[SOLVED] EVGA 2080 Ti FTW3 Ultra vs XC Ultra?

[R_G_S]

Hi guys,

Would really appreciate some help in deciding between these two; ignore the price difference as the FTW3 Ultra was only £50 more (I've paid for both cards, but will only be keeping one).

The two I'm deciding between:

• RTX 2080 Ti FTW3 Ultra Gaming (11G-P4-2487-KR) - 1755 MHz Boost Clock
• RTX 2080 Ti XC Ultra Gaming (11G-P4-2383-KR) - 1650 MHz Boost Clock

Would be fantastic to hear from an owner of the card(s) if possible, but any thoughts welcome.

My concerns are that the FTW3 might be louder than the XC Ultra and it clearly draws more power. I'm not sure if I'll be overclocking or not, but quiet and cool operation is really important to me. I don't think that the FTW3's higher clock speeds produce any real-world gains, so at stock, both cards are about the same performance-wise. I'll be taking out EVGA's 10 year extended warranty, whichever card I go with.

System is as follows:

Case: SilverStone Temjin TJ11
Motherboard: ASUS Maximus XI Extreme
CPU: Intel i9 9900K
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15
Memory: 64 GB (4x16GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 MHz
Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce RTX2080 Ti XC Ultra / RTX2080 Ti FTW3 Ultra
PSU: Seasonic PRIME Ultra 850 W 80+ Titanium
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro High End 64-Bit

I will be running all apps and games at 4K. For more info, my system build thread is located here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/i9-9900k-now-or-wait.3474998/page-12?view=date

Thanks.

 

[TheSho21]

I have the FTW3 version and it is highly overclockable (the third fan really makes a difference). That is the biggest difference between the two. So if you're not planning on OC'ing it just keep the XC.

 

[R_G_S]

Thanks for replying, TheSho21.

Would you be able to comment on the noise levels and also whether the fans spin at all under low loads? I'm after a cool/quiet card and the FTW3 seems to have got very mixed reviews in that regard.

If the noise levels are the same (or better!), then I'd be tempted to go with the FTW3 as I have the option to OC in future should I want to (right now there doesn't seem to be much need, even at 4K).

Thanks again.

 

[TheSho21]

Full disclosure my comp is pretty far from where I sit so I don't have an issue with the noise levels anyway. However, when I've been near it under load the noise certainly wasn't the loudest system I've heard but this is all subjective haha. Luckily EVGA's X1 software gives you a lot control over fan speeds and curves. I think the middle fan is the only one that shuts off totally. Tbh I've never actually noticed or tested the fans on/off capabilities.

Anyway, you have some fun tests coming up. On a side note, I'd recommend getting a gpu brace like THIS especially for the FTW.

 

[R_G_S]

Thanks, TheSho21.

In my case the motherboard is rotated 90 degrees so the card will be 'hanging' from the top:

If you are able to check the noise levels/fan activation at some point this weekend that would be a great help to me as it's a lot of money to spend and I don't want to make the wrong decision - if not time though, no probs and thanks for the info all the same!

Cheers!

 

[faalin]

Download the evga precision x1 software, even though the cards stat a boost speed they will go over that. My ftw3 ultra at stock settings will boost to 1980mhz all by its self. As long as it stays within the target power limit and keeps good temps it will boost as much as it can.

It kind of like a 3 way seesaw, if power and temp are happy Mhz will go up, if ether temp or power get to high then Mhz will go down.

I just picked my card up a week ago and at full fan speed i can hardly hear it. Was able to hit +130 on clock and +450 on memory before it hit a power limit, temps where in the high 60's just tapping 70*c.

 

[R_G_S]

Thanks for replying, faalin.

Glad to hear the card seems quiet; I've had noisy systems in the past and very keen to avoid them now. Can you confirm that under low loads the fans don't spin at all?

Below are the reviews for the XC Ultra and the FTW3 Ultra (TechPowerUp):

XC Ultra: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/evga-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-xc-ultra/
FTW3 Ultra: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/evga-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-ftw3-ultra/

As regards noise:

"It's good to see that unlike the NVIDIA Founders Edition, EVGA added the fan-stop-in-idle feature on their card, which provides the perfect noise-free experience during desktop work, Internet browsing, and light gaming.

Gaming fan noise is a bit high, especially considering the massive cooler that's installed on the card. Sure, temperatures are super low at 64°C, but to me, this doesn't look balanced. As mentioned before, the OC BIOS runs the same clocks and power limit as the normal BIOS. The only difference is the fan curve, which makes the card even noisier and drops temperatures from only 64°C to 62°C. This seems to be a wasted opportunity... giving the "normal" BIOS a very quiet fan curve and keeping the aggressive fan curve on the OC BIOS would have ensured the card appeals to the low-noise crowd, too. "

According to these reviews, the XC Ultra produces 35 dBA (gaming load) vs 38 for the FTW3, which increases further to 40 dBA when running the OC BIOS (whilst 35 vs 38/40 sounds minor, they state that '...human hearing perception is a bit different, and it is generally accepted that a 10 dBA increase doubles the perceived sound level'). What's confusing is that most YouTube reviews note that the card is 'quiet,' or even 'super quiet...' One in particular shows it being much quieter than the Founder's Edition card, which runs contrary to TPU's findings.

One last quick Q, and a bit of an odd one: Are those actually brushed aluminium inserts on the card (where the text is) or just stickers?

Thanks again, guys - any help/info very much appreciated!

 

[faalin]

still at work but here is a screenshot of my computer right now that shows the all 3 fans are not spinning (according to X1)

Ill have to check when i get home if they are actually spinning.

 

[R_G_S]

Thanks, faalin.

I believe the fans shouldn't spin under low loads, as per the TPU review, but just checking as not heard it mentioned elsewhere and it seems like a pretty neat feature.

I wish there were a few more in depth reviews detailing the noise levels as it's something TPU mentions a few times across the review, and they even list it as a negative bullet point in the conclusion: "High gaming fan noise, no matter if normal or OC BIOS used."

I'd be quite surprised if the FTW3 Ultra can't equal or surpass the XC Ultra's low noise levels given it's significantly enlarged heat sink and asynchronous fans, even if it has to be achieved via software and running at say 70°C as opposed to the low 60s, but I'm just guessing and only have conflicting reviews to go by. TPU list specific numbers (dBA) and have reviewed both cards on what looks to be the same rig, so I presume their results are accurate and comparable.

I was leaning towards the FTW3 Ultra, with it being the flagship and all (+ a great reduction), but if it runs louder whilst taking up a lot more space, using more power and offering almost identical stock performance, it just seems a bit silly. Basically, I'd thought/hoped that at stock with that monstrous cooler it'd run near silent even under load and I'd have the option of overclocking in the future if I wanted to, but uncertain if that's the case, hence this thread. With both cards being very close to the same price (XC Ultra £1,100; FTW3 Ultra, £1,150), would you recommend one over the other?

Thanks.

 

[faalin]

Card was still at sock settings but as you can see its only 54*c and fans are at 50% or less. I'll see if i can do some Db reading from my phone when i get home.

 

[R_G_S]

Thanks very much faalin - it really is a huge help and greatly appreciated.

I'm more interested in your personal view than decibel numbers, as although the former's more subjective, unless the readings are taken in the same situation with the same equipment, I'm not sure how comparable they might be? Though if easy to check, I wouldn't say no .

One other question I have is the the total length of the card; EVGA lists it as being 301.925 mm long (talk about precise!), if you could confirm this is the full length including the plastic shroud, that'd be great (if not, no probs). The length of the back plate would also be good to know, but only if no trouble. I ask as my case has a max expansion card length of 314 mm, so I'm cutting it fairly fine. Hopefully the end of the card being so close to a large intake fan won't cause any turbulence issues.

If there's any other info you'd like to share about the card, any likes/dislikes I'd love to hear them as I really need to make a decision between the two pretty soon. Originally I thought it'd be something of a no-brainer, in the "would you like to upgrade from business to first class?" kind of a way, with the FTW3 Ultra being the far more expensive card (normally) but it doesn't look quite so straight forward.

Thanks again for the help.

(BTW, just spotted your sig reads GTX 2080 rather than RTX )

 

[R_G_S]

Ugg... trying to get some concrete info on this card noise levels-wise is proving very frustrating...

Came across a pair of French and German reviews last night which both praise the quiet operation of the card. The German review states that the card "remains amazingly quiet under load at 41 dB (A) and is the quietest model of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti that has gone through our tests so far." They list the Founder's Edition at 41.1 decibels, which presumably they must consider quiet, whereas TPU list the FE at 37 dBA and note that the FTW3 is loud at 38 dBA and "even noisier" at 40 when OC'd! German review here: https://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.p...080-ti-ftw3-ultra-gaming-im-test.html?start=6

Additionally, this YouTube reviewer states that even overclocked his fans hover in the 45-55% range and compliments the FTW3 as being"...a card that runs dead silent and stays under 60°C." His dBA measurements for the FTW3 Ultra are significantly lower than the FE card, showing the former to be 8 dBA quieter at stock and 4 dBA quieter when overclocked. According to his review, the FTW3 Ultra is quieter under load (stock) that than the FE is at idle!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QUwIlHz7d4
(fans/temps at 3:17)

So at this point I was thinking, I'd go with the FTW3 Ultra... then I come across a post on the EVGA forums where an FTW3 owner is bemoaning the high nose levels when gaming "Everything is all right except for noise level during gaming . Indeed, I have a silent PC and this card is really loud compare to ma previous MSI 1080ti TRIO X which was dead silent!" To make matters worse, it seems that whilst you can set fan profiles using PX1, you have to keep the app open in the background which, aside from being annoying, causes stutters in his games! Link here: https://forums.evga.com/2080ti-FTW3-where-is-the-quiet-bios-m2932280.aspx

Sorry to drag this out, but as I'm sure you can imagine, trying to figure out which card is best with such conflicting info is very difficult.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[TheSho21]

I'm confused. In your first post you said you bought both and will only be keeping one. So when they come just test and see if the FTW3 is too loud for ya.

 

[R_G_S]

I'm confused. In your first post you said you bought both and will only be keeping one. So when they come just test and see if the FTW3 is too loud for ya.

I'm having the system built for me, but the builder has a bit of a backlog. I purchased the XC Ultra as part of the system build and the FTW3 Ultra a few days later from the same site as it was on offer for a very good price (£250 reduction) and I felt it unlikely that such a deal would last long enough for me to research into which was the better card to go with. I was right as the price has now returned to £1,400 after only a few days on sale. I got the XC Ultra on a good deal too (£120 off), so didn't just want to swap one for the other as the price of that has also now returned to RRP. I can make any changes to the components up until the actual build date which is 5 July, but obviously I have paid for both cards and can't 'hold' both forever. Even if I had bought both to go in an existing build, I couldn't exactly open the boxes, test them out and then get my money back .

I am however having real difficulty deciding between them!

Sometimes I feel as though I ought to go with the FTW3 as it's such a beast, the flagship with all the extras, custom this and custom that etc. (and all other aspects of the build are top tier/overkill), plus the price is great (relatively!), but then on the flip side I'm not really sure what it actually does for me - as stated previously, it's so much bigger (it ought to fit length-wise, but only by a couple of cm) and draws more power, but for what gain - to deliver the exact same (stock) performance as the XC Ultra while running louder? I know its temps are better, which is good and I do value this, but the XC Ultra's are pretty decent anyway and overclocking's not something that appeals all that much to me. I'm not sure if there are some aspects/features of the FTW3 that I'm missing, is it normally priced at such a premium purely for greater overclocking potential and nothing else (as the higher boost clocks do zip in the benchmarks)? Does it have better sustained performance or something? Can it remain passively cooled for longer? I know it has RGB and fan headers, but not sure their of any use to me.

I do understand that you can control the fans via PX1, but I've also read there are some issues with this, namely stutters in games with the app open, plus that it always needs to be running in the background is a bit of a pain. Additionally, if I were to reduce the fan speeds and thus increase the temps to say 70 degrees as opposed to the low 60s, in order to match the XC Ultra's noise levels, haven't I kind of just produced an oversized XC Ultra that needs a bit more juice?

As an owner of the FTW3, what do you think its main advantages are over the XC Ultra?

In giving a recommendation, please ignore the price gap as it's close enough to be irrelevant and whichever card I go for I'll be holding onto for a long time.

Thanks again and sorry for the ramble!


EDIT: I see in your earlier reply (TheSho21), you think the advantage is overclocking. Anything thing else?

 

[TheSho21]

Given the better cooler on the FTW3 it has the potential for lasting longer.

All in all I think you're overthinking it when we're talking about the difference of a few dB's. The FTW3 has the potential to be a bit louder when that 3rd fan spins up to full RPM's to help cool when doing extreme overclocking but in most circumstances they're going to run at the same sound levels.

 

[R_G_S]

Would really appreciate it if someone could give me the total length of the card, including the plastic shroud (PCB and total width would also be useful).

It's listed as being 301.9 mm long and my case has a max limit of 314 mm (I can't measure it myself as it's part of the build and thus I don't have it yet, but that's what the specs say).

I have an MSI card which is listed as being 280 mm long, but I have measured it myself and it's more like 295 when the cooler/shroud are included! When you don't have much room to play with that's a big deal!

Width restriction is 176 mm. The FTW3 Ultra is listed as being 139.3 mm wide. Presumably I should be OK, even with the 8 pin connections adding a bit here?

I don't expect any wriggle room with either of these measurements.

Thanks.

 

[faalin]

Sorry had to head out of town after work Friday.

So here is my build, for sound if i turn up all the case fans i cant hear the card at all with them at full speed. My case sits on the ground not more then 2 feet from me, from where i game the card its self is 40 inches from my ear ( yes i measured) Next to my desk i have a Ender 3 pro 3D printer that is running all the time.

Here are some sound reading from my phone.

At the printer 60dB at my desk 50.5dB
Computer idle at the front of the case 47.8dB (this might be lower but i have something printing right now), same spot card at full sped 56.6dB, case fans and card turned on high 57.9dB.

For me the noise doesnt bother me, i ether have headphones on or i have my Yamaha HS8 speakers and HS8 sub running and cant here the computer over ether of them.


Card from the I/O slots to the end of the plastic is 11.8125 (13/16) or 300.0375mm
from the motherboard tray to the edge of the card 5.875 (7/8) or 149.225mm, to the edge of my cable is 7 inches or 177.8mm. If you want i can shut down and measure from the motherboard, not sure what the board and standoffs are from the tray.

 

[R_G_S]

Thanks faalin for that excellent reply!


Noise Levels

Noise levels are a funny thing - I downloaded a couple of apps for my phone and one gives a reading 10 dBA higher than the other! That said, both are lower than yours. The one giving the lower reading seems more consistent, so I'll go with that.

At home, if I measure downstairs in the living room I get 28 dB (I live in the country, this is basically just the birds chirping - it's practically silent - perfect), but at my desk with an old PC running, it measures 40 dB. This is actually moderately loud to me and the difference is huge; one is silent, the other a semi-intrusive drone (produced from an ancient Zalman CNPS9700 CPU cooler). Leaving my office, I get a reading of 35 dBA in the corridor (computer still clearly audible, but much reduced), which is OK. The great thing about both EVGA cards is that the fans don't spin at all at idle which means silent operation in Windows (and if lucky also when running 3ds Max or light gaming).

It seems as though it is possible to have the card run nearly silent using a custom fan profile (as suggested, but now confirmed) with the card allowed to go to 70°C, which is good to know, assuming the PX1 software behaves itself (info from the guy on the EVGA forums who was complaining about the fan noise). Checking the product page on EVGA's website they list the noise level with the fans set to 1440 RPM (70°C) as 27.9 dBA (which is in line with the forum guy's assessment). They also state that with the fans set to 1810 RPM (50°C) the noise level will be 38 dBA, which is mirrors the TPU review, in volume if not temperature and gives me confidence to believe that the former 27.9 dBA reading at 1440 RPM is accurate.


Card dimensions

Looks as though I should just about be OK here then, length-wise at least I expect ~10 mm clearance from the plastic shroud and ~20 mm from the PCB/heat sink (as the shroud appears to stick out a bit?).

Your measurement of 178 mm for the width, including the power cables, is a bit higher than I'd have liked as the max permitted by the TJ11 case is 176 mm, though I'd imagine that the motherboard thickness combined with the board standoffs add at least 10 mm, hopefully a little more.

Ideally I'd like to have a minimum clearance of 10 mm between the GPU and the case (fans/window), otherwise things feel very cramped. Do you see there being any issues with having the end of the card so close to a primary intake fan, such as the airflow from said fan interfering with the GPU's end fan?


Conclusion

I'm fairly confident I'll go with the FTW3 at this point. What really swayed it for me was seeing the value of 27.9 dBA at 1440 RPM - which from my own readings is pretty much silent. My 180 mm fans should be in the low 20s in quiet mode and the NH-D15 is also meant to be near silent (though once again, dBA readings are confusing as the NH-D15 is listed in the 30-40 range according to most reviewers who also claim it to be 'inaudible' ). A big advantage the FTW3 Ultra has over XC Ultra is that with it I have the flexibility to go super quiet if I want to, or trade some noise for very low temps or higher clocks.

Let me know if you have any more thoughts. Presumably you're pretty pleased with your card's performance; build quality is good etc?

Thanks again, especially for going to the trouble of taking all those measurements for me - very much appreciated indeed!

 

[faalin]

Something i did learn last night was that the FTW3 Ultra uses a top plate that covers everything but the GPU and helps keep the card/vcore cooler.

Being that your card will be that close to the front case fan it may push air into the card and keep it cool enough that the fans on the card itself might never turn on.

My power cable do a pretty quick 180* bend to rap around the card, I also have a EVGA powerlink to move the PCI-e cables to the end of the card and even that sticks out just as far as the power cables


P.S. I fixed my GPU in my sig just for you

 

[R_G_S]

Hey, faalin.

Now that we're got the length of the card covered, and cleared, do you think I'm likely to have issues with the width (plus the power cables)?

EVGA list it as being 139.3 mm wide and the TJ11 case has a width restriction of 176 mm, so in theory, I'd have 36.7 mm between the card and the window. As I say though, I don't really want to be squeezing it so close that it might touch with a bit of a wriggle.

Presumably a product such as this might do the trick: https://www.moddiy.com/products/PCI...pe-Low-Profile-Connector-Extension-Cable.html? Not sure if my system builder has anything similar in stock though (will check this eve).

Thanks again for all the help.


As a side note, don't you feel much better now your sig's corrected . Also, nice tidy rig, BTW.

 

[faalin]

Have been doing some time strike and heaven benchmarking with the card. On straight air im hitting +1300mhz on memory and +130 on the gpu with the card topping out at 57*c, it hits a voltage limit and i can get any higher.

Yeah the 24 and 2 8 pins are the only cables you can see in the case, everything else is behind the MB tray.

 

[R_G_S]

Well, the deed is done - have gone with the FTW3 Ultra!

There are some pretty nifty low profile 8 pin connectors at the site I linked to above. Am confident the card ought to fit with standard connectors (37 mm clearance), but if a bit close for my liking, it's nice to have options.

Thanks for all the help, faalin. Really excellent info and very much appreciated!