Looking for a 1080ti but don't know where to start...

[Paul Jeffrey]

Hey folks,

I'm after some help please

I've been saving for a while now and I'm in the market for a 1080ti, however when it comes to graphics cards I'm frankly a bit of a dunce, and don't really know much about what to go for.

I know I want a 1080ti, however when looking online it seems like literally dozens of different brands and versions exist. With this being a pretty serious cash drop I'm nervous about picking one up blind, and wondered if anyone has any advice as to which card would be the best performance?

I'm a VR user so I'm basically looking to get the best graphical performance at the highest graphics settings I can, plus I want any future RD videos I make to look all pretty on the stream when I'm not in VR..

So gentlemen, any advice on which one to get would be most gratefully received

Thanks

Paul

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

Wowzer this thread has fired up plenty more comments than I excepted, thank you everyone for yoru responses !

Hmmm sounds like I'm gonna get screwed over with this price wise, and with a potential new card on the horizon maybe I'm better holding off for a while.

To be honest its taken thick end of a year to save anyway, so what's a few more months ?

Ok guys, thank you for the feedback, really appreciate it all... no doubt I'll be coming back here again in the near future once either new cards are announced or costs come down somewhat.

Interesting side note, never heard of Cryptominers before. Researched on Google, still no idea what it means

Cheers

 

[Nick Gregory]

I like the zotac range of cards as they have a 5 year guarantee. I'm sure there isn't much too choose between all the top end cards though .

The coolers on the Amp! Extreme cards are crap though, even worse than Gigabyte's Aorus cooler. Just because a cooler is massive doesn't it'll be good.

 

[natedogg1867]

What I find a bit annoying based on watching a recent "Gamer Muscle" video is that even with Oculus / Vive current resolutions and with a 1080Ti combined with a powerful CPU we still can't reach max settings with 90 FPS+

I find this to be a bit of a mental block many people have regarding performance.

If their super expensive top of the line graphics card cant completely max out the settings of a game, they claim it has bad optimization or something else is wrong.

Fact is, you dont 'need' to run a game at max settings, and frankly, some settings arent even meant to be maxed out.

Take AC and the reflection settings for example. Cubemap resolution and update frequency are massively performance intensive. You arent meant to max out the cubemap, but it's there if you want to try. Think of it similarly in the vein of how Crysis was when it released. Nobody could max that game out for years because the devs tried to look forward, rather than limit themselves to the tech of the day.

Not to mention in VR, there are other limiting factors which make it far more taxing than a single screen.

Interesting side note, never heard of Cryptominers before. Researched on Google, still no idea what it means

You arent alone in that one

Creating real money out of fake digital money is a new concept to me

The volta was so "business" that they changed the name for consumer cards to ampere.
Still volta kind of

Thanks for that info. Havent been following Nvidia's gpu architecture news for a while now. Just seemed a bit odd to me that they would release the $3000 Titan V, and then say, "Welp, that's enough for this generation!"

 

[RasmusP]

Creating real money out of fake digital money is a new concept to me

Thanks for that info. Havent been following Nvidia's gpu architecture news for a while now. Just seemed a bit odd to me that they would release the $3000 Titan V, and then say, "Welp, that's enough for this generation!"

I even read somewhere that this cryptomining is having a MASSIVE piece of the world's electricity usage... It's like a digital incarnation of the negative sides of capitalism. The concept on it's own is pretty awesome though!
To the "negative incarnation": just look at the stock of bitcoin... That's what I call unstable

Anyway, to the GPU name:
Yeah you are kinda right. They had so much promotion for their ultra-volta-titan which is not really for gaming anymore that I think they were like "well, everyone now thinks volta is for business. Also we need to get a new headline name to get more attention again. Let's go with... AMPERE!"

 

[snyperal]

The coolers on the Amp! Extreme cards are crap though, even worse than Gigabyte's Aorus cooler. Just because a cooler is massive doesn't it'll be good.

I don't know crap a cooler is. If the card doesnt overheat out of the box.. theres no issue right? If I was overlcocking and it overheated... then surely i would be looking into a watercooled solution, and an overclock would probably void that 5 year warranty.

The fact is, if it dies inside 5 years, they'll cover it, not many other manufacturers stand by their product to that degree. Mind you I am sure if i had to claim on that warranty there would be a billion loopholes they would want me to jump through first.

 

[Nick Gregory]

A card may be staying within rated maximum temperatures for various components, but that doesn't mean it's good.

 

[RasmusP]

I don't know crap a cooler is. If the card doesnt overheat out of the box.. theres no issue right? If I was overlcocking and it overheated... then surely i would be looking into a watercooled solution, and an overclock would probably void that 5 year warranty.

The fact is, if it dies inside 5 years, they'll cover it, not many other manufacturers stand by their product to that degree. Mind you I am sure if i had to claim on that warranty there would be a billion loopholes they would want me to jump through first.

I agree with your points but you forgot one big factor:
LOUDNESS of the cooler, or better said the fans.
Don't want to argue which one is better though. And that said I can't trust tests regarding that anymore since they mostly cover the measured volume but not what kind of noise it is at all..

Anyway for the cooler I can recommend MSI (the Twin Frozr in all various versions). Nice, not too loud airflow-noise and only 2 slots - if space is a problem...

 

[snyperal]

A card may be staying within rated maximum temperatures for various components, but that doesn't mean it's good.

I'll watch the vid in the morning. I'm running an amped extreme 1070, I wonder if it's any different.

 

[bluey]

I'll watch the vid in the morning. I'm running an amped extreme 1070, I wonder if it's any different.

well i have a amp extreme 1080ti for 6 months now.. and temps stay at about 43 to 45 c under normal load in VR And the highest i have EVER seen is 63c under full load and was at 2012 mhz on the GPU CLOCK stock is 1695 and boost is 1795 i have NOT o/c mine and many people are getting over 2000 mhz with out a O/C ..take that as a FACT.. and as for that vid you are going to watch many people have disputed the findings and he is a known gigabyte supporter

 

[snyperal]

I'll watch the vid in the morning. I'm running an amped extreme 1070, I wonder if it's any different.

well i have a amp extreme 1080ti for 6 months now.. and temps stay at about 43 to 45 c under normal load in VR And the highest i have EVER seen is 63c under full load and was at 2012 mhz on the GPU CLOCK stock is 1695 and boost is 1795 i have NOT o/c mine and many people are getting over 2000 mhz with out a O/C ..take that as a FACT.. and as for that vid you are going to watch many people have disputed the findings and he is a known gigabyte supporter

I did a full day of gaming yesterday with corsair link running. I played a lot of Sniper Ghost Warrier 3 and ran the Daytona 500 on Iracing Wednesday evening. The fans only kicked in momentarily and there was no noticeable extra noise. I've been playing around with the firestorm utility and put the fans at 100% to see what he difference would be, and yeah its pretty loud, but I dont know why anyone needs to run this card that hot unless looking for the bleeding edge of performance, and if that was the case, surely they would've bought the 1080?

I've been running the 1070 now for quite a few months, I've had no issues with it whatsoever, and if thats the same case with the 1080, then sure I'd recommend it. That 5 year guarantee takes some beating in my opinion. It's been a long time since I've had a gfx card fail (voodoo 3 if anyone remembers them) but it's nice knowing a company will stand by their work for that length of time.

 

[Nick Gregory]

and as for that vid you are going to watch many people have disputed the findings and he is a known gigabyte supporter

Proof?

 

[bluey]

Proof?

Proof you say ..well for a start i have owned 2 zotac amp extremes a 1070 for 5 months then a 1080ti and have had zero problems with them and they run at VERY low temps. and they have both run higher boost clocks higher than stated on there specs ...re the vid there are MANY other reviews of zotac GPUs and all testers find it to be a very good GPU .. Now where is your proof ..have you ever owned a zotac gpu ..how many reviews have you watched on you tube of zotac gpu

 

[Nick Gregory]

@bluey No, I asked for proof that debunk the findings of Gamers Nexus, and that Steve Burke is a "Gigabyte supporter". Unless you were talking about me, then you are dead wrong.

As far as what I think of Zotac's Amp! Extreme card, all the evidence I need is in that video. The GPU itself runs somwhat competively to others, but other components are suffering. Remember what happened to EVGA a while back with the VRMs on the FTW cards get too hot and sometimes exploding? Zotac is doing the same thing, but not quite as bad.

All the other videos you'll see would just show the GPU's temps in various conditions, which is not 100% comprehensive.