NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
Hacker ApprovedRanked 11 of 42 graphics cards by recommenders
Owners recommend it for strong performance that still handles most 1080p and 1440p games, and good used value. Critics say NVIDIA has dropped driver support.
Owners recommend it for strong performance that still handles most 1080p and 1440p games, and good used value. Critics say NVIDIA has dropped driver support.
29 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 26
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 90%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 26 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 8.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Lasting value and long service life
“continuing to be a wonderful card for a truly gobsmacking number of years”
Comment from 17 Jan 2026 in “Building a Quake PC” “it kept kicking and doing a decent job for such a long time”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week” “Mine is still going strong, it can run Gemma 4 26b.”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “GTX 1080s: Testing a Legend” - Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “32GB of DDR5 now costs $375 – AI shortage continues to squeeze PC building”
Strong performance for its era
“Cutting-edge, an insanely powerful consumer card for the time.”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 on Hacker News “the amount of horsepower in there was very impressive”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Apple's new 'Switch to Safari' campaign details why you should ditch Chrome” “It's pretty impressive for a 10 year old gpu!”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “GTX 1080s: Testing a Legend” - Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Mystery: Why do some LLMs produce more coil noise on Mac Studio M3 Ultra?”
Still good for 1080p and 1440p gaming
“still works for the vast majority of games in 1080p”
Comment from 4 Oct 2026 in “The work by Valve's Timur Kristóf on improving old AMD GPUs on Linux” “both perform well at 1440p”
Comment from 2 Oct 2026 in “Amazon seeks to offload $8B of Nvidia chips to investors” “Even today, it is a very capable card, despite the power draw.”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “Apple's new 'Switch to Safari' campaign details why you should ditch Chrome” Runs Linux and local AI models
“Runs Debian Trixie + KDE, Spotify, VS Code, docker, Steam, etc just fine.”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Better to Skip a Year for Hardware Upgrades?” “My 1080 also runs ~fine in Ubuntu (driver updates require a full reboot”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark” “Mine is still going strong, it can run Gemma 4 26b.”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “GTX 1080s: Testing a Legend” - Comment from 14 Aug 2026 in “Qwen 3.8 27B is out: open weights, best local dense model yet”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
NVIDIA dropped driver support
“Still have some 1080's in gaming machines going strong. But as even nVidea retired support I guess it is time to move on.”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “No Graphics API” “nvidia just dropped support for them, and some games will forever remain glitching”
Comment from 19 Jul 2026 in “GTX 1080s: Testing a Legend” Same architecture as the 980
“It's the same architecture of the 980 on a smaller node, that's it.”
Comment from 19 Jul 2026 in “GTX 1080s: Testing a Legend” “It's a smaller 980ti on a much smaller node.”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “GTX 1080s: Testing a Legend”
Other graphics cards people recommend
The four most recommended other graphics cards, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | 116 | 21 | 85% | 12 | 5 yrs14 owners | Approved |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 | 102 | 37 | 73% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
| NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 | 77 | 26 | 75% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Nvidia GPUs | 67 | 67 | 50% | 11 | 6 yrs3 owners | — |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080This page | 26 | 3 | 90% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
28 of the 32 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Adding a 1080 would be silly”
“Even today, it is a very capable card, despite the power draw.”
“the amount of horsepower in there was very impressive”
“I don't believe anything has compared on price-performance to a 1080 in the 10 years since.”
“still works for the vast majority of games in 1080p”
“both perform well at 1440p”
“it's much faster than running it on 36 CPU cores”
“Cutting-edge, an insanely powerful consumer card for the time.”
“I barely need an upgrade as I avoid UE5 slop.”
“It's the same architecture of the 980 on a smaller node, that's it.”
“nvidia just dropped support for them, and some games will forever remain glitching”
“it kept kicking and doing a decent job for such a long time”
“Less energy usage, more vram, faster in games”
“It's pretty impressive for a 10 year old gpu!”
“It's a smaller 980ti on a much smaller node.”
“Mine is still going strong, it can run Gemma 4 26b.”
“That was a nice card but by late Covid it was really showing its age.”
“the same as the GTX 1070 and 1080”
“They still have great value in the used market.”
“My GTX 1080 delivers more consistent framerates with less stuttering versus the B580.”
“it's still kicking ass a decade later”
“the period around 1080 was honestly the golden age”
“Runs Debian Trixie + KDE, Spotify, VS Code, docker, Steam, etc just fine.”
“1080 launched at $600 May 2016, which IMO was already excessive”
“continuing to be a wonderful card for a truly gobsmacking number of years”
“this was when a GTX 1080 was hot stuff”
“Still have some 1080's in gaming machines going strong. But as even nVidea retired support I guess it is time to move on.”
“My 1080 also runs ~fine in Ubuntu (driver updates require a full reboot”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.