Review: GeForce GTX 1070 Founders edition

It isn't only a question of AMD and lack of competition; the prices per transistor (function of wafer cost + density) have usually decreased with new nodes, this decrease has been slowing down and now with 14/16nm (actually 20nm) FF they've ***increased***

The end result is gp104 is probably 50%+ more expensive to manufacture than gm204

In fact I'll wager gp104 is more expensive than gm200

 

I sincerely doubt 1070 has a memory bandwidth bottleneck and the 1080 doesn't.

1080 has 25% higher bandwidth and 25% more SMs; same SM:bandwidth ratio

 

Look at the benchmark numbers. As the resolution increases with the 1070 the gap between the 980Ti and 1070 decreases and is some cases the 980Ti beats the 1070. On the other hand the gap stays constant with the 1080.

 

That doesn't necessarily have to be memory bandwidth. It could just be the effect of the higher geometry performance on the 1070. High framerate means more geometry work

Anyway it's easy to test; fixed core clock, vary memory clock, see how performance scales

 

In most cases where the gap with the 1080 is more than 25%-30% you could say that the card is memory starved. I believe that both there wasn't enough GDDR5x to go around and that NVIDIA was unconfortable by how close the 970 was to the 980 the last time, and now the cards are more differentiated.

 

This is likely the truth of the matter. Remember how close the 670 was to the 680? Nvidia has been trying to widen the gap of X70 to X80 since. I'm still a bit apprehensive on cut cards now after the 970 shenanigans.

 

Bang for buck relative to consoles took a dive years ago, it looks like now that most pc gamers are at the console tiny 1080p, they aren´t even trying, revved up pricier Maxwescal and say thanks.

 

nice

nice card

 

While I was gonna jump the gun and get GTX1070 straight away on release, I think it's better to just be patient and wait until after the end of this month. I'm sure prices are going to drop quite quickly by 1st week of July and will settle by end of July.

 

Yeah, wait until frenzy ends and cards demand / supply stabilizes.
Shops will start to cut prices to compete with other shops.

 

Small request

Would it be possible to have some of the GFX cards tested in 3440x1440 resolution..?

Thanks

 

More i think about it, more im tempted to keep my 970! i mean its still great, can easily keep 60 on high in DOOM, Witcher 3 etc. BF1 might force me to buy new GPU, but im sure i will be able to run it on medium at 60. As tempting as it is, might have to wait.

 

I'm the opposite, can't wait to get rid of my last 970. The availability on the 1070s/1080s is **** though, will likely be another month before I can get my hands on a MSI Gaming one.

 

you game at 1080p, right? If so, the 970 still kicks ass in that resolution. I struggled a bit at 1440p with a single 970. Saying that, even at that resolution games ran well.

TW3 at 1440p would struggle to keep 50fps with my settings. When I tried 1080p it ran at 70fps on average with same settings. So if you game at 1080p, you're good.

 

I might pester you later in the year about it then

I am still on 1080p mate, can imagine 970 struggling at 1440. Looks like 1070 would be perfect for 1440p.

Also depends on the price, i mean if i can get Twin Frozn for £300 i will be all over it

 

yep, I was thinking about 1070 to upgrade from 970 because I needed those extra few frames to hold me above 60fps in games. Then I got a great deal on a 980ti and this little card will see me through until the 1080ti or Vega come out. Hell, if the 980ti is holding over 60fps in games even then, I'll just stick with it.

1080p is a fair bit less demanding than 1440p and if you're happy with the performance there really is no need to upgrade. Apart from that itch

I reckon the MSI Gaming and such cards (Zotac AMP! Extreme, Gigabyte G1 Gaming etc) will retail at £349. You might see them cheaper here and there so you never know

 

I struggled even with 2x970s at 1440p, because I had the tendency to go stupid with MSAA and stuff. Now with a single 970 it's horrible, in games that had decent SLI scaling like Witcher 3 and GTA V my FPS dropped from 55-60 (with v-sync) to 35-40 (no v-sync) at the same settings I used before. :O

 

I used to trim back settings to get 60fps minimum on a single 970. With a single 980ti I still have to do that, but a LOT less (hair works off in TW3 and some other stuff).

Also, at 1440p I either run no AA or just whatever post process AA is available, usually go for the lightest iteration of these AA modes.

 

Dont know about you guys, but enjoyed Witcher 3 @ 1440p with no problem. AA minimal to non (depending on game) and less than 60 FPS on slow paced games does not bother me. Judicious settings can make all the difference in many games @ 1440p. Would rather 1440p with lower settings than higher settings at 1080p any day of the week. A 1070 would offer a nice bump in settings of course, but must wait for AMD to show all they've got.

Maxwell/Pascal though is like an Intel tick tock, so not sure this arch will do as well as AMD on DX12 games down the road.

 

1070 power mystery

So I just upgraded from a 970 to the Zotac Extreme Amp 1070 and no matter what I do I can't get the power consumption to go above 60ish%. I have run heaven valley and GTA V for a couple hours and the card sits at 100% GPU usage, 60c, 2023mrz,and 60% power consumption. I have reseeded the GPU and power connectors twice and wiped out drivers twice with ddu. Any initial thoughts? My PSU ID an EVGA Supernova 850 gold rated.