The wait is finally over and the new consumer oriented Pascal cards from NVIDIA are imminent. During the public launch event that took place in Austin, Texas, earlier this month, NVIDIA's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced the GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070. These two cards are equipped with the latest Pascal architecture and promise a "quantum leap" in performance compared to previous generation video cards.

Today however the focus will be on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080; precisely the "Founders Edition" which is basically the new nomenclature for what we previously called "NVIDIA Reference" cards. The Founders Edition concept caused a lot of confusion even during the reveal event, mostly due to the announcement of two different pricing tiers: $599 for the GTX 1080 and $699 for the GTX 1080 Founders Edition. It is however a pretty simple concept: the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition is a card designed, built, and sold by NVIDIA. The Founders Edition "was crafted by NVIDIA engineers with premium materials and components, including a die cast aluminum body and low-profile backplate, all machine finished and heat treated for strength and rigidity. The thermal solution was designed to maintain consistent performance even in the most thermally challenging environments, including multi-GPU setups and small form factor chassis. Built around a radial fan with advanced vapor chamber cooling, the GTX 1080 Founders Edition moves all heated air outside the chassis. A metal baseplate on top of low profile components provides clean air channels for the best thermal performance and acoustics".