Aorus gtx 1080 xtreme edition review in Spanish (complete analysis)

The fight to win the crown of the best GTX 1080 on the market is red hot. The Aorus GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition presentation has created quite a rage within the community, and we have been chosen by the European media to have the unit in our lab to launch its review on the day of its official launch.

Do you want to know how much overclocking it does? Is it worth acquiring? Don't miss our review!

We appreciate the trust in Gigabyte Spain for the transfer of the product for its analysis. Here we go!

Aorus GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition technical features

Design and unboxing

Gigabyte presents its new flagship in a standard size box and combining the black and orange colors on its cover. We see a black background, its representative Falcon as a pet and its compatibility with virtual reality.

In the rear area we find all the most important detailed technical specifications. It is very important to read them to stay up to date on this product.

Once we open the box we find the following bundle:

• Aorus GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition.CD with driver and software. Quick guide.

What does it have inside to be so powerful? It uses this year's most cutting-edge chip, the Pascal GP104-200 which It has been manufactured in 16 nm FinFET and with a reduced size of 314 mm2. It is a chip with 7, 200 million transistors, which we can deduce that it is a masterpiece of engineering. It also incorporates a total of 2560 CUDA cores from this new architecture. Its dimensions consist of 289 x 138 x 56 mm and a high weight to be a high-end graphics card.

It is complemented by a total of 160 texturizing units (TMUs) and 64 crawling units (ROPs). One of the most important details is the great difference in power that exists as standard (Founders Edition model) at which this Aorus GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition works. Specifically, we have speeds with Boost at 1898 MHz and part of a base: 1759 MHz. While with the OC mode profile we go up to 1784 MHz in base frequency and 1936 MHz up to the turbo.

The GDDR5X memory comes to fill the deficiencies that the GDDR5 offered in the current ranges of graphics cards. With HBM memory discarded for the moment: manufacturing cost and few chips we see this new type of doped memory, which ensures us up to 5500 MHz with overclock. In total it has 8GB. Why so much? Games with 2K and 4K UHD resolutions are very fond of eating memory and these 8GB will come in handy.

Rear view of the silver backplate of the graphics card.

The Aorus GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition is equipped with the new Xtreme Cooling with three double ball 10 cm fans in its structure. Unlike other models, incorporating 30 cm of cooling allows the air flow to be more direct and less spread to the aluminum grill.

As expected, the heatsink incorporates the " Fan Stop " functionality, that is, it offers 0DB in noise, which means that all the fans are at rest, until the 3D load begins and they are automatically activated.

Among its novelties we find a copper block that is responsible for cooling one of the hottest areas of the graphics card: the rear area of ​​the Pascal chip. According to our tests regarding the G1 Gaming they drop to 3ºC … But it is only possible in graphics that have a good heatsink attached and occupy 2.5 bays to support this extra weight. But the result is worth it.

Detail of the SLI connectors for the new SLI HB bridge. Not being a widely used configuration for its high price it incorporates plastic protectors that stick very well with the graphics card. Remember that the Nvidia Pascal series only allows 2 Way SLI (Settings of 3 and 4 are not allowed to play).

For a good power it incorporates two 8-pin power connections. So it offers us enough energy to take out until the last MHz that the nucleus allows us.

The heatsink also incorporates an RGB lighting system on its front and rear area (backplate) that is personalized with 16.8 million colors and various effects (see software section).

Finally we show you the rear connections made up of:

• 1 DVI connection. 3 Displayport connections. 1 HDMI connections.

In addition to two front HDMI connections to enhance the experience with the new HTC Vive and Oculus Rift virtual glasses.

PCB and internal components

To remove the heatsink we must remove a total of 7 screws located behind the chipset and the area of ​​the power supply phases. This is the view of the heatsink, as we can see incorporates 5 copper heatpipes with an outstanding cooling capacity.

Detail of the copper heatsink and its thermalpads for the memories.

The quality of the PCB is impressive, solders, components and all its distribution. Of course, it has all the ingredients to be the out of series.

The PCB is covered with a thin layer of thermal pad both the Hynix GDDR5X memories and the power phases, giving more than optimal cooling for these top-of-the-range components.

The custom PCB features 10 + 2 supply phases, that is, a real pass… since most models incorporate between 6 to 10 supply phases. Awesome!

Test bench and performance tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	i7-7700k @ 4500 Mhz..
Base plate:	Asus Maximus IX Formula.
Memory:	32GB Kingston Fury DDR4 @ 3000 Mhz
Heatsink	Cryorig H7 heatsink
HDD	Samsung 850 EVO SSD.
Graphic card	Aorus GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition
Power supply	Corsair AX860i

For benchmarks we will use the following titles:

• 3DMark Fire Strike normal.3DMark Fire Strike version 4K.Heaven 4.0.Doom 4.Overwatch.Tomb Raider.Battlefield 4.Mirror's Edge ™ Catalyst.

All tests have been passed with the filters to the maximum unless we indicate otherwise. In order to have adequate performance, we have carried out three types of tests: the first is the most common at Full HD 1920 x 1080, the second resolution is making the leap to 2K or 1440P (2560 x 1440P) gamers and the most enthusiastic with 4K (3840 x 2160). The operating system we have used has been Windows 10 Pro 64 bit and the latest drivers available from the Nvidia website.

What are we looking for in the tests?

First, the best possible image quality. The most important value for us is the average FPS (Frames per second), the higher the number of FPS the more fluid the game will go. To differentiate the quality a bit, we leave you a table to assess the quality in FPS, but we will also have the minimum Fps in the tests that were thus possible:

FRAMES BY SECONDS
Frames for Seconds. (FPS)	Gameplay
Less than 30 FPS	Limited
30 - 40 FPS	Playable
40 - 60 FPS	Good
Greater than 60 FPS	Fairly Good or Excellent

Synthetic benchmarks

As always we have passed the three most important tests in synthetic benchmarks: normal 3DMARK, its 4K version and time Spy. The results are much higher than the rest of the GTX 1080 that we have analyzed, since it comes standard up to stable 2 GHz.

Game Testing

We have decided to make the leap to checking various games manually. The reason? Very simple, we want to give a much more realistic vision and cover tests with current games. Since we make an effort, it is consistent with the level of the website and that of our readers.

Testing in Full HD games

Testing in 2K games

Testing in 4K games

Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming Software

As we have already shown you with previous Gigabyte GTX Pascal, they have incorporated new software for energy management, fan control, lighting system and graphics card overclock . In the first option it allows us to create different profiles and in them adjust the frequency of our graphics card. The problem that we have seen that the lack of release of the official software for this model, we have been quite limited in customization.

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We remind you a little of everything that allows us. First and almost most interesting is its advanced overclocking functionality, which allows us to choose between three configurations created by the Gigabyte team : OC Mode, Gaming Mode and ECO Mode. In each of them we have different values ​​that make the card slightly more powerful or energetically efficient. Although as we always recommend, it is best to overclock yourselves? Another of the most interesting options are the profiles for the fan speed.

To finish with the software, the lighting system takes on great importance in this graphics card. From this application it will allow us to adjust effects, colors, brightness and even options on the SLI HB bridge. But here is where we have seen that options are lacking and we understand that they will be the same. The problems of having an exclusivity at the international level.

Overclock and first impressions

Note: Remember that overclocking or manipulation carries a risk, we and any manufacturer are not responsible for improper use, use the head and always do so at your own risk.

We have increased overclocking capacity by +65 MHz in the core, memory by +200 MHz, TDP and maximum voltage. The result is really good, getting a great score compared to the stock. Going up to almost 2.1 GHz almost stable and we have never liked this voltage limitation… We are sure that it would go up to 2.2 GHz in case it is unlocked.

Temperature and consumption

The temperatures of the Aorus GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition are excellent, since we have obtained 29 ºC since the fans are at rest . While playing we do not exceed 66 ºC at maximum power. As the overclocking has been so mild, temperatures only rise to a maximum of 68ºC.

Consumption lives up to expectations set at 49 W idle and 255 W at full performance. Our team consists of an Intel Core i7-7700K, 32 GB of DDR4 memory, 480 GB SSD and a high performance heatsink. Once we overclock at rest, it reaches 59 W on average at rest and 285 W at maximum power.

Final words and conclusion about Aorus GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition

The Aorus GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition is one of the top three best graphics cards on the market and our tests confirm this. Both its design, cooling, overclocking capacity and build quality are a pretty important endorsement.

In our tests we have been able to verify that they behave like a champion in the three most interesting resolutions on the market: Full HD, 2560 x 1440p (2k or also known as 2.5K) and 4K. The results speak for themselves. Amazing!

RGB lighting is very present, both in the upper, front and rear of the product. We love how all its effects are. A good job.

Its big drawback will be the starting price of 800 ~ 840 euros… ranking among one of the most expensive GTX 1080 on the market. The first units are expected to arrive in Spain in the next few weeks under reservation.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ COMPONENTS.	- PRICE
+ 10 + 2 FEEDING PHASES.
+ CONSTRUCTION QUALITY.
+ SOUND AND TEMPERATURES.
+ PERFORMANCE IN 4K.

And after carefully evaluating both the evidence and the product, Professional Review awards him the platinum medal:

Aorus GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition

COMPONENT QUALITY

DISSIPATION

GAMING EXPERIENCE

SONORITY

PRICE

POSSIBLY ONE OF THE BEST GTX 1080 ON THE MARKET. DISSIPATION, QUALITY OF COMPONENTS, SOUNDNESS, PLAYABILITY AND OVERCLOCKING ARE THEIR STRONGEST POINTS. RGB LED LIGHTING IS INCORPORATED TO PERSONALIZE IT VIA SOFTWARE.