NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 10 Series is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week

Ten years ago to the day, NVIDIA formally announced the GeForce GTX 10 Series, led by the iconic flagship GeForce GTX 1080. Interestingly, the launch of the GeForce GTX 1080 and the mid-range GeForce GTX 1070 marked the first NVIDIA GPUs to feature custom, premium Founders Edition models. The first FE cards debuted in 2016, with aluminum bodies and vapor-chamber cooling to support the new Pascal architecture built on the cutting-edge, for the time, TSMC 16nm process.

The Pascal and GeForce GTX 10 Series generations are widely considered among the most impressive in GeForce history, with pretty much every model in the lineup delivering a massive generational leap. Not only in performance, but with the adoption of next-gen GDDR5X memory for increased bandwidth, DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b, GPU Boost 3.0, efficiency improvements, and several architectural changes to improve GPU stability, overclocking, and rendering technologies.

The flagship GeForce GTX 1080, which would be superseded by the legendary GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in 2017, arrived on May 27, 2016, with 9 TFLOPS of pure performance and 8GB of fast GDDR5X memory to kick-start the modern era of high-resolution, high frame-rate, PC gaming. Standout titles that showcased what the Pascal era brought to the table include id Software's DOOM reboot, commonly referred to as DOOM (2016), and CD Projekt Red's breakout RPG hit, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

The GeForce GTX 10 Series also marked the end of an era. Even though there are still plenty of games out there getting mileage from cards like the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and GeForce GTX 1060, the Pascal generation paved the way for NVIDIA's groundbreaking shift to incorporate dedicated AI and ray-tracing hardware into its GeForce lineup. Fast forward to today, and technologies like DLSS and real-time ray tracing are becoming staples of the PC gaming experience. This isn't to say that the "old way" was better, but there's a purity and simplicity (from a gamer's perspective) to the GeForce GTX 10 Series' focus on efficiency and raw performance that adds another layer to its legacy.