GPU
Now Reading
ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It’s More Than Just Muscles
Gold Pokdeward
0
Review

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It’s More Than Just Muscles

by December 19, 2016
Positives

+ Silent fan operation
+ RGB lighting effects
+ Lower power consumption compared to the competition
+ ASUS FanConnect headers
+ Better VR compatibility with more HDMI ports

Negatives

- Price may be a little high

Pokde Scoreboard
Pokde Rating
Appearance
8.9
Features
8.9
Materials
8.9
Performance
8.9
Portability
7.9
Value
6.9
Bottom Line

The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC not only brings performance but it has features exclusively found only in ASUS' ROG STRIX graphics cards.

8.4
Pokde Rating
You have rated this
What's your reaction?
Me Gusta
0%
WOW
0%
Potato
0%
Sad Reacc
0%
Angery
0%

Owning one of the strongest graphics cards on the market would certainly be the desire of all people. Especially if it’s from ASUS, which is considered a premium brand among PC enthusiasts. I got a chance to play with the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC for several weeks and it’s really fun when playing games at the highest settings.

Unboxing the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 34

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 35

Similar to the ASUS’ ROG STRIX graphics card series, the packaging for all cards is about the same. The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC we have today is the OC version, which has higher clock speed. The OC version also allows you to overclock the cards to even further heights. At the front of the box we have the picture of the graphics card and feature highlights such as ASUS AURA RGB and GeForce GTX VR Ready.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 36

Every detail about the product is printed at the back. The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC features the latest ASUS DirectCU III cooling system with triple patented wind-blade fans. It also features the Auto-Extreme Technology to ensure a consistent experience as well as improved performance and longevity. The ASUS AURA RGB has over 16M colors and multiple effects for customization. Last but not least, the ASUS FanConnect allows you to connect PWM fans for targeted cooling in your system.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 37

Inside the box, we have the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC card, two sets of ROG cable ties, driver installer via DVD, user manual and a World of Warships premium pass. Just in case, the ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 8GB OC also includes an extra PCIe power cable.

Appearance

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC

Every one of the latest ASUS’ ROG STRIX graphics cards share the same DNA in terms of design and cooling technology. The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC dark grey cooling shroud is made of plastic with a matte finish which complements the RGB lighting effect. At the front, we have three patented Wind-Blade fans for cool operating temperatures, and it operates 3X quieter than reference designs.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 38

The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC comes with a metal backplate to improve the card’s sturdiness. ASUS also threw in RGB lighting for the ROG logo.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 39

Unlike the Founder’s Edition card, the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC needs an 8-pin PCIe and an additional 6-pin PCIe for more juice when overclocking. With the power configuration, this card consumes about 300 W under load, theoretically speaking.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 40

At the rear of the card, we have two ASUS FanConnect headers. You can connect two 4-pin fans to the header, and the fans can be controlled manually via the ASUS GPU Tweak II software. This feature is rarely explained in most ROG STRIX reviews so I will show a quick demo on how it works.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 41

ASUS has made most ROG STRIX graphics card VR friendly. The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC has two HDMI 2.0 ports, two DisplayPort 1.4 connectors and a single active DVI connector.

Test Machine

The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC is tested on Pokde’s new and official bench rig for this review. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to our sponsors who have been supporting us since the early days of Pokde.net.

Hardware

Processor Intel Core i7-5820K
Motherboard ASUS X99-Deluxe
Memory Avexir Blitz 16GB DDR4
Storage Sandisk Ultra II 256GB
Power Supply Cooler Master V850

Software

Game Tested Witcher 3, Battlefield 4, DOTA 2 Reborn, CS: GO, Overwatch
OS Windows 10 64bit Annivesary
GPU Driver GeForce Game Ready Driver 375.57
Antivirus Windows Defender
Utilities Furmak, Fraps, MSI Afterburner 4.3 Beta 14, GPU-Z, OBS, Steam, Uniplay, Origin, GOG Galaxy

Card Specification

GPU Architecture Pascal
GPU GeForce GTX 1080
Memory 8GB GDDR5X @ 10Gbps
Memory Interfarce 256-bit
Base/Boost Clock 1784 MHz / 1936 MHz
Card Dimension 298 x 134 x 40 mm
Card Weight n/a

Almost all the software used in this test have been updated to the latest version. That includes the operating system, system drivers, BIOS and graphics driver.

ASUS GPU Tweak II

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 42

The latest iteration of the original ASUS GPU Tweak II brings a better UI and I hope ASUS keeps improving it. ASUS GPU Tweak & MSI Afterburner are always my go-to tools for GPU overclocking.

ASUS AURA RGB Software

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 43

ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 8GB OC comes with RGB lighting customization through the provided tool in the ASUS GPU TWEAK II.

ASUS FanConnect

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 44

This features let you connect two fans for targeted cooling. The fan will only start spinning when the GPU’s temperature hits 60 degrees Celsius and above. You can manually set the speed curve via the ASUS GPU TweakII software.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 45

You might be wondering why we need extra fan headers on a graphics card since there are plenty on the motherboard. For me, you can mount the fan that connected to the FanConnect header as intake in the front. Thus when you are not gaming the fans mirror the Strix 0db fan technology and turns off completely, giving you a true zero-noise environment.

Performance

The highest power consumption recorded during the test is 340 watts. By subtracting the 120 W (± 10 W) that the rest of the hardware consumes, this card only sips approximately 220 watts (± 10 W).

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 46

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 47

DOTA2 and CS: GO was never a problem for a high-end cards like the ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 8GB OC. The game has smooth gameplay with a framerate of over 150 on both 1080p and 1440p resolutions. Meanwhile at 4K resolution, it’s still standing ahead at above 140 fps.

p/s: The DOTA2 is tested on version 6.98.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 48

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 49

Excellent frame rates on Battlefield 4. The ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 8GB OC is capable of running the game at 4K resolution with an average of 66 fps.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 50

When it’s capable of running Battlefield 4 with smooth framerates, the ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 8GB OC will definitely have no problem when playing Overwatch. On 4K resolution, the ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 8GB OC managed to get an average of 86 fps.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 51

You will enjoy a great gaming experience on the Witcher 3 when you play at 1080p and 1440p. The ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 8GB OC only struggles when it comes to 4K resolution. Despite low framerates on 4K, the game is still playable since the minimum fps never goes below 30 fps.

Overclocking

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 52

I’ve managed to overclock the card with 37 MHz added on the GPU Clock and 490 MHz added on the Memory Clock. This gave me a performance boost of around 2% from the default ROG STRIX GTX 1080 8GB OC clock. A little reminder, I didn’t increase the voltage at all when overclocking the card. I played Overwatch for several rounds and the real-world benefits are as below.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 53

Conclusion

The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC is priced at around RM 3600 and is a very powerful graphics card that you can get in the market. Capable of running most games at 1440p resolution, I believe it could be better if paired with a 144Hz G-sync ready monitor. Unlike the competitor brand, the ASUS FanConnect is likely an exclusive feature that is only found in ROG STRIX graphics cards.

Based on the performances and features offered, the ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 8GB OC deserves to be awarded our prestigious Gold Pokdeward.

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB OC Review — When It's More Than Just Muscles 54

The PokdeRig

We would like to thank our sponsors for our very own benchmarking rig – The PokdeRig. These companies believe in us and put their trust into what we do. They deserve all the love in the world!

Asus X99-Deluxe

Asus X99-Deluxe

Intel Core i7-5820K

Intel Core i7-5820K

CM MasterAir Pro 4

CM MasterAir Pro 4

CM V850

CM V850 PSU

Sandisk Ultra II

Sandisk Ultra II

Avexir Blitz 16GB DDR4

Avexir Blitz 16GB DDR4

About The Author
Muhammad Firdaus
I love technology, so I love AMD.

Leave a Response