NVidia unveils its new Pascal card, the GTX 1080

Nvidia officially released the details of its new cards based on the Pascal architecture, with the GTX 1080 taking centre stage.

The headline news is that the card is around 20% more powerful than the flagship Titan X card but somehow Nvidia have managed to get the power consumption right down to 180W, which is around the GTX 980’s level. That’s an immense achievement and will greatly benefit those worried about whether they’d have to go buy another PSU or re-mortgage their house to pay the electricity bill!

Here’s the direct comparison chart to the GTX 980:

		GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 980
GPU Architecture		Pascal	Maxwell
Frame Buffer		8 GB GDDR5X	4 GB GDDR5
Memory Type- Speed		10 Gbps	7 Gbps
Boost Clock	Relative	1.4x	1x
	Actual	1733 MHz	1216 MHz

GTX 1080 a new king — This graph shows just how impressive the new tech is when compared to the current generation of GTX cards both in terms of speed and power consumption.

The GTX 1070, announced alongside the 1080, will slot in around the same benchmark as the Titan X but with a price point just above the current GTX 970. For those looking to make the upgrade to a new card, waiting for these cards to hit the market is a no brainer. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the 970 and 980 drop in price at the same time and plenty of second hand units hitting ebay as early adopters rush out to get the new cards, giving those interested in building a more budget friendly system plenty of options.

Expect to see many iterations from companies like MSI and ASUS as they get their hands on the hardware. Nvidia will be selling their own branded version alongside a special ‘founders’ card which will retail at a higher cost and with more headroom for overclocking.

The 1080 is due to arrive on May 27th with a retail price of $599 for the Nvidia branded model. The GTX 1070 is set to launch a little later, on June 10th, at a competitive $379.