When comparing GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming Premium Pack vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080, the Slant community recommends NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 for most people. In the question“What are the best GTX 1080 cards?” NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 is ranked 5th while GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming Premium Pack is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 is:
In benchmarks, the GTX 1080 FE (Founder's Edition) is a hair slower than *two* GTX 980 units in SLI configuration (the difference is 2% in 3DMark 11). In gaming tests, the GTX 1080 FE achieved 61fps average in Need For Speed 2016 on high settings at 4K resolution. For comparison, the AMD Radeon R9 Fury scored 40fps (34% lower), and the GTX 980 scored 34fps (44% lower than the GTX 1080 FE). The only slowdowns you will encounter in maxed out 4K graphics is during extremely demanding scenes. The GTX 1080 FE also supports GPU Boost 3.0 which lets it ramp up performance even higher as long as the temperature doesn't rise too much.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Very quiet operation
The extensive cooling solution of the Xtreme Gaming GTX 1080 results in a very quiet operation. In idle situations, the cooling fans don't spin up which means the graphics card doesn't produce more noise than any other component in your system. Under full load, a sound production of 38 dBA was measured, which is considered to be very quiet by graphics card standards. For comparison: The reference Founders Edition of the GTX 1080 produces 49.4 decibels (A) under load. Decibels use a logarithmic scale, which means the Xtreme Gaming card is effectively two times as quiet as a reference GTX 1080.
Pro Adjustable RGB lightning looks great
The exterior of the Gigabyte GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming features a lot of RGB lights and you can adjust the color of these lights via Gigabyte's included software package. This allows you to customize the look of the graphics card, which can be useful if your setup is built with a specific color scheme in mind.
Pro Very long 4 year warranty
Gigabyte is offering an extended Xtreme Care warranty period of 4 years, which is a major improvement compared to the regular 1-year warranty on graphics card. In the event of a failure within this period, Gigabyte will repair the card or send you a replacement model. Online registration is required.
Pro Comes with a frontpanel for easier use of virtual reality headsets
The GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming cards are especially suitable for virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive, which require two HDMI-ports. Included in the packaging is a 5.25" extension bay, with two USB 3.0 ports and a set of HDMI inputs. With this frontpanel, users are no longer required to route their VR headset through the back of the system. The graphics card itself features two HDMI-ports on the opposite site of the usual ports, which allows a quick pass-through to this frontpanel. When using these two specific HDMI ports, two of the three DisplayPort inputs are disabled.
Pro Excellent cooling temperatures
The GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming reaches a maximum temperature of 66 degrees Celsius under load with the increased clock and memory speeds. This is a major improvement over the Founders Edition's 82° C and an impressive feat for an air cooler. This not only extends the longevity of the card, but also prevents throttling from happening. Throttling can occur when temperatures reach around 80° C or higher. This is when the graphics card will slow itself down (reduce clock speed) in order to stay cool, effectively sacrificing performance. With the default clock speeds, this should never occur with the Xtreme Gaming card.
Pro Extra performance over a reference GTX 1080
The higher clock and memory speeds of GIGABYTE's Xtreme Gaming edition of the GTX 1080 results in better performance. In Battlefield 4 using 1440p resolution and maximum settings, an average framerate of 118 was achieved. For comparison, a GTX 1080 Founders Edition only managed to achieve 110 fps, an almost 7% difference. Similar results can be seen in Far Cry Primal, again with 1440p resolution and maximum settings. The Xtreme Gaming card manages to get 84 frames per second on average, compared to the Founders Edition's 78 FPS. In DOOM, the difference is even more noticeable. With maximum settings and 1440p resolution, an average FPS of 140 was achieved for the Xtreme Gaming card - a 15 FPS improvement over the reference card. When tested in 4K, the Xtreme Gaming managed to achieve 72 average FPS compared to the Founders Edition's 62 frames per second, a difference of almost 14%.
Pro Epic 4K performance
In benchmarks, the GTX 1080 FE (Founder's Edition) is a hair slower than two GTX 980 units in SLI configuration (the difference is 2% in 3DMark 11).
In gaming tests, the GTX 1080 FE achieved 61fps average in Need For Speed 2016 on high settings at 4K resolution. For comparison, the AMD Radeon R9 Fury scored 40fps (34% lower), and the GTX 980 scored 34fps (44% lower than the GTX 1080 FE).
The only slowdowns you will encounter in maxed out 4K graphics is during extremely demanding scenes.
The GTX 1080 FE also supports GPU Boost 3.0 which lets it ramp up performance even higher as long as the temperature doesn't rise too much.
Pro Well optimized
NVIDIA properly optimized the GTX 1080 FE for DirectX. This means that games supporting DirectX 11 will see a slight performance boost, but more-so for the upcoming games using DirectX12.
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 graphics 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.
Cons
Con Requires additional 8-pin power connector
The GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming requires the use of two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, compared to only one 8-pin connector for a reference GTX 1080. Although this means there is more headroom for large overclocks thanks to the extra connector, the card doesn't require this amount of power at all. An extra 6-pin power connector which adds 75W instead of the 8-pin's 150W, would be a more logical choice. This can be an issue for users with limited available connections on the power supply.
Con Not very good looking
Con Slight coil whine can be heard
When using the card in an open environment, a slight but noticeable coil whine noise can be heard. Coil whine is an annoying, undesireable high-pitched sound.
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 video cards 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 Disappointing performance improvements when using Vulkan
Vulkan is a graphical API that allows developers to communicate better with the GPU, which in theory should result in performance improvements compared to the more standard DirectX 12 or OpenGL API's. The GTX 1080 doesn't perform particularly better in Vulkan however, and the difference with the standard OpenGL is minimal at higher resolutions.
Doom is one of the first (and only) titles with support for Vulkan and serves as a good benchmark for OpenGL vs Vulkan performance. In 1080p Full HD resolution and Ultra settings, the GTX 1080 is able to reach an average framerate of 140 FPS in OpenGL. Vulkan improves the frame rate to 166 FPS, a fifteen percent increase. Starting from 1440p resolutions however, performance improvements using Vulkan are very minimal and not noticeable during gameplay. 1080 does pretty well at 109 FPS in 1440p, while Vulkan only marginally improves this result with 145 FPS, a 5% increase. For comparison: AMD's RX 480 card does perform significantly better with Vulkan and higher frame rates, with a performance boost of 29.3%. Similar results are seen when testing in 4K. In this case, the GTX 1080 using Vulkan actually performs worse than the standard OpenGL, with 59 FPS and 60 FPS respectively. AMD's RX 480 is better optimized, as it's able to achieve a performance increase of 24.7% in this scenario.
In short, Vulkan performance seems particularly useful when gaming in Full HD, but it doesn't provide much performance benefits otherwise. It would appear that NVIDIA's Pascal architecture isn't optimized for high-resolution Vulkan gaming.