Hardware & Technical GTX 1080 or 1080ti for the Rift

[ajg74]

We have an I7 6700k with a 1080 for using Rift, it is ok but still a lot of settings have to be turned down to keep the frame rate up and SS set at 1.5 or higher, a 1080ti would be better but we are just going to wait for the consumer versions of the Nvdias "Volta" cards to come out next year some time.

An I7 3700 isn't PCI E 3.0 I don't think, this will be your main issue with running a 1080 or higher as it can saturate the bandwidth on PCI E 2.0 slot.

 

[Morbad]

The 1080 ti might be overkill for playing ED sans VR, but presumably anybody willing to pony up the bucks for one has other more graphically intense games in their library that would benefit from the extra horse power. I know that I sure do.

ED is as graphically demanding as you care to make it and that Ultra preset isn't anywhere near maxed out.

I have a 60Hz 1440p display and a 1080 Ti that typically runs at ~5% higher core and ~10% higher memory clocks than peak reference boost clocks. I can still see sub-60 fps at times with increased texture, environment, and shadow resolutions; plus additional shadow frustums and some super sampling. This is with DOF disabled (spend 25% of your frame rate to see less clearly!) and some manual (and largely visually imperceptible) tuning down of the ultra particle settings.

An I7 3700 isn't PCI E 3.0 I don't think, this will be your main issue with running a 1080 or higher as it can saturate the bandwidth on PCI E 2.0 slot.

Not even a 1080 Ti is dramatically bottlenecked by PCI-E bandwidth in a single card scenario. Putting mine in my eight year old LGA-1366 system results in maybe a ~10% performance loss vs. my more recent systems, mostly due to the CPU and memory performance, not PCI-E 2.0.

By and large, unless you are VRAM constrained, PCI-E utilization is very low when not using SLI/CFX. Multi-GPU setups need more because they need to maintain coherency of VRAM contents, and all the additional cards need to send output frames to the first card for compositing. Even in these cases, it takes a pretty high-end setup at fairly extreme settings to make more PCI-E lanes or a new PCI-E revision a worthwhile upgrade.

This gets widely tested every few years, and while there are some exceptions, it's generally very hard to tell the difference between PCI-E 2.0 16x, PCI-E 3.0 8x, and PCI-E 3.0 16x, with any single GPU, other things being similar.

Here's TechPowerUp's look at PCI-E scalling on a 1080 (vanilla) from last year: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080_PCI_Express_Scaling/

Even going back to PCI-E Gen 1.1 gave ~95% of the performance, on average. Tom's Hardware, GamersNexus, and quite a few independent testers, have similar articles with broadly similar conclusions.

Here is Puget System's dual Titan X (Pascal, the original GP102 part, not the newer, slightly faster Titan Xp) tests: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Titan-X-Performance-PCI-E-3-0-x8-vs-x16-851/

They had to run triple 4k surround (11520*2160 resolution) to find a major difference between 16x/16x and 16x/8x and 8x/8x in SLI.

 

[Viper2kUK]

I've recently upgraded my PC but when some folks say they're upgrading - how many of you fine folks end up with a completely new rig I wonder? Well me for a start but for me I don't really upgrade that often and I know what I've got (and getting) is going to last me many many years. Just a heads up - Love ebay & CeX sometimes.

This is my setup so far:

32GB DDR 3200 Ram
i7 5820K at stock 3.3Ghz + ASus X99-A II (Ebay bundle)
ASUS GTX 1060 6GB (Swapped a GTX970 and some cash at CeX)
Corsair Carbide C600 case (this is a beast of a case - I've called it HAL)
Corsair H1001v2 Cooling system.
X52 Pro HOTAS

So once the 1080ti turns up that's going to be it - now unless we're invaded by aliens (remember the big alien sausage flying by us recently - I'm not saying its a ship or has intelligent life contained within it but it could be a Thargoid Floater) and our technology suddenly jumps to star trek holographic technology - I think my rig will last quite a while.

V2k.

 

[Tomkin]

This give me sleeples nights.......what to buy....better cpu, that would need a new Mobo, RAM and Cooler, at least up to €750,--, no more Money for a new GPU.....so sad...

New GPU, up to €750,-- too, but what if the cpu will be the Bottlenec.....argh....

I decided to make a simple test run a few minute ago.

The Setting:

Old I7-3770 pushed to 4,1 Ghz all cores
GSkill 1600 16GB
Zotac geforce 1070 MINI slightly OCed.

Started Task Manager on Second Monitor and went to Elite in VR Mode.

To my Surprise the Load of my CPU was about 25% on 3 Cores, 1 was mostly 30%

Load of my GPU was 100% all the time.

Looks for me that the Bottleneck ist the 1070GPU, not my CPU.

So i will wait a couple of weeks, hoping that the Pricers will drop when the AFTER CHRISTMAS SHOPPING HORROR has ended and teh People will

get their Wallets closed and the Companies will raise sell rates.

 

[GraXXoR]

I know a while's past, but it might be helpful to someone.

I upgraded from the Zotac 1080 8Gb AMP? to the 1080 ti 11Gb AMP EXTREME... both Zotac, which seem to be my go-to cards since the 7 series.

I play on triple head 4k monitors (0.66 subsampled) or an Oculus Rift (1.5 supersampled).

In both these extreme cases, the ti was NOTICEABLY smoother than the vanilla version when it came to landing on planets and station interiors.

For everything else, space, asteroid fields, combat, there seems to be little difference.

For some reason since windows 10 the Oculus appears to get stuck on 45 FPS with ASW even though GPU is only 20% and CPU is less than 30.... This can create artefacts when navigating UI menus.

 

[Tomkin]

From 1080 to 1080ti ??

Wow, this loooks like you solved a luxury Problem...cause from a 1080 to a 1080 ti is about 20% performance plus i Guess?

I play with 1.5 Supersampling too, and got some serious stutters in Stations, but this depends of my Zotac 1070 Mini.

Upgrading from 1070 to 1080ti should be more than 25% Performance plus!

Have to try the FPS HUD next time to see what happens to the Framerates .

BUT, after all these crap with the Spectre and Meltdowb im considering to change my whole system to a Ryzen 1800X.

This means no more Money for an 1080ti :-( .

My I7 3770 is Running at 4.3 Ghz stable, but when there will be a BIOS update for an 3 Year old AsRock Board? And how much Performance will get lost?

 

[MickyG1982]

I was going to say it comes down to one question, if you have enough money for the 1080ti then get the 1080ti, but judging by the rest of the system you would actually be better off spending that money on the rest of the rig first.

Then save up for the next gen (or 2) card up.

 

[jasonbarron]

Wow, this loooks like you solved a luxury Problem...cause from a 1080 to a 1080 ti is about 20% performance plus i Guess?

I play with 1.5 Supersampling too, and got some serious stutters in Stations, but this depends of my Zotac 1070 Mini.

Upgrading from 1070 to 1080ti should be more than 25% Performance plus!

Have to try the FPS HUD next time to see what happens to the Framerates .

BUT, after all these crap with the Spectre and Meltdowb im considering to change my whole system to a Ryzen 1800X.

This means no more Money for an 1080ti :-( .

My I7 3770 is Running at 4.3 Ghz stable, but when there will be a BIOS update for an 3 Year old AsRock Board? And how much Performance will get lost?

Even switching over to Ryzen you'll still be vulnerable to Specter, unfortunately.

 

[MickyG1982]

Even switching over to Ryzen you'll still be vulnerable to Specter, unfortunately.

But, the programmer that wants to invade your pc has to know the unique code embedded into your processor & so be targeting you personally.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

I'm planning a much bigger leap as I'm waiting for the Volta to release and upgrade from my GTX 960 4gb. Last year I've bought a an i7770 with a matching motherboard and whatnot, so my rig is ready to swallow a proper card.

The answer the OP's question, I recon we are only a couple of months away from the Volta announcement, which could either mean a price drop on the current cards, or a 'tasty' performance increase for a slightly higher price.

 

[Morbad]

Wow, this loooks like you solved a luxury Problem...cause from a 1080 to a 1080 ti is about 20% performance plus i Guess?

This is more like a 30% difference in GPU limited scenarios.

Upgrading from 1070 to 1080ti should be more than 25% Performance plus!

Closer to 50-55%, again in GPU limited scenarios, but Elite usually qualifies.

My I7 3770 is Running at 4.3 Ghz stable, but when there will be a BIOS update for an 3 Year old AsRock Board?

Probably never. You may need to apply microcode fixes to the firmware yourself, if you want them.

And how much Performance will get lost?

For most games, including ED, almost none.

 

[Mean_Mr_Grinch]

I worked my way up the food chain starting with a 1060, then a 1070, and now a 1080. I saw a distinct improvement with each.

 

[Zeeman]

But, the programmer that wants to invade your pc has to know the unique code embedded into your processor & so be targeting you personally.

Yeah - a home user is not really going to have any real chance of being affected by Spectre. You really need to have annoyed someone pretty bad, and they'll be going to an awful lot of trouble...

I'd be more worried as a corporate if I fired an particularly clever IT person, for no good reason, and they are holding a grudge.

Z...