ASUS GTX 1080 Strix Review - "I wanna go fast!"
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,471 words · ~7 min read
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1936 MHz boost clock in OC mode 8 plus2
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Super alloy power phase design Auto extreme technology GPU controled fan
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headers and uh AA RGB lighting I
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guess tunnel bear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse privately
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and enjoy a more open internet to try tunnel bear for free check out the link
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in the video description so the strix 1080 from ASUS is finally here and it's
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rocking an allnew aesthetic cover to their beloved Drex C3 cooler design I
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think it looks great and I appreciate that they opted to go with a flat black
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coloring essentially everywhere which will joking about RGB being an overdone
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feature aside complement the addition of
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these greatl looking Aura enabled RGB LEDs that support many different
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lighting modes and can sync with other Ora enabled devices like your a use
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motherboard keyboard mouse Etc as well
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for connectivity ASUS decided to switch it up a bit instead of the 1080s
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standard setup of three display ports one HDMI connector and one DVI connector
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ASUS opted to ditch one of those display ports for an additional HDMI connector
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they call this solution vrf friendly HDMI ports which might sound kind of
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like SLI ready Edition RAM but it's not
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that bad all it means is that you can have an HDMI based VR headset that
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connected and some other HDMI device like a monitor or TV without using a
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DisplayPort adapter for the flat panel display something that's required with
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the HCC Vive on the 1000 series NVIDIA cards due to their shockingly poor
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implementation of HDMI over DisplayPort
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that's it moving on the STX has a 203
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MHz overclock in OC mode over the
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founders Edition 1733 MHz boost clock
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this results in a freakishly awesome final clock speed of 1936 MHz which
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hovers in real games between around
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1920 to slightly over
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2,63 MHz thanks to GPU boost there is an
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elephant in the room here however the OC mode isn't enabled out of the box and
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there's no Hardware BIOS switch or anything to turn it on all the 6970 back
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in the day it has to be enabled through GPU tweak 2 and a sous software utility
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problem number one this utility isn't that easy to find searching for download
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GPU tweak 2 does yield an auss download
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page but for a horribly out-of-date version of the software no if you want
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it you'll need to scroll a little further to the Reddit discussion thread
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on how to find it now they aren't hiding it either there's a graphic about it on
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the box Ard and honestly it's not that hard to track down if you just go to
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your graphics card support page select the drivers button expand exp what
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operating system you have then expand the utility section it's right there no
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big deal the confusing part is this why if the tool is required to reach the
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performance levels advertised are they not in your face about it if this is
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what enables the card to be awesome tell me I mean sure in the manual it says to
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install the driver's disc but like come on lonus basically made a meme out of
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throwing those things away back in 2009 we have a driver disc don't use this
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download the L off the NVIDIA website they're inherently outdated and ASUS is
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a pretty smart Bunch I'd imagine they know as well as I do that the majority
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of people ignore them and go straight to NVIDIA or AMD's website for the most
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up-to-date drivers why would they ever find themselves on the ASUS support page
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it's annoying too because this problem is so simple to fix MSI has an easy to
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find download page for afterburner so apparently it's not impossible and a
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surprisingly low number of people are overclocking their cards anyways so
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shouldn't you be just giving the performance to them that you're saying
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the card can do anyways right out of the
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box I mean the card sits at 66°
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underload not a big deal and you clearly have a BIOS that will run these speeds
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by default there was that whole Scandal where you were sending out cards
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pre-loaded with it to reviewers so instead of taking that away from
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reviewers FYI our card was reflashed
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with the retail BIOS before testing just give it to everyone problem solved maybe
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I'm missing something but enough of that let's move on the performance side of
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things was actually pretty groovy I experienced performance improvements of
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about 3 to 7 FPS across the board which
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is rather awesome and that's while these games are running at 4K with everything
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maxed out beyond their maximum presets that 3 to FPS was clawed for these were
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in very difficult scenarios if if I turned all the settings down so the
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average FPS number was higher the FPS that it would have climbed would have
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also been higher I don't expect many people to pick the highest possible
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performance preset and then crank further beyond that this card is a beast
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and will serve you well and all of that while sitting at about
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66° and nice and quietly too the card is
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a beast that doesn't get too hot and doesn't get too loud that's cool so it's
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a rocking performer out of the box just don't expect it to overclock beyond
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the GPU tweak OC mode I found this rather surprising I mean to be fair I
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did manage to get the card stable at around plus 25 MHz but we're talking
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like 1% here for that level of increase
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what's the point I just turned it off and to be fair having the card hit 263
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mahz or 2 GHz was impressive enough it's
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just a little surprising that there was no juice left left in the tank they
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really did seem to cut it close you can either be frustrated by this or you
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could take that as a good thing they did all the work for you let me know what
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your feelings are in the comment section down below so in conclusion despite my
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objections to the way it was advertised this is an absolutely stunning card it
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looks beautiful in so many ways I love the swap to dual HDMI ports and it is
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fast as hell I might see some personal rig potential here so stay tuned for
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that today we're highlighting the k7xx
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limited edition ruby red headphones which is unlike any of the colors that
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is currently on me of course Mast drop still has a bunch of other cool products
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which you can check out at the link in the video description hopefully you guys
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know about Mast drop already though it's the pretty simple concept where the more
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people buy something on mass drop a certain product the lower the price of
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that certain product goes the product we're showcasing today is the same spec
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wise as the k7xx headphones that lus
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reviewed last year can check with that video right up here the only real
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difference is that it uses red accents on the ear cups and headband and that's
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about it other than the fact that it is a limited edition drop so if you want a
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pair you're going to have to act pretty fast so if you want to check them out
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and grab a pair of ruby red k7xx headphones head over to the link in the
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video description today thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you
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know what to do but if it was awesome and you're like wow all that stuff is weird but it's a pretty cool graphics
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card regardless hit the like button get subscribed or check out the link in the
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video description to buy the stuff that we mentioned in this video like the 1080 stricks at
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Amazon and also Link in the description is our merch store where you can buy
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cool shirts and our community Forum where you can talk about stuff like why
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don't they have that easier to set up or ra I don't care the cards really good
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and I do manual overclocking anyway so I don't need that thing uh I don't know
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check out this video to see like the normal GTX 1080 I filmed it in a little
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bit of a weird exotic area so check that out