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NVIDIA announces new GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 graphics cards (Updated!)

By Kenny Yeo - on 8 May 2016, 6:06am

NVIDIA announces new GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 graphics cards (Updated!)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 

**Updated on 7th May 2016 1700hrs CDT to include details about the Founders Edition cards**

At NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference just a couple of weeks ago, the company showed off its Tesla P100 GPU, the very first GPU that’s based on the new Pascal architecture.

If you haven’t checked it out ,we suggest you hit the link above. It’s a real biggie, boasting a die size of 600mm2 , over 15 billion transistors, and a whopping 3584 CUDA cores. It also uses a second-generation HBM (high bandwidth memory) technology that gives it an eye-watering memory bandwidth of 720GB/s. If it isn’t clear to you by now, the Tesla P100 is one heck of a GPU. However, the Tesla P100 wasn’t designed for gaming. Instead, it’s NVIDIA’s super weapon for powering data centers and deep-learning supercomputers of the future.

Fortunately, NVIDIA hasn’t forgotten about gamers. After all, gaming is in the company’s roots. And at a special NVIDIA event today, they finally announced their first gaming GPUs to be based on the new Pascal architecture.

Meet the GeForce GTX 1080 and GeForce GTX 1070

NVIDIA's new graphics king is here. Meet the GeForce GTX 1080.

It's been teased, but now it's official. NVIDIA has officially announced its new flagship graphics card. Called the new GeForce GTX 1080, this graphics card will be the first in the world to feature a GPU manufactured using a new 16nm FinFET manufacturing process. 

Featuring 2560 CUDA cores, the GeForce GTX 1080 will also be the world's first GPU to make use of Micron's new super-fast GDDR5X memory - 8GB of GDDR5X memory to be exact. The end result of all this is simply superlatively performance. According to NVIDIA, the GeForce GTX 1080 will offer 9 teraflops of computer performance and will be significantly faster than two GeForce GTX 980 in SLI and even the fearseom GeForce GTX Titan X. And not only will the GeForce GTX 1080 be faster, it will also consume less energy while doing so.

The GeForce GTX 1080 running at 2.1GHz!

The GeForce GTX 1080 will also be super overclockable. In a demo that we saw, the GeForce GTX 1080 will running at an unbelievable 2.1GHz. Furthermore, it was air-cooled and was just 67 degrees Celsius warm!

The GeForce GTX 1070 will also be faster than the GeForce GTX Titan X.

Apart from the GeForce GTX 1080, NVIDIA also announced the GeForce GTX 1070. Details are scarce about this graphics card, but it seems like a pared down version of the GeForce GTX 1080. For example, instead of GDDR5X memory, the GeForce GTX 1070 will use more conventional GDDR5 memory. Despite this, NVIDIA says the GeForce GTX 1070 will offer 6.5 teraflops of compute performance, and will also be faster than the GeForce GTX Titan X.

So how does the GeForce GTX 1080 compare to the current crop of high-end NVIDIA graphics card? Here's a table to show you.

Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 NVIDIA GeForce Titan X NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti
GPU GP104 GM200 GM200
Process 16nm FinFET 28nm 28nm
Transistors 8 billion 8 billion 8 billion
CUDA cores  2560 3072 2816
GPU base clock speeds 1607MHz

1000MHz

1000MHz
GPU boost clock speeds 1733MHz  1075MHz 1075MHz
 Memory  8GB GDDR5 12GB GDDR5 6GB GDDR5 
 Memory clock speed 10000MHz 7010MHz 7010MHz 
Memory bus width  256-bit 384-bit 384-bit
Memory bandwidth  320GB/s 336.5 GB/s 336.5 GB/s
TDP  180W 250W 250W
Price US$599 US$999 US$649

The GeForce GTX 1080 will go on sale on May 27 for US$599 (S$814). For NVIDIA fans, there's also a special edition "Founders Edition" of the GeForce GTX 1080 that will go on for US$699 (S$950).

The GeForce GTX 1070 will go on sale later on June 10 for US$379 (S$515) and there's also a "Founders Edition" that will go for US$449 (S$678).

The Founders Edition cards will be constructed using premium materials including an all aluminum cooler shroud and vapor chamber cooling.

According to NVIDIA, the "Founders Edition" cards will sport NVIDIA's reference design. However, NVIDIA is keen to state that doesn't mean entry-level or basic. In fact, the Founders Edition cards have premium design and premium construction. The cooler shroud, for instance, is made entirely out of aluminum, and the card will employ vapor chamber cooling. The Founders Edition cards will also be available through the GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070's product cycle.

That said, it will be interesting to see what NVIDIA's partners come up with as their entry-level offerings are priced substantially lower than NVIDIA's Founders Edition cards.

All in all, the new cards from NVIDIA look like pretty good value considering their performance. And of course, it'll be intriguing to see what AMD's new Polaris GPUs can do.

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