ROG GTX 1080 Ti STRIX OC Graphics Card Review

To say that the ASUS ROG GTX 1080 Ti STRIX OC graphics card is one of the top gaming focused cards for 4K 60fps gaming would be an understatement as it offers much more in terms of that… but at what cost? There is so much right with the latest ROG branded model that it’s hard not to fully recommend, but what’s good, what’s not and why do I like it so much? Let’s find out…

If you haven’t watched the video above, I suggest you do; it has everything you need to know about the card aside from all but the most extreme of overclocking scenarios, and for those who prefer written format… the ROG GTX 1080 Ti STRIX is a beast. From the famed and acclaimed DirectCU III triple fan cooler absolutely smashes the slightly cheaper ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Edition into the ground in terms of temperatures – by around 13-15c, which for such an expensive card (both are) is a true testament to the quality of the cooler.

As far as a GTX 1080 Ti goes, the new NVIDIA Pascal GP102 core that this card uses is the same found on the TITAN Xp so performance is never going to be an issue as far as gaming performance goes. In fact, this is probably the first time in my opinion that a gaming specific card has been able to deliver 60fps in games at the popular and high-end 4K resolution. Coupled in with the fact that gamers can easily play games at 1080p with ridiculous frame rates means that those wanting 144Hz+ options can ease their mind knowing the ROG STRIX model kills it… with relative ease!

With an out of the box overclock of 1683MHz boost on the core and 11GHz on the memory, it’s one of the fastest air-cooled cards out of the box. When you couple this in with the fantastic cooler and insanely good temperatures, under 100% load and via ASUS GPU Tweak II, you can push the card even further; NVIDIA’s GPU Boost technology will even boost the card even higher when needed out of the box too which is fantastic. Not everyone likes NVIDIA’s implementation such as overclockers, but I adore GPU boost as it’s primarily aimed at gamers and the regular consumers… the ones who spend the most money! You can’t really argue with that and with 2 x HDMI 2.0b ports, 2 x DisplayPort 1.4 ports and a DVI-D for good measure, this particular model isn’t just perfect for VR, but it’s great for those looking for a top card for multi-monitor setups (up to 4 is supported natively).

For synthetic performance and real-world performance, it’s hard to argue that this card isn’t worthy of the purchase and if all that wasn’t important to you, the GTX 1080 Ti STRIX has the best RGB GPU cooler on the market… I will put my reputation on that! Take all of the above into consideration and you have an absolute winner on your hands. It’s powerful, future proof, it has oodles of VRAM (11GB) and until the next wave of NVIDIA graphics architectures is released (Volta), I highly doubt anything is going to knock the GTX 1080 Ti off the top spot. With that being said, that makes this particular model even more favourable for those users who tend to keep their cards for longer than a year!

If you’re looking for one of the best air cooled GTX 1080 Ti’s on the market today and want something that’s going to destroy games at 1080p, 1440p and even play games at 60fps at 4K and temperatures/RGB are important to you then this is the perfect card for you, without a shadow of a doubt! It’s not cheap, but the best never is and that’s just a fact that we all need to live with, unfortunately.

Huge thanks to ASUS ROG for sending the GTX 1080 Ti STRIX OC graphics card in for review.