Which of these two Gtx 1080's is better?

DatDonkey · Jul 6, 2016

Hi I was wondering which one of these two Gtx 1080's is better. They are the Geforce Gtx 1080 aero oc , or the GeForce Gtx 1080 founders edition? Thanks.

madmatt30 · Jul 6, 2016

Virtually the same, the aero has a tiny clock increase.

Buy the cheaper one

Eximo · Jul 6, 2016

Well the founder's edition is the stock reference card with a blower style cooler on it. It is more expensive then cards that are identical except for having better cooling generally. The 1080 Aero OC has a more traditional plastic blower style cooler, while it has higher clock rates than the founder's edition, it probably will throttle more under load.

You should look at the $620 - $650 range of 1080, these will be reference designs with superior cooling.

ubercake · Jul 6, 2016

My FE has a boost clock of 1886MHz with no OC, but there's no guarantee this is repeatable. Aero OC hits 1771 which is a little higher than spec (1733MHz) and has a factory overclock with a warranty. I like my FE since it does go to 1886. That's even higher than the EVGA FTW card!

JackNaylorPE · Jul 6, 2016

1. The Founder's Edition thermaly throttles .. current generation reference cards, including the 480, should be avoided.

2. I have not yet seen any tests or tear downs on the Aero, so without any reliable information, any comment would be pure conjecture.

http://videocardz.com/60838/msi-geforce-gtx-1080-gaming-x-is-much-better-than-founders-edition

NVIDIA’s own reference design suffers from severe throttling just after few minutes. It probably wouldn’t be that bad if not the frequency spikes. While average clock is somewhere around officially stated boost clock, those spikes cause micro-stuttering, which negatively affects gaming experience.

Hardware.info:

Founders Edition suffers from a horrendous amount of throttling and it runs +- 150 MHz lower all the time.

Meanwhile, MSI GTX 1080 GAMING X generates almost a straight line for GPU frequency (~1910 MHz), with no spikes and rather constant sub-70 C temperature. This should mean that the gaming experience will be much better, and card should theoretically generate better results in most tests. Also according to H.I. this is also the best custom design they so far tested.

See the image below. The orange line is the FE card, the blue in the MSO Gaming X 1080. You want the card that stutters between 1670 and 1790 MHz because of thermal throttling ? Or ya want the card with the pancake flat 1910 ?

We don't quite know what the Aero is;.... My guess is that it is meant to compete with the EVGA SC; historically the SC has been a pure reference PCB with a nice cooler slapped on and my guess is the Aero is MSIs answer to the SC.

Again, never, ever buy a reference card. The idea that you can buy a reference card and overclock it to the levels of a reference card is pure nonsense.

Non-reference cards are built with better components (VRMs, chokes, etc), can handle more, power, more voltage and have better cooling ... not just with the cooler / GPU itself but also in how and what they use to cool VRMS, MOFSETs, etc. As often as not, your OC is limited by these components as much as he GPU itself.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080/31.html

Here's the techpowerup review of the FE.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080/31.html

During gaming, the card goes above 82°C, which results in lower clocks due to Boost 3.0;

So here we can see, the how ridiculous it is to try an overclock this card. Yes, you can get it to a higher OC... at idle. If ya look at the image, it's already thermally overclocking at stock settings ... thereby inhibiting the effectiveness of any OC ... doesn't matter if its at 1507 or 1632 , it's still going to thermally throttle.

Diddly · Jul 6, 2016

The only obvious difference is the overclock: 1632/1771 instead of 1607/1733. Both exhaust the hot air straight out of the case which is good, but the blower type coolers aren't as good as the dual or triple fan coolers.

ubercake · Jul 6, 2016

Funny. I do not have any problem with throttling. Framerates stay consistent. I can't find another review such as is found on videocardz.com nor have I heard of the site before.

Throttling will occur with any card meeting its temp threshold. I've been using cards with the blower-style cooler since the GTX 580 and have never had an issue.

JackNaylorPE · Jul 6, 2016

Techpowerup ... (links, images and quotes above)

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnl.hardware.info%2Freviews%2F6765%2F17%2Fmsi-geforce-gtx-1080-gaming-x-review-de-eerste-custom-gtx-1080-duurtest&edit-text=&act=url

nVidia has even announced a fix (more aggressive fan profile) if ya don't mind the noise. If there's no issue, why did nVidia admit there was and issued a fix ?

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/420553,gtx-1080-fan-issues-to-be-fixed-in-next-driver-update.aspx
https://www.techpowerup.com/223161/nvidia-vows-to-fix-gtx-1080-founders-edition-fan-bug-with-next-driver

I have not seen anything saying the fix has changed anything

And, finally, tho I think a guy who doesn't have the sense not to drill thru his MoBo isn't worth looking to advice, Jay covers the issue here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXUo1S55ZUM

ubercake · Jul 6, 2016

JackNaylorPE :

I see that. All I can go by is how mine is operating. GPU Tweak gives a log of core performance and other measurements. I do not have any dips in the graphs and my core clock is consistent when playing games. My core clock tops out at 1886MHz boost regularly. That's pretty awesome for no OC.

Eximo · Jul 6, 2016

I ran my single 980 SC with a reference cooler for several months. It did throttle, but not below its base clock. Admittedly I ran it with V-sync on with a 1920x1080 60hz monitor. So with a less then full load I would think most reference cards would be fine.

Now when they do benchmarks they are testing all the cards to the same standard and pushing for maximum frames. If your card throttles, adjust in-game graphics settings until it doesn't for optimal smoothness.

JackNaylorPE · Jul 6, 2016

The specs for the FE cards are 1607 core / 1251 memory / 1734 Boost, tho of course Max instantaneous will go higher. What I notice in the reviews is that the FE usually gets a xxxx ~ yyyy MHz range whereas the non-reference cards usually just get a zzzz.

There are many variables ... ambient, GPU temps, load (not all games are capable of stressing a card)/. TPU was getting 1898 max boost on their FE sample.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080/30.html

Maximum overclock of our sample is +453 MHz to the GPU's base clock, which increases max Boost from 1898 MHz to 2114 MHz (11% overclock), and 1450 MHz on the memory (16% overclock).

These are very good results, but the GTX 1080 seems to be limited by the board's power limit and temperatures going above 83°C, which will both result in lower clocks due to NVIDIA Boost. Still, the real-life performance gains are there and are significant - take a look below.

What temps are you seeing and what game are ya using ?

ubercake · Jul 6, 2016

Playing Witcher 3 temps at 78C max. I do have the fan profile set a little steeper than default, but not too extreme. I've always set the fan curve steeper. This is the quietest rendition of the vapor chamber/blower combination I've experienced to date.

JackNaylorPE · Jul 6, 2016

I'm running at about 44C on the GPU / 54C on the VRM w/ radiator fans typically in 650 rpm range. If you are going to invest $160 in a water bock / backplate, it doesn't make sense to have potential OCs limited by the VRM or other PCB components.

We are really seeing a "sea-change" now (pun intended) with the MSI Seahawk EK X where you get a preinstalled EK full cover waterblock installed on their premium PCB (updated VRM, 10 phase design, updated chokes, etc) for about half that price premium ($80). Now all ya need is a Swiftech / EK all-in-one cooler and a Seahawk (few fittings, some tube and additional coolant) and temp issues are irrelevant. Only problem there is, box is so quiet that you will wind up hitting the power button every once and a while to turn it on ... when it's already on but ya can't tell cause you dont hear anything.

DatDonkey · Jul 6, 2016

ubercake :

what brand is yours? and do you have a link

JackNaylorPE · Jul 7, 2016

I just found some info on the Aero which you may find interesting

http://videocardz.com/60547/comparison-of-custom-geforce-gtx-1080-pcbs

MSI GTX 1080 GAMING X (10 phases)
MSI GAMING was one of the most popular GTX 980 models. Will GTX 1080 become just as popular? 10 VRM phases should be enough for most users looking into overclocking. Card is powered by 6-pin and 8-pin power connectors.

MSI GTX 1080 ARMOR (10 phases)
Surprise, surprise, ARMOR has the same PCB as GAMING, so if you’re looking for modified solution, but don’t need all the features GAMING TwinFrozr VI can offer, you should look at MSI ARMOR. Card is powered by 6-pin and 8-pin power connectors.

ubercake · Jul 7, 2016

Mine is an Asus.

Put all settings to default including fan and played Witcher 3 for two and a half hours. My card peaked at 1886MHz and when it hit the 83C mark the core clock was anywhere between the high 16xxMHz and 1886MHz. When viewing inventory or other menu-type screens, the core clock dropped because it needed far less processing power. I didn't have any times during the gaming session by which any stuttering was apparent and every time I checked the real-time performance graph for the core clock, it was pretty much a line with very little slope up or down.

DatDonkey · Jul 7, 2016

ubercake :

I have heard that the Asus Rog Strix is an insanely good card for the money and outperforms every one. So i think the=ats the one im going to go with.

ubercake · Jul 8, 2016

I ran Witcher 3 again yesterday for hours with the default fan profile and no OC. Temp peaked at 83C. Core clock at 1797MHz nearly the entire time although dropped really low (600s and lower) in the undemanding menu screens. GPU utilization was at 100% often if anyone's worried about PCIe 2.0 bottlenecking on X79 boards with a 3930K with no OC. Changed fan profile to more aggressive and numbers were the same although temp peaked at 78C and was definitely louder (too much fan noise for me while using 5.1 speaker setup). Still, I had no sudden performance drops at all.

Which of these two Gtx 1080's is better?

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