1080 SC or 1080 ACX 3.0 for Step Up Program

[rabaker07]

I qualified for the evga step up program and they're replacing my 980ti with a 1080 for $10 bucks. They've been sold out for months so customer service upgraded me to the SuperClocked version in order to appease my patience.

Problem is, they finally contacted me today saying they have the ACX 3.0 version in stock if I want to accept that, otherwise I'll have to continue to wait for the SC version. The longer I wait, the more outdated this card is, and the less I get to use its awesome power!

Do you think that I should accept the ACX 3.0 version at 1607/1733 clocks and overclock it now, taking the chance that it can't overclock as high; or wait for the SC version at 1708/1847 that is factory overclocked/warrantied and delay this process even further? I usually buy the SC or FTW versions as it is. My 980ti is an SC...

Get this now-
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=08G-P4-6181-KR

or wait for an unknown amount of time for this-
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=08G-P4-6183-KR

 

[huiyiungai]

Do you overclock yourself? If the answer is yes you can just go for it and OC yourself, the final clocks will be the same. If you wont OC, this depends on how necessarily for you 1080, as i know 980ti is still very capable for nowadays games so maybe you can still wait for few months for that

 

[geofelt]

The GTX1080 in any state of overclock is a very nice jump over the GTX980ti.
I would be inclined to accept any version that they will deliver to you right now.

 

[rabaker07]

The GTX1080 in any state of overclock is a very nice jump over the GTX980ti.
I would be inclined to accept any version that they will deliver to you right now.

I'll feel like a shmuck if the SC comes in 2 weeks from now. I've never really O/C'd a GPU (not the right way, I've bumped up the value in Afterburner before, but didn't stress test, or mess with voltage, or anything like that). I'm not sure how to make it 'stick' either, I feel like you have to set it up every time you want to play a game, but it's probably as simple as saving a profile.

I do O/C my CPU and from what I hear, it's even easier than that. The concern is will you get the same level of OC as the SC does. And will you still be covered by warranty if the card fails in a year?

But I agree, I'd like to get this in my system ASAP, especially because last week I upgraded to Skylake 6600k at 4.6 on air (lightning struck my building and fried my mobo and modem and router so I just upgraded instead of replacing my i5 3570k and z77/ddr3 mobo).

 

[krells]

I would probably just get the ACX 3.0 now. As you you the advertised boost clock is lower than the actual speed you see. A stock clock card will boost to ~1850 and with an aftermarket cooler you should be able to maintain that speed, unlike the reference cooled versions. Seems almost all 1080 overclock to just over 2000mhz no matter what version of the card you get. Both cards are reference pcb's with the same cooler so not much of a difference other than the very small overclock which probably doesn't make a big difference in real world performance anyway.

 

[rabaker07]

I would probably just get the ACX 3.0 now. As you you the advertised boost clock is lower than the actual speed you see. A stock clock card will boost to ~1850 and with an aftermarket cooler you should be able to maintain that speed, unlike the reference cooled versions. Seems almost all 1080 overclock to just over 2000mhz no matter what version of the card you get. Both cards are reference pcb's with the same cooler so not much of a difference other than the very small overclock which probably doesn't make a big difference in real world performance anyway.

I ended up taking the non-SC ACX 3.0 version and now, 2 weeks later, the SC version is available. I knew this would happen, but that's fine.

Now, how would I overclock this card to always have the exact same OC and boost clock as the SC? Do I have to set it up in Afterburner or Precision every time? Or is there a way to permanently "upclock" this card so that it's essentially the SC version?

 

[krells]

You can download the latest version of Afterburner beta for pascal cards. Add +114 to the base clock and save the profile. Set Afterburner to start with windows and you always run the higher clock speed.

 

[rabaker07]

You can download the latest version of Afterburner beta for pascal cards. Add +114 to the base clock and save the profile. Set Afterburner to start with windows and you always run the higher clock speed.

Awesome, thank you.

So the SC states 1708/1847 vs 1607/1733, but you say to only add 114 to the base clock only? (114 actually brings it up to the FTW clock speed at 1721/1860).

So that would be
114 to base and 127 to boost.

1. Is there a way to edit the Boost value?

2. And do I leave Memory Clock alone?

 

[krells]

Not sure why I was thinking of the FTW clock, you are correct SC base clock would be +101. You don't set the boost value and as I am sure you have seen the actual boost value under load is higher than advertised. You don't have to touch the memory clock to equal the SC/FTW cards since they run at the same speed as reference cards..

 

[rabaker07]

Not sure why I was thinking of the FTW clock, you are correct SC base clock would be +101. You don't set the boost value and as I am sure you have seen the actual boost value under load is higher than advertised. You don't have to touch the memory clock to equal the SC/FTW cards since they run at the same speed as reference cards..

That's interesting, I see in Afterburner (4.3.0 Beta 4) that my Mem clock displays as 5005 and Boost is 1847, so I'm already hitting the SC boost level out-of-the-box, but my base is only at 1607 which is fine, nothing wrong with power-savings. And that base level is meaningless, because the card generally drops to 139 on idle/low-use.

This said, I wonder if I should even mess with it. I guess if I want to go even higher, I could bump it up by around 165 to get over 2000, but what's the point? And what temp should I stay below on average? I like how it currently stays below 65 degrees under load...

 

[Math Geek]

both cards are the same reference pcb so nothing to gain by waiting for the sc card. you can easily oc for that extra 101 mhz not that it will make a difference in performance anyway.

boost 3.0 will oc it further for either card and hit that magical ~2 ghz every card hits. cooler is the same so it will work the same for either card. no reason to wait. grab the 3.0 card and get started enjoying it.

 

[ChrisCarbomb]

Most newer cards will boost automatically to the highest clock speed without touching anything. My ftw boosts to 1985mhz on its own

 

[Math Geek]

right, that's what i saying

not a single card on the market has done any better than the others. they all boost to the same levels and fps is withing a couple either way for every card. cheap and good looking is what your looking for this time around. all those expensive high end cards won't get you any extra fps for your extra $100+!!!

 

[rabaker07]

Math Geek: So you say that I can easily get to that magical ~2ghz with the 3.0 cooler but you also say that it's going to make any difference in performance. Why, then, is it so magical?

Should I even overclock this card?

ChrisCarBomb: Your FTW boosts to 1985 on its own, but what determines that boost mark? It automatically Boosts to it's highest clock speed? Does that mean that 1847 is the highest my card can go? I don't quite understand the mechanism behind the "Boost" clock...

 

[krells]

The boost clock has many factors involved and one of them is the base clock. The FTW boosts to 1985 mostly due to the higher base clock. If the FTW base clock was reduced to the reference 1607 the boost clock would be similar to the 1847 you are getting.

 

[Math Geek]

that's what i have seen as well. a small oc will give that extra 100 mhz or so of boost clock. but as noted, the oc gains little overall performance. for instance, here is a chart from guru 3d which includes a number of 1080 cards. notice how close they all are in performance despite wildly varying clock speeds out of the box.

overclocked the cards gain another 3-4 fps each but stay bunched up. guru does not make a chart with fps but they do make a large one with firestrike scores for all the cards. you get the idea anyway. performance gains are roughly the same.

now i'm not saying not to oc the card, just saying that even a cheap reference based model will oc and perform roughly the same as a high end expensive card. so the acx 3.0 card vs the sc card both based on the reference pcb from nvidia will net the same fps with a small oc no matter which card. so grab the non oc'ed card, oc it the 100-150 mhz yourself and enjoy the same performance of the sc card they don't have in stock now.