Nvidia officially unveils the first two Pascal generation GeForce cards, the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, along with each card's specifications and release date.

Those who have patiently waited for Nvidia's next generation of GeForce video cards may now breathe a sigh of relief. The GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 have now been unveiled and they are absolutely sickening (in a good way), delivering extreme speeds and lower power draws than current high-end GeForce cards. Perhaps even more exciting is that PC enthusiasts don't have much longer to wait, with the 1080 launching on May 27 and the 1070 not long after on June 10.

What can potential buyers expect? How about the fastest GPU that Nvidia has ever launched. The GTX 1080, according to Nvidia, offers two times the performance of the Titan X. It runs at a staggering 2.1 GHz on the back of 7.2 billion transistors and 2560 CUDA cores. Nvidia says that all leads to as much as 9 TFlops of rendering performance. The price is fitting then at $599, or a $699 price tag on what's likely a better binned overclocking version of the card.

If you thought that meant the 1070 would end up being a much more scaled back card, consider yourself corrected. Nvidia says that the GTX 1070 also outperforms the Titan X, though that likely refers to the reference model of the card and not better binned or OC versions of the card. Nvidia didn't offer the broad specifications for the 1070 like they did for the 1080, but at $379 or a $449 Founder Edition a "greater than Titan X performance" is really all that needs to be said.

Both cards will feature 8GB of VRAM, though the 1080 will offer GDDR5X to the 1070's GDDR5 -- fast memory, but not the HBM2 3D memory that some enthusiasts were hoping for. Nvidia also talked about the shared technology in their cards, including what they call the "Simultaneous Multi-Projection Pipeline." This tech is designed for multiple viewpoints, accounting for the drastic increase in multi-monitor set-ups and the increasing adoption of VR headsets. Speaking about VR, Nvidia is also experimenting with "Lens Matched Shading," which uses VR rendering to create clearer images.

If all of the specifications and details regarding the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 are flying over your head, then here's the takeaway: if you're into PC gaming, VR or other GPU intensive projects, then the 1080 and 1070 are going to be the standards for a good while. If you're looking to upgrade and you have the cash, then these are the cards you've been waiting for. And considering card prices rarely drop between generations, there's little reason to wait. Just make sure to do plenty of research come launch and find the best manufacturer, too.

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080 will retail for $599, with a $699 version optimized for overclocking, launching on May 27. Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 will retail for $379, with a $449 Founder Edition likely also optimized for overclocking, and launches on June 10.