Evga Geforce Gtx 1080 Ti Ftw3 Hybrid Gaming Review

The EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 is the company's attempt at a three-fan cooler, entering EVGA into the three-fan ranks aslope ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI. The difference with EVGA's card, though, is that information technology's a two-slot pattern; board partners take gone with a "bigger is better" mentality for the 1080 Ti, and it's not necessarily advantageous. Sure, there are benefits – taller cards hateful taller fans, like on the Gaming X, which results in slower rotation of fans without sacrificing volume of air moved. It follows then that taller fans on taller cards could be profiled to run quieter, without necessarily sacrificing thermal functioning of the GPU, VRM, and VRAM components.

But we're testing today to run into how all that plays out in reality. In our EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 review, we criterion the card vs. EVGA'south own SC2, MSI's 1080 Ti Gaming Ten, Gigabyte'south Xtreme Aorus, and the Founders Edition card. Each of these likewise has an individual review posted, if you're looking for break-outs on any one device. Run into the following links for those (listed in lodge of publication):

• EVGA GTX 1080 Ti SC2 review
• Gigabyte GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Aorus review
• GN Hybrid 1080 Ti reference review (with liquid)
• MSI GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X review
• NVidia GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition review

Information technology'south Non Virtually Gaming Functioning

Having reviewed this many cards in the past few weeks, it should be credible to anybody that aforementioned-GPU cards aren't actually differentiated by gaming operation. Gaming performance is going to be within a few per centum points of all devices, no matter what, because they're ultimately governed by the GPU. A manufacturer can throw the globe'due south all-time PCB, VRM, and libation together, and it'south yet going to hit a Pascal wall of voltage and power budget. Farther, chip quality dictates performance in greater means than PCB or VRM will. We have duplicates of most of our cards, and they tin perform one-3% apart from one another, depending on which boosts higher out-of-box.

To this end, that also means that declaring hard victors is sort of rough – all those statements are made based on our samples, but it's e'er possible that one card might perform +1% in our sample, but -1% in some other sample. Among other reasons, this is why gaming performance gets a dorsum seat once we've determined a baseline for AIB partner operation of a new GPU.

What matters more than is the cooling solution, the PCB quality, and the noise levels. Nosotros are therefore checking for things like component quality (already done separately, but revisited below), thermals, and noise output. Gaming, again, gets a dorsum seat. Overclocking is also inevitably express by Pascal itself, so even that is relatively unexcited for same-GPU video card comparisons.

EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 PCB, VRM, & Tear-Downwards

We've already posted videos showing a tear-downwards of the EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3 (institute hither) and analyzing in peachy depth the VRM & PCB of the FTW3.

Recapping the about important bits: The GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 uses an excellently engineered PCB and ability delivery solution, accompanied by an equally over-engineered cooling solution. The Vcore VRM is comprised of Alpha-Omega Semiconductor E6930 Dual-N MOSFETs, which bundle high-side, low-side, and diode components into the same package. There are twenty total FET packages on the lath, ten commuter ICs, and v doublers, combined with an NCP81274 voltage controller. The voltage controller is an 8-phase controller capable of 1.2MHz switching frequency. EVGA is using NCP81162 doublers to load balance between the 2 phases, largely eliminating the take a chance of out-of-balance current between two phases (as they are counterbalanced by EVGA'due south doublers). This also reduces strain on the 12V rail, which should make the power supply happy.

EVGA'south drivers are as well from NCP, using NCP81158 drivers, though they can't quite go on up with the rising and autumn times of the dual-North FET rise and fall times (and can't back up higher gate-drive voltages than 5v).

Learn more almost all of this in our PCB breakdown video:

Equally for the rest of the card, it's largely comprised of overcompensating cooling solutions across all devices – yes, fifty-fifty fan controllers are continued via thermal pad – and three fans to individually cool partitions of the card. The heatsink is split into 2 primary halves – GPU+MEM and PWR – and uses a mix of EVGA's new fin designs to improve cooling efficiency. Although the fin density and placement aren't all that unique, the tail of the fins tin can be: EVGA switches between straight fins (with no contact to componentry), L-shaped fins (with contact to thermal pads, but permitting airflow), and closed fins (for full contact, just no airflow). The type of fin used depends on which component that office of the cooler covers; VRM components tend to contact the finstack via L-shaped fins, whereas less critical inductors are under straight fins.

Several MCUs are on the card for private and asynchronous fan control, slaving to 1 of EVGA's somewhat ambitious fan profiles (more on that momentarily), and the MCUs report to a functional RGB LED GPM meter on the card. GPM means "GPU," "Ability," and "Memory." This card is laid-out in a fashion that it'south more accurate to say GMP. Graphics and retention fans are on the left, power is on the right.

As for thermistors used, we previously detailed in great depth that EVGA is using negative type thermistors (NTCs) in ix locations on the lath. What's important here is that the location of those thermistors is not the same betwixt EVGA ICX devices, so PWR1 does not necessarily equal PWR1 between ii cards. The SC2 card, for case, uses a reference nVidia FE PCB with EVGA'south NTC thermistors positioned all along the front end of the lath, while the FTW3 PCB positions a few on the back-side. PWR4 is the biggest deviation, which we'll talk nearly in the thermal section.

Y'all cannot compare EVGA ICX thermistor readings between cards without scrutiny.

The two can be compared, but simply insofar as GPU and MEM readings (and even then, simply if EVGA never changes which retention modules receive which reporting tag).

GPU Testing Methodology

For our benchmarks today, we're using a fully rebuilt GPU exam bench for 2017. This is our beginning full set of GPUs for the year, giving united states of america an opportunity to move to an i7-7700K platform that's clocked higher than our old GPU examination bed. For all the excitement that comes with a new GPU exam demote and a clean slate to piece of work with, nosotros too lose some information: Our old GPU tests are completely incomparable to these results due to a new set of numbers, completely new testing methodology, new game settings, and new games being tested with. DOOM, for case, at present has a new test methodology behind information technology. Nosotros've moved to Ultra graphics settings with 0xAA and async enabled, likewise dropping OpenGL entirely in favor of Vulkan + more Dx12 tests.

We've as well automatic a significant portion of our testing at this betoken, reducing manual workload in favor of greater focus on analytics.

Driver version 378.78 (press-ready drivers for 1080 Ti, provided by nVidia) was used for all nVidia devices. Version 17.10.1030-B8 was used for AMD (press drivers).

A carve up bench is used for game functioning and for thermal performance.

Thermal Test Bench

Our test methodology for the is largely parallel to our EVGA VRM final torture test that we published late terminal twelvemonth. Nosotros use logging software to monitor the NTCs on EVGA's ICX menu, with our ain calibrated thermocouples mounted to power components for non-ICX monitoring. Our thermocouples use an adhesive pad that is 1/100th of an inch thick, and does non interfere in any meaningful way with thermal transfer. The pad is a combination of polyimide and polymethylphenylsiloxane, and the thermocouple is a One thousand-type hooked up to a logging meter. Calibration offsets are practical as necessary, with the exact same thermocouples used in the same spots for each test.

Torture testing used Kombustor's 'Furry Donut' testing, 3DMark, and a few games (to determine auto fan speeds under 'real' usage conditions, used later for noise level testing).

Our tests utilize self-adhesive, 1/100th-inch thick (read: light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation thin, does not cause "air gaps") K-type thermocouples directly to the rear-side of the PCB and to hotspot MOSFETs numbers ii and 7 when counting from the bottom of the PCB. The thermocouples used are flat and are self-adhesive (from Omega), as recommended by thermal engineers in the industry -- including Bobby Kinstle of Corsair, whom we previously interviewed.

K-type thermocouples have a known range of approximately two.2C. We calibrated our thermocouples by providing them an "ice bathroom," then providing them a humid water bath. This provided us the information required to empathize and accommodate results appropriately.

Considering we take concerns pertaining to thermal conductivity and impact of the thermocouple pad in its placement area, we selected the pads discussed higher up for uninterrupted operation of the cooler past the examination equipment. Electrical conductivity is also a business organization, as you lot don't want bare wire to crusade an electric brusk on the PCB. Fortunately, these thermocouples are not electrically conductive along the wire or placement pad, with the wire using a PTFE coating with a 30 AWG (~0.0100"⌀). The thermocouples are 914mm long and connect into our dual logging thermocouple readers, which and then take second by second measurements of temperature. We likewise log ambient, and employ an ambient modifier where necessary to accommodate test passes so that they are fair.

The response time of our thermocouples is 0.15s, with an accompanying resolution of 0.1C. The laminates arae fiberglass-reinforced polymer layers, with junction insulation comprised of polyimide and fiberglass. The thermocouples are rated for just under 200C, which is enough for any VRM testing (and if nosotros go over that, something will probably accident, anyway).

To avoid EMI, nosotros mostly gauge-and-check placement of the thermocouples. EMI is caused by power plane PCBs and inductors. We were able to avert electromagnetic interference by routing the thermocouple wiring right, toward the less populated one-half of the board, and and then down. The cables exit the lath almost the PCI-due east slot and avert crossing inductors. This resulted in no observable/measurable EMI with regard to temperature readings.

We decided to deploy AIDA64 and GPU-Z to measure out direct temperatures of the GPU and the CPU (becomes relevant during torture testing, when we dump the CPU radiator'southward heat direct into the VRM fan). In addition to this, logging of fan speeds, VID, vCore, and other aspects of power management were logged. We and then utilize EVGA's custom Precision build to log the thermistor readings second by second, matched against and validated between our own thermocouples.

The main test platform is detailed below:

GN Test Demote 2015	Proper name	Courtesy Of	Cost
Video Card	This is what we're testing	-	-
CPU	Intel i7-5930K CPU 3.8GHz	iBUYPOWER	$580
Memory	Corsair Dominator 32GB 3200MHz	Corsair	$210
Motherboard	EVGA X99 Classified	GamersNexus	$365
Power Supply	NZXT 1200W HALE90 V2	NZXT	$300
SSD	OCZ ARC100 Crucial 1TB	Kingston Tech.	$130
Example	Top Deck Tech Station	GamersNexus	$250
CPU Libation	Asetek 570LC	Asetek	-

Note too that we swap exam benches for the GPU thermal testing, using instead our "cerise" bench with 3 case fans -- merely one is connected (directed at CPU area) -- and an elevated standoff for the 120mm fatty radiator libation from Asetek (for the CPU) with Gentle Draft fan at max RPM. This is elevated out of airflow pathways for the GPU, and is irrelevant to testing -- but we're detailing it for our ain notes in the time to come.

Game Bench

GN Test Bench 2017	Name	Courtesy Of	Toll
Video Card	This is what we're testing	-	-
CPU	Intel i7-7700K 4.5GHz locked	GamersNexus	$330
Retention	GSkill Trident Z 3200MHz C14	Gskill	-
Motherboard	Gigabyte Aorus Gaming vii Z270X	Gigabyte	$240
Power Supply	NZXT 1200W HALE90 V2	NZXT	$300
SSD	Plextor M7V Crucial 1TB	GamersNexus	-
Case	Summit Deck Tech Station	GamersNexus	$250
CPU Cooler	Asetek 570LC	Asetek	-

BIOS settings include C-states completely disabled with the CPU locked to 4.5GHz at 1.32 vCore. Retention is at XMP1.

Nosotros communicated with both AMD and nVidia about the new titles on the bench, and gave each company the opportunity to 'vote' for a championship they'd similar to come across usa add. We effigy this will assistance even out some of the game biases that exist. AMD doesn't make a big showing today, just will soon. Nosotros are testing:

• Ghost Recon: Wildlands (congenital-in bench, Very High; recommended by nVidia)
• Sniper Elite 4 (High, Async, Dx12; recommended by AMD)
• For Honor (Extreme, manual demote equally built-in is unrealistically calumniating)
• Ashes of the Singularity (GPU-focused, High, Dx12)
• DOOM (Vulkan, Ultra, 0xAA, Async)

Synthetics:

• 3DMark FireStrike
• 3DMark FireStrike Extreme
• 3DMark FireStrike Ultra
• 3DMark TimeSpy

For measurement tools, we're using PresentMon for Dx12/Vulkan titles and FRAPS for Dx11 titles. OnPresent is the preferred output for u.s.a., which is so fed through our own script to calculate 1% low and 0.1% depression metrics (defined here).

Ability testing is taken at the wall. One case fan is continued, both SSDs, and the organisation is otherwise left in the "Game Bench" configuration.

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Source: https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2900-evga-1080-ti-ftw3-review-vs-sc2-gaming-x-xtreme-aorus?showall=1

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