which 1080 to buy??

matsamas · Aug 31, 2016

Which model of gtx 1080 do you guys reccomend?
clock/boost clock wise and temps ?

any thoughts on inno3D ichill x4 airboss?
i have read some bad things about inno3D and not many good things. any of you guys have a personal experience?

i am buying 2 gtx 1080 and i am not planning on overclocking so i want the higher perfomance possible out of the box with nice temps and probably low noise.

Thinking of evga sc,ftw or and asus rog strix oc.
gigabyte extreme gaming is good?

A few of my friends bought asus rog strix and one of them had artifacts while benchamrking and the other came DOA. that makes me worry about asus.

So share your experience and klnowledge with me guys,i am gonna place my order on friday and i havent decided yet.

Mr Kagouris · Aug 31, 2016

Go for EVGA FTW cards, they're the best you can get at the moment.

As for ASUS, yeah their GPU division has gone downhill lately. They're not exactly a bad brand, but their cards cost too much for what they offer.

photonboy · Aug 31, 2016

Cards are still overpriced, but I've narrowed it down to:

1) Asus Strix or
2) EVGA FTW

Frankly, many of the cheaper cards will perform similarly. While the EVGA FTW has more phases and a good cooler, it's still not quite as cool as the Asus Strix and the increased phase count seems pointless since the GPU itself seems to be the point of failure (doesn't need more power). If things get hot (which they will with TWO cards) the Asus Strix might be best.

Hybrid is worth considering, but pump noise and possible failure concerns me (fan and pump never turn off either whereas other cards can disable fans in light usage). The Asus Strix cools well enough I don't want to risk liquid cooling.

*The STRIX has an option to add case fans which then ramp up according to temperature. A SIDE FAN in particular is worth considering if the case supports it. With two cards, having a side fan may prevent some thermal throttling.

matsamas · Aug 31, 2016

yea its probably ovepriced. i am seriously thinking of getting the plait super jetsream ones. they are far cheper than others. its only 650 euro each. going down to 630 if i get 2. where the next cheaper is gigabyte at 700 euro. so far i am really confused. I have other saying to grab one 1080 now and sell it when 1080ti comes out to upgrade to 1080ti. but since then i cant properly play at 4k with a single 1080.on the one hand 1080sli will be faster than a single 1080ti ,on the other hand i would have payed also 1260 euro instead of like 650 now(then sell it like 450)+300(750 is the price when gtx cards first release),that means 950. oh man...

Mr Kagouris · Aug 31, 2016

The GTX 1080 can run games at 4K just fine if you get rid of stuff like AA (which is pretty much useless at 4K anyway). The Palit Jetstreams are decent cards too.

matsamas · Aug 31, 2016

So later tonight I will get a final answer on prices etc and I will see.
So a single card right now is what you are recommending?

Mr Kagouris · Aug 31, 2016

If you're gonna buy a 1080 Ti anyway, yeah. You won't be able to run the most demanding games (e.g. Crysis 3) at 60FPS with max settings@4K, but turn down the anti-aliasing, tune the settings a bit, and you'll be fine with a single 1080 until you upgrade to the Ti.

matsamas · Aug 31, 2016

i am planiing on upgrading. i am not saying i wont. i havent decided which of two is better.
you cant keep up with the technoilogy every time. so 2x1080 sounds more reasonable for me atm

photonboy · Aug 31, 2016

Not sure what MONITOR you have, but unless you have a great monitor I would:

a) buy a single GTX1080, then

b) buy a nice GSYNC monitor

In USA, a GTX1080 is about $650+, whereas a nice Asus GSYNC monitor is $750USD (2560x1440, IPS, 144Hz).

I'd much rather have a single GTX1080 then have two of them with a so-so monitor.

GSYNC doesn't require you to hit a specific FPS to avoid issues like lag or screen tearing. You basically crank everything to max quality, then only adjust if the FPS is too low.

For example, in an Assassins Creed game 50FPS is probably great on a GSYNC monitor.

I would also not get the cheapest GTX1080 just trying to save a few bucks. There is probably a reason why it's the cheapest. Performance for most is similar until it starts to thermal throttle. Other issues can be coil whine or simply failure due to quality control.

matsamas · Aug 31, 2016

Thank for your answer. My monitor is Asus pb287q. Is pretty nice monitor, never let me down so far. I am not considering a new monitor because I won't have what to do with this. It has a tiny scratch in a corner I did by mistake which make it hard to sell it for a reasonable price.
I am really happy with my monitor. Never ever had problem with any game... Yes gsync will be ideal but is not the right moment...
Still what gtx do you recommend?

photonboy · Sep 1, 2016

matsamas :

I gave my recommendations already. Asus Strix 08G, or EVGA FTW.

There are a few others that are very similar. I would avoid the liquid cooling models.

*You have a 4K monitor, however I would still stick with a single GTX1080 and game at 2560x1440 most of the time. (set the monitor to SCALE by ASPECT, or leave it 1:1 and scale on the GTX1080. I do it on the GPU in NVidia Control Panel (scale by aspect, and scale on GPU).

The quality difference between 2560x1440 does not justify the cost. In fact, you'll get WORSE FPS in most games even with two cards, as well as stutter in some games, and some added LAG.

We're going to start seeing SFR (Split Frame Rendering) however AFR which is what we use now is not working well with many of the new games so there's no multi-GPU support in many games. SFR is going to take perhaps TWO YEARS to start getting implemented.

Here's a link that demonstrates a lot of games run at HALF the FPS going up to 4K:
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_1080_STRIX/15.html

*So you'd need 100% scaling on two cards just to equal the same FPS. Again, you'll get LOWER performance with two cards at 4K, then you do with one card at 2560x1440.

It's just not worth it.

photonboy · Sep 1, 2016

Update:
You should also learn how to use Adaptive VSYNC.

It turns VSYNC ON and OFF automatically. Let's say you want it ON to get rid of screen tear. Fine, but you get STUTTER any time you drop below 60FPS. With VSYNC now OFF you get screen tear instead of stutter.

Example:
Crysis 3 (about 60FPS average at 2560x1440)-> https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_1080_STRIX/12.html

1. Drop a few settings so you stay above 60FPS more consistently (drop below 60FPS less than 10% of the time)

2. Force on Adaptive VSYNC

3. If screen tear is too often, drop a couple settings.

Again, just an EXAMPLE. Having the BEST EXPERIENCE isn't just about buying expensive hardware. You need to be smart about what you're doing. To beat a dead horse, game at 2560x1440 (scaled up on GPU or monitor) on a single GTX1080.

If you decide you absolutely need a 2nd card you can buy another later.

FaZ1095 · Sep 1, 2016

I'd go with the EVGA FTW model or the ASUS STRIX. Here are some gameplay performance videos for the 1080 at different resolutions. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTLW-NE1XjRDAD1koX7GSeixscp7Tf8JG

matsamas · Sep 2, 2016

So one card with the resolution scaled to 2k is the way to go? Using my existing monitor? Thanks a lot. So many valuable information...!!!

Mr Kagouris · Sep 2, 2016

You don't necessarily have to downscale the resolution (by the way, 2k is 1080p). Tuning some settings will allow you to run pretty much any game at 4K with a single GTX 1080 (most benchmarks show it doing around 45FPS at absolute max settings in most games). For example, AA is literally useless at 4K because the PPI is so high you can't actually get noticeable jagged edges, and disabling it can result in significant performance boosts. Furthermore, some games have hidden settings that don't really make sense (e.g. Witcher 3 having forced 64x Tesselation) that you can modify through the Nvidia control panel to get performance boosts without really sacrificing the quality of the graphics.

matsamas · Sep 2, 2016

Thanks Mr kangouris. I am aware that AA and other stuff are useless at 4k and I have them disabled the most of the time without any visual quality loss.
As far as I know 2k is 2560x1440 and not 1080.
I am like 99% sure you are pretty much wrong on this one. Still couldn't thank you more for your info and advise.

Mr Kagouris · Sep 2, 2016

matsamas :

2K resolution is a generic term for display devices or content having horizontal resolution of approximately 2,000 pixels. Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) defines 2K resolution standard as 2048×1080.

Definition of 2K resolution from Wikipedia (feel free to check their sources if you still have doubt). Although 1080p is not exactly 2K, what we call "4K" is also not true 4K but rather Quad HD, as its vertical and horizontal pixel counts are precisely twice those of Full HD (which is 1080p), thus it has four times the pixels of Full HD.

It's easy to get confused because most people subconsciously understand "4K" as a measurement of the entire display resolution, thus they think 2560x1440p, being half the resolution of 3840x2160p, should be 2K. However, "4K" is in fact a measurement of horizontal resolution, hence half of 4K (2K) is one quarter the total resolution.

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