The Gigabyte Aorus GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Gaming is the third custom design GTX 1080 Ti we are reviewing. It comes with a large factory overclock. Out of the box, the card is 7% faster than the reference "Founders Edition" card when averaged over our test suite at 4K resolution. At these speeds, the card is quicker than the much more expensive Titan X and a whopping 30% faster than the GTX 1080, which just a few weeks ago was the card every enthusiast wanted. AMD's fastest, the R9 Fury X, is only able to deliver half the performance. This makes the GTX 1080 Ti a great option for 4K gaming as it is able to achieve 60 FPS at the highest settings in most of our titles. Unlike most other board partners, Gigabyte did overclock the memory chips on their card too, by a little bit, for some extra performance.

Gigabyte's thermal solution is a large triple-slot design, which takes up all the space the extra slot provides. This makes running SLI difficult because there is almost no space for the top card to suck in fresh air. Given that SLI is becoming less and less popular, I don't think this is a big issue. The card supports RGB lighting on both the card and the backplate, where the AORUS logo is lit up in various colors, which can be controlled or turned off, if you prefer that.

I'm happy to report that the cooler doesn't even come close to throttling, which we did notice on the GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition. In our testing with heavy gaming, the card reaches only 71°C, which is a long way from the 83°C thermal cutoff beyond which the card will reduce clock speeds. Gigabyte has also included the idle-fan-off feature we love so much since it provides a perfect noise-free experience during desktop work, Internet browsing, and even light gaming. Gaming noise of the GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Gaming is a lot better than what we've seen on the Founders Edition and matches the ASUS STRIX, with 33 dBA, which is slightly better than the MSI Gaming X (35 dBA). On the card's photos you'll see a chunk of copper sitting on the back of the board, behind the GPU. We tested this previously in our GTX 1080 non-Ti Xtreme Edition review, and it really doesn't provide any significant thermal benefits; it looks cool, though.

Gigabyte is including a vast array of monitor outputs: 1x DVI, 3x DisplayPort, and 3x HDMI. These outputs are more than the NVIDIA GPU can support, so Gigabyte lets you switch between DVI and two additional HDMI ports (one HDMI is always active). An automated switching mechanism handles everything, but requires a reboot; during startup, the connected monitors are checked and the appropriate BIOS is selected. This could also serve as remedy during a failed BIOS flash - connect a different monitor to make the card select the second BIOS, so you can at least use the system. Flashing back isn't possible, though, because I'm not aware of any way to switch the BIOS before initiating the flashing process while the system is running.

Power consumption of "Pascal" is amazing, and the GTX 1080 Ti is no exception here. The overclocking and board design changes by Gigabyte did reduce gaming power efficiency though, but only by a small amount, which is the best we've seen so far. Non-gaming power draw is quite high, but won't be an issue unless your system is running 24/7. What did surprise us is the low default power target, which causes the card to run slightly slower due to hitting the TDP limit in gaming, which limits the Boost Clock range. On the other hand the adjustment range is much bigger than on competing cards and goes all the way right up to the 375 W limit defined by the power input configuration, which also means upgrading the power plugs from 6+8 to 8+8 was a justified move and is not just for show like we've seen on other cards.

Overclocking potential is similar to other GTX 1080 Ti cards we have tested before and is mostly dictated by luck of the draw. Due to the high out-of-the-box clocks, this means that relative overclocking potential is less because all cards top out at roughly the same clock levels no matter whether their out-of-the-box clocks are high or low. Basically, Gigabyte is doing some overclocking for you and guarantees that the card is stable at these frequencies. I'm not even sure if manual additional overclocking is worth it on the GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Gaming; raising the power limit is a good idea, though.

The Gigabyte GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X is currently available for preorder at a price point of $750, which is $50 more than the NVIDIA Founders Edition pricing. Considering that's a price increase of 7% and the card gains 7% of extra performance out of the box thanks to its overclock, I'd say that's a reasonable premium, and you do get the better cooler and additional features on top. The price increase also looks more acceptable now that we've found out that the ASUS STRIX retails for $780. Compared to both the ASUS STRIX and MSI Gaming X, the Gigabyte card comes with higher clocks out of the box, uses less power, and runs as quiet (ASUS) or quieter (MSI). So far, it's the best GTX 1080 Ti I've reviewed.