When comparing ASUS RoG Strix GTX 1080 Aura RGB OC vs Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition, the Slant community recommends ASUS RoG Strix GTX 1080 Aura RGB OC for most people. In the question“What are the best GTX 1080 cards?” ASUS RoG Strix GTX 1080 Aura RGB OC is ranked 1st while Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition is ranked 2nd. The most important reason people chose ASUS RoG Strix GTX 1080 Aura RGB OC is:
GTX 1080 is the most powerful consumer-level GPU offered by Nvidia that's currently on the market. At 1440p with highest available settings it has an average fps of 116.5 for Dirt Rally, 101.9 for Battlefield 4 and 75.8 for GTA V. Compared to the previous high-end NVIDIA GPU, the GTX 980 Ti, that's an average performance increase of 20%. The RoG Strix offers even better performance due to 10% faster clock speed compared to a regular GTX 1080.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Just as fast as the 1080 Founders Edition
GTX 1080 is the most powerful consumer-level GPU offered by Nvidia that's currently on the market. At 1440p with highest available settings it has an average fps of 116.5 for Dirt Rally, 101.9 for Battlefield 4 and 75.8 for GTA V. Compared to the previous high-end NVIDIA GPU, the GTX 980 Ti, that's an average performance increase of 20%. The RoG Strix offers even better performance due to 10% faster clock speed compared to a regular GTX 1080.
Pro Stellar cooler
The cooler used on this Republic of Gamers card pays off. Under full load, the GTX 1080 chip itself doesn't get hotter than 63 degrees Celsius - which is amazingly low. For comparison - a reference GTX 1080 will generate a load temperature of around 80° C. A lower temperature ensures a longer lifespan and less throttling, where the graphics card slows itself down to stay cool.
Pro Extremely silent operation
In an idle, normal situation the triple fan setup of the Asus Strix 1080 won't even spin at all and are thus completely inaudible. In gaming situations, the unique cooler works very well: measured from a distance of 1 meter, only 33.3 dBA are produced. That's less than the noise a refrigerator produces. The card doesn't suffer from irritating sounds such as coil whine.
Pro Cheaper than the GTX 1080 Founders Edition
Less expensive, but the GPU is the same and thus offers the same performance.
Pro Well optimized
NVIDIA properly optimized the GTX 1080 for DirectX. This means that games supporting DirectX 11 will see a slight performance boost, but more-so for the upcoming games using DirectX 12.
Pro Very power efficient
While performance is higher than its competitors, the GTX 1080 FE actually uses less power. The maximum amount of power consumption this GPU requires is around 185 watts, which is an improvement of over 35% compared to NVIDIA's previous generation high-end graphical card, the GTX 980 Ti. This also plays a positive role when choosing a power supply, or determining if you need to upgrade your existing PSU.
Pro Good value for the money
The GameRock Premium Edition is priced at $629.99. For that price it offers pretty good performance. It achieved a 3DMark Firestrike score of 20,014 and averages at 127-133 FPS with the latest games such as Fallout 4 and Hitman at Full HD resolution.
Pro Usually very quiet
When the fans are at their minimum, which is when the card is at about 60 degrees C, the noise level is at 33dBA, virtually inaudible unless you put your head next to the case. Under heavy load when gaming, the fans will generate noise at about 38dBA, which is a barely audible hum.
Pro Decent cooling
The large size and the twin 95mm fans it's equipped with help a lot with keeping the card cooled. The fans will also switch off at low load which helps with the noise levels as well. The I/O plate has a honeycomb plate to help with the ventilation which again, greatly contributes to the overall cooling performance of the card.
Benchmark-wise, it achieves 39 degrees C while idle which is a pretty standard temperature for 1080 cards. Under heavy load however, it reaches up to 73 degrees C. Still lower than the 80 degrees C set by the reference card, but a tad bit higher than what was achieved by some other GTX 1080 cards.
Pro LED lighting
The case lighting can be changed to any color you want, so you can match it to your fan lighting, for example.
Pro Comes packaged with a G-Panel SKU
The GameRock comes with a G-Panel equipped with a 3.12" LCD display. You can connect it with the supplied USB 3.0 header to the motherboard and it will display information related to the graphics card such as: fan speed, temperature, and memory usage.
Cons
Con No native support for 3- and 4-way SLI
SLI - short for Scalable Link Interface - is NVIDIA's technology of combining the power of two or more identical GPU's in order to reach a better performance. In other words, you can use multiple GTX 1080 videocards to further increase performance. Although the GTX 1080 supports 2-way SLI without a problem, NVIDIA does not offer support for 3- and 4-way SLI. The included SLI-bridge which serves as a connector between the two cards, is only compatible in a 2-way configuration. 3-way and 4-way SLI are possible, but aren't supported. You'll have to use an older SLI-bridge found on older GeForce models and you'll need to generate an 'Enthusiast Key' on NVIDIA's website. However, NVIDIA does not guarantee a 3- or 4-way configuration will provide any noticeable benefits.
Con Bulky
The Republic of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 is quite bulky due to the triple fan combination and isn't recommended for use in smaller cases.
Con Brand new hardware, risk involved in early adoption
It is unknown if there are inherent issues with this GPU (such as quality control, motherboard compatibility issues, driver issues, OS issues, etc) as it was only recently announced and has not undergone large-scale testing in the consumer market.
Con Annoying LED power connector
There's a 4-pin power connector which feeds the LEDs in the middle-top of the card that sticks like a sore thumb and that's pretty annoying.
Con Can be a bit large for some
The Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock is 285mm long and 133 tall and weighs 1.2kg. It can be quite large for some builds, especially those that use a dual-GPU implementation since a single 1080 GameRock occupies two and a half expansion slots.
Con Not readily available for US
The easiest way to get the card to the US would be to order it from Europe.
Con Unpleasant color scheme
The color scheme for the GameRock 1080 consists of: black, grey, and blue. This is rather unorthodox for graphics cards and may be a bit hard to find other parts that have matching colors if you are going for a transparent case.