Hardware & Technical Which GTX 1080?

[Alec Turner]

So it looks like I'm in the market for a GTX 1080 and I'm finding myself somewhat overwhelmed by the choice available, not only in manufacturer, but in different models per manufacturer.

I guess my immediate concerns are:

• price (I guess I'd rather not pay over £700)
• coil whine (which I've heard can be a thing)
• size (I'm not sure exactly how much space I have in the case, probably plenty, but I'd rather not end up with a card that occupies 2.5 lots and is so long it doesn't quite fit without taking a hacksaw to things)
• CPU bottleneck (I don't know if this is a thing but, given I only have an i5 and wouldn't want to waste money on a 1080 if it turns out that, beyond a 1070, the CPU becomes the performance bottleneck).
• ability to run ED in Oculus VR without having to worry too much about tweaking graphics settings (i.e. ideally I'd like to just shove everything up to Ultra and forget about it ... is the 1080 up to that?)

I'm curious to see if there's any sort of consensus on which one is best so fire away!

P.S. for a bit of extra background, here are some of my PC's vital statistics:

• CPU: Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4690K (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache
• Motherboard: ASUS® Z97-E: ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
• Memory: 16GB HyperX FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
• Power supply: CORSAIR 750W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
• Case: InWIN 503 MID TOWER GAMING CASE (WHITE)
• Current graphics card: 4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970 - DVI, HDMI, mDP - 3D Vision Ready

 

[GodBlock]

I have no advice, but I am jealous of your situation!

o7

(can i buy your old gpu?)

 

[Evoflash]

Wait for 1080Ti announcement @ CES2017 in January. That's what I'm doing.

 

[kaivalagi]

Wait for 1080Ti announcement @ CES2017 in January. That's what I'm doing.

Do you think they'll drop the price of the standard 1080 when the Ti's are introduced?

Just toying with either going 1070 now-ish or waiting for a potential price drop on the 1080's come the new year....

 

[Alec Turner]

(can i buy your old gpu?)

Watch this space!

 

[GodBlock]

I have a 960 2GB Asus Strix, would the difference be noticeable?

 

[SirOleg]

I heard that GTX1070/1080 from EVGA overheat (without OC) and explode while gaming without any notifications about overheat. So whatever you buy, but DON'T EVEN LOOK AT EVGA OR IT WILL EXPLODE.

No, srsly now. The do boom. Just like Samsung does.

Otherwise any other manufacturer will do fine.

 

[Evoflash]

Do you think they'll drop the price of the standard 1080 when the Ti's are introduced?

Just toying with either going 1070 now-ish or waiting for a potential price drop on the 1080's come the new year....

Being about 10-12 weeks away, I'm prepared to wait and see what the effect is. 1080Ti isn't promised, but lots of speculation suggest it will be announced. Makes sense too with Vega around the corner. I would expect to see some drop in 1080 prices as a result. Might even be worth saving a bit more and going for the Ti itself. 980Ti is still a very relevant card so longevity might be good cost offset.

Up to now I've been watching the EVGA 1080FTW prices, if anything they've risen a little since £ has devalued . I've currently got EVGA 970FTW.

 

[AutoMechancal]

Seeing as you have an haswell i5 at stock clocks maybe save the money and go with the 1070. As for which one to go for? I usually go for the one with the highest clocks that you can afford unless you have other issues like size or noise. Try to stay away from blower type coolers though they are hot and noisy.

 

[Vorxian]

If I were in the position you're in; I'd probably justify it more prudent to bump your mobo and processor up to a future proof i7, and upgrade your RAM, get some 2600mhz & go SSD. You're giving your whole PC a real dose of pure methanol.

I'm pretty certain you'll see a much broader gain with some fast architecture under the hood than a beefier graphics card that bottlenecks with PC limitation? That 970 you have will have no problem running everything on max, and is still a fantastic card.

 

[Evoflash]

I heard that GTX1070/1080 from EVGA overheat (without OC) and explode while gaming without any notifications about overheat. So whatever you buy, but DON'T EVEN LOOK AT EVGA OR IT WILL EXPLODE.

No, srsly now. The do boom. Just like Samsung does.

Otherwise any other manufacturer will do fine.

Jeez, you're right. Seems there is a thermal issue (although "explode" is probably a bit over the top). Check out this Reddit thread.

 

[GodBlock]

Gotta agree with Vorxian here

I'm not running anything special, fx-6300 stock, 960 asus strix 2gb

But!

I recently upgraded to SSD and 16GB 2600mhz ram and I can honestly say I play this game on ultra with no stuttering issues I see present in posts regarding 2.2

Edit :: Sorry my old age is kicking in, it's actually 1866mhz kingston ram 2x 8GB sticks

I've tried Elite on and off the SSD and makes barely any difference, I think the real kicker is the ram upgrade.. it probably does make a difference in loading times on the SSD but the server connection lag totally removes any benefit so I have it on a hybrid 1TB HDD (which used to be in my now dust covered and unloved ps4), which seeing as I only really play Elite these days (meaning it's always in the SSD cache) gives me the best of both worlds

 

[Alec Turner]

If I were in the position you're in; I'd probably justify it more prudent to bump your mobo and processor up to a future proof i7, and upgrade your RAM, get some 2600mhz & go SSD. You're giving your whole PC a real dose of pure methanol.

I'm pretty certain you'll see a much broader gain with some fast architecture under the hood than a beefier graphics card that bottlenecks with PC limitation? That 970 you have will have no problem running everything on max, and is still a fantastic card.

I've got SSD already so that's covered. I hear you concerning the i7 tho.

Re: the 970 running everything on max ... basically the ONLY reason I'm considering upgrading (aside from the work bonus that just arrived in my paycheck) is that, although it does happily run everything on Ultra on the monitor at 60fps, I'm having to make compromises to get decent (non-motion sickness inducing) frame rates on the Oculus. Don't get me wrong, it's terrific, but the 970 really can't run everything on max in VR.

This also brings me back to the i7. I'm really only interested in improving the performance of VR Elite. For everything else I do this PC barely breaks a sweat. So I'm still kinda thinking that 1080 (or maybe 1070) is the way to go.

Thanks for all the advice tho', keep it coming (especially your current favourite 1080's).

 

[Jon flint]

I heard that GTX1070/1080 from EVGA overheat (without OC) and explode while gaming without any notifications about overheat. So whatever you buy, but DON'T EVEN LOOK AT EVGA OR IT WILL EXPLODE.

No, srsly now. The do boom. Just like Samsung does.

Otherwise any other manufacturer will do fine.

Yep, but only the ones with nasty cheap looking aftermarket coolers.

There is a reason I always stick with the reference designs, they're actually designed and tested for that particular gpu. If you want more cooling for additional OC, grab an ek water block and fit it yourself, that way you know it's done properly

So many manufacturers just slap on any old cooler even if it's not a good fit for the board, just because it looks cool.... oooh 3 fans, must be the best one etc...

 

[Cmdr Sundog]

I would go for one of the 2 major taiwanese brands. Taiwan is an high tech country. I am quite impressed by them.
My favorite brand has 3 letters in their company name. Good and reliable. But most importantly above all, noise level is always my no. 1 issue. How is it running under full load? Is the noise level under high perf. bearable or not?
Krgds

 

[Vorxian]

I've got SSD already so that's covered. I hear you concerning the i7 tho.

Re: the 970 running everything on max ... basically the ONLY reason I'm considering upgrading (aside from the work bonus that just arrived in my paycheck) is that, although it does happily run everything on Ultra on the monitor at 60fps, I'm having to make compromises to get decent (non-motion sickness inducing) frame rates on the Oculus. Don't get me wrong, it's terrific, but the 970 really can't run everything on max in VR.

This also brings me back to the i7. I'm really only interested in improving the performance of VR Elite. For everything else I do this PC barely breaks a sweat. So I'm still kinda thinking that 1080 (or maybe 1070) is the way to go.

Thanks for all the advice tho', keep it coming (especially your current favourite 1080's).

I hear ya!

If only I had a rift, I could test on mine and let you know how it performs I'd be surprised if the 970 does struggle, out of curiosity I ran the STEAM 'is your pc VR ready' app and it was way over in the the green, very comfortably. But in theory is far different to reality, I'd so love to test one for you so I could have more confidence in saying DO IT!

One can dream, however !

 

[Moonax IRL]

Zotac amp extreme, I have the 1070 and with OC's vram 500 and 2100mhz it sits fairly silent at around 55c with 50% fan. Also has a 5yr guarantee.

 

[Globusdiablo]

So it looks like I'm in the market for a GTX 1080 and I'm finding myself somewhat overwhelmed by the choice available, not only in manufacturer, but in different models per manufacturer.

I guess my immediate concerns are:

• price (I guess I'd rather not pay over £700)
• coil whine (which I've heard can be a thing)
• size (I'm not sure exactly how much space I have in the case, probably plenty, but I'd rather not end up with a card that occupies 2.5 lots and is so long it doesn't quite fit without taking a hacksaw to things)
• CPU bottleneck (I don't know if this is a thing but, given I only have an i5 and wouldn't want to waste money on a 1080 if it turns out that, beyond a 1070, the CPU becomes the performance bottleneck).
• ability to run ED in Oculus VR without having to worry too much about tweaking graphics settings (i.e. ideally I'd like to just shove everything up to Ultra and forget about it ... is the 1080 up to that?)

I'm curious to see if there's any sort of consensus on which one is best so fire away!

P.S. for a bit of extra background, here are some of my PC's vital statistics:

• CPU: Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4690K (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache
• Motherboard: ASUS® Z97-E: ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
• Memory: 16GB HyperX FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
• Power supply: CORSAIR 750W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
• Case: InWIN 503 MID TOWER GAMING CASE (WHITE)
• Current graphics card: 4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970 - DVI, HDMI, mDP - 3D Vision Ready

I bought this beauty:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Strix-GeFo...id=1477999608&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+strix+1080

Review:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/asus-rog-strix-geforce-gtx-1080-review.html

I initially wanted the MSI Twinfrozr version, but as I was buying a completely new rig, my local "dealer" told me that MSI have a terrible return policy, where they want a defective card sent for "repair", while Asus just ships a new card.

I'm very impressed with the Asus. Very quite. Very cool. Very fast. Rock solid performance.

I did a lot of reading on coil whine beforehand, and bottom line; all coils whine to some degree. How sensitive are you? I opted for the logical solution. A sturdy, well damped case. Fractal Design Define S.

My system runs VERY quite, and I don't notice any coil whine whatsoever. But I've seen people running with open cases, putting their ear to their hardware and complaining about coil whine...

I'm running from an i5 6600k, and it's no bottleneck running rock steady at 4.2 via standard bios OC.

Just my 2 credits on the subject. Asus Strix 1080 highly recommended.

Good hunting.

 

[Wasp0]

Jeez, you're right. Seems there is a thermal issue (although "explode" is probably a bit over the top). Check out this Reddit thread.

I have been running a EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW 8GB GDDR5X DVI-D HDMI 3x DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card since 28th August, run ED on Ultra everything (That has Ultra) and at a resolution of 3840x2160. Never missed a beat (Touching wood). Excellent card IMHO

BTW, i run the Corsair Temp program that come with my Processor Liquid Cooling stuff, and it shows my GC Temp has never ever run above 73 degrees at peak ED Run Times

 

[Cmdr Sundog]

I bought this beauty:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Strix-GeFo...id=1477999608&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+strix+1080

Review:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/asus-rog-strix-geforce-gtx-1080-review.html

I initially wanted the MSI Twinfrozr version, but as I was buying a completely new rig, my local "dealer" told me that MSI have a terrible return policy, where they want a defective card sent for "repair", while Asus just ships a new card.

I'm very impressed with the Asus. Very quite. Very cool. Very fast. Rock solid performance.

I did a lot of reading on coil whine beforehand, and bottom line; all coils whine to some degree. How sensitive are you? I opted for the logical solution. A sturdy, well damped case. Fractal Design Define S.

My system runs VERY quite, and I don't notice any coil whine whatsoever. But I've seen people running with open cases, putting their ear to their hardware and complaining about coil whine...

I'm running from an i5 6600k, and it's no bottleneck running rock steady at 4.2 via standard bios OC.

Just my 2 credits on the subject. Asus Strix 1080 highly recommended.

Good hunting.

Very nice...Taiwan rulez.