NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 & GTX 1070 BASED ON NVIDIA PASCAL
The world’s most advanced GPU architecture
GeForce GTX 10-series graphics cards are
powered by Pascal to deliver up to 3x the performance of
previous-generation graphics cards, plus innovative new gaming
technologies and breakthrough VR experiences
GeForce GTX 1080 Block Diagram
The GeForce GTX 1080 is a fully enabled implementation of GP104. This
means 2560 CUDA cores split up over 20 SMs operating at a blistering
boost clock of 1733MHz. NVIDIA is positioning GTX 1080 as a full
generational update over GTX 980, and thanks to a combination of a
slightly wider GPU and a much faster clockspeed, they can generally
deliver on this. By the numbers, GTX 1080 offers 78% more raw compute,
texturing, and geometry performance, and 43% more ROP throughput. Of
course the latter is as much a product of memory bandwidth as it is the
ROPs themselves, and for that NVIDIA has some new memory technologies.
GTX 1080 is 8GB of GDDR5X. A new memory
standard that extends the effective memory bandwidth of GDDR5, GTX
1080’s GDDR5X runs at 10Gbps, and is attached to a 256-bit memory bus.
This gives GTX 1080 a full 320GB/sec of memory bandwidth to play with,
43% more than GTX 980. And as we’ll see in the coming architectural
pages, these raw numbers don’t factor in the architectural improvements
that allow the Pascal GPUs to stretch their memory bandwidth even
further.
Finally, GTX 1080’s TDP is rated at 180W. This is a slight increase
from the past generation, where GTX 980 required 165W. Video card
specifications are of course a sliding scale – balancing desired
performance with cooling capabilities and power consumption – and
ultimately NVIDIA has opted to eat a slight increase in power
consumption to allow GTX 1080 to deliver more performance than it
otherwise would.
GeForce GTX 1070
Meanwhile below the GTX 1080 we have its lower price and lower
performance sibling, the GTX 1070. The standard high-end salvage part,
GTX 1070 trades off fewer functional blocks and the lower resulting
performance in exchange for a significantly lower price than the GTX
1080. From a hardware perspective, the GTX 1070 utilizes GP104 with 1 of
the 4 Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs) disabled. Relative to GTX
1080, this knocks off around 25% of the shading/texturing/compute
performance. However the memory controllers and ROP partitions remain
untouched. With this configuration NVIDIA is pitching the GTX 1070 as a
full generational update to the GTX 970, and with any luck, the GTX 1070
will be as well accepted as its extremely successful predecessor.
GTX 1070 provides 1920 CUDA cores split up over 15
SMMs. Those 15 SMMs are in turn running at a base clockspeed of 1506MHz
and a boost clock of 1683MHz. This is slightly lower than GTX 1080, but
as we’ll see in our full benchmark section, the official clockspeeds
have a very little impact; it’s the disabled GPC that really makes the
difference. By the numbers, relative to the GTX 970 the GTX 1070 offers
65% more shading, texturing, and geometry throughput, and 63% more ROP
throughput. The latter coming as a courtesy of both the higher
clockspeeds and the fact that GTX 1070 ships with all 64 ROPs enabled,
versus 56 of 64 on GTX 970.
GTX 1070 doesn’t get GDDR5X. Instead the card gets 8GB
of GDDR5 running at 8Gbps. This delivers a total memory bandwidth of
256GB/sec, and again unlike GTX 970, there is nothing going on with
partitions here, so all of that memory and all of that bandwidth is
operating in one contiguous partition, giving the GTX 1070 an effective
memory bandwidth increase of 31%. GTX 1070 is the first NVIDIA card to
ship with 8Gbps GDDR5, a memory speed I once didn’t think possible.
NVIDIA and the memory partners are pushing GDDR5 to the limit by doing
this, but at this point in time this is the most economical way to boost
memory bandwidth without resorting to more exotic and expensive
solutions like GDDR5X.
GTX 1070 is rated for a 150W TDP; this is a smaller, 5W increase over
its predecessor. Despite the official TDP, it should be noted that
NVIDIA is not pitching this card as their 150W champion for systems with
a single 6-pin PCIe power cable, and it will require a more powerful
8-pin cable. For systems that need a true sub-150W card, this is where
the GTX 1060 will step in. Otherwise NVIDIA is making a very interesting
power play here what is now the second most powerful video card on the
market does so on just 150W.
GeForce GTX 1070 Block Diagram
Cards, Pricing, & Availability
For the GTX 1000 series, NVIDIA has undertaken a significant change
in how they handle reference boards and how those boards are priced.
What were once reference boards are now being released as the Founders
Edition boards. These boards are largely similar to NVIDIA’s
last-generation reference boards, built using a standard PCB and NVIDA’s
high-end blower cooler, along with some additional cooling upgrades.
The Founders Edition cards will, in turn, not be sold at NVIDIA’s
general MSRP for each family, but rather they will be sold as premium
cards for around $80-$100 more.
