Review: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3

Conclusion

Nvidia's board partners find themselves in something of a quandary with the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti because the GPU has an established frequency ceiling that doesn't readily improve when using a custom board or enhanced cooling. Such knowledge means that cards based on the reference design or on something better, like the EVGA FTW3, are likely to overclock to similar levels.

This also means that at the premium end of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti market you are paying for features and design that don't easily translate into additional real-world performance. This is exactly the plight of the EVGA card. It's beautifully built and arguably over-engineered for the underlying Pascal architecture, meaning that its benefits are diminished when comparing to a card costing, say, £100 less.

We applaud EVGA for going the extra mile and having new cooling, iCX technology and bulletproof design, but whether that's enough to warrant a sizeable premium over a card that performs the same yet costs less is down to you.

Ultimately, this is an excellent cooling design hamstrung by the Pascal architecture's inability to scale higher on traditional air cooling.

EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3

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The EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 graphics card is available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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