Several weeks ago when NVIDIA announced the new GTX 1000 series of products, we were given a quick glimpse of the GTX 1070. This upper-midrange card is to carry a $379 price tag in retail form while the "Founder's Edition" will hit the $449 mark. Today NVIDIA released the full specifications of this card on their website.
The interest of the GTX 1070 is incredibly great because of the potential performance of this card vs. the previous generation. Price is also a big consideration here as it is far easier to raise $370 than it is to make the jump to GTX 1080 and shell out $599 once non-Founder's Edition cards are released. The GTX 1070 has all of the same features as the GTX 1080, but it takes a hit when it comes to clockspeed and shader units.
The GTX 1070 is a Pascal based part that is fabricated on TSMC's 16nm FF+ node. It shares the same overall transistor count of the GTX 1080, but it is partially disabled. The GTX 1070 contains 1920 CUDA cores as compared to the 2560 cores of the 1080. Essentially one full GPC is disabled to reach that number. The clockspeeds take a hit as well compared to the full GTX 1080. The base clock for the 1070 is still an impressive 1506 MHz and boost reaches 1683 MHz. This combination of shader counts and clockspeed makes this probably a little bit faster than the older GTX 980 ti. The rated TDP for the card is 150 watts with a single 8 pin PCI-E power connector. This means that there should be some decent headroom when it comes to overclocking this card. Due to binning and yields, we may not see 2+ GHz overclocks with these cards, especially if NVIDIA cut down the power delivery system as compared to the GTX 1080. Time will tell on that one.
The memory technology that NVIDIA is using for this card is not the cutting edge GDDR5x or HBM, but rather the tried and true GDDR5. 8 GB of this memory sits on a 256 bit bus, but it is running at a very, very fast 8 gbps. This gives overall bandwidth in the 256 GB/sec region. When we combine this figure with the memory compression techniques implemented with the Pascal architecture we can see that the GTX 1070 will not be bandwidth starved. We have no information if this generation of products will mirror what we saw with the previous generation GTX 970 in terms of disabled memory controllers and the 3.5 GB/500 MB memory split due to that unique memory subsystem.
Beyond those things, the GTX 1070 is identical to the GTX 1080 in terms of DirectX features, display specifications, decoding support, double bandwidth SLI, etc. There is an obvious amount of excitement for this card considering its potential performance and price point. These supposedly will be available in the Founder's Edition release on June 10 for the $449 MSRP. I know many people are considering using these cards in SLI to deliver performance for half the price of last year's GTX 980ti. From all indications, these cards will be a signficant upgrade for anyone using GTX 970s in SLI. With the greater access to monitors that hit 4K as well as Surround Gaming, this could be a solid purchase for anyone looking to step up their game in these scenarios.
ah crud !..why didn’t I
ah crud !..why didn’t I wait..why ?? 🙁
What did you end up buying
What did you end up buying and when?
980ti two months ago…the
980ti two months ago…the Division Bundle …had to do it..
Well, close your eyes for a
Well, close your eyes for a while and enjoy what ya got!
That’s what my friends said
That’s what my friends said when I got married…
So are you still married?
So are you still married?
Dang, sorry to hear that! Did
Dang, sorry to hear that! Did you at least get a good deal on them price wise? Stuff like this (price drops or new products) always seems to happen to me as soon as i pull the trigger, esp on games hah.
Well, you do still have two good cards there, especially if they are good overclockers. No longer the king of the road but still really good. Not as power efficient but thats okay on the desktop..
Hmm IMO take this as the perfect excuse to either overclock your 980Tis if you havent already to see what you can get out of them :).
That is why you always buy
That is why you always buy EVGA to take advantage of their step-up program within 90 days of purchase.
That is why you always buy
That is why you always buy EVGA to take advantage of their step-up program within 90 days of purchase.
I’m not sure this will beat
I’m not sure this will beat 980ti.. though it’ll be within 10% for less $$. Enjoy the ti though – it rocks!
I like to thank everyone for
I like to thank everyone for their support and encouraging words.
Pascal has broken my heart, but Maxwell is in the here and now, and I realize now I must be strong and move on.
Sometimes you need to see the forest thru the trees, just hopefully in 4K at 60fps.
peaceout…
980ti for life or the next year or so..
Hey Josh,
I don’t know
Hey Josh,
I don’t know exactly which time zone, but I suspect that whatever update PCPer went through earlier this week reset the site’s time zone to GMT. ALL of the times on articles and comments and such are either 5 or 6 hours ahead of CDT (where I happen to be).
(adding) Okay they’re all 5
(adding) Okay they’re all 5 hours ahead of CDT.
oh heh yeah the times are
oh heh yeah the times are screwy here too, says 4:49PM but it's 12:25 (central/chicago) here. I thought the site was on eastern time. Hmm..
It definitely used to be on
It definitely used to be on Eastern time. Some time either late last week or early this week (I can’t remember entirely) the site was unavailable for an hour or two in the wee hours of the morning, and later in the day when it was up again was when I noticed the times were screwy. For me, the minutes have all been fine but the hours have been 5 ahead, which is what suggested to me that it had been reset to GMT (CDT is GMT-5, CST is GMT-6) which, in turn, suggested to me that the site’s software got an overnight update.
Hmm I think there was some
Hmm I think there was some kind of maintainence update recently so maybe you are correct that that is what did it. I let Ryan know the times were all screwy and it wasn't just me!
I was using 970s in SLI, but
I was using 970s in SLI, but never again. WAY too many games are coming out without SLI support at launch (or ever) and those games are the ones that need it the most. Just Cause 3 could sure use it, but nope. Quantum Break? Nope. Most of the instances are not Nvidia’s fault, but that doesn’t matter to me when I paid $660 for two 970s and as a result, one year from launch, I’m getting 40FPS on games I want to play at 2560 by 1080 because one of my cards is sitting idle. Just dumped one of them on ebay, and I’m never going back to SLI.
Regarding the 1070, isn’t
Regarding the 1070, isn’t that memory bandwidth a bit low by today’s standards?
Yes it is. Although the gddr5
Yes it is. Although the gddr5 is clocked higher than past cards the memory interface has been cut down a lot veesus past cards that used 384 or even 512 bit wide buses.
based on rumors, AMDs initial cards will be using a similar approach of narrower bus paired with faster clocked memory. I wonder if one of the reasons is the move to the much smaller process nodes since both companies are doing it this way.
I suspect that has a lot to
I suspect that has a lot to do with it. If I understand it correctly, if you’re using a 512-bit bus, you need 512 individual PCB traces to the memory chips. Using a 256-bit bus would allow much cheaper PCB’s with half the traces, sure. But also, the GPU die itself is smaller, and the process node is smaller, and the contacts that you have to connect the traces to are smaller, and it would be a lot easier to connect those 256 traces to the GPU die than it would with 512.
Yeah, it definitely costs
Yeah, it definitely costs less to do a 256 bit bus, and smaller chips can become pad limited in a hurry. Memory speeds do slowly increase, but both AMD and NV have implemented more memory compression techniques that help take the pressure off. Plus, all of these new chips have larger onboard caches that help keep those pipelines nearly full.
The small chips have always
The small chips have always hd a 256bit bus. The 1080 and 1070 are the small chip that end in 4. GF114, GK104, GM204 all 256bit busses so there is no “move” from a 384bit to 256bit.
The big chips have always had 384bit busses. GF110, GK110, GM200 all have 384bit busses.
Now that the big chip switched to HBM2 THATS actually a move. The 1080 having a 256bit bus is NOT new. People writing for tech sites should not be surprised by thi either.
I made the same choice… VR
I made the same choice… VR SLI never materialized and then 980ti became available. SLI seems to be in bad shape these days.
SLI is not good, you’d be
SLI is not good, you’d be better off just having one card dedicated for Phys-x
That’s actually how I ended
That’s actually how I ended up playing Arkham Knight. 2 gtx 970 in sli was crap, dedicate one to physx and it played great with all the eye candy and settinhs turned up.
not super impressed, still
not super impressed, still will have to wait and see.
I’ll be happy and content
I’ll be happy and content with my 980Ti. I don’t see why people grumble about what they paid. That’s the price you pay to have the latest and greatest until the next best thing comes out 9 months later. That’s how it’s always worked. Look at all the people with the Titan X. They paid over 1k and a card that costs $370 will be within striking distance of it performance wise.
I’m not going to take a resale hit flipping my 980Ti now since everyone is dumping theirs like hot cakes. I’ll keep my system as it is for another 2-3 years since it still handles everything I throw at it for 1440p gaming.
You don’t always need the latest and greatest just to update your forum signature. Enjoy what you have and don’t worry about what other people have.