Nvidia GeForce GTX 1000 Series (Pascal) MegaThread: FAQ and Resources

[JackNaylorPE]

Regarding SLI once again: 25 out of 27 seems like a really good ratio. Alas it's just for the games that were tested. I agree that most AAA titles get multi-gpu support but the world of games has oh-so much more to offer. AAA doesn't necessarily mean graphics. It means big budget.
Now I don't wish to spend too much time analyzing this, but just for a quick overview: my steam library consists of roughly 220 games. I'd wager about 30 of them can be listed as triple-A with all the rest being Indie developed or just by a small studio. Not all 220 are graphically demanding but I am confident in the assumption that at least 100 of them are. Even if all of the big budget games I own had spotless SLI-support, it would still leave us with a 30 to 100 ratio which in my opinion is a handful.

Now regarding thermal throttling on the FE 1080: the 1080 never ever, ever throttles below it's base clock. It should be self-evident that if you want to overclock your GPU to the highest possible clock you absolutely have to consider an alternate cooling option. There hasn't been a card that would overclock as nicely as the 1080 does with a reference cooler. The whole thermal throttling thing is a bias.

1. 30 out of 220 is not 30 to 100 ratio
2. How many of those aren't getting acceptable speeds w/ just 1 card; as i said, you don't go SLI to take WoW from 110 to 180 fps in SLI ... you do it to take gamed that get 26 fps to 45 ... a place the single top card cant reach.
3. GFX cards come with a thing called boost ... this is an advertised spec. Take the blinders off.... when every reviewer is noting that the card exceeds its max temp for which it imposes limits on boost, that by definition is throttling. nVodoa has two temps, the max temp at which the GPU fries, and the temps at which they have hard coded the BIOS to **throttle**. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, looks like a duck and the one who created defines it as a duck ... then it's a duck.

Again... which one you want... the one that is stuttering up and down between 1670 and 1790 or the one that remains pancake flat at 1910. The answer is the proverbial "no brainer"

http://cdn.videocardz.com/1/2016/06/GTX-1080-FE-clocks-over-time.png

If it is not an issue than please explain why nVidia publically admits it's an issue and has released a driver update with a more aggressive fan profile to try and fix it. By your definition, nVidia is biased against nVidia.

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/computing-components/graphics-cards/nvidia-s-fix-for-gtx-1080-fan-flaws-is-coming-today-1322867

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Ugh... I side with 17seconds on this "boost speed" issue.

As long as it does not drop from the *base* clocks, then it should be a non-issue. Just like Intel's turbo boost, you should never ever think that will be the *average* speed of your CPU. It's just some kind of "free OC" the CPU does for you whenever it can.

I am one of the people that actually like the concept of Turbo, even if it means harder OC. For the average user it's a terrific way of extracting more performance whenever it's possible.

So in short, like 17seconds says, as long as the actual gaming experience is not degraded, it's a non-issue. If they start reporting the card is dropping from *base* clocks, then it might become an issue, since throttling that much could be indication of a bigger issue (thermal management, insufficient cooling, etc).

Cheers!

Please ... This will be true sending e-mail or running Chrome but try running a demanding application such as encoding or any such and see if the CPU speed doesn't stay pegged at the upper limit. Try putting a 4.5 Ghz OC and see if it doesn't stay pegged at 4500 Mhz 97+% of the time. RoG Real Bench is a collection of real life applications , download that and run with HWiNFO open on screen and tell me that you don't see it pegged most of the time. It does every time I have run it.

Two identical cars on an oval racetrack, all things equal... one guy is running at a solid 7500 rpm, the other is bouncing up and down from 6600 to 6900.... who completes 10 laps 1st ? Yes, it is just that simple. As one can plainly see every time a reference card and non-reference card is compared.

With 10xx, it would seem we have a potential explanation for the sudden huge increase over the 9xx series. Cack with the 9xx series, we saw as much as 31% performance increases over reference cards (stock), meanwhile AMD could manage no more than single digit (6-8%) OCs. It would seem that nVidia has decided to take a page outta AMDs book and is very aggressively clocking the cards in the box.

So while we are not seeing the big double digit OCs anymore, we are still seeing th AIB cards outperform the FE cards, but that's not all that is important:

1. AIBs getting 5% higher OCs
2. AIBs (72C) are not throttling (passing 82C throttling point)
3. AIBs are not hitting 83C at at stock settings
4. AIBs (31dbA) are quieter than the FE (37 dbA) cards
5. AIB cards are as low as $629, FE at $699 - 4850

So yes, buy an FE if ya are set on:

Paying more
Listening to more noise
Subjecting the card to more heat
Getting lower performance

 

[TehPenguin]

1. 30 out of 220 is not 30 to 100 ratio

Agree! 30 to 220 is a much smaller percentage! Weird, isn't it?
I said that approx. 100 are graphically demanding so it's approx. 100 games where it matters. Hence the 30 to 100 ratio.

2. How many of those aren't getting acceptable speeds w/ just 1 card; as i said, you don't go SLI to take WoW from 110 to 180 fps in SLI ... you do it to take gamed that get 26 fps to 45 ... a place the single top card cant reach.

Once again: there was a reason for the 30 to 100 ratio in a 220 games library.

3. GFX cards come with a thing called boost ... this is an advertised spec. Take the blinders off.... when every reviewer is noting that the card exceeds its max temp for which it imposes limits on boost, that by definition is throttling. nVodoa has two temps, the max temp at which the GPU fries, and the temps at which they have hard coded the BIOS to **throttle**. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, looks like a duck and the one who created defines it as a duck ... then it's a duck.

Again... which one you want... the one that is stuttering up and down between 1670 and 1790 or the one that remains pancake flat at 1910. The answer is the proverbial "no brainer"

http://cdn.videocardz.com/1/2016/06/GTX-1080-FE-clocks-over-time.png

If it is not an issue than please explain why nVidia publically admits it's an issue and has released a driver update with a more aggressive fan profile to try and fix it. By your definition, nVidia is biased against nVidia.

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/computing-components/graphics-cards/nvidia-s-fix-for-gtx-1080-fan-flaws-is-coming-today-1322867

I'd enjoy this conversation more with less passive aggression : )
Anyway! I differentiate meaningful throttling(i.e. with big performance hit) from meaningless throttling. To me, if a card just dials back to the speed it is being sold at: that's not throttling. That's just the GPU saying: "ok, you've had your fun, now slow down a bit." The boost option is excellent since it allows higher speeds for people that do not want to delve into overclocking themselves. It wasn't too long ago when cards did not have a boost clock even though they were capable of it.

It's the first time the reference model is this expensive. Before the 10xx series all aftermarket cooled cards were more expensive so it was quite a natural equation of more performance = higher price.

 

[-Fran-]

Please ... This will be true sending e-mail or running Chrome but try running a demanding application such as encoding or any such and see if the CPU speed doesn't stay pegged at the upper limit. Try putting a 4.5 Ghz OC and see if it doesn't stay pegged at 4500 Mhz 97+% of the time. RoG Real Bench is a collection of real life applications , download that and run with HWiNFO open on screen and tell me that you don't see it pegged most of the time. It does every time I have run it.

Two identical cars on an oval racetrack, all things equal... one guy is running at a solid 7500 rpm, the other is bouncing up and down from 6600 to 6900.... who completes 10 laps 1st ? Yes, it is just that simple. As one can plainly see every time a reference card and non-reference card is compared.

With 10xx, it would seem we have a potential explanation for the sudden huge increase over the 9xx series. Cack with the 9xx series, we saw as much as 31% performance increases over reference cards (stock), meanwhile AMD could manage no more than single digit (6-8%) OCs. It would seem that nVidia has decided to take a page outta AMDs book and is very aggressively clocking the cards in the box.

So while we are not seeing the big double digit OCs anymore, we are still seeing th AIB cards outperform the FE cards, but that's not all that is important:

1. AIBs getting 5% higher OCs
2. AIBs (72C) are not throttling (passing 82C throttling point)
3. AIBs are not hitting 83C at at stock settings
4. AIBs (31dbA) are quieter than the FE (37 dbA) cards
5. AIB cards are as low as $629, FE at $699 - 4850

So yes, buy an FE if ya are set on:

Paying more
Listening to more noise
Subjecting the card to more heat
Getting lower performance

You kinda went out of context with my answer. I never said OCing was bad or it did not yield tangible benefits. I said if a company markets something with 2 parameters, where one is the base and the other is a potential achievable with no intervention, then it's fair to me as long as they actually deliver in that account. You're denying it's a good practice or a good idea on AMDs, nVidias and Intels part to do that?

I really don't know why you thought I was implying "with turbo you no longer need to OC".

I am just giving credit to nVidia for making Turbo better, which implies a full tangible benefit for the average consumer. It's up to partners to up that game and come out with more aggressive speeds, where again, are still "base and turbo" pair of speeds they advertise.

Cheers!

 

[Mousemonkey]

So with a 1060 being equal to or better than a 980 but only using about 120w, who is going to get one?

 

[-Fran-]

To be honest, it is tempting to get one, but I will wait for the reviews and how the RX480 custom designs stack with it.

I do like that the RX480 has 8GB, but I also think that 6GB is not *that* far off. I've been surviving with 3GB in my 7970 with no issues, so either one is a huge upgrade in that front.

The 1060 looks to be a promising card, but I have the usual fear we won't see any specimen at MSRP (which is 250 for non-FEs) for a long long time.

Cheers!

 

[17seconds]

Faster than a GTX 980 is Fury/FuryX territory, which cost about $400-$500. Forget comparing the GTX 1060 to an RX480, the entire top of AMDs product stack above the 480 is being rendered irrelevant. Vega can't come soon enough.

AMD’s Powerful Vega 10 GPU Expected For Launch in 1H 2017
http://wccftech.com/amd-vega-10-gpu-launch-rumor-2017/

 

[Math Geek]

at this point i need a lot of info we don't have. 480 custom card performance and pricing as well as 1060 performance and pricing.

i am envisioning with the FE 1060 at $299 the average custom card at maybe $279 considering nvidia said a $249 start for AIB's (the super cards will of course break $300 easy). custom 480's should be anywhere between $250 and $300 as well depending on all the usual factors for AIB's. so seems to me that that $250-279 range for the average 1060 and 480 is where the fight is won. what can custom pcb/cooling do for the 480 at that price (pretty positive efforts on reference cards so far) compared to whatever the 1060 can do at that price (i'm thinking the strix, evga sc and others that tend to be mid priced). for the same money, i always go with the better performance, whomever that may be. now if they happen to be same performance for the same money, then i'll go amd again just to help them along

but all we have so far is nvidia saying "it's as good as a 980" which could mean just about anything. is that vr performance? firestrike? some nvidia optimized game? just like amd pr, got to wait and see for the whole story.

 

[-Fran-]

My worry does not go around performance. I do believe it will be faster; how much it's another topic. My worry goes around price.

The performance level for the RX480 suits my needs just as well as the 1060 might/will. And around the power levels they will live (170W-), power consumption or efficiency is not such a big deal, since most aftermarket coolers can cope with it fairly easily keeping the card cool and all that.

If the aftermarket RX480s are a disappointment, the 1060 will indeed be a serious candidate, even at a higher *street price*. What are the odds for this to go in that direction? We can spend a long long time discussing that 😛

So, it's going to be a very fun balancing act, haha.

Cheers!

 

[TechyInAZ]

So with a 1060 being equal to or better than a 980 but only using about 120w, who is going to get one?

[strike]From what tech sites say, it's going to be in between the GTX 970 and GTX 980 which is pretty small. Small enough that a good overclock would make it faster than a stock clocked 980.[/strike]

EDIT: Just read the article on Tom's. Wow, that's sweet. Faster than GTX 980 performance for only $250!!

 

[17seconds]

Nvidia claimed that its GeForce GTX 1060 will offer more performancethan its outgoing GeForce GTX 980.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-launch,32214.html

 

[Mousemonkey]

Cue the theme from Jaws (again). :lol:

 

[17seconds]

A good summary of the GTX 1060 announcement at HardOCP.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/07/07/official_nvidia_geforce_gtx_1060_announcement/#.V36Ec59lDqA

 

[Eximo]

And now my 980s are going into the 'donate to my brother' pile...sigh.

 

[17seconds]

Kyle at HardOCP is reporting that supplies are being ramped up for launch day to avoid the shortages seen in the previous Pascal releases.
https://hardforum.com/threads/official-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-announcement-h.1904330/

 

[simon12]

This seems to extreme to be true but thought I would post it for those interested in conspiracy theories http://semiaccurate.com/2016/07/06/nvidias-gp104-based-gt1060-real/
Basically saying the 1060 will never exist as a card you can buy its just marketing to stop you buying a 480. It will be a cut down 1070 (GP104) designed to beat the 480 in all benchmarks but will never have any retail availability and later a new card on the GP106 which is what the 1060 should be will release at lower performance levels. I don't believe it as I think it would damage Nvidia's reputation far more than hurt AMD.

 

[-Fran-]

That seems so... I don't even know if the word is correct, but... Seems so *evil* I have a hard time imagining it's remotely true.

Even if it's not illegal, it would be just... So damn evil, I don't even xD

Cheers!

 

[gamerk316]

The Gaming X, at least on Newegg, are so overpriced.

Not if they sell them out.

 

[ivan02]

Funny how it now says "faster than 980", in the previous slide it was as fast.. Probably it's not *really* faster, just for example in DX12 titles and it has more VRAM, so they call it faster. But if it's similar to 980 performance, it'll be a great card for the money anyway. The x60 cards from Nvidia are usually the most exciting cards, performance per price wise, but the last time the 960 was a bit of a letdown so hopefully they're back with a winner with the 1060..
I just hope the prices won't be so exaggerated as with the 1070/1080s (1070 is about 550 euros here if you want one within a few days, and that's nearly the MSRP of the 1080). 250$ with tax here means about 275 euros, so if I can pick up a nice MSI/Asus/Gigabyte custom version for around 300 euros max, then I probably will.

And now my 980s are going into the 'donate to my brother' pile...sigh.

What a kind human being you are.. 😛

 

[detroitwillfall]

Very excited that there are a few board partners making it known of their 1060 intentions.. Hoping Asus nails this

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-gtx-1060-graphics-cards,32217.html

 

[Eximo]

Funny how it now says "faster than 980", in the previous slide it was as fast.. Probably it's not *really* faster, just for example in DX12 titles and it has more VRAM, so they call it faster. But if it's similar to 980 performance, it'll be a great card for the money anyway. The x60 cards from Nvidia are usually the most exciting cards, performance per price wise, but the last time the 960 was a bit of a letdown so hopefully they're back with a winner with the 1060..
I just hope the prices won't be so exaggerated as with the 1070/1080s (1070 is about 550 euros here if you want one within a few days, and that's nearly the MSRP of the 1080). 250$ with tax here means about 275 euros, so if I can pick up a nice MSI/Asus/Gigabyte custom version for around 300 euros max, then I probably will.

And now my 980s are going into the 'donate to my brother' pile...sigh.

What a kind human being you are.. 😛

He still has my old Athlon X2 6000 + GTX285 (The 285 now just decides randomly that it doesn't have any digital outputs until you reboot it about 7 times) Seems he wants to get himself a machine that is capable of running Unreal Tournament 2015 as his laptop gets about 20FPS at the lowest settings.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Funny how it now says "faster than 980", in the previous slide it was as fast.. Probably it's not *really* faster, just for example in DX12 titles and it has more VRAM, so they call it faster. But if it's similar to 980 performance, it'll be a great card for the money anyway. The x60 cards from Nvidia are usually the most exciting cards, performance per price wise, but the last time the 960 was a bit of a letdown so hopefully they're back with a winner with the 1060..
I just hope the prices won't be so exaggerated as with the 1070/1080s (1070 is about 550 euros here if you want one within a few days, and that's nearly the MSRP of the 1080). 250$ with tax here means about 275 euros, so if I can pick up a nice MSI/Asus/Gigabyte custom version for around 300 euros max, then I probably will.

And now my 980s are going into the 'donate to my brother' pile...sigh.

What a kind human being you are.. 😛

He still has my old Athlon X2 6000 + GTX285 (The 285 now just decides randomly that it doesn't have any digital outputs until you reboot it about 7 times) Seems he wants to get himself a machine that is capable of running Unreal Tournament 2015 as his laptop gets about 20FPS at the lowest settings.

He'll have a nice bottleneck there. What about the CPU?

 

[Eximo]

I plan on re-building my current rig back to air cooling to hand off to him. So it would be the i7-4770k, probably with a lesser overclock. I still have an Evo 212 new in box that I keep as a spare for my machines, has the old LGA1366 bracket for my i7-950 (also on loan).

I'm going to shoot for a Kaby-lake build on a 200 series board and see how it goes. Been wanting to increase SSD space, but didn't want to invest in another SATA drive.

 

[atetheprincess]

MSI
Seahawk X.....$749.....1708/1847 clock speeds.....6-pin/8-pin power.....5+1 phases.....1 fan/1 radiator.....270mm x 111mm x 2 slots.....

I've seen the product page and reviews for MSI's GTX 1080 SEA HAWK X, but can't find even one listing across retailers or e-tailers. Not even Out of Stock listings. Is the card available to the public at this point, or no? If so, who's carried it?

 

[Math Geek]

i found the price on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127942

still out of stock but they have ti listed. they also have the SeaHawk with the EK waterblock on it http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127952

i also updated the info. early on it was listed at a 6 & 8 pin power but it is actually only an 8 pin connector. they are based on a reference card and only need the 1 connection. i need to go back and be sure there are no other issues in the info