Best GTX 1080 Graphics Card – Buyer’s Guide

(Interactive GTX 1080 comparison chart found above! It may take a few seconds to load!)

When it comes to picking a GTX 1080 for your next PC build, I’m sure you’re asking the questions like: What is the best GTX 1080 for sale in today’s market? Which GTX 1080 should I buy? With many aftermarket GTX 1080s being offered by the likes of Asus, GIGABYTE, EVGA, Palit, etc… it is quite confusing to decide what the best GTX 1080 is for your needs, whether it be for cooling, design, customer service, value or overclocking. Therefore to save you the hassle, we have done the research, delved into the NVIDIA subreddit, numerous forums, and countless reddit threads to get the general consensus on what the best GTX 1080 is for your needs. We have done the research so you don’t have to. This guide will help you compare GTX 1080s from all the top manufacturers.

“Best GTX 1080 for…” Buying Guide

What is the Best GTX 1080 for General Use?

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The EVGA GTX 1080 FTW is the card to go for if you’re are looking for downright hardcore performance, with this aftermarket card showing blistering overclocks, assuming it is not down to the silicon lottery! Featuring dual bios, a boost clock of up to 1860MHz, RGB lighting and a great looking design, this is a great GTX 1080 aftermarket card to serve your needs.

Best GTX 1080 for Overclocking

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It is hard to pinpoint what Zotac have done with their AMP! Extreme GTX 1080 to make it so powerful and great for anyone who wants to overclock their card to oblivion. We have heard countless stories of the overclocking capabilities of the Zotac AMP! Extreme, with numerous cases of the AMP! extreme GTX 1080 running 2100MHz out of the box, and 2.15GHz stable and without any additional voltage. These AMP! extreme GPUs look like they can be binned very well. If you want this card, make sure you have enough room in your build as this aftermarket GTX 1080 takes up 3 slots, it’s absolutely massive. Besides from that, the AMP! The Extreme card can only be highly recommended, it runs quiet, ice cool, and allows for an extremely high factory overclock to your GTX 1080.

Quietest GTX 1080?

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The MSI Gaming X and Palit aftermarket GTX 1080 have been said to be the quietest GTX 1080s available, with the fan noise from the MSI Gaming X not even noticeable at 70% load from an open case! If you have a large enough case, a hybrid cooler type is also a great type of GPU cooler that barely produces any sound. The best hybrid cooled GTX 1080 around is the MSI Sea Hawk.

Best GTX 1080 Brand for Customer Support?

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Hands down the best GTX 1080 for top-notch customer support is an EVGA card. If you are looking for a GTX 1080 with a decent customer support and warranty to go along with your new card, then we seriously recommend you consider an EVGA ACX 3.0 FTW for their stellar customer service and flexibility in their warranties. In the event that there is a problem with your GTX 1080, as long as you are within warranty EVGA will do their best to help resolve your issue.

Best Value GTX 1080?

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Take this section a bit tongue-in-cheek: with the recent skyrocketing of GPU prices due to crypto miners, no graphics card (let alone the GTX 1080) is good value anymore. With that being said, if you are willing to drop a bit of money on a GTX 1080, then the Gainward Phoenix stacks up very well in terms of performance compared to most expensive aftermarket GTX 1080s. This card is a relatively great value compared to equivalent cards with the same performance. The Gainward Phoenix also runs extremely quiet and overclocks, with users experiencing their OC well up to 2.1MHz. The Gainward is definitely the best GTX 1080 for those on a budget, but who don’t want to sacrifice performance.

Best GTX 1080 with Dual BIOS?

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If you are after a GTX 1080 card with dual BIOS, the best 1080 card we could recommend is the Palit Gamerock. This is a great overall card that performs well across the board in terms of cooling, noise, features, and the ability to overclock well.

Best GTX 1080 Reference Card?

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There is only one obvious answer to what the best GTX 1080 Reference card is, and it can only be the EVGA GTX 1080 Founders Edition.

Interactive GTX 1080 Comparison Chart

Model	Design	Price (USD)	Warranty (USA)	Base Clock (MHz)	Boost Clock (MHz)	Pins	PCB	Ports	Cooler Type	Lighting	Length (mm)	Ratings
Nvidia Founder Edition		$690	3 Years	1607	1733	8	Reference	1x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Blower Fan	No	267	Read 135+ Reviews on Amazon
ASUS Turbo		$609	3 Years	1607	1733	8	Reference	2x DP, 2x HDMI, 1x DVI	Blower Fan	LED	267	Read 135+ Reviews on Amazon
ASUS ROG STRIX		$720	3 Years	1607	1733	8 + 6	Custom	2x DP, 2x HDMI, 1x DVI	Triple Fan	RGB	298	Read 130+ Reviews on Amazon
EVGA FTW ACX 3.0		$680	3 Years	1721	1860	8 + 8	Custom	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Dual Fan	RGB	267	Read 390+ Reviews on Amazon
Gainward Phoenix		-	2 Years	1607	1733	8 + 6	Custom	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Dual Fan	LED	285	-
GIGABYTE G1 Gaming		$650	3 Years	1721	1860	8	Custom	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Triple Fan	RGB	286	Read 90+ Reviews on Amazon
GIGABYTE XTREME GAMING		$680	3 Years	1759	1898	8 + 8	Custom	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Triple Fan	RGB	295	Read 90+ Reviews on Amazon
MSI Armor OC		$659	3 Years	1657	1797	8 + 6	Custom	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Dual Fan	No	279	Read 110+ Reviews on Amazon
MSI Gaming X		$700	3 Years	1708	1847	8 + 6	Custom	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Dual Fan	RGB	279	Read 110+ Reviews on Amazon
MSI Sea Hawk		$750	3 Years	1708	1847	8	Reference	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Liquid Cooled	RGB	270	Read 110+ Reviews on Amazon
Palit Jetstream		£559	2 Years	1607	1733	8 + 6	Custom	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Dual Fan	RGB	285	-
Palit Gamerock		£589	2 Years	1645	1784	8 + 6	Custom	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Dual Fan	RGB	285	-
Palit Gamerock Premium		£627	2 Years	1746	1885	8 + 6	Custom	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Dual Fan	RGB	285	-
Zotac AMP!		$690	2 Years	1683	1822	8 + 8	Custom	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Triple Fan	RGB	325	Read 115+ Reviews on Amazon
Zotac AMP! Extreme		$730	2 Years	1771	1911	8 + 8	Custom	3x DP, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI	Triple Fan	RGB	325	Read 118+ Reviews on Amazon

Best GTX 1080 Brand Buyers Guide: Features to look out for in the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

1. BIOS

For non-technical people out there, the BIOS (basic input/output system) is essentially an integrated piece of software that the computer requires to load an operating system. The BIOS basically is a minimum amount of code needed to load up an operating system of which you are familiar with, such as Windows 10. Some GTX 1080 cards will have a dual BIOS, and this is a feature to look out for as it will allow you to have a different BIOS on one chip, and then have a stock BIOS on the other chip, which you can go back to in case anything goes wrong with the PC. In addition, it enables you to change GPU voltage settings with the aim of increasing GPU performance and having the option to switch back to the stock BIOS for if anything were to go wrong when overclocking.

2. Cooling

Cooling is arguably one of the biggest features when comparing aftermarket GTX 1080s, as there is a large variation between cooling designs from brands such as Asus, GIGABYTE, EVGA, and Zotac. There is a wide range of cooler types seen in aftermarket GTX 1080s such as a single fan design seen in the ASUS Turbo, a dual fan design as seen in the EVGA FTW ACX 3.0, a tripe fan design as seen in the ASUS ROG STRIX, or perhaps a liquid cooled GTX 1080 offered by the MSI Sea Hawk.

3. Power Phase

What you need to know about power phases in GPUs is that the basic rule of thumb is that more power phases result in cleaner power, providing a greater potential for your graphics card to undergo a more stable overclock. With more power phases, you’ll get a more reliable feed from your power supply, resulting in fewer ripples in the voltage supply to your GPU, which is why you will theoretically get better overclocks with your GTX 1080. The jury is currently still out over what manufacturer makes the best power supply for GTX 1080 cards.

4. Warranty

It is well known that a tonne of things can go wrong with a graphics card, and it is best to have a great warranty and customer service to help you solve or fix problems you may encounter with your graphics card. Many different manufacturers of the GTX 1080 offer a wide range of warranties included with each purchase of their aftermarket GTX 1080, and this typically is between 2 and 3 years of included manufacturers warranty. We have heard that the customer support team at EVGA is pretty great for when things go wrong with their cards, they are usually regarded as the brand with the best customer support and warranty deals. The best GTX 1080 will have great and trustworthy customer service.

5. Boost Clock

If you plan on overclocking your GPU, the boost clock is essentially what the company is saying you can achieve maximum MHz when overclocking at a safe level.

6. PCB

Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) can either be reference PCBs, for example by Nvidia, or custom PCBs, which are produced by the aftermarket brands such as EVGA, MSI or Asus. Custom PCBs often have different components compared to reference PCBs and this can help when overclocking, although reference PCBs have the benefit of being easier to install an aftermarket cooler onto the GTX 1080 graphics card. It is not always true that custom PCBs improve performance, it depends on the components changed compared to the reference PCB, such as Capacitors, VRAM and VRMs.

Best GTX 1080 Buyers Guide: About the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

In May 2016, NVIDIA announced their new high-performance graphics card, the GeForce GTX 1080, claimed to be one of the world’s most advanced graphics cards for sale at that time, and it still stands up today as one of the best GTX 1080 cards in existence. Built on the new Pascal architecture from Intel, the GTX 1080 delivers over two times the performance and three times the efficiency against its sibling, the GeForce Titan X.  With the game market rapidly expanding into virtual reality and other extremely-high-demand gaming systems, your video refresh rate can make the difference between total victory and utter defeat. VR headsets aren’t very friendly toward low frame rates that kill gaming performance. Performance is paramount in GTX cards.

This large boost in performance is largely down to its adoption of Pascal technology, providing massive increases in graphics performance, memory bandwidth and efficiency of the cards power usage. The GTX 1080 has plenty of connectivity, including 3 DP connections, 1 DVI port as well as an HDMI port to future proof it for VR.  It’s totally GTX ftw.

The GTX 1080 runs at clock speeds which are almost unrivaled against its competition, with greater than 1700 MHz whilst only consuming just 180W. Clock speeds are important, but clock speed certainly isn’t the only thing that has been improved compared to its predecessors: the GTX 1080 video card features 8GB of GDDR5X memory, and is one of the first graphics cards designed to be compatible for the 16nm FinFET process. Now that there is 8GB of memory found in the GTX 1080, a greater clock speed of 10,000MHz, this leads to an overall 43% increase in memory bandwidth when compared to its smaller brother, the GTX 980. These are great stats where graphic cards are concerned.

There are improvements across the board in the GTX 1080, with GPU boost providing improved cooling solutions, reduced power consumption, and the reduction of noise. With regular use, you will unlikely be able to hear this graphics card at all! Although you probably won’t end up buying the founders’ edition design of the GTX 1080, we do admire the elegance and sleekness of the GTX 1080, with sharp metal edges creating a very angular look of the GTX 1080. This graphics card will look great in any modern PC build.

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