Just got my 1080 Waterforce today.
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Ok got the Gigabyte AIO tested. Here are my results more important to least important:
Noise: The pump is a lot louder than than Evga Titan X hybrid and I had 4 of those. I should be getting a 2nd one in a few weeks once more comes in stock so I can see if maybe my unit is a louder than it should be. This is not the sound of air trapped in the pump. I also have the pump oriented to the lowest position so any air should go away from it. I’ve tilted my case 90 degrees on its side a few times and it sounded exactly the same regardless of the orientation. It sounded just like the EVGA pump just louder. It’s like an oldshool IDE hard drive thinking.
First time turning on the pump "gurgled" for about 5 seconds. Been dead silent since.
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Fan: The fan is whisper quiet I know a lot of people were complaining about not being able to change it out. I just ran the fan at a static 30% and I can’t hear it over my Corsair SP120 quiet editions running at a static 1450rpm (max speed). It also keeps the unit cool just fine at that speed (see more below)
Until about 40% fan speed, I cannot hear the fan over the rest of my case. Above that it gets louder.
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Overclocks: I got the core overclocked to 2138mhz (1733mhz FE edition, 1860mhz FTW/Classified) and the memory overclocked to 10,956mhz (10,000mhz default FE edition, FTW & Classified) Please note I was able to get the memory overclocked even higher but it was actually reducing my frames slighly. I’ve heard this with other people as well I guess it takes power away from the core when the memory is overclocked too high. I'm unsure how good my core clocks are I haven't really been following the 1080 overclocks at all.
Out of box I was at 2038MHz Core and 10206MHz Memory Boost.
I managed to get 2152MHz Core and 11000MHz Memory stable. I did get ~2177 Core but couldn't get it stable. Every so often I'd get a driver crash.
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Temperatures: Idles low 30’s C, max up to mid 50’s C when benchmarking. This is with a static 30% fan speed that is whisper quiet. Probably won’t go past 50C in gaming since running your GPU’s at 100% all the time is a bit unrealistic. This is amazing considering the radiator is not just cooling the core like the EVGA version but the memory & the MOFSETs as well.
Idle temps are the same for me ~33-35 (Ambient kind of high in my room as well). While benchmarking I hit 57° once (after ~2 straight hours). During most benchmarks I peaked at 52-55°
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Looks / Craftsmanship: Obviously the EVGA one looks better. This is a bit tackier but oh well. The plastic also feels really cheap. I know the EVGA shroud is plastic too but it feels even more cheap in my opinion. Don’t care much for the LED’s I just turned them off anyway.
I'm not big on looks, or LEDs, I don't look at my case, so this isn't important to me. Card seems the same as any other aesthetics wise, it's all personal preference. Back plate is nice, overall it works for me.
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Software: The Gigabyte software is surprisingly pretty good. I feel like there is more customization and more controls verus EVGA precision. The interface looks tackier though. Precision wouldn’t even launch for me even though it warned me about not having all features disabled and giving them all the info about the GPU I was using.
I didn't use the Gigabyte software, just MSI Afterburner
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Overall I’m a bit disappointed primarily with just the pump noise. I tend to try to run a quiet rig and the pump is officially the loudest part of my system now. I will most likely go EVGA next generation of GPUs (Titan P’s?) since I feel the extra noise isn’t worth maybe the 1FPS advantage over EVGA hybrid (maybe). I will still keep it though and get a 2nd for this generation at least.
Time for some games to get some real results. Running the new DX12 TimeSpy I managed to get a 7270 Overall (7913 GPU) Score with my overclock. Default clocks got me a 6993 Overall (7542 GPU).