1. The Founder's Edition thermaly throttles .. current generation reference cards, including the 480, should be avoided.
2. I have not yet seen any tests or tear downs on the Aero, so without any reliable information, any comment would be pure conjecture.
http://videocardz.com/60838/msi-geforce-gtx-1080-gaming-x-is-much-better-than-founders-edition
NVIDIA’s own reference design suffers from severe throttling just after few minutes. It probably wouldn’t be that bad if not the frequency spikes. While average clock is somewhere around officially stated boost clock, those spikes cause micro-stuttering, which negatively affects gaming experience.
Hardware.info:
Founders Edition suffers from a horrendous amount of throttling and it runs +- 150 MHz lower all the time.
Meanwhile, MSI GTX 1080 GAMING X generates almost a straight line for GPU frequency (~1910 MHz), with no spikes and rather constant sub-70 C temperature. This should mean that the gaming experience will be much better, and card should theoretically generate better results in most tests. Also according to H.I. this is also the best custom design they so far tested.
See the image below. The orange line is the FE card, the blue in the MSO Gaming X 1080. You want the card that stutters between 1670 and 1790 MHz because of thermal throttling ? Or ya want the card with the pancake flat 1910 ?
We don't quite know what the Aero is;.... My guess is that it is meant to compete with the EVGA SC; historically the SC has been a pure reference PCB with a nice cooler slapped on and my guess is the Aero is MSIs answer to the SC.
Again, never, ever buy a reference card. The idea that you can buy a reference card and overclock it to the levels of a reference card is pure nonsense.
Non-reference cards are built with better components (VRMs, chokes, etc), can handle more, power, more voltage and have better cooling ... not just with the cooler / GPU itself but also in how and what they use to cool VRMS, MOFSETs, etc. As often as not, your OC is limited by these components as much as he GPU itself.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080/31.html
Here's the techpowerup review of the FE.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080/31.html
During gaming, the card goes above 82°C, which results in lower clocks due to Boost 3.0;
So here we can see, the how ridiculous it is to try an overclock this card. Yes, you can get it to a higher OC... at idle. If ya look at the image, it's already thermally overclocking at stock settings ... thereby inhibiting the effectiveness of any OC ... doesn't matter if its at 1507 or 1632 , it's still going to thermally throttle.