Hardware & Technical Which GTX 1080?

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Quick review comparing the 1080 with the 970.

Size
A4JDx7W.jpg
Performance
[video=youtube_share;i29dInj73Bc]https://youtu.be/i29dInj73Bc[/video]
:D
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Globusdiablo said:
:D

Nice init. :)
Click to expand...

Joking aside - yes, it's terrific. The swap (the first time I've ever replaced a graphics card actually) was really straightforward (despite the card being significantly bigger than the old 970). I had a moment of panic when I thought my PSU didn't have the necessary 6+8 power lead but it turns out there was an extra 2 point connector tucked away which slots in next to the 2nd bank of 6 to make up the 8 (which I'll post here for anyone else who has similar concerns).

pcie6-2-jpg.57637
I decided to go as clean as possible with the display driver (despite it actually being the same driver for both 970 and 1080) and used DDU to completely remove the old driver prior to swapping the cards. I did read somewhere on facebook a comment about completely re-installing ED as well but I haven't gone that far yet - seems a bit extreme unless I get some strong opinions on its legitimacy here.

I then spent a bit of time tinkering with the LED colours :p using the Aura app' (which I have to say was bloomin' hard to track down) - hey, if people are gonna' pay for coloured lasers then I don't feel too bad about getting the glow from my case looking nice!

http://www.asus.com/US/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-STRIX-GTX1080-A8G-GAMING/HelpDesk_Download/

Also installed the Asus GPU Tweak II application to get my overclocking setup.

Next thing I did was run the Futuremark VRMark benchmark. I'll post some figures over in the forum thread in due course (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/267897-Futuremark-VRMARK) but I'm getting initial figures around 8,600 (compared to 6,200 with the 970) so a clear and significant performance improvement. Interestingly, overclocking didn't really change that but I have read that VRMark is slightly CPU dependent so I may have hit a bottleneck with my i5.

And then lastly I booted up Elite in the Oculus. I saw an immediate improvement in quality which I have to confess I hadn't actually expected. I knew I'd get significantly better frame rates (even with SS bumped to 1.0 and HMD quality to 2.0 for much better anti-aliasing) but everything just looked brighter and more colourful too.

The best thing for me is that I no longer feel like I'm having to compromise, the 1080 allows me to get the best image quality the Oculus is capable of while still maintaining that all important 90fps (or 45 with ASW - still haven't decided which way to go with this). As a word of caution to anyone expecting miracles, there's ultimately nothing you can do about the final resolution of the Oculus screens and, for this generation of headset, even with a 1080, you're not going to get the same ultra-sharp ultra-detailed photo-realistic screenshot like quality of a decent hi-res monitor, but you are going to get an absolutely fantastic VR experience.

Lastly - I would add that the 970 gave terrific VR performance for the money and, if the cost of the 1080 is prohibitive for you then I wouldn't lose too much sleep or re-mortgage your house or anything to get one. The thing with me was that I got an unexpected bonus at work. So I tried not to think in terms of the actual money and looked at it like - my company has given me a 1080 as a bonus. In that regard I'm absolutely delighted with it.

Thanks to everyone for the advice and encouragement - I'll no doubt continue to post further thoughts, tweaks and findings as and when they occur.

o7
 
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mp4x

mp4x
It's somethin' alright! Great card man, and you can go way over what the default 'OC/Gaming/Silent' options are if you set your own profile. Depending on the card, which is just luck, you can double what they call "OC Mode" or more.

Hey, I went from a GTX680 to a 1080... The improvement was so massive it affected gravity.

Alec Turner said:
Quick review comparing the 1080 with the 970.

Size
http://i.imgur.com/A4JDx7W.jpg
Performance
https://youtu.be/i29dInj73Bc
:D
Click to expand...
 

dape

dape
One question to all useres who have cards with two (6+2 or 6) power connectors.

Is this cable sufficient (one PSU outlet to the card)?

cables8.jpg


or is it better two use two of those to have two PSU outlets powering the card?
 

mp4x

mp4x
This is fine, mate. In the same way some of your HDDs or other devices might share a power cable that has multiple plugs, the video card draws the power it needs but the powersupply/cable can deliver much more that that, to each plug




dape said:
One question to all useres who have cards with two (6+2 or 6) power connectors.

Is this cable sufficient (one PSU outlet to the card)?

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Corsair/RM650i/images/cables8.jpg

or is it better two use two of those to have two PSU outlets powering the card?
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:

dape

dape
mp4x said:
This is fine, mate. In the same way some of your HDDs or other devices might share a power cable that has multiple plugs, the video card draws the power it needs but the powersupply/cable can deliver much more that that, to each plug
Click to expand...

It should be i guess. However, today I plugged a Palit Gamerock PE 1080 in and ran a benchmark with Heaven. I was a bit terrified at first, because in the middle of the run the whole system froze. I though maybe because it is one of the highest stock OC card you can get.
As i had a spare cable I plugged that into the PSU and into the 1080 instead of one cable with the Y at the top. No more freezing after that...
 
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