Synthetic Results
First we have the AIDA64 Engineer GPU results and the EVGA Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition performs poorly in the copy result, only beating the previous generation of GTX cards.
AMD always excel here but with the inclusion of GDDR5X at 10Ghz effective speed, we were hoping for something a little more in line with the AMD offerings.
For the read and write results it’s more of the same, except this time it’s plumb last. However, let’s think about GDDR5X. It is in reality only about 6 months old, and this has to be one of the first implementations of the new graphics memory standard, so what’s the main difference? The main improvement of the GDDR5X standard compared to GDDR5 is its all-new 16n prefetch architecture.
This enables up to 512 bit (64 Bytes) per array read or write access instead of the GDDR5 technology 8n prefetch and can read or write-up to 256 bit (32 Bytes) of data per cycle. In other words, in certain situations it will allow a double data rate, or high-speed mode. As with every memory implementation, the memory bus still has something to do with it. The GTX 1080 has a 256-bit bus, while the GTX 980 Ti and the Titan X has a 384-bit memory bus. GDDR5X allows a higher performance with the narrower bus because the memory, if allowed, will do the hard work, mostly. What’s the chances that the new GTX 1080 Titan will have GDDR5X with a 384-bit memory bus.
The memory bus in a GDDR5X implementation should actually have the same workload as a GDDR5 implementation, at least at full load. Having a high-speed mode for memory will not ease the memory bus workload, in fact it will still be one of the limiting factors in GDDR5X mode.
The specification reads GDDR5X is the high-speed mode of GDDR5, which the memory will default to at lower demands. GDDR5X is really just the last throw of the dice for GDDR5 before HBM becomes the standard as the GDDR5 base specification is still in effect, rather than a brand new memory standard. This has a benefit of being easy to implement for GPU architects and demonstrating peak maturity of the GDDR5 family. Capacity and certain power efficiencies are also provided by GDDR5X. You will see graphics cards with substantial memory capacities in the next 12 months before HBM cuts it all back down to size.
So what does this mean for the EVGA Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition? This is the usual set of AIDA64 Engineer tests we run for all of the graphics or other component tests. We also ran a GPU-Z log alongside AIDA64 Engineer run to test the memory was being utilised, and it was. In fact it peaked at 10012Mhz with the memory controller utilisation at 96%, so AIDA was pushing the GPU bench in the normal way. We also updated AIDA64 Engineer to the latest beta and the results matched. However, we are not going to get hung up on this result as the defining view of the GTX 1080, just a little surprising considering that GDDR5X is a main product specification difference from the last generation of cards.
EVGA Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition Graphics Card Review
Package and Bundle - 8
Performance - 9.5
Price - 8.5
Consumer Experience - 9.5
8.9
Nvidia may have dropped the ball a little with the release drivers, and the subsequent drivers that game to fix the issues, but there's no doubt, the Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition is a stellar performance, and the VGA GTX 1080 Founders Edition exercises the GPU core perfectly.
