ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 Graphics Card Review

Introduction ASUS' STRIX division has been a mark of quality since its formation and provides exceptional reliability. Not only that, the range is characterised by products featuring a stylish, premium design which consumers can rely on. In particular, STRIX graphics cards utilise impressive power circuitry and arrive with a hefty factory overclock. The GTX 1080 is already a resounding success and demand often outweighs current supply levels. There's a huge number of custom models available today vying for your hard earned cash and it can be difficult for users distinguish between each unit. Often, people select a graphics card based on a combination of factors including aesthetics, warranty length, cooling proficiency and the aforementioned factory overclocks. The ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 is one of the most exciting products to ever grace the graphics market and looks spectacular. By default, this edition ships with a 1759MHz base clock and 1898MHz boost. Also, the memory has a slight increase from 10,000MHz to 10,010MHz. Of course, there has been some controversy regarding profiles on press samples. Please note, the OC mode comes as standard for review purposes which runs at a base of 1784MHz and rated 1936MHz boost clock. This is to save time for reviewers and ensure they all use the same performance setting. Consumers can manually enable this using ASUS' GPU Tweak II software. Whenever a graphics card is provided, we will clearly outline the tested profile for your convenience. Given the hefty overclock and extreme cooling solution, I'm expecting this particular model to excel in gaming benchmarks. Specifications Packing and Accessories The graphics card's box is really striking and the bold infusion of colours looks fantastic. Additionally, the product snapshot isn't overawed by the STRIX branding and the final design is very impressive. On the rear section, there's a brief description of the GPU's DirectCU III cooling system, Aura lighting control and other interesting features. This is presented in an impeccable manner with attractive photos. In terms of accessories, the graphics card comes bundled with a user's guide, driver/software disk, World of Warship promotion, power adapter and two high-quality velcro straps. A Closer Look The ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 opts for a really sophisticated appearance and neutral colour scheme. Instead of adding various colours which cannot be changed directly onto the cooling shroud, ASUS decided to keep things simple and add customization through optional LED lighting. This broadens the product's appeal and means it should easily compliment a wide range of system builds. Additionally, the unusual angled lines contribute to a more distinctive visual design and helps the GPU to stand out from the crowd. ASUS' DirectCU III technology revolves around five large heatpipes which make direct contact with the graphics card. Furthermore, the enormous heatsink is able to dissipate heat extremely well in combination with the company's triple Wing-Blade fans. These fans feature angled blades to maximise airflow and reduce turbulence. Subsequently, the graphics card runs 30% cooler than the reference model and it's also a whopping three times quieter. As you might expect, the graphics card supports a 0dB idle fan mode. It's impossible to exaggerate how impressive the cooling hardware is and the level of engineering almost defies belief. From this angle, we can see the densely packed heatsink and understated yet gorgeous STRIX branding. In terms of dimensions, the card measures 11.73 " x 5.28 " x 1.57". To offer the best overclocking headroom, ASUS have deployed their 8+2 Phase Super Alloy Power II delivery. Not only that, this collection of premium components extends the product's lifespan and ensures the power is distributed in a more efficient manner. On another note, the power circuitry is 50% cooler than previous designs which should enhance reliability by a significant margin. This graphics card like all other ASUS products is constructed using an automated manufacturing process and flux-free production. It also removes human error and upholds the highest standard of quality control. If you want to reduce the graphics card's thermal output even further, it's possible to connect two four-pin PWM fans to internal headers. The theory behind this is graphics cards run fairly warm when gaming and create much heat than most processors running at modest voltages. This isn't the most efficient setup and you might feel attaching the case fan's to the GPU will be beneficial. Personally, I think the default cooling system is more than ample and didn't really see a huge difference when connecting two Noctua 3000RPM IndustrialPPC fans. The GPU contains a stunning, chic backplate which reduces unwanted drooping and looks fantastic. I'm particularly keen on the beautiful ROG logo which comes to life when the system is powered on. ASUS' Aura lighting system is absolutely brilliant and you can choose from a wide range of effects including breathing, strobing, colour cycle and it's possible to sync the colours with music. Also, the software allows you to change the GPU colours based on temperature variation. If you find the lighting too distracting, it's easy enough to disable the colours all together and enjoy a more understated design. Whatever colour you decide on, the end result is breathtaking and I'm in awe of the stark contrast between the illuminated sections and black cooling shroud. It's difficult to capture on camera how amazing the colours are and they really make any PC look spectacular. The ROG cut-out in the backplate is immense once you select your favourite colour. There's even a stylish Republic of Gamers logo which can be viewed through a side panel windowed. Connectivity-wise, the graphics card houses two HDMI 2.0b, two DisplayPort 1.4 and a single dual-link DVI-D port. Testing & Methodology Here is the test system we used for all graphics card reviews and game performance analysis: Hardware Motherboard - Gigabyte X99-Gaming G1 WiFi LGA 2011-3 Motherboard Processor - Intel Core i7 5820K at Stock 3.3GHz RAM - 16GB (4 X 4GB) Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400MHz CPU Cooler - Thermaltake Water 3.0 with Gelid GC-Extreme Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 11 1200W Main Storage Drive - Crucial M550 512GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Displays - AOC U2868PQU 4K Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit Additional Hardware "Killawatt” style electricity usage meter wall plug Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter Drivers The latest drivers are always used at the time of testing, but please note reviews undergo a scheduling process. This means a new driver could be released on the day of publication. However, this is unavoidable and disclosing the driver versions used is the most transparent way of informing the reader about current performance levels. Games Throughout the testing procedure, we always use demanding presets to stress graphics cards to their absolute 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 more. Additionally, we also disable all forms of AA to gauge performance levels which aren't impacted by complex 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. Apart from the details mentioned above, all settings remain at the maximum values. On another note, we previously used Grand Theft Auto V in the testing process and it's a popular title. However, there's been some strange anomalies in the minimum frame-rate which mean I'm not confident in the benchmark's accuracy. Since I've taken the helm as graphics card reviewer, I wanted to put fairness at the heart of each article and ensure there's a good balance between DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 games. This allows us to properly analyse each graphics card as focussing on sponsored titles from a particular vendor will always result in an inaccurate picture. Unfortunately, popular monitoring software like FRAPS cannot display the frame-rate in real time and poses a problem when observing performance numbers. Thankfully, it's still possible to use FRAPS's Min/Avg/Max function which we've found offers the most reliable monitoring compared to other methods. If you have any suggestions to aid the benchmarking process, please let us know so we can constantly improve the procedure. 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 really requires 6GB 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 6GB memory will become less of an issue in the future. Of course, whenever we're tackling more affordable GPUs, the settings will be altered accordingly. To reiterate, all settings are set to their maximum values apart from AA and vendor exclusive technologies. Sometimes, selecting the maximum preset doesn't combine all the best settings, so we double check these and manually confirm the highest graphical preset has been enabled. The only one important aspect to mention revolves around Exclusive FullScreen in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Judging by the thorough testing, the frame-rate is much better when using this particular mode. Software Ashes of the Singularity (DirectX 12) Doom Far Cry Primal Hitman (DirectX 12) Rise of the Tomb Raider 3DMark Unigine Valley Unigine Heaven CPU-ID HWMonitor TechPowerUp GPU-Z Luxmark Synthetic Benchmarks During our testing, we use a range of readily available synthetic benchmarking tools which are free to download from the respective websites. We do this so the readers can download and compared to our results. Download links are contained within the "Software" subheading. Noise Everyone has their own reasonable noise level when it comes to comes to components in a computer. Some can handle all fans at 100% load to keep temperatures down, some want a completely silent computer. To properly gauge the noise output of a graphics card, we position a Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter from two metres away and take an average reading. Power Consumption With electricity becoming increasingly expensive across most parts of the world the need for computer components to become power efficient has never been more relevant. Graphics cards are often the most power-hungry components of a desktop system so having an efficient graphics card is very important to keeping power bills under control. Power is often correlated to heat and 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 important to maximise performance. We take power readings after 5 minutes of two different load scenarios: desktop idle and Unigine Heaven load. Temperatures The cooling solution which graphics card vendors choose to implement is one of the main differences that consumers have to contend with when choosing a graphics cards. Apart from their acoustic properties, the thermal properties of graphics card coolers are extremely important. 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 in order to maximise performance. The era of graphics cards reaching dangerous temperatures are now in the past but the importance of lower temperatures still remains. Lower temperatures mean better stability, longer component longevity and lower fan speeds .We take temperature readings after 5 minutes of two different load scenarios: desktop idle and Unigine Heaven load. We always record actual temperatures and make any adjustments for changes in the thermal testing environment. 3D Mark The graphics card manages to achieve excellent 3DMark scores when running the 1080p benchmark but it's just edged by the Inno3D GTX 1080 iChill X3. Once the resolution is increased to 2560x1440, a similar picture occurs and there's hardly anything to choose between two really high-end versions of the GTX 1080. During 4K testing, the GPU fared rather well and isn't too far away from the top spot. Unigine Valley Here we can see the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 records a marvellous average frame-rate and the deficit to its closest rival is minuscule. Still, it's another winning result for Inno3D. Once again, the GTX 1080 pulls ahead of Maxwell products by a huge amount and is a revolutionary step forward. When running the benchmark on a 4K monitor, the GPU closes the gap to the Inno3D GTX 1080 iChill X3. Saying that, the gap is so small that a margin of error can come into play. Compute Performance Rather surprisingly, the GTX 1080 posts a worse Luxmark score than the GTX 980Ti even when using the latest drivers. Ashes of the Singularity Even though AMD's GCN architecture is well suited for DirectX 12 gaming, it's not enough to be competitive against NVIDIA's flagship. As you can see, the graphics card easily copes with this demanding title and there's not much to choose between two custom variants. Increasing the resolution doesn't have a major impact on the frame-rate and the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 manages to maintain an average frame-rate above 60. Interestingly, the graphics card pulls ahead for the first time when benchmarking the game on a 4K monitor. Doom Doom might not be the most graphically intensive game on the market, but it's a good indicator of performance. The ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 provides a ridiculously fluid frame-rate and doesn't struggle at all when the action becomes frantic. Setting the resolution to 1440p slightly alters the ranking order but the difference remains incredibly small. The Inno3D GTX 1080 iChill X3 takes the top spot during 4K testing and is able to uphold a 60 frames-per-second average. Far Cry Primal In Far Cry Primal, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 edges its closest rival by a single frame. While the graphics card falls behind slightly when the resolution is increased to 1440p, it's tiny and within an acceptable margin of error. Here we can see the single frame difference re-emerges when benchmarking on a 4K panel although this time the roles are reversed. Hitman The ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 upholds a very consistent frame-rate and attains the top spot by the smallest of margins. Throughout 1440p testing, the graphics card didn't falter and continues to output ridiculously impressive results. The 4K performance is worthy of praise and we're tantalising close to a 60 frames-per-second average. Rise of the Tomb Raider Rise of the Tomb Raider's exceptionally detailed texture quality hammers graphics cards which lack the required horsepower. This isn't the case with the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 which achieves fantastic results. Even when paired with a 2560x1440, the frame-rate doesn't dip anywhere near 60 and you'll still be able to enjoy a perfectly fluid user-experience. Here we can see there's absolutely nothing to choose between the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 and Inno3D model. Overclocking and Overclocked Performance ASUS' GPU Tweak II software is really useful to cycle between different performance profiles, monitor the boost clock and check the average power utilisation. The basic mode is presented in a wonderful user-interface and a great option for those who feel intimidated by the overclocking process. The professional mode is more akin to what enthusiasts are used to and contains all the options you need to overclock the GPU. The settings below are the stock values when the OC profile has been enabled. When performing stock testing, the GPU reached a maximum boost of 2012MHz and the top memory reading was 1251.5MHz while running at a peak 68C. Initially, I managed to increase the boost clock by 78MHz and this remained stable throughout the Valley benchmark. Unfortunately, it crashed when attempting to start 3DMark and I had to re-assess the manual overclock. Eventually, I settled with a final boost of 1997MHz and memory speed of 10722MHz. The overclocking headroom on any GTX 1080 is fairly limited even when setting a 120% power target and upping the mV. Rest assured, I tried everything including fairly hefty voltages to push the core further but it just wasn't possible. While running the overclocked tests, the boost clock hit a maximum speed of 2100.5MHz and the memory limit was 1338.8MHz. This is a pretty significant enhancement compared to the default setup and only had a minor thermal impact. 3DMark Once overclocked, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 easily surpassed the Inno3D version running in its stock configuration. During 1440p testing, the overclocked GPU scored very highly and it's incredible the sort of performance you can get from a single card solution. There's a great boost from overclocking the graphics card when tackling the Fire Strike Ultra benchmark. Noise, Power Consumption and Temperatures Noise The ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080's 0dB idle fan mode is brilliant and allows you to enjoy casual gaming without increasing system noise. Under load, the noise output remains quiet thanks to the high-quality cooling solution. Power Consumption NVIDIA's latest flagship graphics card is incredibly efficient and even overclocked versions have modest power demands. Temperatures When stressed, the graphics card doesn't heat up at a rapid rate and stays remarkably cool. During the testing, the maximum value was 68C and the core averages out at 67C. This is a monumental improvement compared to the GTX 1080 Founders Edition. Final Thoughts Price Bizarrely, there's a number of ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 models available from Overclockers UK sporting the same cooler and different clock speeds. One of these is priced at £679.99 and opts for a 1603MHz base clock and 1733MHz boost. If you're unfamiliar with this, it's the exact same specification as NVIDIA's Founders Edition although the memory has been improved by 10MHz. There's another model costing £695.99 which utilises a 1695MHz base and 1835MHz boost. This is still behind the model I've received even when running the slower Gaming profile. Apparently, the OC model which costs a staggering £749.99 is the unit reviewed by members of the press. Unfortunately, this is a huge price increase compared to a month ago and I'd argue that the yields on such a hefty factory overclock are very low. This means ASUS has to adjust the price accordingly and probably underestimated how many samples could reach such a high boost clock. Of course, this is only speculation and it may be something to do with the current Sterling rate instead. Whatever the reasoning, it's very expensive and there are really good GTX 1080 cards from other manufacturers at a significantly cheaper price point. Overview Aesthetically speaking, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 is sublime and I adore the neutral styling. This is such a clever decision because it allows the end-user to customise the aesthetic via the Aura lighting system and select a finish which matches their build. Whatever colour suits your taste, it contrasts superbly with the GPU's matte black shroud and ROG branded fans. ASUS have excelled themselves in this department and managed to offer an elegant product which caters towards hardware enthusiasts who enjoy RGB illumination. The lighting works extremely well due to the vibrancy of each colour and smooth transitional effects. Not only that, the unusual cut-outs helps the light to emanate quite strongly and acts as a talking point for a custom PC. In particular, the ROG logo on the backplate is stunning and a work of art. Personally, I believe this is one of ASUS' best visual designs and the attention-to-detail throughout is worthy of recognition. On another note, the graphics card opts for a huge range of premium components and automated production line to greatly reduce the failure rate. For example, the deployment of reliable capacitors and 8+2 power delivery enhances the card's reliability. Also, ASUS engineered their own fans which are optimised for static pressure and find an effective balance between noise and thermal loads. The GPU is silent in idle usage scenarios due to a 0dB fan mode and the gentle fan curve means you're unlikely to hear a major noise increase while playing games. As expected, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 is very efficient and the performance per watt can only be described as mind-blowing. The graphics card's OC profile already utilises a mammoth factory overclock and exhibits great performance gains compared to the GTX 1080 Founders Edition. I'm basing this fact on the performance of two Founders Editions cards used in system reviews. Unfortunately, I don't have one at hand for my test bench, but it's evidently clear that the higher clocks will translate into better frame-rates. Overclocking headroom is restricted by the factory overclock but this didn't prevent me from achieving a maximum 2.1GHz boost. Furthermore, the memory overclocked by a large amount in an effortless manner. When it comes to performance, the GTX 1080 consistently destroys every other single card on the market today and it's able to cope with high visual presets on a 4K monitor. There's not a huge difference between custom GTX 1080s according to the results thus far but this may change when I test a cheaper model with lower clock speeds. During the testing, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 remained competitive although it was beaten by the Inno3D GTX 1080 iChill X3 in most circumstances. In one respect, this is surprising because the ASUS model utilises higher clocks. Saying that, the gap is very small and falls within a margin of error. Plus the nature of GPU boost means the quoted specification doesn't translate into the actual boost clocks you'll experience. Overall, the performance is superb but I just wished it came at a lower price point. Pros Astounding build quality Beautiful design Exceptionally quiet Good overclocking Low power draw Premium components Strong backplate Unbelievable performance Wonderful RGB illumination Cons Inno3D GTX 1080 iChill X3 is £100 cheaper "The ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 is built to the highest possible standard and employs a no-compromise approach. It's quiet, efficient and performs brilliantly. Sadly, the extreme factory overclock does come with a hefty price premium which may put some people off." ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 Graphics Card Review Thank you ASUS for providing us with this review sample.