The Card

Zotac's card looks extremely compact considering the GTX 1080 powerhouse that it is. The main cooler is mostly made out of metal, which gives it that high quality look and feel. On the back, you will find a metal backplate. Dimensions of the card are 21.0 cm x 12.5 cm.


Installation requires two slots in your system.


Display connectivity options include a DVI and HDMI port, each, and three DisplayPorts.

Unlike previous-generation 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 @ 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.


With Pascal, NVIDIA made some changes to how SLI works. In a nutshell, for 4K at 60 Hz and above, NVIDIA recommends new high-bandwidth SLI bridges it dubbed "SLI HB." These bridges occupy both SLI fingers. Traditional triple- and quad-SLI setups are gone as well. Only certain benchmarks can run more than the dual-SLI setup to which all games are limited.


When installed inside the case, there is no visible sagging.


Pictured above are the front and back, showing the disassembled board. High-res versions are also available (front, back).