Graphics Cards

Review: KFA2 GTX 1080 Ti Hall of Fame graphics card

We analyze the KFA2 GTX 1080 Ti Hall of Fame graphics cards, the most powerful graphics card on the market and the first to incorporate an LCD screen that shows us data about it.

[nextpage title=»INTRODUCTION» ]


INTRODUCTION


We have been fortunate to have possibly the best graphics card that currently exists on the market, such as the KFA2 GTX 1080 Ti Hall of Fame, a graphics card that has been completely customized by this graphics card manufacturers, with specific factory settings, a triple fan heatsink and features RGB LED lighting. The highlight of this graphics card is an LCD screen that shows us different parameters of the graphics card. Regarding the heatsink, we have to highlight that it occupies three slots and the heatsink fans do not activate until the GPU is set to 60ºC. The PCB is complementary white, in addition to the trim where the fans and the backplate are also white. The heatsink also has a typical HoF crown, with RGB LED lighting, a perfect crown for the most beastly graphics card that we can find on the market.

This graphics card has the GP 102-350 GPU, which has 3584 CUDA Cores, a total of 224 Texture Units, in addition to having 11GB of GDDR5X memory. This graphics card works at a frequency of 1569MHz and has a Boost mode of 1683MHz, while the memories work at 11.008MHz. The PCB has been modified by KFA2, integrating an 8 + 8 + 8 pin PCIe power supply. The heatsink integrates a cooling system with three slots and three fans, to cool the graphics card. Said heatsink also incorporates a silent technology that means that the graphics card does not activate the fans until 60ºC and from this point up to 67ºC, the fans work at low revs, it even keeps them off if the workload is not important, such as in games.

The KFA2 GTX 1080 Ti Hall of Fame has a custom heatsink with an LCD screen that shows us the frequency at which the graphics card works, its charge level or temperature, among other parameters The typical crown has been incorporated of Hall of Fame graphics cards with RGB LEDs, which have LUMINHOLD technology, which offers a pleasant LED configuration, with a high level of customization thanks to the Xtreme Turner software, the software developed by KFA2 to control this section and other parameters .


[/ nextpage]

[nextpage title=»FEATURES» ]


FEATURES


The KFA2 GTX 1080 Ti HoF graphics card is characterized by having a careful design in all aspects, even in the box itself. As we can see, the box is already a spectacle in itself, which opens in a very particular way, which reveals the upper part of the graph as well as the LCD screen it incorporates. The case, like the PCB, the heatsink or the backplate is completely white and has the crown in the case itself. Three 8 + 8 + 8-pin PCIe connectors have been arranged, which allow this graphics card to reach 2000MHz quietly through overclocking, without the need to modify the heatsink, something that few graphics can offer.

KFA2 has provided a backplate that not only serves to prevent this graphics card from bending due to the weight, it also allows cooling on the back of the graphics card, in addition, to have different openings that improve and facilitate the cooling of the graphics . Because it features a triple slot heatsink, it only allows 2-Way SLI configurations. We have before us a truly spectacular graph, which is undoubtedly worth its weight in gold, because the power and functions that this graph gives us, few can.

Regarding the video outputs, it has a total of five outputs, of which three are DisplayPort, one HDMI and one DVI-D. The connectors are DisplayPort 1.2, but they are also DP 1.3 / 1.4 Ready. These allow 4K @ 120FPS settings, 5K @ 60FPS settings and by using the two connectors, they support 8K @ 60FPS settings. The HDMI connector of this graphics card is type 2.0b, while the DVI is dual-link. This graphics card also offers support for HDR gaming, HDR Video technology that offers support for 4K @ 60Hz 10 / 12b HEVC Decode, HDR Record / Stream with 4K @ 60Hz 10b HEVC Encode support and also support for HDR Interface Support via DisplayPort 1.4. In the video connectors panel we also find a button to do a beast overclocking in a simple way that raises the frequency of the GPU and puts the fans at maximum revolutions.

This graphics card also incorporates other elements, such as a bundle of power connectors that adapt two Molex connectors to an 8-pin PCIe connector, which have a white sleeved. A support for graphics cards has also been incorporated, which prevents them from bending, something necessary, because graphics cards are becoming more graphic and heavy, as is the case with this graphics card. This system adds pressure to the PCIe slots, which allows the support to be attached to the graphics card and connects to the LCD screen of the graphics card itself and allows this clamping system to synchronize with the lighting of the same, since it has with RGB LED. It should be noted that this KFA2 GTX 1080 Ti HoF has an approximate weight of 1.7 kilograms.


[/ nextpage]

[nextpage title=»GPU GP102-350″ ]


GP102-350 GPU


NVIDIA has developed the GTX 1080 Ti based on the Pascal GPU, specifically the GP102-350. Pascal has been a very important generational leap, offering spectacular performance thanks to the latest FinFET manufacturing processing. The graphic demands are increasingly high, since users want to play in the best possible graphic quality, 4K UHD resolutions are increasingly being adopted by more gaming fans and Virtual Reality is extremely demanding. DirectX 12 and Vulkan are present and future for gaming, offering renewed qualities with a lower load for the GPU and facilitating the coordination between GPU and CPU.

TSMC is the one who manufactures the NVIDIA GPUs and developed a 16nm FinFET processing that has given excellent performance, leading to this GP102-350 GPU, a graphics core designed for the most demanding gaming enthusiasts that has given life to the GTX 1080 Ti already the Titan X Pascal, graphics that have replaced the already 'obsolete GTX 980 Ti and Titan X. Said GP102-35 is one of the most modern NVIDIA GPUs, which is composed of twelve billion transistors and is made up of six groups of graphic processing clusters of which we have two disabled. This leaves us with a GPU with 28 SMs and 128 Cores each. We basically have a high-power graphics card designed for gaming.

Regarding the rest of the features, this graphics card has 3584 CUDA Cores, 224 Texture Mapping Units and 88 ROP. This graphics card has a working frequency of 1480MHz and a frequency in Boost mode of 1582MHz. Thanks to the power phase system that we will talk about later, this graphics card can reach 2.0GHz in a simple way with a good dose of overclocking, being completely stable. NVIDIA has wanted to provide this graphics card with unique high-quality power phases that allows overclocking without problems, being able to take this graphics card to extremes that others could not.

This NVIDIA graphics card offers us a power of 12TFLOPs for working with textures and graphics computing. All the circuitry and elements of the GPU have been integrated into a chip that has a surface area of ​​471mm2, which is really impressive. All this means that this new GTX 1080 Ti graphics card has a performance of up to 35% more on average than the GTX 1080 and up to 40% in some games.


[/ nextpage]

[nextpage title=»ENERGY» ]


ENERGY AREA


This graphics card is characterized by having a PCB equal to the one used in the Titan X Pascal, so much so that both are identical, even in the distribution of the components. NVIDIA has used existing PCBs for their graphics cards before, in this case they have just changed a few little things, but the GPU and PCB layout are the same. The most important or new thing in this graphics card is the number of power phases.

The power phases are based on MOSFET transistors. Internally these power phases have two dualFETs for each of the seven power phases of the GPU, which differentiates it from the usual one-phase design system, which has been used in NVIDIA graphics. This is done to stabilize the power supply, avoiding current drops that can destabilize the graphics card and end up causing it to stop operating when we overclock.

It is not the first time that NVIDIA introduces a large number of power phases in a graphics card, but it is the first time that NVIDIA implements it in such large numbers and announces it. Phases and MOSFETs, in general, can improve the power supply by sharing the load, but additional MOSFETs are intended for support at rest and on load. In addition, it makes it an ideal candidate for overclocking, something that NVIDIA has surely taken into account when developing this graphics card.


[/ nextpage]

[nextpage title=»GDDR5X» ]


GDDR5X


The NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition has an important improvement, such as GDDR5X memories, which have been developed by Micron, improving the bandwidth of GDDR5 memories. The GDDR5X's bandwidth improvement over GDDR5 offers a much faster memory combination for DRAM data reading and writing tasks per clock cycle. GDDR5X memories are more powerful than GDDR5, but they are also more expensive, but GDDR5X are relatively slower and more expensive than HBM2, it all depends.

AMD, a direct rival of NVIDIA, will make use of the HBM2 in the Vega graphics cards and makes use of the GDDR5 in the Polars, leaving NVIDIA as the only one that uses the GDDR5X. Micron is the exclusive manufacturer of the GDDR5X for NVIDIA and these memories arrived with 10Gbps at the beginning and these could be improved up to 12Gbps, even being able to go beyond. A year ago the GTX 1080 got the first generation of GDDR5X memory and Micron has given a twist to these memories, for the new NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition.

This second generation of Micron memory gives this graphics card a speed of up to 11Gbps. We are talking about an improvement of 10% in just one year and it is an increase that we should not underestimate, since the speed of the memories directly affects the performance of the GPU. The memory bus is larger in the GP102, offering slightly more than 480GB / s of bandwidth, an improvement by 50% over the GTX 1080.


[/ nextpage]

[nextpage title=»HEATSINK» ]


HEAT SINK


The KFA2 GTX 1080 Ti Hall of Fame offers us brutal performance, along with a full load consumption of 300W under load in games. The heatsink should be noted that it offers us brutal performance, making the GPU barely reach 60ºC under load, which allows the fans to even spin. This graphics card offers us a high-performance heatsink with three 90mm fans each, which offers us a great air flow and also, the backplate has many spaces, which ventilate that area, which is excellent.

This KFA2 GTX 1080 Ti Hall of Fame graphics card has a considerable length and thickness, specifically this graphics card measures about 310mm, something to take into account when installing it in our equipment. Power is via three 8 + 8 + 8-pin PCIe connectors. The pins as well as the video connectors have customizable RGB LED lighting with a large number of colors, according to our taste, although by default these are white. The upper screen, as we have already mentioned, allows us to show different parameters, to have the graph controlled.

Regarding the backplate, we see that it is made of aluminum and at critical points it has a thermoconductive but electrically insulating compound. We see that said backplate has different holes and spaces that allow passive air circulation. The heatsink, we have to remove it carefully, since there is not only the fan connector, there is also the LCD screen. The heatsink fully covers the GPU and VRMs and also has a special heatsink that covers the memories and transmits the heat directly to the heatsink block. This heat sink cover is over all critical elements, to avoid damaging any of these components and the heatsink already takes care of the rest of the components on the PCB, such as the VRMs.

Two interesting points in this graphics card are the IR3595A voltage controller, a high-end rectifier and controller that allows us to have the voltage very well controlled and is of great quality. The PCB, in the upper area next to the connector for the SLI, we find a series of measurement points, which allows us to control the different parameters of this graphics card. These points are usually important as they allow tighter and more precise control of the important parameters of this graphics card.


[/ nextpage]

[nextpage title=»BENCHMARK» ]


BENCHMARK



[/nextpage] [nextpage title=»GALLERY» ]


GALLERY


[/ nextpage]

[nextpage title=»CONCLUSION» ]


CONCLUSION


Without a doubt, the KFA2 GTX 1080 Ti Hall of Fame, a graphics card with brutal features and performance. This is the best graphics card on the market, even above the GTX Titan Xp, among other things, because thanks to its configuration of improved power phases, it reaches 2100MHz, without major problems, what's more, the fans take time to activate at this point, since this graphics card has 0dB technology that does not activate the fans until it reaches 55ºC.

Regarding the design, this graphics card is a real show, not only because of the brutal heatsink with a crown illuminated with RGB LEDs and an LCD panel where we can make it show us data such as temperature, frequency, load and others, but we can also put messages personalized. The problem with this graphics card is the weight, but to prevent it from bending, KFA2 has introduced a methacrylate bracket that helps to support the graphics card that is screwed directly to the PCIe outputs on the rear panel of the chassis, with special screws that are incorporated. This bracket connects to the graphics card and lights up RGB too, so the effect is really spectacular.

For this graphics card we need a good power supply, not for power, but for PCIe power lanes, since as it has an 8 + 8 + 8 PCIe power supply system, we need our power supply to have two PCIe 8 lanes +8 pins, to power the graphics card. That is the only peculiarity of the graphics card, simply because in order for it to reach 2.1GHz, as it comes, we need a higher power supply, but once at that point this graphics card is very stable and does not give any performance problems at all. or temperature, thanks to the heatsink.

 


[/ nextpage]


[/ nextpage]

Show more

Robert Sole

Director of Contents and Writing of this same website, technician in renewable energy generation systems and low voltage electrical technician. I work in front of a PC, in my free time I am in front of a PC and when I leave the house I am glued to the screen of my smartphone. Every morning when I wake up I walk across the Stargate to make some coffee and start watching YouTube videos. I once saw a dragon ... or was it a Dragonite?

Related publications

Leave your comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

Button back to top
Close

Ad blocker detected

This site is financed through the use of advertising, we always ensure that it is not too intrusive for the reader and we prioritize the reader's experience on the web. But if you block ads, some of our funding will be reduced.