Zotac GTX 1070 AMP! Extreme or MSI GTX 980 Ti Gaming 6G?

[bigvirgil]

Hi,

I am totally on the fence here between 2 excellent cards I've scored on Amazon Warehouse. Of course I need to keep only one but which one?

On one hand I've got the Zotac GTX 1070 AMP! Extreme which I bought £380 and on the other one the MSI GTX 980 Ti Gaming 6G which price has recently collapsed and that I've scored at £350.

I've benchmarked both (3DMark 11, Unigine Heaven, Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Batman Arkham Knight, Batman Arkham Origins, Thief and Shadow of Mordor) and both are pretty close but in all but one game the 980 Ti edged the 1070 out (but by a few FPS only each time).

So in the end the main differentiators are 8GB vs 6GB but I assume it's going to take quite some time before some game makes the most of those additional 2GB (and for now I'm playing on 1080p anyway).

I'm also not planning on going multi-monitors so Pascal's improvements in that regard don't matter to me.

VR is the big question. Like many (most?) I'm quite interested by VR but there's pretty much no content yet that I'm interested in, and certainly not enough for me to justify forking out at least £760.

So the 1070 definitely has an edge regarding VR but I don't know when it's happening and by then I might end up changing card again (GTX 1080 Ti maybe?). The 980 Ti shouldn't be too shabby running VR content anyway, especially this one.

And finally resale value. There the 1070 wins obviously as being the newest and shiniest of the two.

So here I am: is it worth paying the £30 difference between the two and keep the Zotac GTX 1070 or go the cheaper and ever-so-slightly-faster MSI GTX 980 Ti (and buy a couple of games on Steam with the price difference)?

 

[CryoWolf]

I have the Zotac GTX 1070, I think they are an amazing brand, it out performs the 980 ti and Titan X and with it being newer I would get the 1070 hands down, don't buy old tech when you have the better available. Gimpvidia probably will make it legacy sooner or later.

 

[bigvirgil]

Well, in this case the 980 Ti is indeed "old tech" but this specific one outperforms the 1070 (although not by much I give you that) while being cheaper. So buying into the "it's newer so it has to be better somehow" doesn't entirely convince me.

Deep down I know that I will probably go for the 1070 precisely for that reason but I still would like to find some stronger arguments/justification to do so.

 

[CryoWolf]

Well, in this case the 980 Ti is indeed "old tech" but this specific one outperforms the 1070 (although not by much I give you that) while being cheaper. So buying into the "it's newer so it has to be better somehow" doesn't entirely convince me.

Deep down I know that I will probably go for the 1070 precisely for that reason but I still would like to find some stronger arguments to do so.

But into point what do you want, older gen cards where the support will be cut down quicker and the performance drop over drivers or more VRAM and the extra crap nvidia say it comes with. Personally if the new card comes out and its better in like 80% of all things over the previous gen, surely its a no brainer to spend a little extra for a little more future proofness. Same problem with the 780 ti and 970. The 1070 will almost undoubtedly shine more later on.

 

[bigvirgil]

But into point what do you want, older gen cards where the support will be cut down quicker and the performance drop over drivers or more VRAM and the extra crap nvidia say it comes with. Personally if the new card comes out and its better in like 80% of all things over the previous gen, surely its a no brainer to spend a little extra for a little more future proofness. Same problem with the 780 ti and 970. The 1070 will almost undoubtedly shine more later on.

I would agree if it was indeed 80% better like you say. But in my tests it's not better at all, even slightly inferior actually. That would make me buying the GTX 1070 only on the hope that it might improve over time (which is quite possible indeed).
Long term support doesn't worry me as I'm not planning on keeping either of those any more than a year or two but that would have been something to consider otherwise.

 

[CryoWolf]

The 1070 will hold its value longer than a 980 ti imo, seen a lot on eBay as low as £260 unfortunately.

 

[bigvirgil]

The 1070 will hold its value longer than a 980 ti imo, seen a lot on eBay as low as £260 unfortunately.

Now that's a good point, especially since the Zotac is a pretty beefy and well ranked one it should retain good resale value indeed.

 

[CryoWolf]

The 1070 will hold its value longer than a 980 ti imo, seen a lot on eBay as low as £260 unfortunately.

Now that's a good point, especially since the Zotac is a pretty beefy and well ranked one it should retain good resale value indeed.

In this case I would you already know all the factors and its your call.

 

[bigvirgil]

In this case I would you already know all the factors and its your call.

Yeah, it is just somewhat frustrating to give up on a cheaper, smaller (it's a miracle I've succeeded to fit the Zotac in my ATX) and yet faster for my current needs only based on hypotheticals but I guess you're probably right.

It'd be nice to have other opinions though (if only to make my choice even more difficult!)

 

[CryoWolf]

In this case I would you already know all the factors and its your call.

Yeah, it is just somewhat frustrating to give up on a cheaper, smaller (it's a miracle I've succeeded to fit the Zotac in my ATX) and yet faster for my current needs only based on hypotheticals but I guess you're probably right.

It'd be nice to have other opinions though (if only to make my choice even more difficult!)

To be fair I only have a 980 SOC and a GTX 1070 FE, but I am glad I made the decision to get the 1070 over a 980 ti, mainly due to the VRAM and the power consumption being a lot lower, so I can SLI later on.

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

I have the Zotac 1080 Amp! Extreme, and I have heard that it is supposed to outperform a FE Titan X, but get into OC'd versions and the Titan probably heavily outperforms the 1080 AE, Zotac is (or already has) come out with the Arctic Titan X, which I assume is also heavily beefed up and runs super cool. I also assume the same is true with the 980Ti, it may outperform an FE 1070, maybe even a 1080, I find it hard to believe it will outperform an FE Titan, but I could be wrong, but the specs on the Amp Extreme 1080 probably blow it out of the water. Mine never skips a beat, even with my 3-year old MSI board and 3660K 3rd Gen i7 CPU, I'm running Fallout 4 perfectly on ultra settings at 2k resolution. I don't have the exact numbers but my frames never drop to where it is noticeable, it's always smooth as butter.

The most graphics intensive game I have, surprisingly, is WoW, and on all Ultra settings minus V-sync because of lag, even in invasions with 150+ characters around all fighting the same boss my fps never drops below 50, usually hovers around 70 but I blame the CPU for that, my GPU fans never even kick on because the temp never gets high enough. It has yet to break 65C

Thats just my little plug for the 1080 Amp! Extreme.