ASUS STRIX GTX 1080 Review

👤by David Mitchelson Comments 📅13-06-16
Conclusion

NVIDIA’s Pascal launch has been one of their biggest yet and now that partner cards of the custom cooled variety are hitting shelves an already momentous release has just got even more interesting. If you’re seeking to jump onto the bandwagon, the ASUS STRIX GTX 1080 is one of those graphics cards you just can’t ignore.

The Founder’s Edition GTX 1080 has unfortunately hit a few hurdles since its inauguration not least because of the problematic excessive fan RPM burst but also due to a BIOS iteration which limits the clock speed after a set temperature is reached. Most of the published reviews fail to highlight this problem because their tests are simply not performed for an extended duration – once the card is tested for ~30 minutes the temperatures reportedly hit 90C and this in turn throttles the clock speeds down. Since gaming sessions are usually longer than 20-30 minutes various Founder’s Edition reviews won’t reveal such a problem – but we’re happy to report there are no such issues with the STRIX GTX 1080. Our temperature test on the preceding pages was run for 50 minutes and clock speeds were monitored also, we actually discovered that our card ran at 1999MHz – beyond the stated frequencies!

DirectCU III cooling has been a strong fixture for ASUS graphics cards. This third instalment of the popular cooling solution not only keeps the temperatures at an acceptable level but it emits very little noise at all – with the fans completely stopping during low-load and light usage. The inclusion of RGB lighting courtesy of ASUS Aura is another nice addition too as it means you can tailor the colour to the theme of your system.


So far as performance goes, this GTX 1080 is a monumental card. The factory overclock helps frame rates hit an impressive mark in Ultra-High Definition (UHD) – and really this card is designed for gamers who intend to run their games at 3K+. We note the inclusion of the newly released DisplayPort 1.4 on this STRIX card, which now offers support for up to 8K @ 60Hz. Those wanting to play the latest gaming titles at UHD with detail presets set on high-maximum will be able to do so and still enjoy fluid framerates.

While we weren’t able to apply a substantial overclock to this card, the small increase from 1785MHz to 1855MHz revealed quite a bump in score within Unigine’s Heaven 4.0. The STRIX 1080 is already an impressive card with the factory overclock ASUS has applied they’ve certainly squeezed plenty out of this Pascal-based offering.

The ASUS STRIX GTX 1080 arrives with a price-tag of £689 GBP / $700-850 USD. This certainly isn’t for the faint hearted but those who want the absolute best will be required to “dig deep”. At such a cost, we’re reminded that this isn’t too far away from overclocked variants of the GTX 980Ti and since this card trumps the Maxwell counterpart, it isn’t so bad at all.

Boasting a stylish aesthetic and arriving with both a factory overclock and DirectCU III cooling, the STRIX GTX 1080 impresses in the gaming arena. If you’re looking for a high-performance graphics card to cut through the latest triple-A titles, look no further.

VIDEO REVIEW - VORTEZ TV


Pros
+ Aggressive styling
+ Customisable LED lighting
+ Comes with factory overclock
+ Low-noise
+ Effective cooling
+ Excellent performance
+ DirectX 12 ready
+ 2 years warranty

Cons
- None!

Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.

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