Gigabyte Aorus GTX 1080 11Gbps Graphics Card Review

A Closer Look

Straight away, the first thing you’ll notice about this graphics card is that it is freaking massive. With 3 x 100 mm fans, the size of the card is not going to waste. Of course, larger fans can move more air and even do so at lower RPM, so you get the best of cooling and acoustic performance. The card does have a zero RPM mode too, so in low-load, it’s going to be completely silent.

The extra thick shroud looks awesome, with an “X” shape on the top that’s fitted with RGB LED lighting strips for extra customisation. However, you’ll also find RGB LED lighting in the Aorus logo on the side of the card too.

Lurking below that shroud and the fans, you’ll find two huge heat sinks and thick copper heat pipes. Overall, these are going to help move a lot of heat from the GPU, but also provide enough passive cooling to maintain temperatures when the fans are stopped.

Connectivity is looking good on the Aorus card too. Around the back, you’ll find a DVI connector, an HDMI connector, and three DisplayPort connectors. Hooking up multiple displays, VR headsets and more is not going to be a problem.

If you have a HDMI pass-through on your chassis, you can use one of the two display ports on the other side of the card. This means you won’t have to trail your VR headset display cable from the back of your system; a very welcome feature for VR users!

Finally, we have a full-size metal backplate, with an exposed copper plate around the GPU to give the maximum cooling performance. Of course, this card is big and heavy, so the backplate will also provide added durability to prevent the card from drooping, while also adding to the aesthetics.