GeForce GTX 1070 / 1080 Founders Edition Explained

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 05/09/2016 04:02 PM | source: | 68 comment(s)

There seems to be quite some confusion about the announcements Nvidia made by offering a "Founders edition" graphics card. Let's explain what exactly it is.

Actually at the press-event this weekend, we the press have been pretty skeptical about the SKU naming as it confuses people. So what is the founders edition ? It's really simple, the founders edition is simply the reference design, yet with Nvidia's premium cooler. That's it ... and that's all. However it is 100 USD more expensive as the AIB partners could offer it at. And therein is the confusion to be found. Nvidia miscommunicated the message somewhat as everybody expected a 'reference design' and then another SKU called the 'Founders edition'. What feels rather wrong is that they are asking a 100 USD price premium for what they call the 'Founders Edition'. The product is in fact your standard reference card. The reason behind this is that Nvidia feels the product just isn't a normal reference card anymore, their reference cards these days are premium quality products with an expensive niche cooler.

Here's where the confusion started, everybody assumed the Founders Edition would be a special edition card.

So, there's no special binning for this series and the clock-frequencies are the same as reference. All this this even confused yours truly at the announcement. So the Founders edition is a reference card. Nvidia however has applied it with their 'premium' vapor chamber cooler. Nvidia just makes the founders edition (reference), the other cards will be AIB/AIC products. The founder edition cards are not factory overclocked, are not binned and it is not a limited edition or anything.

NVIDIA simply feels a reference design is not a just name anymore, and feels it is offering a premium quality product - hence founders edition.

The Founders edition is a 100 bucks more expensive ? Yep, AIB cards from ASUS, Palit, Zotac, MSI and Gigabyte etc can sell their cards and designs a 100 bucks cheaper compared to the founders edition. So yes, the reference design card (=founders edition) could be more expensive opposed to the AIB cards.

In short:

The Reference design = The Founder's Edition.

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TDZGamer
Junior Member

Posts: 16
Joined: 2008-07-30

#5269670 Posted on: 05/09/2016 05:02 PM

This means that those who want to fit aftermarked coolers themselves (watercooling block for instance) can buy a card with a cheaper cooler.

Vapor chamber cooler is most likely quite a bit more expensive than the regular heatsink + fan(s) so it makes sense to charge extra for it.

jura11
Senior Member

Posts: 2641
Joined: 2015-03-20

#5269676 Posted on: 05/09/2016 05:17 PM

Founders Edition = vapor chamber is money well spent if you ask me

Really?

Those vapor chamber coolers on GTX are just sh1t nothing more,they're noisy above 45% and cooling on them is very poor,I wouldn't touch reference cards

I've went via two GTX Titan X

Hope this helps

Thanks Jura

sammarbella
Senior Member

Posts: 3929
Joined: 2014-12-09

#5269679 Posted on: 05/09/2016 05:23 PM

Lane
Senior Member

Posts: 6361
Joined: 2005-02-25

#5269683 Posted on: 05/09/2016 05:37 PM

This is a good news for ppl with WC loops: buy a 3rd party 1070/1080 card and put a full GPU EK block on top for a few more $$$ than buying a reference card.

Now we only need to know the 3rd party (custom PCBs?) models EK blocks will support.

Well if the AIB partner cards are at the same MSRP price.. Most AIB gpus in general offers higher clocked gpu's, special coolers ( Asus DCII, etc ), sometimes modified vrm and power connectors. In general they are not forcibly less priced than the reference gpu's ( who all use vaporchambers coolers since.. well since many generations.

So even if this MSRP exist, there will be plenty of luck that they add 20$ here and there for their higher clocked version.

isidore
Senior Member

Posts: 6276
Joined: 2006-02-01

#5269689 Posted on: 05/09/2016 05:59 PM

i can only say this: :funny:

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