Edit: False alarm. Narrowed it down to Project # 11409, that one is giving me a total system PPD of ~1,261,000  which is a full 200,000 above my normal PPD. That is some pretty huge variation in project PPD. 
 
Keep hearing about how the 385.12 drivers are boosting results for the TitanXP in productive software, saw a footnote that indicated it applies to Pascal in general so figured I'd see what they did for folding. My 1080 Ti typically averages 1.05 million PPD, and the very first WU after upgrading to 385.12 I'm seeing between 1.17-1.22 million PPD. Would definitely recommend all Pascal 1080 and 1080 Ti folders use the 385.12 drivers!
 
As a sidenote, the FAH load on the GPU appears to have increased. Most FAH projects ran at 2050Mhz and now it's only boosting to 1961Mhz, probably the result of better utilization of Pascal's core. Yet the PPD is at minimum 100,000 higher... Will have to get a larger WU sample size to see what the new average is.

The Maya and professional apps got some optimizations on the Titan line only. No one really tests folding performance anymore. Good to know it affects some of the lower tier as well. I haven't seen any testing that showed improvements for the 1080ti and such.

For the record, my day of folding with these new drivers has sucked.  The average time per fold has increased by at least 10 seconds on every project (minimum!!), and my ppd on my rig has DROPPED from 1.7 million ppd to 1.22 million ppd.  These drivers are horrible for folding on 1080's.  My overclock on my cards has stayed the same so I know it's not the cards that are the problem.  On project 10496 I'm not even scoring 600k ppd on a 1080FTW running at 1974 and 4911!  Back to the good old working drivers it is.

I was using 373.06 prior to this and was averaging 1.6-1.7 mppd for 2 1080's.  I'd say if you're going to spend the money on the seahawks just get some cheap 1080ti's.  The Ti's are only about 100 bucks more and you will get a lot more points per day vs what you get with the 1080's.  Vega is out shortly so maybe some Ti's will hit the market if it's a folding beast?  Apparently it mines ETH like no other haha so that might mean 1070's and 1060's will come down in price finally!  And that means EVGA can bring those B-Stock prices back to normal..cause they are so out of whack it ain't funny.

though my sample size on this new beta driver is still kinda small, only ~50 units, when compared to the last 500,  dating from 7-21 till 7-31, running my previous driver i see a very minuscule 2.5% improvement. going from ~1.02 Million PPD on a 1080ti to ~1.05 Million PPD. and these numbers are actual reported points and not estimated.
 
all in all i see no reason to favor any driver at this point in time for the 1080ti. any older card, Titan/1080/1070/1060, should still try and run 372.90 or that slightly updated one, before nvidia "fixed" a bug in the code and made everything screwy.

OMG, sooo much yes! i will have to try that out asap tomorrow. though right now i must sleep and then awake to leave for a long day of work :/
 
i also wonder how hard it would be to replicate results for linux drivers if this were to work...

welp, that was a failure... it got past the compatibility check but failed on the install right after the first screen flicker and stayed in 800x600.

I normally got a ppd boost whenever a new driver was released but have stayed with 373.06 since they worked so well from the beginning. Project #10496 is just about the only WU I get these days. The 980 boards took a massive hit of more than 100k ppd for each board. The 980 ti boards stayed about the same.

Yeah I tried them and did not help much at all.

Ive been letting my 1080ti fold 24/7 for the past 3 or 4 days and its average 1.3 to 1.4m ppd. I am on the 384.94 drivers 

I'd say keep what you have, 1080's are still the next best thing. 
 
I was incredibly close to waiting for Volta as I have high expectations for GDDR6 and Volta in general,  but fate intervened and I needed a real GPU sooner. You know the PPD is only going to continue to climb with Volta, and the power savings from GDDR6 will go back into the GPU clocks. 

Well I bit the bullet anyways and ordered a 1080 Ti hybrid.  I figure I will pair it with a system and use it to fold in linux following Chris's tutorial and probably curse myself to high heaven while I fight with it trying to figure things out.  Volta won't be released to consumers as they will hoard all the cards to AI researchers and we'll be complaining much like AMD fanbois were when gamers were ignored by Vega.

VEGA a serious let down on the AMD side - but the RX series are quite comparable with the mid-range NVidia cards, if they'd get back down close to MSRP and then compare the similar-price offerings - both on performance AND on power usage.
 Keep in mind that the RX 580/570 is SUPPOSED to be competing with the GTX 1060 6GB/3GB, NOT the 1070, on a "same price range" basis.
 And ghods, that STILL torques me off that NVidia calls both of the 1060 options by the same name even though it's NOT the same GPU - one of those should have been called the 1055 or 1050 - they're JUST as different in very similar ways as the 580 vs 570 or 480 vs 470.
 
 It's VERY unfortunate that AMD didn't just extend the Polaris arch upwards, as opposed to being wedded to that Fury-type arch in the higher-end.
 I personally think that their insistence on trying to support two completely seperate lines like that is wasting their LIMITED R&D budget.
 
 AMD will survive, but it's obvious that in the GPU space they're STILL not able to challenge on the high end - and all factors considered I'm not holding out much hope that "Navi" will change that since it's STILL based on the same Fury/Vega type arch.
 
 AMD IS giving Intel a run for the money on the CPU side for the first time in almost a decade, and they DO still OWN the console APU market outright - they're not going to go broke anytime soon, if anything they should be banking their current BIG profits and either buying down debt big-time or putting some SERIOUS money into R&D - preferably BOTH.
 

Zuhl3156
I normally got a ppd boost whenever a new driver was released but have stayed with 373.06 since they worked so well from the beginning. Project #10496 is just about the only WU I get these days. The 980 boards took a massive hit of more than 100k ppd for each board. The 980 ti boards stayed about the same.

Sorry to see you leave our team Zuhl3156 
Zuhl3156  PitCrew @ PCPitStop
I still think that Driver 373.06 is still the best Folding Driver for NVIDIA Cards below the GTX 1080 Ti Card.
Driver 378.92 for the GTX 1080 Ti Cards.

bcavnaugh

Zuhl3156
I normally got a ppd boost whenever a new driver was released but have stayed with 373.06 since they worked so well from the beginning. Project #10496 is just about the only WU I get these days. The 980 boards took a massive hit of more than 100k ppd for each board. The 980 ti boards stayed about the same.

Sorry to see you leave our team Zuhl3156 
Zuhl3156  PitCrew @ PCPitStop
I still think that Driver 373.06 is still the best Folding Driver for NVIDIA Cards below the GTX 1080 Ti Card.
Driver 378.92 for the GTX 1080 Ti Cards.

I got sick and tired of the disrespect from the 'management' here. Each year they get an attitude and demand that we produce more, usually double the previous year's requirement, for the same garbage EVGA bucks. This electricity costs money here in Pennsylvania. IDK where these people think that their 'Bucks' are anything special. You can only spend them here where the company makes more money from its members and Folding community. Now I'll sit and wait for the obligatory snotty response from R Baca about how I don't have to Fold for this team if I don't like it. Well, guess what, Rob, I already know that! In 2.5 more days EVGA will no longer be the Number One Folding Team in the world either. Boo hoo.