4K displays are becoming mainstream now, prices are tumbling and graphics rendering technology is finally able to take advantage of these new screens, whether it's through checkerboarding or other upscaling, as seen on PS4 Pro, or else through sheer brute force in the PC space. Nvidia's GTX 1080 Ti still commands a price premium, but it's the most affordable GPU we've seen yet that powers PC gaming to native 4K at 60fps without too much in the way of visual compromises. And this led us to wonder: what would happen if two of them were paired in SLI?
Asus came through with two of its ROG Strix GTX 1080 Tis, an altogether different beast to the Founders Edition we've already reviewed. Whereas the reference design opts for the standard 'blower'-style configuration (albeit with a vapour chamber heatsink and improved cooling), the Asus model goes for traditional axial fans - three of them, no less - mounted atop a much larger heat sink than the standard design, with a 40 per cent increase in area. Asus reckons that their design is 30 per cent cooler than the Founders Edition and 3x quieter. On both counts, we would tend to agree. It's whisper quiet in operation and can maintain temperatures in the 70-75 Celsius range under load.
Of course, the trade-off with this type of design is that hot air is pumped into your chassis, as opposed to being pushed out of the rear of the PC, but Asus has a rather cunning solution to this in the form of its FanConnect2 technology, which allows you to connect your chassis fans directly to the graphics card. Put simply - if your GPU is pushing more heat into your case, it can directly control your case fans to increase velocity and push the hot air out.
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