ASUS GTX 1080 Strix Gaming 8 GB Review

Name: ASUS GTX 1080 Strix Gaming 8 GB
Brand: ASUS

W1zzard

on Jun 15th, 2016,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: ASUS

(41 Comments) »

Introduction

NVIDIA is shaping up to be the most consistent chipmaker in the industry when it comes to per-generation performance and energy efficiency gains. Over the past three generations, spread across the past four years, the company successfully developed increasingly more energy efficient GPUs, which sees its culmination with the Pascal architecture that powers the GeForce GTX 1080 we are reviewing today.

The GeForce GTX 1080 is based on NVIDIA's "Pascal" architecture. This architecture sees the streaming multiprocessors (SMs), the indivisible subunits of an NVIDIA GPU, get even more dedicated components, which increases their performance. NVIDIA claims to have "meticulously" designed the GPU architecture to be as energy efficient as possible given the silicon fab node and is leveraging the 16 nm FinFET node at TSMC for "Pascal."

The GTX 1080 features more CUDA cores than its predecessor – 2560 vs. 2048. It features even more TMUs (160 vs. 128) and, at 8 GB, double the memory. Memory technology sees a major update with NVIDIA's adoption of the GDDR5X memory standard. The memory is clocked at a staggering 10 GHz effective, which gives the GPU 320 GB/s of memory bandwidth over a 256-bit wide memory interface.

To learn more about the architecture and new GeForce features, check out our launch-day review of the GeForce GTX 1080.

In this review, we're taking a close look at the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1080 DC3, which comes with a completely new thermal design, but still features a dual-slot, triple-fan solution. ASUS has also added customizable RGB lighting to the cooler and backplate. Performance should be very high as the card comes with a large overclock to 1785 MHz base on the GPU. Memory clock remains at the NVIDIA default of 1251 MHz.

In our launch review of the GeForce GTX 1080, we expressed our fears that NVIDIA's decision to go with two MSRPs for the GeForce GTX 1080 could set a potentially dangerous precedent. The company launched the GTX 1080 at an SKU MSRP of $599; however, it set the MSRP of its own reference-design card at $699 and sold it as the "GTX 1080 Founders Edition." We saw the potential for NVIDIA's board partners to see $699 rather than $599 as the base-line pricing for the GTX 1080 to then accordingly price their custom-design boards.

ASUS has positioned their GTX 1080 STRIX OC at $679, which is slightly cheaper than NVIDIA's Founders Edition, and roughly in the middle of the price range we've so far seen in our reviews of custom GeForce GTX 1080 board designs.

GeForce GTX 1080 Market Segment Analysis
	GeForce GTX 970	Radeon R9 390X	GeForce GTX 980	Radeon R9 Fury	Radeon R9 Fury X	GeForce GTX 980 Ti	GeForce GTX Titan X	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 1080	ASUS GTX 1080 STRIX	Radeon R9 295X2
Shader Units	1664	2816	2048	3584	4096	2816	3072	1920	2560	2560	2x 2816
ROPs	56	64	64	64	64	96	96	64	64	64	2x 64
Graphics Processor	GM204	Hawaii	GM204	Fiji	Fiji	GM200	GM200	GP104	GP104	GP104	2x Hawaii
Transistors	5200M	6200M	5200M	8900M	8900M	8000M	8000M	7200M	7200M	7200M	2x 6200M
Memory Size	4 GB	8 GB	4 GB	4 GB	4 GB	6 GB	12 GB	8 GB	8 GB	8 GB	2x 4 GB
Memory Bus Width	256 bit	512 bit	256 bit	4096 bit	4096 bit	384 bit	384 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	2x 512 bit
Core Clock	1051 MHz+	1050 MHz	1126 MHz+	1000 MHz	1050 MHz	1000 MHz+	1000 MHz+	1506 MHz+	1607 MHz+	1785 MHz+	1018 MHz
Memory Clock	1750 MHz	1500 MHz	1750 MHz	500 MHz	500 MHz	1750 MHz	1750 MHz	2002 MHz	1251 MHz	1251 MHz	1250 MHz
Price	$285	$380	$400	$470	$620	$550	$1150	$379 / $449	$599 / $699	$679	$620

Packaging

You will receive:

Graphics card + driver CD
Documentation
PCIe power cable
ASUS ROG zip ties
World of Warships coupon

The Card

ASUS has once again completely changed the looks of their cooler, giving it a more plain look that relies on the RGB LEDs to provide color. On the back, you will find a sturdy metal backplate with RGB lighting on the ROG logo. Dimensions of the card are 30.0 cm x 13.0 cm.

The RGB colors can be adjusted via software. It's also possible to adjust the color according to the GPU's temperature.

Installation requires two slots in your system.

Display connectivity options include a DVI port, two HDMI ports, and two DisplayPorts. Note that one DIsplayPort has been switched to HDMI. ASUS says this is to cater to users who are looking to either run two VR headsets or a VR headset and a TV off their graphics card.

Unlike previous NVIDIA cards, the DVI port no longer includes the analog signal, so you'll have to use an active adapter. NVIDIA also updated DisplayPort to be 1.2 certified and 1.3/1.4 ready, which enables support for 4K at 120 Hz and 5K @ 60 Hz, or 8K @ 60 Hz with two cables.

The GPU also comes with an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 2.0b compatible, which supports HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies. The GPU's video-encoding unit has been updated to support HEVC at 10-bit and 12-bit.

NVIDIA made some changes to SLI. Two-way SLI is now the only officially supported configuration for gaming. Three-way or Quad SLI can no longer be enabled in games; however, both do work in a few benchmarks. Also, for 4K at 60 Hz and above, NVIDIA recommends a new high-bandwidth SLI bridge called "SLI HB," which occupies both SLI fingers. The old bridges will work fine at lower resolutions.