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The Performance –

Before I begin my performance analysis, it is worth again noting that I am upgrading from an MSI GEFORCE GTX 980 TI GAMING 6G.  Already a monster of a card, the 980 TI offered just about all the performance I needed , however, with 6GB of vram and occasional poor performance on new APIs like DX12 and Vulkan, an upgrade to the latest and greatest was warranted.  Besides that, the old MSI GEFORCE GTX 980 TI GAMING 6G was red and well… that doesn’t match my PC’s Black & White color scheme.

I used my performance testing section of the review as a way of comparing my old MSI Geforce GTX 980 TI Gaming 6G to the new MSI Geforce GTX 1080 Armor 8G OC.  The games I chose to test are among the most demanding games that I’m currently playing today.  Additionally, I threw in some games built on dual APIs, be it DX11/DX12 or OGL/Vulkan.  This will help give a better idea as to how much better or worse my new upgrade is able to handle the more modern APIs in addition to how much faster it is than the 980 TI.  For game settings, I cracked everything up to maximum, since that is what I’m most interested in seeing regarding GPU performance.  As a synthetic test, I ran the 3DMark Firestrike (Regular, Extreme, and Ultra) and TimeSpy tests. All of my tests were completed at stock GPU settings.  The test Rig:

CPU Intel i7-5820K @ 4.4 GHz
Motherboard MSI X99A SLI Krait Edition
RAM 32 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX @ 2.6GHz
GPU MSI Geforce GTX 980 TI Gaming 6G, MSI Geforce GTX 1080 Armor 8G OC
HD Samsung SSD 850 Evo 512GB
Case NZXT H440
OS/Driver Windows 10, ForceWare 372.90

If you’re interested in seeing how some of the other cards stack up in comparison, check out the GPU benchmark compilation page of our excellent AMD RX 480 review here.

Synthetics

Nice! Looking good here.

Nice! Looking good here. Some relatively long bars in blue.

Wow! This card seems to handle synthetic DX12 very well so far!

Wow! This card seems to handle synthetic DX12 very well so far!

Real Games

For this game, I was not interested in the DX11 version. Rather, I was curious to see how it compared to the 980 TI. 4K would be a pointless slideshow, so I skipped it.

For this game, I was not interested in the DX11 version. Rather, I was curious to see how it compared to the 980 TI in DX12. 4K would be a pointless slideshow, so I skipped it.

Still among one of the most graphically demanding games ever, the 1080 stands up very well to Crysis 3. Had I not been testing the brute force of this GPU, and disabled AA, this game would be very playable at 4K even. Glory!

Still among one of the most graphically demanding games ever, the 1080 stands up very well to Crysis 3. Had I not been testing the brute force of this GPU, and disabled AA, this game would be pretty playable at 4K even.

This demanding new game was a blast to play. I used the in-game benchmark, as it is used widely across the web as a performance tool however, the benchmark is not at all indicative of the gameplay framerate. The benchmark is MUCH more demanding.

This demanding new game was a blast to play. I used the in-game benchmark, as it is used widely across the web as a performance tool however, the benchmark is not at all indicative of the gameplay framerate. The benchmark is MUCH more demanding. (Here’s our review on the game)

This incredible game pulled out all the stops. Fast, fun, great graphics, good story, and Amazing performance. Made even better with the new Vulkan API! I didn’t bother testing 4K, as it was quite obvious the 1080 could handle it no problem.

Another dual API game, I was pleasantly surprised to see how good the performance of this game was after a few patches. It was even better to see the 1080 get an excellent performance boost from DX12. Unlike the 980 TI.

Another dual API game, I was pleasantly surprised to see how good the performance of this game was after a few patches. It was even better to see the 1080 get an excellent performance boost from DX12. Unlike the 980 TI.  🙁

Honestly, this game gets a bad rap. It's really not a bad game at all. Performance was lacking, but after a few patches, it finally plays smooth. I like the game, so I added it to the benchmarks. :)

Honestly, this game gets a bad rap. It’s really not a bad game at all. Performance was lacking, but after a few patches, it finally plays pretty smooth. I like the game, so I added it to the benchmarks. 🙂

I must say, this one surprised me. It's been a few patches since I had first tested DX12 on the 980 Ti, and I definitely remember getting FPS gains. But, that's no longer the case. For this game, DX11 works better than DX12 when using either Nvidia card.

I must say, this one surprised me. It’s been a few patches since I had first tested DX12 on the 980 Ti, and I remember getting FPS gains. But, that’s no longer the case. For this game, DX11 works better than DX12 when using either Nvidia card.

Perhaps the best game of all time, the Witcher 3 is very demanding. Especially when using some of the Nvidia GameWorks features like HairWorks. But, I used those effects during my playthrough. So I benchmarked with them on. Besides, it is The Way It's Meant to be Played.

Nominated by me as the Game of the Century, the Witcher 3 is very demanding on GPUs. Especially when using some of the Nvidia GameWorks features like HairWorks. But… I used those effects during my playthrough and like them. It is The Way It’s Meant to be Played. So I benchmarked with them on.