Corsair’s second graphics card offering, the Hydro GFX GTX 1080, built in collaboration with MSI, is available now, but you won’t find it in retail locations.
In early 2016 we took a long, hard look at Corsair’s first ever graphics card release, the Hydro GFX GTX 980 Ti. The card was built as a collaboration between Corsair and MSI. The two companies combined their respective product lines to build a closed loop-cooled, top-tier graphics card. At the time of our evaluation, we were under the impression that the Hydro GFX line would be a one-off product, so we were hesitant to give the Hydro GFX GTX 980 Ti an award, but its performance was certainly worthy of one.
Corsair and MSI must have been satisfied with the sales numbers of the first Hydro GFX card, because the GPU line has made a return. Corsair was showing off the Hydro GFX GTX 1080 at Computex in June, but the company wasn’t talking specifics at that time. We had no idea what the clock speeds would end up being, and Corsair didn’t reveal a planned release date nor the suggested price. Corsair decided not to slowly trickle out information about the card. Instead, the company stayed quiet about the specifications until today, the same day the card has been released into the wild.
The Corsair Hydro GFX GTX 1080 comes equipped with a Corsair Hydro Series H55 closed loop cooler, which features a 120mm radiator and a pre-installed LED fan. Corsair said that its Hydro Series cooler keeps the GPU up to 50% cooler than the Founder’s Edition vapor chamber cooler does.
With all this extra cooling capacity, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to release the card with reference clock speeds. Nvidia’s Founder’s Edition GTX 1080 comes from the factory with a base core clock speed of 1,607 MHz and boost clock rated for 1,733M Hz. The Hydro GFX GTX 1080 matches the clock speeds of MSI’s Seahawk X (which is the same as this card) and the Seahawk EK X, which feature the same hardware with an EK Water Blocks full-cover water block.
The card features three different modes: Silent Mode, which sets the clock speed to Nvidia’s baseline; Gaming Mode, which raises the boost clock by nearly 100 MHz, up to 1,822 MHz; and OC Mode, which cranks another 25 MHz out of the boost clock. Given the way Pascal handles its boost clock, we expect the real world numbers will be significantly higher, though.
Corsair’s Hydro GFX GTX 1080 is available now for $749, but it won’t be sold through the usual distribution channels. Corsair will be selling the card through its own webstore only.
| GPU: | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 |
|---|---|
| CUDA Cores: | 2,560 |
| Interface: | PCI Express 3.0 x16 |
| Boost / Base Core Clock: | 1,847 MHz / 1,708 MHz (OC Mode) |
| Boost / Base Core Clock: | 1,822 MHz / 1,683 MHz (Gaming Mode) |
| Boost / Base Core Clock: | 1,733 MHz / 1,607 MHz (Silent Mode) |
| Memory Clock: | 10,108 MHz (OC Mode) |
| Memory Clock: | 10,010 MHZ (Gaming Mode) |
| Memory Clock: | 10,010 MHz (Silent Mode) |
| Memory Size: | 8,192MB |
| Memory Type: | 8GB GDDR5X |
| Memory Bus: | 256-bit |
| Outputs: | 1x HDMI (Version 2.0), 1x HDMI (Version 2.0), 1x DL-DVI-D |
| Power Connector: | 8-pin x 1 |
| Power Consumption: | 180W |
| Power Supply Requirements: | 500W or greater |
| Card Dimension / Weight: | 270 x 111 x 40 mm / 1,249 g |
| Cooler Dimension / Weight: | 151 x 118 x 52 mm/ 1,286 g |
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