NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 & GTX 1070 BASED ON NVIDIA PASCAL
The world’s most advanced GPU architecture
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.
