NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti With 11GB DDR5X Make Short Work Of 4K, VR

It has almost been a year since NVIDIA launched the GTX 1080, the crowning glory of its latest Pascal-powered GeForce 10 series. In the fast-paced world of computing, that means it's overdue a successor. At GDC 2017, the world's biggest game developers' event, NVIDIA did just that by unveiling the GTX 1080 Ti. The numbering is a bit deceptive, implying a small revamp. It is, however, a very powerful beast, leaping over even the TITAN X, the computing platform custom-designed for AI and machine learning.

Here are the raw numbers. The GTX 1080 Ti boasts of 3,584 CUDA cores, up from the 2,560 cores of its predecessor. Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that it bears 11 GB of GDDR5X memory running at a blazing 11 Gbps. The GTX 1080, in comparison, only had 8 GB with a capacity of 10 Gbps data rates only. All of that power will naturally generate a lot of heat, which is why NVIDIA has applied a new high-airflow thermal solution.

Those muscles will, of course, be applied mostly for gaming, though HDR movie binging is definitely not out of the question. This makes the GTX 1080 Ti for virtual reality experiences. NVIDIA boasts that the GTX 1080 Ti is already 35% faster than the GTX 1080 and an even more impressive 78% faster than the more budget-friendly GTX 1070. Of course, this card will also burn a whole through your wallet when it launches for $699 starting March 10.

Coinciding with the launch of the new card, and, of course, GDC 2017, NVIDIA is also launching GameWorks DX12, a resource hub for developers combining NVIDIA's expertise in game development, computer graphics, and VR, taking advantage of Microsoft's DirectX 12 framework.