Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 Aura RGB OC Review

Rating: 9.5.

On May 17th Nvidia released their Founders Edition GTX 1080 and today we follow up on the launch review by looking at the first custom partner card to hit our offices. The Asus ROG Strix GTX1080 is fully loaded, featuring the latest Direct CU III cooler, customisable RGB lighting and enhanced ‘out of the box' clock speeds. ASUS have designed the card with low noise in mind, but it is worth the hefty £659.99 asking price?

Asus have adopted their latest Direct CU III cooler on the ROG Strix GTX 1080 card, which they claim is 30% cooler and up to three times quieter than the reference design. Their new patented ‘Wing Blade' fans are said to offer 105% more air pressure.

Like most Asian manufacturers Asus love to quote percentage improvements in their marketing literature. It is however interesting to see that the PCB is fitted with GPU controlled 4 pin fan headers, if you wish to further enhance the cooling system.

The market in general seems obsessed with RGB lighting right now, so it is likely going to be well received that this card incorporates RGB (AURA) lighting, controllable by software. More on this later in the review.

The Nvidia GTX1080 ships with 2560 CUDA cores and 20 SM units. The 8GB of GDDR5X memory is connected via a 256 bit memory interface. This new G5X memory offers a huge step up in bandwidth, when compared against the older GDDR5 standard. It runs at a data rate of 10Gbps, giving 43% more bandwidth than the GTX980 GPU.

The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 can operate at different clock speeds, controllable in the latest version of GPU Tweak II. In Gaming Mode base clock is set at 1759mhz, and in OC mode base clock is 1784mhz. Boost clock speeds are 1898mhz in Gaming mode and 1936mhz in OC mode. We test the card today in the faster OC mode, as it seems likely the enthusiast user base will do the same.

The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 box artwork is colourful, with a neon sign style ‘Strix' highlighted alongside a high resolution image of the card itself.

The rear of the box highlights some of the features, including the RGB lighting.

The card itself is well packaged, surrounded by thick foam during shipping. Above the card there is a cardboard box containing all the accessories. These include a software disc, literature on the product, and a power converter. We always recommend you grab the latest driver direct from the Nvidia website rather than use one installed on a CD as it could be several revisions out of date.

This is a triple fan cooler, and when idle they do not spin.

The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 is a weighty card, and the heft in hand gives reassurances to the build quality.

The backplate is beautifully engineered with the logo cut out, and fully able to glow in RGB during operation. The lighting is controlled by the software that is supplied with the card – called ‘AURA'. You are able to change lighting from static, to ‘breathing', as well as ‘strobing' and ‘colour cycle' modes. A slider is positioned on the right of the interface which lets you select a colour from millions available. The ‘music' option allows the card to pulse along with music you are playing at the time. the ‘GPU temperature' option controls lighting based on the temperature of the card. so it changes from green when colder to red, when hot. I can't see anyone feeling that ASUS cut corners here.

The quality of the lighting is first class, the colours you choose are all very accurately represented on the card itself. The short video clip below shows the ‘colour cycle' mode.

The GTX 1080 Founders Day card takes power from a single 8 pin power connector, but ASUS have added another 6 pin connector. Likely to improve stability at high overclocked speeds.

The SLI connectors are shown in the image above. If you haven’t already, then I recommend you head to THIS PAGE to get detailed information on the new SLI configuration introduced in May with Pascal hardware.

Asus have an interesting I/O layout on their ROG STRIX GTX 1080, opting for dual HDMI ports, alongside dual DisplayPort Connectors. They say this is to help with VR compatibility, offering a port to connect the VR device and another to the display, at the same time. A DVI port is also incorporated.

The Direct CU III cooler is massive, comprising 5 thick direct contact nickel plated copper heatpipes which run into a base. There are several racks of densely populated aluminum fins and four of the five heatpipes run into one, and two lengths into another. Asus are using high grade SAP II Capacitors wihch are said to give 2.5x lifespan, which translates into 90,000 more hours of use when compared against traditional capacitors. They are using SAP II Chokes to reduce buzzing noise under load.

I have spent the last couple of weeks benchmarking a selection of AMD and NVIDIA cards with the latest drivers on one of our new 6700k test beds. We are using the AMD Crimson Edition Display Driver, Version 16.15.2211 and Nvidia ForceWare 368.25 driver. Due to public demand we also add in a range of tests at 1080p to supplement the results at 1440p and Ultra HD 4K resolutions.

We list each resolution test for every game on its own page – meaning if you are just interested in 4K resolutions for instance, you can skip the other resolutions without effort. If you want to read the whole review and find all the page changes annoying – click on our menu system top right of these pages, and head to '32. view all pages'.

We are using a custom Titan Bayonet system supplied by Overclockers UK as the basis of our test system today. Read more on this system over HERE.

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Mid Tower
Processor: Intel 6700K @ 4.4ghz
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) @ 3000mhz
Motherboard: ASUS Z170-E DDR4 ATX Motherboard
Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex 850W Gold Certified
Software: Microsoft Windows 10 64 Bit
SSD: Samsung 250GB 850 EVO
HDD: Seagate 1TB 7,200 rpm 64MB Cache.

If you want to purchase this system yourself head to THIS page on OCUK.

Graphics cards:

Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 (1785 mhz core/ 1936 mhz boost / 5005 mhz memory)

Comparison Cards on test:

Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition (1607mhz core/ 1733mhz boost / 5005 mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX 1070 Founders Edition (1506mhz core/ 1683mhz boost / 4006 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8GB (Rev 2 w/ backplate). (1040mhz core / 1500 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 295X2 (1,018 mhz core / 1,250mhz memory)
AMD R9 Fury X (1,050 mhz core / 500 mhz memory)
AMD R9 Nano (1000mhz core / 500 mhz memory)
Gigabyte GTX980 Ti XTREME Gaming (1216 mhz core / 1800mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX Titan Z (706 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX Titan X (1,000 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory)
Asus GTX980 Strix (1,178 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX980 Ti (1000 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 390X Tri-X 8GB (1,055 mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8GB (1,010 mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory)

Software:
Windows 10 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark 11
3DMark
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark

Games:
Ashes Of the Singularity
Dirt Rally
Hitman 2016
Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor
Rise Of the Tomb Raider
Grand Theft Auto 5
Metro Last Light Redux

We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

Game descriptions edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.
3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. The benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 breaks all previous records for a single card in 3dMark 11, hitting the top of the chart at both settings.

3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.

Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.

To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.”

The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 takes top position at Ultra HD 4K resolution, even out classing the dual GPU AMD R9 295X2.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk. Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We test at 2560×1440 with quality setting at ULTRA, Tessellation at NORMAL, and Anti-Aliasing at x2.

This tessellation heavy benchmark verifies the early synthetic benchmark findings – that the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 is outperforming every other video card we have tested to date.

Ashes of the Singularity is a real-time strategy game set in the future where descendants of humans (called Post- Humans) and a powerful artificial intelligence (called the Substrate) fight a war for control of a resource known as Turinium.

Players will engage in massive-scale land/air battles by commanding entire armies of their own design. Each game takes place on one area of a planet, with each player starting with a home base (known as a Nexus) and a single construction unit.

We test the final retail game at 1080p resolution and with EXTREME image quality settings, shown above.

At 1080p the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 takes second place, behind the dual GPU R9 295X2.

Ashes of the Singularity is a real-time strategy game set in the future where descendants of humans (called Post- Humans) and a powerful artificial intelligence (called the Substrate) fight a war for control of a resource known as Turinium.

Players will engage in massive-scale land/air battles by commanding entire armies of their own design. Each game takes place on one area of a planet, with each player starting with a home base (known as a Nexus) and a single construction unit.

We test the final retail game at 1440p resolution and with EXTREME image quality settings, shown above.

At 1440p the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 maintains a 3 frame lead over the GTX 1080 Founders Edition. The R9 295X2 still manages to hold onto the top spot.

Ashes of the Singularity is a real-time strategy game set in the future where descendants of humans (called Post- Humans) and a powerful artificial intelligence (called the Substrate) fight a war for control of a resource known as Turinium.

Players will engage in massive-scale land/air battles by commanding entire armies of their own design. Each game takes place on one area of a planet, with each player starting with a home base (known as a Nexus) and a single construction unit.

We test the final retail game at 4k resolution and with EXTREME image quality settings, shown above.

At Ultra HD 4K the ASUS Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 manages to just sneak past the dual GPU R9 295X2, averaging 53.1 frames per second.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a third-person open world video game, where the player controls a ranger by the name of Talion who seeks revenge on the forces of Sauron after his family, including his wife, are killed. Players can travel across locations in the game through parkour, riding monsters, or accessing Forge Towers, which serve as fast travel points.

We test at 1440p with the image quality settings at Ultra.

Amazing results at 1080p, averaging 117 frames per second, around 3-4 frames per second faster than the GTX 1080 Founders Edition. Complete overkill for this resolution obviously as the GTX1070 would be more than enough to cope with the engine.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a third-person open world video game, where the player controls a ranger by the name of Talion who seeks revenge on the forces of Sauron after his family, including his wife, are killed. Players can travel across locations in the game through parkour, riding monsters, or accessing Forge Towers, which serve as fast travel points.

With test at Ultra HD 4k resolution with Ultra image settings enabled.

At Ultra HD 4k resolution, the R9 295X2 takes top position in the graph, although the minimum frame rate is poor as we noticed some juddering in certain sections of the game. The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 takes top spot within the confines of single GPU cards.

Dirt Rally is developed by British video game developer Codemasters using the in house Ego engine. Development began with a small team of individuals following the release of their 2012 video game Dirt: Showdown. Codemasters have emphasised a desire to create a simulation with Dirt Rally. They started by prototyping a handling model and creating tracks based on map data. The game employs a different physics model from previous titles, rebuilt from the ground up.

We test at 1080p with 8x MSAA and the ultra image quality setting enabled.

No problems powering this engine at 1080p, although the GTX 1070 is more than enough at this resolution.

Dirt Rally is developed by British video game developer Codemasters using the in house Ego engine. Development began with a small team of individuals following the release of their 2012 video game Dirt: Showdown. Codemasters have emphasised a desire to create a simulation with Dirt Rally. They started by prototyping a handling model and creating tracks based on map data. The game employs a different physics model from previous titles, rebuilt from the ground up.

We test at 1440 with 8x MSAA and the ultra image quality setting enabled.

Excellent results, averaging 94 frames per second with the eye candy maxed at 1440p. That said, the GTX 1070 is more than up to the task at 1440p, holding a frame rate in excess of 60 at all times (67+).

Dirt Rally is developed by British video game developer Codemasters using the in house Ego engine. Development began with a small team of individuals following the release of their 2012 video game Dirt: Showdown. Codemasters have emphasised a desire to create a simulation with Dirt Rally. They started by prototyping a handling model and creating tracks based on map data. The game employs a different physics model from previous titles, rebuilt from the ground up.

We test at Ultra HD 4k with 8x MSAA and the ultra image quality setting enabled.

At Ultra HD 4K, the AMD R9 295X2 dominates this particular engine and is the only solution to hold a minimum frame rate over 60 at all times. The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 scores well however, hitting an average of almost 60. Removing the AA would help increase frame rates to the 60+ sweet zone.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story. It uses a Direct X 12 capable engine.

We enable Direct X 12, Vsync is off and graphics are set to the ‘very high' profile, shown above. We test the Nvidia Titan Z with the SLi optimisation both disabled, then enabled. This is clearly marked in the graph. See more HERE.

This is a great looking engine, but at 1080p it proves little challenge to any of the high end hardware on the market today. The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 maintains an average of 150 frames per second. Total overkill unless you are gaming with a 120hz or 144hz panel.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story. It uses a Direct X 12 capable engine.

We enable Direct X 12, Vsync is off and graphics are set to the ‘very high' profile, shown above. We test the Nvidia Titan Z with the SLi optimisation both disabled, then enabled. This is clearly marked in the graph. See more HERE.

At 1440p the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 maintains an average just over 100 frames per second. Another top of the chart position.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story. It uses a Direct X 12 capable engine.

We enable Direct X 12, Vsync is off and graphics are set to the ‘very high' profile, shown above. We test the Nvidia Titan Z with the SLi optimisation both disabled, then enabled. This is clearly marked in the graph. See more HERE.

At demanding Ultra HD 4k resolutions, the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 delivers a stellar result, holding an average frame rate over 40 consistently.

Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of missions, players may freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series. It may be fully explored after the game's beginning without restriction, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content.

We maximise all the image quality settings, but leave anti aliasing turned off, as it dramatically impacts performance.

The Titan Z dominates GTA 5 at 1080p, averaging 162 frames per second. The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 is top of the single GPU chart.

Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of missions, players may freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series. It may be fully explored after the game's beginning without restriction, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content.

We maximise all the image quality settings, but leave anti aliasing turned off, as it dramatically impacts performance.

At 1440p the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 averages close to 100 frames per second, just ahead of the Founders Edition.

Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of missions, players may freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series. It may be fully explored after the game's beginning without restriction, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content.

We maximise all the image quality settings, but leave anti aliasing turned off, as it dramatically impacts performance.

At Ultra HD 4K the Strix GTX 1080 averages close to 60 frames per second dipping to just under 40 fps a few times. Two high end cards in SLI or Crossfire are really needed to get a solid 60+fps at these maxed out image quality settings.

Just like the original game Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above ground. Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, following the canonical ending in which Artyom chose to proceed with the missile strike against the Dark Ones (this happens regardless of your actions in the first game). Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements.

Quality-Very High, SSAA-on, Texture Filtering-16x, Motion Blur-Normal, Tessellation-Normal, Advanced Physx-off.

Another stellar result for the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080, holding a 94 frames per second average.Just like the original game Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above ground. Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, following the canonical ending in which Artyom chose to proceed with the missile strike against the Dark Ones (this happens regardless of your actions in the first game). Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements.

Quality-Very High, SSAA-on, Texture Filtering-16x, Motion Blur-Normal, Tessellation-Normal, Advanced Physx-off.

A demanding engine at these settings. The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 averages 54 frames per second, which is excellent.

Just like the original game Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above ground. Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, following the canonical ending in which Artyom chose to proceed with the missile strike against the Dark Ones (this happens regardless of your actions in the first game). Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements.

Quality-High, SSAA-off, Texture Filtering-16x, Motion Blur-Normal, Tessellation-Normal, Advanced Physx-off.

Excellent results at Ultra HD 4k, averaging 67 frames per second.

Hitman (2016) is a third-person stealth video game in which players take control of Agent 47, a genetically enhanced, superhuman assassin, travelling to international locations and eliminating contracted targets. As in other games in the Hitman series, players are given a large amount of room for creativity in approaching their assassinations. The game is being released in stages, which hasn't proved too popular with a large audience.

We test with many of the settings maximised, SSAO is disabled however as I found it causes some crashing. I have to say that Hitman is a little unstable at times under the best of situations, but we managed to get it running well enough to benchmark. The built in benchmark is very flaky indeed however, so real world runs had to be used.

This engine runs particularly well on the high end Nvidia hardware as shown in our graph above. The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 tops the chart, averaging 122 frames per second.

Hitman (2016) is a third-person stealth video game in which players take control of Agent 47, a genetically enhanced, superhuman assassin, travelling to international locations and eliminating contracted targets. As in other games in the Hitman series, players are given a large amount of room for creativity in approaching their assassinations. The game is being released in stages, which hasn't proved too popular with a large audience.

We test with many of the settings maximised, SSAO is disabled however as I found it causes some crashing. I have to say that Hitman is a little unstable at times under the best of situations, but we managed to get it running well enough to benchmark. The built in benchmark is very flaky indeed however, so real world runs had to be used.

At 1440p, the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 holds onto top position in the graph, averaging 104 frames per second.

Hitman (2016) is a third-person stealth video game in which players take control of Agent 47, a genetically enhanced, superhuman assassin, travelling to international locations and eliminating contracted targets. As in other games in the Hitman series, players are given a large amount of room for creativity in approaching their assassinations. The game is being released in stages, which hasn't proved too popular with a large audience.

We test with many of the settings maximised, SSAO is disabled however as I found it causes some crashing. I have to say that Hitman is a little unstable at times under the best of situations, but we managed to get it running well enough to benchmark. The built in benchmark is very flaky indeed however, so real world runs had to be used.

At Ultra HD 4k, the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 drops just below the AMD R9 295X2.

We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.

We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The triple fan cooler works wonderfully well, holding noise levels just above 33 dBa under gaming load. At idle, the card makes no noise, as the fans stop spinning completely. This is a very low noise card which will appeal to gamers wanting to build as quiet a system as possible without compromising on performance.

The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 doesn't suffer from any coil whine issues, so bonus points to Asus for their adoption of concrete alloy chokes and higher grade, long life capacitors.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 21c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this. Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Rise Of The Tomb Raider for 90 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 10 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.

The three fans only start to spin up with the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 is placed under moderate or heavy load.

We install the graphics card into the system and measure temperatures on the back of the PCB with our Fluke Visual IR Thermometer/Infrared Thermal Camera. This is a real world running environment playing Rise Of The Tomb Raider for extended periods of time.

The image above shows the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 backplate helps maintain cool operating temperatures across the PCB. When gaming, the core is running at 63c, and the maximum temperature on the back of the card is around 59c. Stellar results.

We measure power consumption from the whole system when idle and when gaming, excluding the monitor.

The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 takes more power than the Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition, around 50 watts under extended load, according to our meter. System demand increased from 270 watts to around 330 watts.

Nvidia have enhanced their GPU Boost System with their latest iteration – V3.0. The new version features custom ‘per voltage' point frequency offsets.

GPU Boost 3.0 offers the ability to set frequency offsets for individual voltage points. Older versions could only hold a fixed frequency offset, essentially shifting the existing V/F curve upward by the defined offset amount.

Above, is a theoretical custom V/F curve set in GPU Boost 3.0. The offset is set just below the upper limits of the theoretical maximum clock making full use of all the available headroom – ensuring performance is fully utilised for the GPU in question.

We overclock the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 Aura with the latest beta version of their own GPU Tweak II tool. V 1.2.7.5.

We manually tweaked the fan speeds to full, to allow for maximum overclocks. Noise levels rose to around 38dBa which is certainly audible, but I wanted to see how far we could push the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080.

We increased the GPU temp target to the maximum 92c and power target to 120 (+20). We got the memory running with a +522 offset (10532) and the core with a +122 offset (2058mhz). I increased voltage to +68. Any higher seemed to have a negative effect on the final overclock.

The overclock managed to boost the 3dMark Ultra graphics score from 5375 to 5612.

I thoroughly enjoyed testing the Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition in May and in similar fashion to many of our readers I was waiting to see how Nvidia partners would ‘up the game' with release of their own custom cooled solutions.

The first card in our labs has been the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 and there is no doubt that it is one of the finest graphics cards I have tested in the 15 years I have been reviewing PC hardware. ASUS seem to have covered all bases, which helps justify the price of the card.

The reference Nvidia GTX 1080 reference cooler works well in an SLi configuration, driving all the hot air out the back of a chassis. Just be sure to use a tool such as Asus GPU Tweak II, EVGA Precision or MSI Afterburner to raise the GPU temperature target setting to 92c to ensure that throttling is kept at a minimum. We knew however that for single card application Nvidia's reference cooler was surely going to be bested in the coming weeks.

The newest iteration of the ASUS Direct CU III cooler fitted to the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 is remarkable. The three fans ensure there is plenty of airflow across the substantial heatsink without a ton of noise generated, and we appreciate that ASUS have incorporated a zero fan profile when the card is idling – so fan noise is completely negated. Due to the adoption of concrete alloy chokes ASUS have completely negated any coil whine under extreme load situations.

Under gaming load, the Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 runs at 63c – translating into a 14c reduction when compared against the Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition (77c).

Out of the box, the card runs in the higher OC mode without a hitch – offering noticeable performance gains over the reference Nvidia card (from 1733mhz boost to 1936mhz boost). There is still reasonable headroom before instability or artifacting brings a closure to the proceedings. We got the memory running with a +522 offset (10532) and the core with a +122 offset (2058mhz). If you want to get creative, then the ASUS PCB allows attachment of 2x 4 pin fans for additional cooling. I don't think I have ever seen this before.

If you enjoy playing with lighting, then the AURA RGB system will surely appeal. You can not only adjust the colours, but you can have them cycling, pulsing, strobing, or even reacting to GPU temperature and music you are playing at the time. Its a very cool addition and one that will appeal to case modders who like to have all their hardware on display via a windowed panel.

The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 is currently on pre order with Overclockers UK for £659.99 inc vat HERE. Considering all the extras you get over the standard GTX 1080 Founders Edition, the extra £40 seems like a pretty good investment.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

Pros:

• Fastest single GPU card we have tested to date.
• silent (zero fan mode) when idling or under low load.
• good overclocking headroom.
• high out of the box overclocks.
• controllable RGB lighting system rocks.
• high grade components used across the board.
• no coil whine.

Cons:

• no shock, its expensive.

Kitguru says: The Asus Republic Of Gamers Strix GTX 1080 sets a new high performance benchmark. It takes the superb Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition and pushes it forward in all areas. It runs 14c cooler and not only outperforms all other video cards we have tested to date but it has a built in, highly customisable RGB lighting system. Asus even allow the connection of two extra 4 pin fans if you want to get creative.

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