What are nvidia founders edition cards?

The arrival of the GeForce GTX 1080 has meant the premiere by Nvidia of the term Founders Edition that you have surely heard or read. But what exactly does Founders Edition mean and what are the benefits it brings?

The GeForce Founders Edition are the reference versions

In the presentation of the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition, we were struck that the card had a sale price higher than the recommended price at the time of launch despite being in front of a model made entirely by Nvidia and without any assembler having inserted the hand. The GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition is therefore the reference version of the card in which an improved heatsink is mounted compared to previous editions with a steam chamber to improve its cooling capacity. It thus differs from the previous GTX 980 which had a heatsink with heatpipes.

Nvidia has confirmed that the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition is not manufactured with special hand-selected chips, it is something that had been rumored before the price of the card that is higher than the one recommended by Nvidia itself. Rumors have appeared over the network that these cards had the best quality chips to operate at a lower voltage and therefore allow a higher overclock, something that has been completely denied by Nvidia. Founders Edition cards do not enjoy any privilege compared to the versions customized by the assemblers in terms of chip quality.

So we can conclude that Nvidia's Founders Edition cards are simply the reference versions that this time are released with an improved heatsink compared to previous generations. The only advantage of these cards is therefore that they are available in the market before those personalized by the assemblers. The extra cost is due to the fact that they are cards built entirely by Nvidia and the cost of the GPU must be added to the PCB and the heatsink, among others.