When comparing Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition vs Gainward GeForce GTX 1080 Phoenix GLH, the Slant community recommends Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition for most people. In the question“What are the best GTX 1080 cards?” Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition is ranked 2nd while Gainward GeForce GTX 1080 Phoenix GLH is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition is:
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.
Specs
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Pros
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.
Pro Excellent cooling
Under the massive fans there are two large heatsinks which in total amount to 120mm by 185mm at 30mm thick worth of heatsink. There are also three 8mm and two 6mm copper heatpipes used to improve efficiency.
The great amount of air is pushed over the heatsink by two 100mm fans.
Clearly, the massive size of this card has been put to good use and it's not designed to be large for the sake of being large. It offers excellent cooling and rarely exceeds 70 degrees C even under extreme strain.
Pro Virtually silent
Other than managing to keep the card cool under extreme stress, the fans are virtually silent. At 1050RPM there's no noise to speak of, and ranking them to 1500RPM will generate a barely audible hum.
Pro Efficient power draw
As far as power consumption goes, the 1080 phoenix GLH is one of the most efficient 1080 cards out there. It even performs better than some cards which are clocked lower than the GLH.
Cons
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.
Con The lighting only supports red, green or blue
The logo on the back of the card has lighting which supports red, green or blue. That is, not the full RGB color spectrum, but only those three individual colors.
Con Weird color scheme
The red, black and gold color scheme is not for everyone. If it had been just red and black it would have been much better and much easier to find a suitable motherboard, case and everything else to fit that color scheme. While not a deal breaker for most people who are only interested in performance, it can be a bit annoying for people who care about how their build looks.