Mar 28, 2024 | Updated: 11:35 AM EDT

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Review: World's Fastest Gaming Graphics Card at Good Price

Mar 13, 2017 09:56 AM EDT

When Nvidia released its GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card in the last May, it blew everyone away. It was by far the fastest GPU. It outperformed 2015's $1,000 Titan X and also eclipsed two GeForce GTX 980s in SLI. However, with the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, Nvidia claims that its new graphics card performs 35 percent faster than the GTX 1080.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is like a souped-up version of the GTX 1080. The card still based on a 16nm FinFET production process and is based around Nvidia's power-efficient Pascal micro-architecture. 

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti uses the same external chassis as the GTX 1080 use to have. It's still a two-slot card which is 10.5 inches long and 4.3 inches high. And the Founders Edition of the card still uses a radial cooler, Game Spot learned.

In the Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti, you can remove a portion of the back plate to get better airflow in compact SLI setups like the GTX 1080. Nvidia did remove the DVI port this time to provide more cooling surface area for the GPU. This leaves user with three DisplayPort connections and one HDMI port in the card, however, the box does come with a DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter.

The Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti has a much higher 250-watt TDP than its predecessor, which was having 180-watt equivalent. Consequently, the Ti features a six-pin and eight-pin power connector. However, Nvidia recommends a 600-watt PSU to power the card.

According to Arstechnica, in the Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti internally there's an improved seven-phase 2x dual-FET power design for cleaner power with less heat, which does a good job of feeding the GTX 1080 Ti's 250W TDP via its 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connectors. At the heart of the card there is same Pascal architecture GP102 GPU used in the Titan XP. There are the same 28 SMs and 3,584 CUDA cores out of a probable 3,840.

In the Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti, 4K really allows to flex its muscles. Other than unoptimized ports, it should be able to max out the most graphically-demanding games with just playable frame rates. However, this is an unbelievable accomplishment for a single graphics card.

In Valve's SteamVR Performance Test, the GTX 1080 Ti has produced a 20462 score, which is the highest score ever seen in this benchmark, as claimed by Game Spot. The Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti beats the GTX 1080 by 47 percent here, which was one of the best VR cards.

While running the Unigine Valley benchmark at 1440p, the Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti stayed super quiet, though its temperatures did get moderately warm hitting 84 degrees Celsius. This is six degrees C shy of the card's thermal limit.

Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti is indeed the fastest gaming graphics card money can buy. It is even faster than the 1,200 e-peen extension that is the Titan X Pascal. It's a hell of a lot faster than the GTX 1080 too, which comes for a "cheaper" price bracket of 500. It's the first graphics card since the Titan XP which can play many games in 4K at 60FPS without having to fiddle with settings.

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