Gigabyte Aorus GTX 1080 11Gbps Graphics Card Review

Gigabyte Aorus GTX 1080 11Gbps Today we'll be taking a look at the latest graphics card from Gigabyte Aorus. Their new GeForce GTX 1080 comes equipped with the updated and faster 11 Gbps GDDR5X memory. This means it should run a bit faster than the standard GTX 1080. Hopefully, that faster memory will help ensure the GTX 1080 can deliver better performance in resolutions above 1920 x 1080. Of course, it does cost a little more than the standard model. However, the Aorus range of cards is currently some of the most affordable 10-series graphics cards on the market! As you can see, the card comes well equipped. There's a powerful WINDFORCE 3x cooler, which features 3 x 100mm fans for enhanced cooling performance and overclocking. This is backed up with a copper back plate, improved chokes and capacitors. Features Powered by GeForce® GTX 1080 Equipped with 11Gbps high-speed memory WINDFORCE Stack 3x 100mm fan cooling system Advanced Copper Back Plate Cooling AORUS VR Link provides the best VR experience RGB fusion – 16.8M customizable colour lighting Titan X-grade Chokes and Capacitors for Extreme Durability Intuitive AORUS Graphics Engine AORUS Care provides 4 years warranty (Online registration required) Core Clock Boost: 1936 MHz / Base: 1784 MHz in OC mode Boost: 1898 MHz / Base: 1759 MHz in Gaming mode Specifications With a boost clock of 1898 MHz in "Gaming Mode" and an impressive 1936 MHz in "OC Mode" the Aorus GTX 1080 is no slouch. There is just one thing to keep in mind, however, as at 142mm deep, this card will eat up three expansion slots in your system. 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. Testing & Methodology Please note that on 16/04/2017, the graphics cards featured in this review have are retested. The retesting was done to implement new changes in the way we review, the settings we use, the software required and more. We've also made some slight hardware changes to our test benches, and all games were updated, as has the OS, graphics drivers, etc. Of course, this would mean new results would not be a fair comparison to old. For your reference, the last review to feature our past results is found here. Here is the test system used for all graphics card reviews (pictured above) and game performance analysis: Graphics Card Test System Motherboard – Asus Rampage V Extreme X99 Processor – Intel Core i7 5960X at stock with Turbo enabled RAM – Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz Graphics Card – Varies per review CPU Cooler – Noctua NH-D15S Power Supply – Be Quiet Power Zone 1000W Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Open Air Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 64-bit Additional Hardware "Killawatt” style electricity usage meter wall plug Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter Games Throughout the testing procedure, we always use demanding presets which stress graphics cards to reasonable limits. However, in the interest of fairness, any technology which favours either AMD or NVIDIA is disabled. More specifically, this refers to PhysX, Hairworks and similar technologies. Additionally, we also disable all forms of AA, including FXAA, to gauge performance levels which aren't impacted by sophisticated AA. Theoretically, we could have employed FXAA because it only has a minor impact on the frame-rate, but many users strongly dislike the hazy image this causes. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, graphics card power usage set to optimised or balance, and the system power mode set to High Performance. Some benchmarks may feature more cards, this is due to some tests being older or newer than others, and being used in other game specific feature tests we have conducted, so you'll find all relevant cards included in each chart as we add or remove new and old tests. Selecting strenuous presets especially at higher resolutions can cause hitching and other performance problems on graphics cards with lower amounts of video memory. For example, Rise of the Tomb Raider's Very High textures requires 4GB of RAM to maintain a smooth frame-rate. In theory, we could run the benchmarks at the High setting, but this defeats the purpose of high-end graphics cards which are designed to cope with the absolute best graphics on the market. Furthermore, the notion of enthusiast cards sporting less than 4GB memory has become less of an issue. Of course, whenever we're tackling more affordable GPUs, the settings will be altered accordingly and detailed for clarity. Identical settings are used for all resolutions, 1080, 1440, 2160, and 1440 Ultrawide unless otherwise stated. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Graphics Settings For this game, we use the Very High preset, with some small changes to increase the Texture Filtering, turn off the AA, and all V-Sync settings. Preset: Custom Fullscreen: On Exclusive Fullscreen: Off DirextX 12: On VSync: Off Anti-aliasing: Off Texture Quality: Very High Texture Filtering: 16x Anisotropic Shadow Quality: Very High Sun Soft Shadows: High Depth of Field: Very High Level of Detail: Very High Dynamic Foliage: High Ambient Occlusion: On Specular Reflection Quality: Normal Vignette Blur: On Motion Blur: On Bloom: On Tesselations: On Screen Space Reflections: On Lens Flares: On Screen Effects: On Film Grain: On Rise of the Tomb Raider Graphics Settings Preset: Custom Fullscreen: On Exclusive Fullscreen: Off DirextX 12: On MSAA: Off VSync: Off Texture Quality: Very High Texture Filtering: 16x Anisotropic Shadow Quality: Very High Ambient Occlusion: Very High Contact Hardening Shadows: On Parallax Occlusion Mapping: High Depth of Field: Very High Level of Detail: Very High Volumetric Lighting: On Screenspace Reflections: On Temporal Anti-Aliasing: Disabled Motion Blur: On Sharpen: On Bloom: On Lens Flares: On Cloth Physics: On Subsurface Scattering: On Chromatic Aberration: On Tesselations: On Far Cry Primal Graphics Settings Graphics Quality: Custom HD Textures: On Textures: Very High Shadow: Ultra Post FX: High Geometry: Ultra Terrain: Very High Water: Very High Environment: High Anti-Aliasing: Off Volumetric Fog: Very High Motion Blur: On Ghost Recon: Wildlands Graphics Settings Preset: Custom Antialiasing: Off Ambient Occlusion: SSBC Draw Distance: Very High Level of Detail: Ultra Texture Quality: Ultra Anisotropic Filtering: 16 Shadow Quality: Ultra Terrain Quality: Ultra Vegetation Quality: Ultra Turf Effects: Off Motion Blur: On Iron Sights DOF: On High-Quality DOF: On Bloom: On God Raws: Enhanced Subsurface Scattering: On Lens Flare: On Long-Range Shadows: Ultra Software 3DMark Firestrike 3DMark Time Spy Unique Superposition Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Rise of the Tomb Raider Far Cry Primal Ghost Recon: Wildlands CPU-ID HWMonitor TechPowerUp GPU-Z Noise Everyone has a reasonable noise level preference when it comes to comes to components on a computer. Some can handle all fans at 100% load to keep temperatures down; some want an entirely silent computer. To accurately gauge the noise output of a graphics card, we position a Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter from one metre above our open air test bench and take an average reading at idle and load. Power Consumption With electricity becoming increasingly expensive across most parts of the world the need for computer components to become energy efficient has never been more relevant. Graphics cards are often the most power-hungry components of a desktop system so having a capable graphics card is crucial to keeping power bills under control. Power is tied to heat, so lower power consumption means a graphics card is likely to run slightly cooler and put out less heat into your system, meaning your other components will run cooler with improved longevity. AMD and NVIDIA have both made power consumption an integral part of the way graphics cards dynamically overclock, so the need for graphics card vendors to use efficient VRM and PCB designs is becoming essential to maximise performance. We take power readings during idle state with no background applications running. Then again at 25%, 50%, and 99% completion of the Unigine Superposition benchmark, using the average as the final published result. Temperatures The cooling solution which graphics card vendors choose to implement is one of the main differences that consumers have to contend with when selecting a graphics cards. Apart from their acoustic properties, the thermal properties of graphics card coolers are critical. Lower temperatures are always better, and with AMD and NVIDIA opting to use dynamic overclocking algorithms that take temperature into account, it is important that graphics card vendors use high-performance cooling solutions to maximise performance. The era of graphics cards reaching critical temperatures are now in the past, but the importance of low temperatures remains. Lower temperatures mean better stability, longer component longevity and lower fan speeds. We take temperature readings after 10 minutes of desktop idle with no background programs running, then take the recorded maximum delivered from Unigine Superposition after a 4K optimised run, confirming the numbers are accurate with HWMonitor. Ambient temperature is always kept +/- 1c from 21c. 3DMark Straight away we're seeing strong results for this card. It's pulling a little ahead of the Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming in all three Fire Strikes tests. Of course, it's also ahead in the Time Spy test, making it the fastest GTX 1080 we've seen to date in these benchmarks. Unigine Superposition Unigine is a very demanding and mordern benchmark. Of course, the new 11 Gbps edition card had no trouble with it, and again beat out the G1 Gaming card by a nice margin. Pushing up to 4K didn't slow it down either, and it gained an even bigger lead over the GTX 1080 G1 Gaming. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided While this is still one of the most demanding benchmarks you can run, the new card blazed a trail here too. It scored a tasty 86 FPS average. Unfortunately, the G1 did pull ahead here, which was surprising. The same was true at all four resolutions, just a little behind the G1 Gaming. It should be faster, it is faster, so we suspect a problem between an update since our last re-test of the G1 Gaming. Rise of the Tomb Raider Deus Ex may have thrown up some strange numbers, but Tomb Raider is putting the GTX 1080 11 Gbps card back on top form. At all four resolutions, we can see it's the fastest GTX 1080 card we've tested, although the Ti series cards obviously still hold the lead, it's great scores all around. The first GTX 1080 to break 60 FPS average even at 4K. Far Cry Primal Incredibly, this GPU scored the same as a GTX 1080 Ti at 1080p, which is something to be proud of. It also managed to compete very well at every other resolution, so no doubts that this is a robust gaming card. Neck and neck with the RX 580 here, both clocking 28 FPS, although the 1060 9 Gbps pulls ahead at 21:9. Ghost Recon: Wildlands Wildlands, where mighty GPUs come to weep. This game can be extremely demanding, especially with the ultra preset enabled. However, the GPU still put out over 60FPS at 1080p. However, at other resolutions, the card fell behind the G1 Gaming again, although it's still obviously one of the fastest cards in the world, so it's hardly disappointing. Acoustic, Thermal and Power Testing Acoustic Performance Thanks to the card featuring a zero RPM mode, it's completely silent for day to day use. However, even while gaming and running benchmarks, the fans are surprisingly quiet. It peaked at 42 dBa, which is thanks in no small part to those larger low RPM fans. Thermal Performance The massive cooler on this card isn't just for show. When it comes to keeping those temperatures in check, it's an absolute beast. The GPU core hit just 60c at load, and that makes it one of the coolest cards we've ever tested. Power Usage Nvidia has long held a lead for efficiency, and the same is true here. Even with high factory overclocks, this card uses just 316w of power. That's still a lot of power, but keep in mind that it's turning it into FPS pretty darn well at the same time. Overclocking This is already a heavily overclocked GPU, however, it does have a massive cooler. Pushing the fan profile up a bit to keep the temperatures in check allowed me to comfortably hit +100 Mhz on the GPU core. I was also able to get a whopping +225 MHz from the memory, which is amazing. By doing so, I took the Unigine score from 4413 to a blazing fast 4624. Final Thoughts Price Amazingly, this incredibly fast card is just £544.97 right now. That's still a lot of money, I'm not crazy. However, it's a pretty big lump cheaper than many of its rivals. Some rival 11 Gbps cards are still priced around £600, making this exceptional value for money. Overview This card is insanely good value for money. For those seeking their gaming thrills in the worlds of VR, High Frame Rate monitors, or Ultra HD resolutions, it's a no brainer. It's around £150-200 cheaper than the 1080 Ti, for the most part. It'll blast through any game you want to play and deliver blazing fast performance that's hard to ignore. How Has Gigabyte Kept The Cost So Low? That's a tricky one, I'm really not sure. This card packs all the big hitting features. It has a backplate, and copper hardware, with 3 x 100mm fans, so it's not a cheap bit of cooling. It has all the RGB thrills you would expect to find in modern gaming hardware too. Let's not forget, it has dual display connections on the other end for chassis pass through. That's a great feature for VR users. It's factory overclocked to a high degree, has 11 Gbps memory, the list goes on. Long story short, I don't know how it's so affordable, at least for a GTX 1080. The Aesthetics I think this card looks a little tacky, I love it, but it doesn't look particularly sleek. The big X on the top looks a bit out of place, but there's RGB lighting on the X which is pretty fun. Of course, I think that was intentional that it looks a bit "out there" and it's an extremely subjective aspect anyway. Build Quality A full-size backplate, a chunky cooler, powerful and quiet fans, and more go a long way to making this card robust. It looks great, and it feels it too. Some of the components, such as the LED lit X have some flex to them, but it's not like you'll be touching those daily, so it's not a big issue, at all. It is a thick card though, so be sure to measure your spacing if you're wanting to pair two of them together. Pros Incredible performance Excellent cooling capabilities Quiet Zero RPM fan mode Good overclocking RGB lighting Very competitive price Cons The card is quite thick, which could limit some users dual GPU configurations "If you're looking to upgrade your gaming system, the Aorus GTX 1080 11 Gbps is one of the fastest, quietest, and coolest GTX 1080's on the market today. Of course, it's also one of the most affordable!"