Earlier this month NVIDIA announced their latest generation flagship GeForce card, the GeForce GTX 1080. Based on their new Pascal architecture and built on TSMC's 16nm FinFET process, the GTX 1080 is being launched as the first 16nm/14nm-based video card, and in time-honored fashion NVIDIA is starting at the high-end. The end result is that the GTX 1080 will be setting the new high mark for single-GPU performance.

Unlike past launches, NVIDIA is stretching out the launch of the GTX 1080 a bit more. After previously announcing it back on May 6th, the company is lifting their performance and architecture embargo today. Gamers however won't be able to get their hands on the card until the 27th ? next Friday ? with pre-order sales starting this Friday. It is virtually guaranteed that the first batch of cards will sell out, but potential buyers will have a few days to mull over the data and decide if they want to throw down $699 for one of the first Founders Edition cards.

As for the AnandTech review, as I?ve only had a few days to work on the article, I?m going to hold it back rather than rush it out as a less thorough article. In the meantime however, as I know everyone is eager to see our take on performance, I wanted to take a quick look at the card and the numbers as a preview of what's to come. Furthermore the entire performance dataset has been made available in the new GPU 2016 section of AnandTech Bench, for anyone who wants to see results at additional resolutions and settings.