In the ever-evolving world of gaming, having a top-notch graphics card is essential to achieve the ultimate gaming experience. With technology advancing at an unprecedented rate, 4K gaming has become the new standard for enthusiasts and professionals alike. If you’re planning to build or upgrade your gaming PC in 2023, you’ll want to ensure that you have the best 4K graphics cards at your disposal. In this article, we’ll explore the top choices in the market, comparing their features, performance, and value for money.
If you’re going for the ultimate 4K gaming experience, this is the card to go for. It is a bit pricey, but it can handle a high-resolution game with ease.
It can even handle ray tracing in games that support it. In addition, it offers DLSS 3 performance, which can boost your frame rates.
MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
Five years on from Nvidia’s release of Pascal, its flagship GPU architecture, the 1080 Ti still performs well in games. While it may not be able to match newer cards for some titles, the GTX 1080 Ti is still capable of providing high-resolution gaming performance for a reasonable price.
This particular MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 1080 Ti model is the DUKE and is available for around $750 shipped on Amazon. It has all the essential ports for VR, is a slim profile making it easy to fit into a small form factor build, and has excellent cooling. The cooling is courtesy of MSI’s TORX fans which have 2 different blade designs infused into them for superior cooling and they are coupled with massive 8MM heatpipes that connect to additional heat plates on the card for maximum heat dissipation. The card also has rigid construction and additional metal plates to help prevent flexing due to its size.
In our Forza Horizon 5 tests, the GTX 1080 Ti was able to achieve 193 fps at 1080p and 165 fps at 1440p on medium-quality settings. The Radeon 5700 XT was able to beat the 1080 Ti in this title though, offering 33% more framerates at 1080p and 25% more at 1440p.
The GTX 1080 Ti performed much better in our God of War tests, as it was able to provide RTX 3060-like performance. This was despite the fact that we disabled RT effects for this test. The game’s older engine is well-optimized for Pascal, so it was no surprise that the GPU could compete with the newer RTX cards. The GTX 1080 Ti even managed to outperform the RTX 2060 Super in this game by a narrow margin.
ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 TI Turbo
If you’re looking for a high-end GPU that will provide uncompromised 4K gaming with Ray-Tracing then look no further than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Turbo. While it may be slightly more expensive than other models, it is one of the best cards for gamers who want to experience next-gen gaming with a minimal impact on their wallets. It also doubles as a workstation GPU, making it ideal for multi-faceted systems.
However, if you’re not interested in ray-tracing then the AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX is another good choice. It undercuts the RTX 4080 by quite a bit and offers similar performance in some games. In addition, it features DLSS 3 and Frame generation which improves performance by a fair amount.
As for performance, Pascal performs well in 4K gaming with Hunt: Showdown delivering results similar to those of the RTX 2060 Super and the 5700 XT. It also performs well in God of War with the GTX 1080 Ti delivering RTX 3060-like performance at both tested resolutions. It does struggle a little more with the more demanding RTX 2080 but even so it’s still a decent option if you’re willing to forgo ray-tracing for a better price. Especially as it will likely still be a viable card for years to come.
Nvidia GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti
Nvidia’s flagship GTX 1080 Ti is the ultimate Pascal card. It’s 35 percent faster than a regular GTX 1080 and 40 percent faster than the Titan X P, which makes it the fastest consumer graphics card currently available.
This beast features a GP102 Pascal GPU with 12 Billion transistors and 6 Graphics Processing Clusters. It delivers the performance needed to run today’s games at full resolution in 4K, and supports NVIDIA GameWorks technologies for immersive, cinematic experiences, along with a variety of other advanced gaming features.
It has 11 GB of GDDR5X memory that runs at a blazing 11Gbps quad data rate, which is the fastest possible memory bandwidth for a gaming card. The card is manufactured on Nvidia’s advanced 16nm FinFET process, delivering incredible power efficiency.
The GTX 1080 Ti’s massive 3584 CUDA cores, 224 texture mapping units, and 88 ROPs provide a huge gaming advantage over competing cards. Combined with a Boost clock of up to 1582 MHz, it has enough power to easily outperform the RTX 2080 in most games. Despite this, the 1080 Ti’s performance is sometimes limited by CPU bottlenecks. In Civilization VI, for example, the card averages just 24 fps on our test bench at 4K Ultra settings with 8xMSAA enabled.
The GTX 1080 Ti is a powerful card that should be sufficient for any gamer looking to play at 1080p or 1440p with high-quality settings. It can even push 144Hz frame rates on a good monitor, but it’s important to consider your CPU as well. A well-overclocked i7-7700K running at 5GHz will help you achieve the best gaming performance for your money. If you’re willing to spend more, there are a number of mid-range and high-end GPUs that will give the GTX 1080 Ti a run for its money.
Gigabyte AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme
The Gigabyte AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme is the company’s flagship graphics card. It uses Nvidia’s GP102 Pascal GPU, which offers the highest performance for gaming and computing. It has a large heat sink with multiple copper heat pipes, and it features three fans that blow cool air over the GPU. It also has an RGB lighting scheme. The colors can be controlled using the AORUS Graphics Engine. There are 3 preset modes: Silent Mode, Gaming Mode, and OC Mode. The Gigabyte AORUS GeForce 1080 Ti Xtreme also includes two 8-pin power connectors that have LEDs.
This card comes overclocked out of the box, and it is capable of reaching 2 GHz. It also has a beefy cooler that keeps the card cool and quiet even when running games at high frame rates. The AORUS card performs well in our tests, and it is a great choice for gamers who want to play the latest games at high resolutions.
One of the most notable features of this card is its WINDFORCE stacked fan design. This design combines the cooling capabilities of three 100mm fans to provide more heatsink coverage and improve thermal efficiency. The stacked fans also allow for more precise control of the fans’ rotational speed. The fans also have a unique angular fin stack and copper heat pipes that help with heat dissipation.
Another feature of this card is its HDMI ports. It has two front-mounted ports for VR breakout boxes, and it also has an internal port on the right side of the card for connecting a monitor or TV. The card also has an extra dual-link DVI port for compatibility with older systems.
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming
EVGA’s own take on the GTX 1080 Ti offers very good performance for an older GPU. It managed to beat the 5700 XT and even compete with the RTX 3060 Super, which cost $400 more when released. This is a pretty good result and shows that Pascal still has some life left in it. It is a little bit worse in newer games though and it struggles to keep up with the Radeon GPUs in titles like God of War, Hunt: Showdown, Far Cry 6, Forza Horizon 5, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Cyberpunk 2077, and Halo Infinite.
The GTX 1080 Ti is a better option for old games or Unreal Engine titles, as it performs very well in those areas. It does struggle a lot in the latest games, but it is still much faster than the older 5700 XT and even the newer mid-range GeForce GPUs.
For example, it was able to handle F1 22 at 1080p very well with the highest quality preset. It managed to achieve 155 fps, which is very playable for an older GPU. It was also able to maintain a steady 60 fps in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey with the highest quality preset.