Conclusion
Conclusion
Gigabyte did an amazing job with the AORUS GTX1080 Ti Xtreme. Albeit it is a little subjective, the new AORUS theme really seems to work for me. The cooling is excellent as it offers you to game at give or take 70 Degrees C with that MASSIVE graphics processor under the hood. And equally important, it does that whilst remaining totally silent. And then hey, you need to factor in it is doing all that at an extensive factory tweak. All this is the result of a proper cooling system, a copper base plate covering the front-side tied towards a WindForce cooler with three 100mm spinners. Three fans is more airflow thus they can keep fan RPM lower, and that reduces noise levels. On the backside we have the backplate and that nice copper block. To top things off you get massive display connectivity (seven connectors!), a very nice RGB LED system, subtle looks and sure (after registration) 4 years warranty. Like the price or not, the GeForce 1080 Ti series delivers a crazy amount of raw unadulterated game performance. The MSRP of 699 USD is for the the Founders Edition. Gigabyte however is offering a real premium product here, and as such it will be priced like that as we spotted this SKU in the EU at € 829,- however with a lower price in US with pricing roughly inbetween the 750~800 USD price bracket. We agree, it is an incredible amount of money to play games, but once you have one of these puppies in your PC, you'll forget about that pain you had to cough up instantly - as this product series simply delivers. In the Founders Edition review I stated that the cooler is not enough for the beast inside. But for this factory tweaked and cooled version, it just isn't an issue. Overall you are looking at an up-to 7% on average extra in performance. And that means the product as tested today passes Titan X performance levels.
Aesthetics
The AORUS GTX1080 Ti Xtreme is a great looking card. It has that nice dark appeal to it from PCB to both sides, the LED inclusion has been done subtle and can be configured in any manner you prefer, the choice is yours. We do remain skeptical about back-plates, they potentially can trap heat and thus warm up the PCB. But the flip-side is that they do look better and can protect your PCB and components from damage and well, it can look nice as they can have a certain aesthetic appeal. Combined with that LED logo and copper block admittedly I have to admit, this is looking very tasteful and that cooper block actually serves good purpuse. So in the end on looks you certainly get that premium feel of detail aesthetics and quality. All that combined with a nicely design 12+2 phase PCB again in matte black, well what's not to like eh?
Cooling & Noise Levels
The reference design (founder editions) of the GTX 1080 Ti are set at an offset threshold of 80 degrees C and quite easily hit 84 Degrees C under load/stress. As such the reference cards, once that GPU gets warmer, will clock down on voltage and that dynamic turbo clock to try and keep the card at that temperature threshold. That throttling and it part of the design and fall within advertised turbo frequencies. The cool thing though is that the AORUS GTX1080 Ti Xtreme runs at that 70 Degrees C marker, and with the temperature threshold set at 80 Degrees C it has no need to throttle. So once the fans kick in, you can expect to hover at the ~70 Degrees C marker, with seriously demanding games. Please do note that you will need proper ventilation inside your chassis to achieve that number as the card oozes out warm air at the top side and cooler vents. Overall though the cooling design shaves off over 10 Degrees C over reference. Noise wise, we can’t complain about the triple fan cooling design the slightest bit. Expect (very silent) sound pressure values in the 37~38 dBA range at max under load and warm circumstances. That's measured 75 CM away from the PC. This means you can barely hear the card while using it if you can hear it at all. Overall this is a very silent and solid cooling solution. We heard minor coil noises/whine at high FPS, you could never hear it inside a closed chassis.
Power Consumption
The GP102-350-A1 Pascal GPU is rated as having a 250 Watt TDP. This AORUS GTX1080 Ti Xtreme sits at roughly 280 Watts and a bit lower on less demanding games. Keep in mind that this is a peak maximum value under full stress. It is a good value, on par with even the founders editions, and this one is factory overclocked remember? At this performance level you are looking at 450~500 Watts for our PC in total, that is okay. We think a 600~650 Watt PSU would be sufficient and, if you go with 2-way SLI, an 800~900 Watt power supply is recommended. Remember, when purchasing a PSU aim to double up in Wattage as your PSU is most efficient when it is under 50% load. Here again keep in mind we measure peak power consumption, the average power consumption is a good notch lower depending on GPU utilization. Also, if you plan to overclock the CPU/memory and/or GPU with added voltage, please do purchase a power supply with enough reserve. People often underestimate it, but if you tweak all three aforementioned variables, you can easily add 200 Watts to your peak power consumption budget.
Gaming Performance
From 1080P to Ultra HD the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti shows some serious numbers. But here's a paradox - the more difficult things get - the better the product will perform. E.g. Ultra HD is its true domain. Much like fine wine that ages well, that means this GeForce GTX 1080 Ti will last you a long time with future more GPU intensive games. This much performance and 11 GB of GDDR5X graphics memory helps you out in Ultra HD, DSR, VR and hefty complex anti-aliasing modes. That and of course the latest gaming titles. I consider this to be a very viable single GPU solution that allows you to game properly in Ultra HD with some very nice eye candy enabled with a single GPU. Drivers wise we can't complain at all, we did not stumble into any issues. Performance wise, really there's not one game that won't run seriously well at the very best image quality settings. Gaming you must do with a nice Ultra HD monitor of course, or at least a 2560x1440 screen. Now, we can discuss the advantages of that 11 GB frame-buffer, but hey, you can draw your own conclusions there as performance isn' t limited. And with 11 GB of it, you won't run out of graphics memory for the years to come, right? So in that respect the card is rather future proof.
Overclocking
This card will not overclock much higher for the simple reason that Gigabyte pretty much went all the way for you, they defined a factory tweak and applied it. It is roughly your maximum with maybe ~40 MHz room left on that GPU base clock frequency. As such at default this card hovers in that familiar 2000~2050 MHz range. So there is no real need to overclock perse as hey, this tweak is covered by your 4 year warranty as well. If you do want to tweak, you'll get a bit more out of the base clock and roughly 510 (x2 double data-rate) MHz extra on the memory. You can also allow the board power limiter to go up towards 150%, this however will increase power consumption whereas the GPU will not yield an extra 50% performance :) We recommend your max powerlimiter at 130%, roughly 330 Watts. Totally you call to make of course, but it is nice from Gigabyte to see that allowance.
Concluding
There isn't a single thing I do not like about the AORUS GTX1080 Ti Xtreme. Proper cooling, great looks, subtle LED's, nice tweaked performance, it is silent and runs nice temperatures as well. Well okay, the one thing is the price level of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cards of course, but design, aesthetics and features wise Gigabyte has hit the bull-eye. You'll get a spot on designed PCB with 12+2 power phases and proper component selection. The icing on top of the cake however is the cooling design, it is silent and runs that large GPU cool. Your stress gaming temperature will sit at just under a 70 Degrees C threshold, which is pretty good considering what GPU lies under the hood. In my previous 1080 Ti review I have not recommended cards like these for 1080p gaming. I am revising that claim a bit as there are people that want 144 FPS on their 144 Hz monitor of course. Next to that 1080p rendering with DSR enabled also can have it's benefits, and this card would be perfect for that. Broadly speaking though, at 2560x1440 the card really kicks in and at this resolution the 1080 Ti actually makes a lot of sense as it has heaps of power and memory hence. It is going to last you a long time. Really, the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is that Wolf Titan X in disguise. Nvidia had to do something to it and decided to ditch 1GB of memory, bringing that VRAM number to a weird 11GB. This means slightly fewer ROPs and a rather unusual 352-bit memory bus as well. But then they do use faster DDR5X memory and slightly faster than Titan X clock frequencies. So the performance drop is immediately annihilated and in fact the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is as fast or sometimes even faster compared to the Titan X (Pascal). You've seen the numbers, for Ultra HD gamers and even 2560x1440 gamers this product works out well, really well. Overall we are impressed by the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, very much so. Compared to the founders edition from Nvidia this product has improved on performance with roughly a 7% average, it has low noise levels and proper cooling levels. A handy side-effect of remaining below the temperature target of 80 degrees C is that the card will not throttle down either. Sure, the price is obviously the biggest conundrum with the custom premium editions GeForce 1080 Ti cards, this baby sits at that harsh € 829,- / USD domain. But if you can afford it, we would definitely recommend it. The AORUS GTX1080 Ti Xtreme edition as tested here has green lights in every aspect. It is an impressive product.
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