1080 Ti Asus Strix OC Edition VS Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme VS MSI Gaming X ?

I've RMA'd and got a refund for my recently purchased Gigabyte Aorus 1080 Ti Xtreme.
Reason being, it was exceptionally unstable at default clocks with its factory out of the box overclock. And because I experienced really high temperatures - more than anything reviews mentioned - crossing the 80c mark and hitting the 84c barrier, as well as artifacts and flickering even on low temperatures and many many crashes to desktop.

I've actually updated my Aorus bios from F3 to F4 and that pretty much solved the stability issues -but I felt that something is definitely off with the card, and I didn't trust it. I'm pretty sure I got a bad unit in the lottery.

It was crazy to read, during the same day of returning my Aorus GPU- about the card instability out of of the box - as seen here. Talking how you must install the bios firmware update from F3 to F4. And how much the Aorus Engine OC software built-in OC modes are entirely unstable and manual OC with MSI AB is preferable. Tom's Hardware pointed out how important it was to update GPU bios to F4 - made me really wonder how did Gigabyte ever released the Aorus 1080TI - a card at such a premium price with a totally defective OC-preset and bios.

When you say Ebay'ed you mean second-hand used CPU and ysed RAM sticks? Which RAM did you get?
Thought about upgradingto a used i7-3770k but can't find it for a good price shipping to my country.

About the GPUs, I am at a loss here.
I got burned with the Aorus 1080Ti Xtreme. Even though updating the gpu BIOS (something I never knew existed until 2 days ago and imo stupid as hell) helped with the performance part. Getting super hot temps in my clean & clutter free case was really distressing and disappointing.

In terms of look I like the Asus Strix OC the most.
Really dislike the unfleixble MSI GX look. Its half red with Red only led and some rgb side light.
Aorus looks great, but is the bulkiest of cards and has those orange accent which are ok.

I don't know ifthe Strix will give me lower temps than the Aorus did when playing 4K games like TW3 with 100% GPU load most of the time.
Also the Strix said to not have any Memory OC out of the box which is a bit odd.
The Aorus sounds like the strongest card in the market.

Just happy I got my refund for the 1st Aorus, but I can't make my mind.
I live in Israel , and the service quality here is pretty awful, that's why I want to buy the new GPU from Amazon this time.

Edit: oh the Asus Strix has a plastic shroud. Aorus got metalic shroud - but honestly metalic may mean more heat. Strix looks gorgeous and less unconventional, and also has more "low profile" build being less wide, 1 line rectangular and long. Therefore it may be better for cooling and airflow

Well what I want is simple.
4K at 60FPS as rock solid as possible (I know it's not possible in most heavy games- in real action).
Low temps, great auto and quiet cooling. No throtelling and mostly 1950-2000Mhz Core.
Stability, no crashes, glitches, artifacts and flickering.
Good factory OC and good OC potential. Nothing crazy. Good memory OC mainly
Not too big, so not to clutter the case.

I honestly think my case is extremely clean, ultra clutter-free, has good air-flow and very spacious.

I consider moving the Noctua nf-a14 140MM fan (one that blows air on the GPU) upwards to the former DVD cage - to serve as extra intake- what do you think? would that help? It will mean more dust in the front mesh and harder cleaning, but more cold fresh air intake.

I live in Israel, it's a really warm, humid and dusty country. My room isn't very ventilated.
It was really depressing and frustrating to see how my temps in The Witcher 3 4K - which runs many times at 90-100% GPU usage (usually 100%) - climbing all the way up to 80 and crossing 80 up to 84 before it starts to throttle. Never had that issue with my former cards: GTX 980 SLI - where if it reached 71-73 I felt like it's "very hot".

I don't understand how my Aorus Xtreme 1080 TI reached above 80c at nighttime. Makes no sense. Maybe it was defective, maybe not.
I don't like to run my fans at 100% speed - and it doesn't help much anyway.
I think I may have to use AC in the summer and hot spring days to reduce the temps.

That's the problem - it's huge. I want a small scale 1080ti card. I hate huge cards. Aorus was too huge to be comfortable with.
I want something smaller than the Aorus if possible.
Also I don't think sellers here offer Zotac, and Amazon won't ship Zotac for me.
I am thinking the Asus Strix 1080 Ti OC is the best aside from well.. another Aorus.
Strix seems slightly thinner and smaller in a sense. A bit longer than the Aorus but thinner, narrower and built in more flat surface. Not sure though.
Although a friend of mine has MSI Gaming X - and he OC it and he claims it runs at 73c at 100% load in TW3 4K -which sounds bogus to me, knowing his case and case treatment isn't better than mine for sure.



Well, you think I should leave that fan that I fixed up to hang in front of the GPU? Someone once told me that it may create air trubulence and cause more heat. That's why I thought that instead of buying another 140mm I will just move it upwards.
I also consider buying a Noctua NF-F12 - which is the same fan only 120MM - to replace my rear exhaust fan. But I don't know if it's worth the hassle and work. Don't want to mess up my perfectly constructed case if I can help it.

(Btw, whichever card I buy, it will probably be from Amazon with international shipping. I lose the warranty - that's true - but worse case I can try to ask for a refund and return the card to Amazon, if there are issues early on). I just don't feel like buying another card here, and there aren't a lot of good options anyway.

That's true, the Asus Strix and even the MSI Gaming X aren't small either. Wish I knew what would work best in terms of cooling.
Wait, are we fully done with the Aorus Xtreme card? I mean, all in all if you read Guru3d or Tom's Hardware reviews of this gpu- it sounds like one of the best 1080Ti options out there.
Also I haven't excluded the MSI Gaming X yet, either.
And the Asus has plastic shroud around the fans while the Aorus is metallic, not sure about the ZOTAC and MSI - and I don't know if it's a bad or good thing.
Um...
What do you guys think about my temperatures and how to handle them? About what I said earlier.
How hot is it over there and do you guys use AC when playing?
In the summer I remember seeing drops in GPUS temps from anywhere between 5-10c when using AC - that was with my Gigabyte G1 Gaming 980 SLI.

To be fully fair with the Aorus 1080 Ti. It is built very well - aside from the led cables being a bit too in-the-open and feels like they can accidentally tear or pull out. Probably not an issue. But about performance - it work better after doing the BIOS update - which is potentially risky and mostly unknown - I discovered it by chance. There's just no reason why any average to enthusiastic user would need to update a GPU BIOS in my opinion. Never knew such an option existed before, and I sure rather not do it in the future. But I think some people are more lucky with this card than others.

I think I will have drop the Zotac AMP out of the equation. The fan issues you mentioned, the fact it's not avaiable in Amazon or in Israel, and the size: 3 slot instead of 2.5, longer, bigger and especially heavier - I just can't deal with this size and weight - it will definitely cause issues here

Between MSI Gaming X and Asus Strix OC - my heart personally go with the Strix. Even though it's more expensive.
But what do you think? I love how clean and slick the Asus Stirx is. The cooling and overall design is very similar to the Zotac and my old GTX 980 G1 Gaming - only looks a lot cleaner. I like the dark blacks and neutral colors. RGB lighting is also neat.
However, looks aside, I have absolutely no idea how the cooler will perform here, and wonder if the Asus Strix can perform as well as the others in terms of FPS and clocks.

So you are using AC to cool your room/house and keep it at 21c? that's quite low.
Where do you live and how's the weather there?

In my house it's really funny:
I have 2 gaming rooms: my bedroom, with the 1440 PC monitor and a 5.1 speaker system, where my PC is actually located. And a small living room set as a gaming kingdom, with my PS4 Pro, PS3, TV and Home Theater system.
I didn't want to have my PC inside the living room, so everything is clean, spacey and noise free.
So, my 4K TV is in the adjacent room, across the wall , and on the far end of the room. I am using a 10m HDMI cable to connect my PC in my bedroom to my AV-Receiver and TV on the far wall of the 2nd room .

So in the summer - I used to turn on the Air Conditioning in my bedroom - where my PC is seated - just for my PC (at about 24c)! And would use a separate AC in my living gaming room. So when I play in the living room, with my TV, I don't have the case next to me, and it's virtually 100% noise free, and temperatures are also nicer (no heat coming out of the case).
And when I played in my gaming bedroom - with my PC monitor - I would only need 1 AC.

With these high temps of 4K and 1080 Ti I would probably set my room AC to 21 or 22 like you did.
When I tested my cards and saw it reaching 80-82c - I had no AC on - because mine died and I need to order and install a new one.
How are you temps when idle/gaming/100% load? What resolutions are you playing at. Games like TW3 at 4K will push the card to 100% usage, and will stress it much more than games like MGSV for instance - meaning 10c more than most games.

That's kinda why I consider moving my 140mm fan upwards and fixing it up with some zip cuffs to the top tunnel where the DVD drive would be. Perhaps having more fresh air going inside - would help push more hot air out of the back - and cool the inside of the case... I guess I can also buy another 140mm and add it there. Might be too much though.
Not sure if replacing the rear stock fan with a Noctua fan of the same size will help - I think they work well enough.

Thanks for taking your time with that info.
Yup, that's pretty darn hot. We have similat climates. Hot as Israel if not worse. Only we have very harsh humidity and no summer rains at all. We are lucky to have decent rain in winters, this one was pretty dry. But where I live, it's along the coast and quite humid. Especially in the summer, but we also have occasional heat waves in autum and spring. I am not used to turning on AC for too long periods and definitely not if I I not actively needing it in the room. So we turn the AC off/on by need. Because it's expensive and because we personally don't like shutting ourselves in for too long.


What's you're take on Overclock those cards?
I see reviews (Tom's, Guru's) and people talking about stuff like:
Cranking up the voltage by +100. Raising Power Limit maximum offered by the card. Adding +40-70 Core. And +400-500 Memory.

I have never OC my cards that high. And definitely didn't try to raise then (locked by default) Voltage by anything let alone +80-100.
I use MSI AB and would like to know what is a reasonable safe mid-range/mid-high OC to shoot for without causing crashes, overheat, artifacts or damaging my hardware.
Are you using any Voltage and what do you think would be a reasonable OC for that Asus Strix for instance?

Thank you. What about the Power Target?
Do you know much does the GPU-Tweak software "OC mode" add exactly?
Because I'm not going to use Asus's software. Reason being: I rather have as few background apps as possible. Also my experience with the Aorus Graphics Engine and MSI Afterbruner working together - was that the GPU software would constantly clash with MSI's fan and OC settings. That means the fan speed can go haywire and switch between profiles like crazy, or the clocks of one software will overwrite the other. There's no reliable way to ensure your OC and fan settings with 2 softwares doing the same thing.
Therefore if you want to OC your GPU you better use just 1 dependable software. Knowing how light weight MSI AB is, how easy to use, multipurpose and reliable - I much rather use only MSI AB for all my GPU tweaking and monitoring.

Have to ask, if you had the Asus Strix 1080 Ti - why did you "downgraded" to EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FE?
I say downgraded because it's clearly a cheaper card being a Founder's Edition.
Did you have any issue with the Asus Strix?
Amazon buyers are giving it 5 stars except a few giving it bad reviews due to Coil Whine issues. Seems some have it, while others do not.