Hardware & Technical So Confused: Vega 64 or 1080?

Dad Rock · Sep 4, 2017

I haven't been following hardware for long, but I've been thinking of upgrading my Radeon RX470 graphics card for something with a bit more "oomph" and with an eye to buying a VR headset at some point in the future. I'm currently confused like heck about whether to go for a Radeon Vega 64, or an Nvidia 1080, and what's more confusing is all the variants for each that are out there. I've read posts here by "red" and "green" teams, and both sides seem a bit too enthusiastic about their own card. I only ended up with the Radeon because that was what my gaming machine came with.

Budget is around £500 quid, give or take £100. Has anybody used either or both cards for Elite and VR, and what are your thoughts? Any suggestions would be much appreciated (and repped).

DerDzvero · Sep 4, 2017

Baba_Ghannoush said:
...with an eye to buying a VR headset at some point in the future.

None. Wait until you are really going to get the VR and buy 1080ti or next gen Nvidia you can afford. (I'd skip 10xx series If I were you).

ATI vs. Nvidia - if nothing changes, Nvidia is the way to go. ATI are focused on Playstation too much and not competitive IMHO.
On the HW variations, the only info I can share (don't have more) is: don't buy EVGA and avoid any Foundation editions (reference design) cards. Custom builds looks better from cooling/clocking perspective. Also some offer 5-7 years of warranty, if you register your product online, which is really good!

BigBANGtheory [VR] · Sep 4, 2017

As things stand a 1080 when overclocked (GPU boost) leaves the Vega 64 wanting.

If however a developer chooses to use some of the new features in the Vega product then things may play out differently.

So if you are buying for the here and now and don't already own a Freesync monitor almost certainly the 1080 is the better option.

Insomnia · Sep 4, 2017

I would say wait for the Vega partner cards first. The stock coolers does the job but AIB cards usually have way better cooling solutions.

Zeeman · Sep 4, 2017

DerDzvero said:
None. Wait until you are really going to get the VR and buy 1080ti or next gen Nvidia you can afford. (I'd skip 10xx series If I were you).

ATI vs. Nvidia - if nothing changes, Nvidia is the way to go. ATI are focused on Playstation too much and not competitive IMHO.
On the HW variations, the only info I can share (don't have more) is: don't buy EVGA and avoid any Foundation editions (reference design) cards. Custom builds looks better from cooling/clocking perspective. Also some offer 5-7 years of warranty, if you register your product online, which is really good!

The waiting game is a foolish one, unless a new series is known to be launch in a few weeks. At present, no one knows when Volta will be released, certainly not by X-mas. But sure, let's wait for Volta. When it is released, the next gen Radeon will be just around the corner, the release of that, the next Nvidia will nearly be here...

As for manufacturers, no idea what issues you have with EVGA, but they are fairly well known for making quality cards, with a good reputation for dealing with warranty issues when they happen (and they do, for all manufacturers).

Personally, I've used Asus, Gigabyte and EVGA. The Gigbayte GTX1080 G1 is the only card I have had an issue with, and it was replaced with a brand new unit.

1080Ti is probably the best card at the moment (short of going mad on the second revision of the Titan X- the Titan XP. Buy what you can afford, enjoy, be happy.

I agree on your very first point, though. If you don't already have VR, and won't for a little while yet, I wouldn't buy the card unless I were also buying the VR headset.

Z...

DerDzvero · Sep 4, 2017

Zeeman said:
The waiting game is a foolish one, unless a new series is known to be launch in a few weeks.

I strongly disagree! Weeks prior new release is the best moment to get a good discounted card, if there is no big technology change (like 1080p->1440p->4k, 1,000,000,000p...). Example - 980/980ti some years ago, which even now compete nicely with 1070 and some 1080s even.
Worst moment to buy expensive hardware is just some months prior a new release - you'll still pay 500-800 and get already outdated piece, which will be 1/2 price in less than 4 Months timeframe. Like now.

Someone might say "so what, we don't care of depreciation costs". Well, as warranty nowadays is 5-7 years, it's a very good strategy to buy a top card and sell it after 2-3 years for a good amount of money. Because it still has warranty that goes via ebay within days with no hassle. That makes sense only if you carefully calculate the purchase price and lifecycle though.. If you are lucky and do it during some digital currency mining period, like past 3 months we just had (ETH), you can sell old card for the money a new one costs..

I had 2 EVGAs through the years - both burned out the VRAM. It's not a single incident, google it if you like. EVGA even sells some cooling pads to owners of its cards nowadays. Glad you have good experience with them, hope it stays so. I don't.

Nidhöggr · Sep 4, 2017

i have a 1080. but if i had to make the same choice, i'll go for amd.
nvidia is a arrogant bunch of sh...heads and should burn in hell.

CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE · Sep 4, 2017

I'm in the same boat i.e. Vega or 1080. Wait for the Vega AIB cards before making a final decision, which is what I'm doing. ASUS have already announced two cards which are due to be released in "early September".

I would avoid the reference cards as the coolers are inadequate. I've been keeping up with the news and reviews closely and I suspect that once the AIB cards are out there will not be much to chose performance-wise between the 64 and the 1080, it'll just depend on the game as to which one performs better. Personally I'm not bothered about a few FPS here and there, I will be making my decision based on temperatures and price (despite losing Freesync if I go with a 1080).

There are comments from a one or two reference Vega owners (and how it performs in ED) in this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/370650-RX-Vega-reviews-are-up

JonSnowman · Sep 5, 2017

Its usually a debate of Freesync (AMD) vs Gsync (Nvidia) but if you plan to go VR then that doesn't matter.

If that were the case then Vega 64 is about 6% faster than stock 1080, but will almost certainly get faster over time.

That said, you're unlikely to get one right now for $500, and rumour has it the 64 is quite a good miner, which will mean that prices could climb even higher.

Robert Maynard · Sep 5, 2017

I managed to secure a reference RX Vega 64 (Sapphire) for £449 at launch - it copes well with 2560x1440 / Ultra settings. There is apparently functionality in Vega that has not yet been unlocked by drivers (from tweets made by Raja) - it will be interesting to see how the card's performance develops over time.

Dad Rock · Sep 5, 2017

Thanks a million for all the feedback! I think it best to wait a few months before committing, so will probably treat myself with one this Christmas :-D

Robert Maynard · Sep 5, 2017

Given the fact that Vega seems to be the "best" mining card out there (c.43.5 MH/s), finding one at an attractive price could be challenging - unless AMD manage to ramp up production.

Dad Rock · Sep 5, 2017

Robert Maynard said:
Given the fact that Vega seems to be the "best" mining card out there (c.43.5 MH/s), finding one at an attractive price could be challenging - unless AMD manage to ramp up production.

I don't know much about mining, but seriously? Do people actually make enough money from that stuff to buy tonnes of these expensive cards? Scary world out there...

Robert Maynard · Sep 5, 2017

Took a look at the site that I bought my Vega 64 from - they have both 56's and 64's in stock: £389 and £469 respectively.

Insomnia · Sep 5, 2017

Baba_Ghannoush said:
I don't know much about mining, but seriously? Do people actually make enough money from that stuff to buy tonnes of these expensive cards? Scary world out there...

This year alone, Bitcoin has gone up with around 320 percent here in Sweden. People get well paid for it.

Nidhöggr · Sep 5, 2017

and it's a currency the shadow governments can't control

Insomnia · Sep 5, 2017

Nidhöggr said:
and it's a currency the shadow governments can't control

Yeah but China has decided to take actions against coin crowdfundings and trading. So governments can have some control over it.

Patrick_68000 · Sep 5, 2017

I wonder if a GTX 1080 is too powerful for an I7 4770K

DOMN8TOR · Sep 5, 2017

Upgraded to the 1080ti OC

I have a system that was running an MSI Gaming 7 / i7 4790k clocked to 4.5GHz and two Radeon R270x cards crossfired (2GB RAM each). With eyefinity, I drove three Asus thin bezel monitors. (5760 x 1080 + bezel correction I can't remember ATM)

I could run ED with graphics mixed between high and medium, but the jump screen transitions took a long time and got really choppy.

After installing the MSI Duke 1080ti OC, I have everything maxed and the system eats it with no distress. Running ROCCAT for resource monitoring, none of my CPU cores get more than around 20% utilization at full intensity. This is while running other apps like Discord, ir tracker, voice attack, etc.

VR is outside of my experience, but I would think you would still want the NVidia offering right now if performance is the most important item.

So, no specific advice, I just wanted to share my results. This card is amazing and I feel like I have a new PC. (Yes, I could have bought another PC for the price of the OC card though)

My first post on this forum... take it easy on me. [noob]

Link to the MSI Duke page:

https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-GTX-1080-Ti-DUKE-11G-OC.html

GrikJoy · Sep 6, 2017

DOMN8TOR said:
I have a system that was running an MSI Gaming 7 / i7 4790k clocked to 4.5GHz and two Radeon R270x cards crossfired (2GB RAM each). With eyefinity, I drove three Asus thin bezel monitors. (5760 x 1080 + bezel correction I can't remember ATM)

I could run ED with graphics mixed between high and medium, but the jump screen transitions took a long time and got really choppy.

After installing the MSI Duke 1080ti OC, I have everything maxed and the system eats it with no distress. Running ROCCAT for resource monitoring, none of my CPU cores get more than around 20% utilization at full intensity. This is while running other apps like Discord, ir tracker, voice attack, etc.

VR is outside of my experience, but I would think you would still want the NVidia offering right now if performance is the most important item.

So, no specific advice, I just wanted to share my results. This card is amazing and I feel like I have a new PC. (Yes, I could have bought another PC for the price of the OC card though)

My first post on this forum... take it easy on me. [noob]

Link to the MSI Duke page:

https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-GTX-1080-Ti-DUKE-11G-OC.html

Sir may I ask the total budget for your system please

I'm doing researches to get my own, but I haven't think about multi-monitor setup.

I love to have 3 monitors for Dirt games (racing) but don't have an idea how to pick parts.