The Power PC Thread [f*ck off consoles]

[SharkyUK]

I'm liking the look of the new Pascal-based 1080 but I don't think it's enough of a performance increase over my current 980Ti to justify the outlay. The 'base' 1080 could be a good buy for others who are not yet on a 9xx series, especially if they overclock as nicely as some believe they will. Personally I will be waiting for the 1080Ti and then upgrading (probably along with the mobo, CPU and RAM, too).

 

[DeeKay86]

I'm liking the look of the new Pascal-based 1080 but I don't think it's enough of a performance increase over my current 980Ti to justify the outlay. The 'base' 1080 could be a good buy for others who are not yet on a 9xx series, especially if they overclock as nicely as some believe they will. Personally I will be waiting for the 1080Ti and then upgrading (probably along with the mobo, CPU and RAM, too).

Really not enough of a performance increase over a 980ti???

Its more powerful than 2 980Ti's in SLI and runs way cooler on air and boosts to over 2100mhz! Not to mention all the added features of Pascal, imo it's a massive performance increase over a single 980Ti

 

[SharkyUK]

Really not enough of a performance increase over a 980ti???

Its more powerful than 2 980Ti's in SLI and runs way cooler on air and boosts to over 2100mhz! Not to mention all the added features of Pascal, imo it's a massive performance increase over a single 980Ti

No, it's not more powerful than 2x 980 Ti's in SLI. nVidia have been quite crafty in how they have worded their press release. In VR it's faster than two 980's... not two 980Ti's; there's a significant difference between the Ti and non-Ti versions. And as for what 'faster in VR' means is not entirely clear yet. There's not a chance in hell that a first-gen Pascal card will be faster than 2 of the currently available flagship cards (in SLI) with an expected price of circa $500-$600. I'd be surprised if real world performance of the 1080 is any more than 40-50% increase on the currently available 980Ti's.

 

[DeeKay86]

No, it's not more powerful than 2x 980 Ti's in SLI. nVidia have been quite crafty in how they have worded their press release. In VR it's faster than two 980's... not two 980Ti's; there's a significant difference between the Ti and non-Ti versions. And as for what 'faster in VR' means is not entirely clear yet. There's not a chance in hell that a first-gen Pascal card will be faster than 2 of the currently available flagship cards (in SLI) with an expected price of circa $500-$600. I'd be surprised if real world performance of the 1080 is any more than 40-50% increase on the currently available 980Ti's.

Fair enough I've obviously misread it!! Cheers for clarifying !!

 

[SharkyUK]

Fair enough I've obviously misread it!! Cheers for clarifying !!

No worries mate.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a MASSIVE nVidia fan and really believe the 1070 and 1080 could do very well. A lot of performance potential with the impressive clock speeds and hopefully the pricing remains sensible on release here in the UK. For example, a 1070 at 300-something quid with 980Ti / Titan X level of performance is not to be sniffed at, especially when it's also drawing a lot less power. That said, if you extrapolate the data and theoretically run a Titan X / 980Ti at the quoted clock speeds of the 1080 then the performance gap isn't 'a quantum leap' as announced.

I'm just not as hyped up after reading between the lines and looking closer at the details of the products. I'm a little disappointed that the 256-bit bus and the GDDR5X is only seeing 320Gb bandwidth (not shabby, but would have liked a bit more) and I don't like how the press release present the skewed graphs that show some really ambiguous performance and efficiency results. Somethings just don't add up having looked at the specs and a lot of it is just carefully worded b****cks to build up the hype (which is obviously the whole point). I just think people are expecting some massive, massive leap in performance and I just don't see that happening with this product. It's impressive no doubt, but the claims just seem OTT. I look forward to seeing some real world benchmarks. I'm also hoping to get my hands on an early card for 'review' as I still have a couple of friends who work at nVidia and I've cheekily asked them if I could have a review sample! LOL! I daresay 'NO' will be the answer but what the heck... :tonguewink:

The larger performance gains they seem to be pushing seem very much linked to VR (even when you look at the specs of the test rig used to produce said metrics) so it will be very interesting to see how non-VR stuff works out - i.e. typical modern games. If early benchmark leaks are to be believed then current titles (such as Rise of the Tomb Raider, Witcher 3, etc.) have approximately a 20-25% performance advantage over a 980Ti when run on the newer 1080. To be honest, that is the level of performance I would expect, maybe going higher as drivers improve and newer games take advantage of newer Pascal features. I just cannot for the life of me see the quoted 2x performance of Titan X happening in the real world. I'm prepared to eat my words but working with these GPU's day in day out for over 20 years and having worked with nVidia for 2-3 years I just can't see it happening.

I'm also a bit miffed with some of their other technology stuff announced at their recent announcement; such as Ansel and VRWorks Audio. The world's first this, the world's first that... I'd contest some of those claims. The Ansel camera thing is basically an extension that has to be supported by the developer. It's trying to provide a unified camera system that exists on top of the camera systems that are built in to the specific title's game engine. I get that. But the developer has to do extra work to support it. nVidia say that it has driver level support for the feature... ok, so what? The driver doesn't know what part of the world the user is looking at, that's the job of the game's rendering engine. The rendering engine has to hook into Ansel at some level so as the user controls the view through Ansel the rendering engine knows to update the position of the viewport in the world and what exactly it should be drawing. And whilst I'm moaning on my soap box, the crowd all wooping at the ultra high resolutions of the output from Ansel. Jeez... that's so basic and old tech. Virtual viewports snapshots. I was taking 20,000 x 20,000 pixel screenshots for magazine articles, etc. on the Nintendo64 back in 1998!

And, and, and... LOL... VRWorks audio. They aren't the world's first to use tracing of rays to determine convolution filters for modulation of audio in a 3D environment. This has been around for years and featured on many popular sound cards. I just don't think it was particularly heavily used as it was (at least originally) so cumbersome and expensive to use. Hence developers tended to roll their own simpler audio / environment interaction routines. To my eyes they are just taking existing tech, giving it a new name, running it on a GPU and calling it a world first!

Ok, I'm calm now Rant over. For the record I am still a big nVidia fan but I just find - as I get older - the utter bullshit harder to ignore. :tonguewink:

I look forward to seeing Pascal in Ti variants on 12GB or 16GB HBM / HBM2 memory clusters... that would be nice. And expensive.

 

[Wilkeh]

I'm definitely getting a 1080. I'll get mine sold over the next few weeks. What do you reckon I could get for a 980 (non-Ti)? £200 maybe?

 

[Ben.Block]

My PC is running like a bag of s**t for a while now, restarts itself now and again and the screen flickers maybe to do with the new gfx card i put in a while back maybe it's not compatible. Also when i'm on YouTube the sound is coming out like dubbed. Running slow too.

Is there a noob's guide to what's what on building a pc. I have no idea what you need and what's the difference between the numbers and letters of each thing you need to build a pc.

Would like to spend around £400-£500 just for home use non gaming just for surfing the net and watching YouTube

I don't see the point in doing a self build at that price and for that type of use. Whenever I've looked at component prices to do a PC like that it's always come up cheaper to buy a generic pre fab.

 

[Ben.Block]

I'm definitely getting a 1080. I'll get mine sold over the next few weeks. What do you reckon I could get for a 980 (non-Ti)? £200 maybe?

I'm thinking of doing the same, if I could get that for each of mine I'd definitely do it.

 

[McGherkin]

I've just remembered I still have my MSI 780.

Now Sharky mentions it, it probably is worth me holding out for the 1080ti.

 

[Silent_Scone]

I'm liking the look of the new Pascal-based 1080 but I don't think it's enough of a performance increase over my current 980Ti to justify the outlay. The 'base' 1080 could be a good buy for others who are not yet on a 9xx series, especially if they overclock as nicely as some believe they will. Personally I will be waiting for the 1080Ti and then upgrading (probably along with the mobo, CPU and RAM, too).

The power slides were BS though, 120mv p2p is nothing to brag about. The claims they're making are bold, though! Seems the architecture is brutally fast. I'll be picking up one me thinks hopefully.

No, it's not more powerful than 2x 980 Ti's in SLI. nVidia have been quite crafty in how they have worded their press release. In VR it's faster than two 980's... not two 980Ti's; there's a significant difference between the Ti and non-Ti versions. And as for what 'faster in VR' means is not entirely clear yet. There's not a chance in hell that a first-gen Pascal card will be faster than 2 of the currently available flagship cards (in SLI) with an expected price of circa $500-$600. I'd be surprised if real world performance of the 1080 is any more than 40-50% increase on the currently available 980Ti's.

^ This, GM204 is a much smaller and to an extent much less capable GPU to GM200 on the Ti and Titan X.

Nvidia aren't aiming this card at gen on gen buyers. This is an upgrade path for those on 980GTX or below. Although Andy I don't think the bus width is really an issue unless you're pushing a huge amount of pixels. That said, be a bit gutting if you pick this up and then only a few months later the bigger Pascal is sporting HBM 2.0. Those cards will come at a hefty premium, though.

 

[SharkyUK]

Now Sharky mentions it, it probably is worth me holding out for the 1080ti.

That's what I would personally do mate. I'm not sure when the cards are likely to make a showing though. I also wouldn't be surprised to see some silly prices on the Ti's and / or newer Titans; possibly in the region of 800-1200 quid depending on model variant and the type of RAM used, etc. Whilst I am personally happy to wait I also know I'm going to be paying a heck of a premium to simply be an early adopter.

The power slides were BS though, 120mv p2p is nothing to brag about. The claims they're making are bold, though! Seems the architecture is brutally fast. I'll be picking up one me thinks hopefully.

Agreed mate. Yeah, please get one I'd like to see a trusted review and what the potential of these cards is likely to be... :tonguewink:

Nvidia aren't aiming this card at gen on gen buyers. This is an upgrade path for those on 980GTX or below.

Yep - I'd agree with that statement, too. Whilst I still do maintain the claims for the new cards are OTT they do seem to offer some serious performance at a far, far more palatable price point.

Although Andy I don't think the bus width is really an issue unless you're pushing a huge amount of pixels. That said, be a bit gutting if you pick this up and then only a few months later the bigger Pascal is sporting HBM 2.0. Those cards will come at a hefty premium, though.

Indeed, it's not exactly limiting generally but I'm a little confused in the message nVidia are trying to convey. A lot of their focus seems very much VR related and some of their new tech is very much related to multiple viewport support and rendering. To me that suggests a lot of pixel pushing and processing hence why I perhaps expected a higher bandwidth. That said, some of their newer tech also means viewport processing and manipulation on the new architecture can be performed on card at very little cost so perhaps that offsets the need for higher bandwidths. It will be interesting to read more about the workings of the card and nVidia's new tech features to get a better understanding of what's going on in there.

If the $-price of the new cards translate to equivalent £'s here then I think nVidia could be on to a winner... although I feel it would also push the 9xx series into obsolescence overnight!

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

That's just how it works though. Maybe a bit of man maths is used to justify the purchase of a £500+ GPU.

But in reality once you have it, you know it's going to be worth a fraction of that in 1 or 2 years.

Personally I was never going to be upgrading to early Pascal cards. My Ti gets a workout now and then, but I mostly play MOBAs and it does the job of maxing out fps on my ROG Swift and looking nice inside the case so I'll keep it until I have the need something new.

That's the party line for the monent at least.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Yeah, this is the first time we've seen 16nm on a consumer GPU too. The billions spent has paid off if the performance they are claiming is real. I think also VR and the power required to render has pushed things to this point where by we actually could really benefit from the horse power. The recommendation of a 970GTX for the Rift is in my opinion a little optimistic. I think that will become apparent to people once the headsets become more widely available.

In terms of rendering at 1440 and 1080, the 680 Classified that i only intended on using as a stop gap has held up a lot better than i expected. As long as you keep post processing like MSAA off the card will cope ok. Another card that has fairly shocking memory bandwidth throughput lol

 

[Diagro]

meh, The 1080 isnt even a Fully fledged DX12 card. Async has no mention of being fixed.. so most likely isnt.

20% faster than a 980ti? Wow much speeds.

i think i will stick with my Xfire 290x until AMD or Nvidia release a card that's 2x faster then a single 290x.

 

[Darren S]

The next gen certainly appeals. Running two of the GTX690s currently, would not only see an improvement (certainly when non-SLi features are supported) - but also reduced clutter within the case itself.

I might delay and hold off until the 1080 comes out. Unless of course Andy makes me a decent of the 980Ti.... :wink:

 

[Silent_Scone]

meh, The 1080 isnt even a Fully fledged DX12 card. Async has no mention of being fixed.. so most likely isnt.

20% faster than a 980ti? Wow much speeds.

i think i will stick with my Xfire 290x until AMD or Nvidia release a card that's 2x faster then a single 290x.

Pascal can do Async compute, it was always going to be able to. The lack of capability on previous gen fell inline with the fact DX11 wasn't able to make use of this. The only reason consumers are focused on it's existence and the benefits it brings is because it's something AMD's GCN has been able to do for sometime now. Couple that with the early adoption and collaboration with studios, it was easy to put a selling point on it.

I've yet to play a single game that uses this technique, and I'll have a Pascal card before I've even gotten the opportunity. With the performance these new cards bring, there is no need for the barrel scraping finger pointing for support tiers for DX12 compliance considering the number of games capable are still less than you can count on one hand, the performance will now speak for itself.

 

[Diagro]

You dont know it can do Async. No one does until its tested.

But I'm leaning towards it doesn't do it as well as it should.

Anyway these cards are not the High end cards we have been waiting for, more Mid-High. Unfortunately Nvidia has priced them at Previous High end prices and people will lap them up like fools. Then when the 1080Ti pops up at over £750 people will be like OMG MUCH SPEED SUCH CHEAPS

 

[SharkyUK]

meh, The 1080 isnt even a Fully fledged DX12 card. Async has no mention of being fixed.. so most likely isnt

No card is a fully-fledged DX12 card as the API and feature set is still evolving. That's why cards are listed as 'supporting' DX12 rather than full DX12 compliance. It's all still a bit fuzzy at the moment.

I might delay and hold off until the 1080 comes out. Unless of course Andy makes me a decent of the 980Ti.... :wink:

Hahaha, well mate - you are welcome to the Ti but obviously I'm not sure when the 1080Ti will be available for purchase... can you wait until then? That said, and as much as it pains me, you would still probably be better off buying a 1080 as the release of these cards is going to hit existing Titan / Ti owners hard when trying to sell their cards secondhand...

You dont know it can do Async. No one does until its tested.

But I'm leaning towards it doesn't do it as well as it should.

Anyway these cards are not the High end cards we have been waiting for, more Mid-High. Unfortunately Nvidia has priced them at Previous High end prices and people will lap them up like fools. Then when the 1080Ti pops up at over £750 people will be like OMG MUCH SPEED SUCH CHEAPS

Pascal? It can do Async. AMD seem to have a decent implementation of it built into their GCN architecture and nVidia have had to 'workaround' issues in the past (effectively negating any benefit such a feature brings to the table). That said, I think Async is very, very overrated. My experience of it so far is that it's extremely sensitive to how it's utilised and it makes it a b**ch to use. Such a pain in the ass development for such small performance gains isn't worth the hassle in my mind. Of course, the hope is that maturation of hardware, software, drivers, etc. will soon see the feature becoming more widespread and easier to use.

 

[Silent_Scone]

No card is a fully-fledged DX12 card as the API and feature set is still evolving. That's why cards are listed as 'supporting' DX12 rather than full DX12 compliance. It's all still a bit fuzzy at the moment.


Hahaha, well mate - you are welcome to the Ti but obviously I'm not sure when the 1080Ti will be available for purchase... can you wait until then? That said, and as much as it pains me, you would still probably be better off buying a 1080 as the release of these cards is going to hit existing Titan / Ti owners hard when trying to sell their cards secondhand...


Pascal? It can do Async. AMD seem to have a decent implementation of it built into their GCN architecture and nVidia have had to 'workaround' issues in the past (effectively negating any benefit such a feature brings to the table). That said, I think Async is very, very overrated. My experience of it so far is that it's extremely sensitive to how it's utilised and it makes it a b**ch to use. Such a pain in the ass development for such small performance gains isn't worth the hassle in my mind. Of course, the hope is that maturation of hardware, software, drivers, etc. will soon see the feature becoming more widespread and easier to use.

That's AMD marketing for you.

 

[SharkyUK]

Marketing is marketing, they're all at it! All aboard the hype train! LOL!

I am getting annoyed by the whole Ashes of Singularity thing regarding Async Compute (perhaps I should stop reading the comments on game sites that feature the game's development?!) The belief that Async Compute is some wonder feature is not true. nVidia failed miserably to see any tangible performance benefits due to their architecture not being favourable towards the feature. AMD saw a minor performance gain to say the least (but there was a gain). However, most folks don't realise that the performance gains came from elsewhere; predominantly in AMD's improved drivers that reduced overheads. It is incredibly difficult to introduce parallelism in a rendering engine (or to write one from scratch). There's definitely a knack to it and there's always something unexpected that trips you up.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Marketing is marketing, they're all at it! All aboard the hype train! LOL!

I am getting annoyed by the whole Ashes of Singularity thing regarding Async Compute (perhaps I should stop reading the comments on game sites that feature the game's development?!) The belief that Async Compute is some wonder feature is not true. nVidia failed miserably to see any tangible performance benefits due to their architecture not being favourable towards the feature. AMD saw a minor performance gain to say the least (but there was a gain). However, most folks don't realise that the performance gains came from elsewhere; predominantly in AMD's improved drivers that reduced overheads. It is incredibly difficult to introduce parallelism in a rendering engine (or to write one from scratch). There's definitely a knack to it and there's always something unexpected that trips you up.

Almost exactly the same thing could be said with Mantle/Vulkan. The marketing overshadowed the benefit at the time, all of the gains were from the reduced CPU overhead as predominately it's no secret their drivers have always suffered from this under the weight of DX11. It just so happened that Nvidia invested a lot more effort into what is current rather than what could be in the future with NVAPI and general overhead improvements. But then I suppose that's the angle AMD are now spinning - that without Mantle there would be no API advancements. Believe that if you want to lol

 

[Toypop]

I will get a couple at launch. I'm expecting 20% real world performance boost over my 980ti's. That tends to be the typical margin.

My only concern is how long it will be before we see the 1080ti. I suspect that will depend on any perceived threat from AMD. Shelling out a grand, minus what I get for my 980ti's, I hope we don't see the 1080ti until early 2017!

The only thing I can guarantee is that within six months of buying 2 x 1080's, I will have had to Steam-refund two or three games and buy them on PS4 because they stutter like hell on PC!

 

[SharkyUK]

My only concern is how long it will be before we see the 1080ti. I suspect that will depend on any perceived threat from AMD. Shelling out a grand, minus what I get for my 980ti's, I hope we don't see the 1080ti until early 2017!

I think it might be a while until we see the 1080Ti's released. As always rumours are abound but some of them are quite interesting. Rumours of 512-bit bus, HBM memory... that would be nice. But the price tag associated with it would probably make most people weep. I'm already starting a separate savings account just in case (the pension will have to suffer for a while!) LOL!

 

[Silent_Scone]

There will be a Pasca based Titan before there is a 1080ti if at all this time around for the bigger die variant

 

[SharkyUK]

Some early rumours circulating that the 1080 could be around the 700 quid mark when it goes on sale...! Ouch.

Also, don't be fooled by the "Founder's Edition" of the card. It's basically the reference design with a snazzy cooler on it. It might be better seeing what nVidia board partners have to offer.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Some early rumours circulating that the 1080 could be around the 700 quid mark when it goes on sale...! Ouch.

Also, don't be fooled by the "Founder's Edition" of the card. It's basically the reference design with a snazzy cooler on it. It might be better seeing what nVidia board partners have to offer.

urgh, hope not. The pricing was aggressive at the expo. And yeah I came to realise that last night. I think much like GM204, the power this card will draw there will be little need for much of anything spectacular cooling wise. In fact Nvidia's vaporchamber reference design is probably way over spec considering it's appearance was first on the original Kepler Titan lol.

 

[Darren S]

Some early rumours circulating that the 1080 could be around the 700 quid mark when it goes on sale...! Ouch.

Also, don't be fooled by the "Founder's Edition" of the card. It's basically the reference design with a snazzy cooler on it. It might be better seeing what nVidia board partners have to offer.

That's a wedge and a half!

Hmmm. Might need to reconsider - unless a 1070 is worthy enough in its own right?

 

[Wilkeh]

I sense a butt hurt AMD fan in here

 

[SharkyUK]

That's a wedge and a half!

Hmmm. Might need to reconsider - unless a 1070 is worthy enough in its own right?

The embargo on reviews and benchmarking is lifted on May 17th I believe. Although I expect some will be leaked beforehand as per usual...

As for the cost, it is only a rumour mate. It may be WELL off the mark. Some sites have quoted the 1080 as being priced at £450 (which I will be absolutely astounded at if that's the case!) I would have expected a price in the region of perhaps 550 quid for the 1080, possibly 350 for the 1070. It will be interesting to see the specs for the 1070 as that could be the card to go for in terms of performance and price point.

 

[Darren S]

The embargo on reviews and benchmarking is lifted on May 17th I believe. Although I expect some will be leaked beforehand as per usual...

As for the cost, it is only a rumour mate. It may be WELL off the mark. Some sites have quoted the 1080 as being priced at £450 (which I will be absolutely astounded at if that's the case!) I would have expected a price in the region of perhaps 550 quid for the 1080, possibly 350 for the 1070. It will be interesting to see the specs for the 1070 as that could be the card to go for in terms of performance and price point.

I'd expect your price assumptions to be more accurate, Andy. Certainly if they released the cards at there or thereabouts, you could argue it's the going rate for a brand new, high-end gamer graphics card.

The question is - where will they go with the Titan spec? In particular, will they add some weird retrospective moniker to it? Will we be seeing a Titan-W? Or Titan-V?

 

[DeeKay86]

Apparently the GTX 1080 Benchmarks have been leaked... so naturally I made a video!! LOL

Check it out - looks fantastic if true!

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

I want this case.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00X50XI42/?tag=cliospnet01-21

 

[Silent_Scone]

I want this case.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00X50XI42/?tag=cliospnet01-21

Apparently it's an absolute c**t to work on.

This Phanteks ITX case was enough of a b*****d for me, and that's not even that small.

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

That looks nice too!

It does look a bit of a pita . No space for a good air cooler and ITX not having M2 is offputting for me at the moment.

Everything points toward another cube case though and ideally I'd like something with a smaller footprint.

MicroATX LianLi cube case (the one where the mobo lies flat) looks nice too.

 

[Cookie]

NDA on the new nVidia cards allegedly lifts at 6am PST today (which is 2pm here). Interested in proper benchmarks.

 

[DeeKay86]

Yep NDA has lifted - my YouTube homepage has been flooded with 1080 videos lol!

It's interesting - what do you guys think of the benchmarks? Was it overhyped? It does mostly outdo 980's in SLI - mostly being the keyword.

Personally - yes I think the 1080 is excellent - BUT it may have just been over hyped a bit, especially in terms of 4K performance! (See benchmarks on YouTube to see what I mean...)

Opinions?

 

[Silent_Scone]

Yep NDA has lifted - my YouTube homepage has been flooded with 1080 videos lol!

It's interesting - what do you guys think of the benchmarks? Was it overhyped? It does mostly outdo 980's in SLI - mostly being the keyword.

Personally - yes I think the 1080 is excellent - BUT it may have just been over hyped a bit, especially in terms of 4K performance! (See benchmarks on YouTube to see what I mean...)

Opinions?

I'm struggling to care in all honesty, maybe I've finally be doing this for too long? It certainly holds up well. The most impressive thing I saw was on the HardOCP review - where they pushed 2x SuperSampling through the 1080GTX whilst keeping SMAA on the 980Ti at 1440p, and it kept up a similar pace. That's pretty impressive. But for me personally, I just really don't feel the urge to go and spend £620 of my hard earned on it.

 

[Cookie]

I'm still waiting for the 1070 reviews, doubtful I'll get a 1080 given I still only game in 1080p and cba to change my monitors

 

[Silent_Scone]

It's all s**t. I find it amusing that it looks like they're trying to charge some kind of Enthusiast tax if you want to run conventional SLI past 2 cards - for which I'm sure they won't be supporting any better than they are now - which is woefully. Really struggling to stay interested.

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

Yep NDA has lifted - my YouTube homepage has been flooded with 1080 videos lol!

It's interesting - what do you guys think of the benchmarks? Was it overhyped? It does mostly outdo 980's in SLI - mostly being the keyword.

Personally - yes I think the 1080 is excellent - BUT it may have just been over hyped a bit, especially in terms of 4K performance! (See benchmarks on YouTube to see what I mean...)

Opinions?

Does it?

The reviews I've seen say it's generally 30-40% better than a 980Ti. So you'd have to have a pretty poor SLI profile for a single 1080 to perform better than 2x 980Tis... Unless I've read it wrong (which I haven't lol).

With regards to hype, I've not listened to hype on the computer front for a while but I'm sure it was the same as it's always been.