vega hits the road.

Battlefield 1

Battlefield 1 takes us back to the epic bloodshed that was World War 1. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job at looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open ended environments to the intense and gun blazing action, this multiplayer and single player FPS title is one of the best Battlefield's to date. The GeForce cards show a strong performance in Battlefield 1 with the GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti scoring over 100 FPS at 1440P and the latter delivering more than 60 FPS at 4K resolution while delivering maximum visual quality.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Using the new Anvil Next engine that was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Ghost Recon: Wildlands goes wild and grand with an open-world setting in entire Bolivia. This game is a tactical third person shooter which does seem an awful lot similar to Tom Clancy's: The Division. The game looks pretty and the wide scale region of Bolivia looks lovely at all times (Day/Night Cycle). Here, the GTX 1080 Ti is the only card that manages to break past the 65 FPS barrier at 1440P and 45 FPS barrier at 4K on full quality settings.

Hitman (2016)

With the latest drivers, NVIDIA has managed to up the performance of their Pascal and Maxwell parts in Hitman (2016). The game has been a major win for AMD graphics cards that still show a strong gain in performance when switching over from DX11 to DX12 but NVIDIA is slowly catching up with their drivers game. Here, the GTX 1080 Ti delivers more than 70 FPS at the highest settings on 4K resolution. That's almost twice the FPS of Fury X.

Rise of The Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the most beautiful game that I have played recently and was patched to the DX12 API. The game features a wide variety of settings and we chose Very High, HBAO+ without any AA. The game managed to hit 60 FPS on the 1080 Ti at 4K and over 100 FPS at 1440P.

Civilization VI

Civilization VI is the sixth entrant in Sid Meir's long running Civilization series. You can spend countless time playing a single game and that still won't be enough. The game supports DirectX 12 but we opted DirectX 11 for testing results. They look a bit odd but in both cases, the game is playable at 4K and 1440P over 60 FPS with modern high-end cards.

Batman Arkham Knight

The final chapter in the Batman Arkham series, Arkham Knight, is a great hack n slash title. It features a great story line how ever, the PC version was plagued with several issues at launch but was fine tuned as time went on. Now, the game delivers an impressive visual quality and is very optimized for the PC platform. The game comes with NVIDIA's Gameworks technology but we will be keeping those disabled for a fair test showdown. The game does well on GeForce and even AMD cards with most hitting north of 100 FPS at 1440P. At 4K, most of the high-end cards manage to close in the 60 FPS mark while the 1080 Ti goes way past them to touch the 90 FPS barrier.

Fallout 4 (Hi-Res Textures)

Fallout 4 is a great addition in the Fallout universe. Fallout fans like me have fallen in love with this new game since it was released. Being a huge fan on RPGs and especially Sci-Fi RPG (Mass Effect for life), the game has the most advanced version of the Creation engine which was recently updated with NVIDIA’s GameWorks feature. The latest Hi-Res texture pack was released a while ago and weighed in over 50 GB which is mind boggling for a texture pack, I mean, what the hell Bethesda?

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA V is the most optimized gaming titles that has been made for the PC. It’s so optimized, it even runs on my crap GT 840M based laptop with a smooth FPS on a mix of medium/low settings. I mean what???

Aside from being optimized, GTA V is a great game. It was the Game of The Year for 2013. At 1440p Ultra quality, the game gave us smooth frames on all cards were tested. For 4K, we toned down the settings to High quality to get around 90 FPS on the GTX 1080 Ti while the other cards hit 40-60 FPS.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Using the new Anvil Next engine that was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Ghost Recon: Wildlands goes wild and grand with an open-world setting in entire Bolivia. This game is a tactical third person shooter which does seem an awful lot similar to Tom Clancy's: The Division. The game looks pretty and the wide scale region of Bolivia looks lovely at all times (Day/Night Cycle). Here, the GTX 1080 Ti is the only card that manages to break past the 65 FPS barrier at 1440P and 45 FPS barrier at 4K on full quality settings.

Mass Effect Andromeda

Being a huge fan of the Mass Effect series, I was highly anticipating the arrival of Andromeda to store shelves. Now that it's here, I put the fastest gaming card to the test. Using Frostbite, the latest Mass Effect title looks incredibly gorgeous and the open world settings on the different planets immerses you a lot.

This means that the game has to be a bit graphics intensive which it is. The GTX 1080, GTX 1080 Ti and the 980 Ti Lighting can hit 60 FPS or 60+ FPS (for 1080 / 1080 Ti) at 1440P but 4K means you need to sacrifice a little visual quality to hit the golden 60 FPS mark. Here, the 1080 Ti achieves around 44 FPS with the OC profile and 47 FPS average with manual overclock. The GTX 1070 founders edition only manages 37 FPS while the other cards barely hit 30 FPS.

The Witcher 3 (GOTY)

Witcher 3 is the greatest fantasy RPG of our time, it has a great story, great gameplay mechanics and gorgeous graphics. This is the only game I actually wanted to get a stable FPS at 4K. With Gameworks disabled, I gave all high-end cards the ability to demonstrate their power. While the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 were fast last year, they still weren't able to run the game at 4K with visual quality toned down. Fast forward to 2017, and I can finally enjoy Witcher 3 in all its glory at over 60 FPS with everything turned to max. Isn't the technology cycle great?

Watch Dogs 2

Finally, we have Watch Dogs 2. Gone is Aiden Pearce as the new game takes us away from Chicago and puts us in the feet of Marcus, a seasoned hacker in San Francisco. Running off the Disrupt engine, the game is based on DirectX 11 API and is a graphics hungry monster. You can see the results for yourself below:

No graphic card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. The ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti C is fitted with the most advanced version of the DirectCU III cooling design. The latest DirectCU III cooler features a massive heatsink with multiple heatpipes which extend beyond the aluminum fin based design that lead towards the MaxContact II surface plate for the GPU. The card comes with PWM cooling and an anti-bending plate that keeps the card sturdy and durable in the most harshest environments inside your PC.

 

The Patented Wing-Blade IP5X-Certified fans featured on this card make sure that it delivers the best cooling performance and best acoustics while operating.

Note – We tested load with Kombuster which is known as ‘Power viruses’ and can permanently damage hardware. Use such software at your own risk!

I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle condition and while it was peaking during gaming sessions. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plug in on their custom cards. Default TDP for the GTX 1080 Ti is set over 250W and since we are testing a custom board, the figures can be lower or also exceed the default TDP.

 

The new 16nm process on the GeForce 10 series cards based on Pascal architecture deliver huge increases in performance per watt values meaning that the GTX 1080 Ti is able to deliver higher performance while sipping in drastically lower power than the 980 Ti OC.

You can see the results for yourself below which show that the GTX 1080 Ti has a total power input of 318W at stock while the GTX 980 Ti Lightning has a peak draw of 351W. We can see that the GTX 1080 Ti offers much more performance at a lower power input even when been factory overclocked or manual overclocked.

Even with no competition, NVIDIA went ahead and bested themselves. For a whole year, they had the fastest consumer graphics card on the market, the GTX 1080. Sure they launched the Titan X but that behemoth sold for $1200 US and it wasn't a wise choice to get when economics are taken into consideration. The 1080 Ti launched and became the fastest graphics card on the planet. Soon afterwards, the 1080 Ti was made public in custom variants too, but at the same time, NVIDIA launched another Titan, now known as Titan Xp. That is another $1200 US graphics card and currently reigns supreme as the fastest on the planet, but our focus today is the GTX 1080 Ti ROG STRIX from ASUS.

The GTX 1080 Ti replaced the GTX 1080 as the fastest consumer graphics card at the same price of $699 US. The card I tested today goes for $749 US and you need to have a big wallet if you are buying one. At this price however, you get some of the fastest and most impressive gaming performance we have seen to date. It's 35% north of the GTX 1080, add more for the custom variants. The price point makes it seem really good once you get to know the performance potential.

In my testing, the ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti blew away all other cards. The GTX 1080, GTX 1070 are now to be considered as good mainstream, high-end options. For enthusiasts, the custom 1080 Ti is the way to go. It's 4K 60 FPS capable in many titles (if not all) and it gives us a glimpse at what to expect from future GPUs. My guess is that in just one generation, we will be able to see 4K 60 FPS performance on much more affordable products. What's worth noting is that the ROG STRIX 1080 Ti achieves this impressive feat without breaking the fundamentals of Pascal's impressive efficiency showcase.

Compared to the reference variant, the ROG STRIX promises better cooling performance, lower noise load and great aesthetics. While it does need more power, I got to see overall higher boost frequencies that were stable throughout the gaming benchmarks. The custom PCB further allowed for higher clocks out of an already factory overclocked graphics card and hitting over 2 GHz is no biggie for Pascal GPUs.

In the end, the ROG STRIX 1080 Ti provides a monumental increase in performance over the 980 Ti. Over the GTX 1080, it's a decent 30-40% gain considering this model but the GTX 1080 is still a very capable card on its own. Considering that, the ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC is indeed based on the ultimate gaming GPU and further provides users with a high-end, customization cooling solution that looks awesome.

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