In addition to some smaller announcements, Nvidia's GDC 2017 livestream featured CEO Jen-Hsun Huang revealing the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti video card. The GTX 1080 Ti card is an iterative improvement on last year's powerhouse release from Nvidia, the GTX 1080.

Nvidia is even willing to say that the GTX 1080 Ti is a faster card than a $1,200 Titan X card, which also launched in 2016. But best of all, the GTX 1080 Ti will be launching next week for the cost of $699.

The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, according to Nvidia, is the most powerful and efficient hardware the company has ever designed. The base 1080 Ti mode when compared to the base 1080 model sees up to a reported 35% increase in speed. That's especially significant when noting that Ti editions in previous card generations saw 10-20% lower performance gains.

Part of reason for the card's huge performance increase is its cooling solution, which covers more surface area of the card. As a result, the 1080 Ti not only runs cooler than the 1080 but also quieter.

Here are the full specs for the GTX 1080 Ti:

  • 3584 CUDA Cores
  • 11GB GDDR5X (G5X VRAM) @ 11Gbps
  • 1.6 GHz Boost, 2 GHz OC
  • 28 Geometry Units
  • 224 Texture Units
  • 6 GPCs
  • 88 ROP Units

Altogether, this is arguably one of the most impressive iterative upgrades for a video card that Nvidia has ever done within a generation. The manufacturer has managed to create what looks to be a worthy successor to the 1080 less than 6 months after the 1080's launch, and it's relatively cost effective too.

Revisiting the price, the GTX 1080 Ti isn't the only Nvidia video card getting some good pricing news today. At the start of Nvidia's GDC livestream it was announced that the base GTX 1080 model would see its price drop $100, down to $499.

For those willing to pay an extra $100, Nvidia is offering a special Nvidia Founders Edition of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti card. It features a "high-airflow thermal solution," which Nvidia claims maximizes the GPU Boost of the card, enabling the card's overclocking potential.

The Pascal generation of video cards still has more affordable options, too. Currently the GTX 1060 hovers around $299 and the GTX 1070 at $399, and right now the prices are staying the same. That being said, if there's a good time to buy a video card, it's now. Gamers will get the best value out of the card before Nvidia inevitably offers more powerful cards for similar pricing.

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti will be available starting March 10 at 10:00am PT from hardware partners including: ASUS, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, iGame, Innovision 3D, MSI, Palit, PNY and Zotac, as well as the Nvidia Founders Edition. Prices will start at $699 for the standard model and bin cards.