For the past nine months Nvidia's GTX 1080 has dominated the discussion when it comes to high-performance graphics computing. Today, that comes to an end, but not necessarily due to competition from AMD.
The review embargo for the upcoming GeForce GTX 1080 Ti has been lifted, and with that an avalanche of reviews. These reviews have been notably positive, although not too surprising.
In a way very similar to what the GTX 980 Ti did only two years ago, the GTX 1080 Ti effectively eliminates the need for a Titan X by delivering comparable performance at a much lower price point.
The specs leaked just days ago were on-point, indicating that the card is a big step up from the GTX 1080. Some have noted performance gains of between 20% to 50% when playing games, a triumph given that it's being sold at the same MSRP as the GTX 1080 prior to its recent price drop.
| GTX 1080 | Titan X | GTX 1080 Ti | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CUDA Cores | 2560 | 3584 | 3584 |
| TMUs | 160 | 224 | 224 |
| ROPs | 64 | 96 | 88 |
| Core Clock | 1607MHz | 1417MHz | 1481MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1733MHz | 1531MHz | 1582MHz |
| TFLOPS | 9TFLOPS | 11TFLOPS | 11.3TFLOPS |
| Memory Clock | 10GB G5X | 10GB G5X | 11GB G5X |
| Memory Bus | 256 Bit | 384 Bit | 352 Bit |
| VRAM | 8GB | 12GB | 11GB |
| Memory Bandwidth | 320GB/s | 480GB/s | 484GB/s |
| TDP | 180W | 250W | 250W |
| Price | $499 | $1199 | $699 |
The result is the world's first sub-$1000 card that can properly run graphically intense games at 4K resolution with 60 frames per second. For gamers who use ultrawide or other high resolution monitors, the progression made by this card is a big deal. It can be looked at as another step toward pushing 1080p into the past as the industry marches toward a 4K future.
Innovations made by graphics card manufacturers have a trickle down effect that eventually affects all gaming hardware, such as the case of Microsoft's upcoming Project Scorpio console which will use an AMD solution not too dissimilar from the RX 480.
A new NVIDIA GeForce driver was released today which includes optimizations for DX12 titles as well as specific improvements for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands.
