EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW 3 Elite or EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2 Gaming iCX 11 GB OC ?

[dyl.maltapark]

I'm building a new gaming PC, and I'm still undecided for which model I'm going for. The thing is 1080Tis are between 900 and 1,200 euros. I always prefer an asus or an EVGA, however I saw some Inno3D and MSI as well.

These are some of the options available as well :-

Inno3D GeForce iChill GTX1080 Ti X3 11GB
Gigabyte AORUS GeForce GTX1080Ti Waterforce WB Xtreme Ed. 11 GB
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GAMING X TRIO 11 GB OC
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GAMING X 11 GB OC

Thanks.

 

[Lutfij]

If all the prices are the same, I'd pick the Trio by MSI. Seeing the Gigabyte card in there makes me wonder if you've put that in there for the sake of putting it in there or if you are looking to go for a custom watercooling loop. If so then I'd definitely ask you to pick the Gigabyte card since it comes with a waterblock out of the box and you wont be hassled to find a waterblock that is compatible with the GPU.

 

[dyl.maltapark]

If all the prices are the same, I'd pick the Trio by MSI. Seeing the Gigabyte card in there makes me wonder if you've put that in there for the sake of putting it in there or if you are looking to go for a custom watercooling loop. If so then I'd definitely ask you to pick the Gigabyte card since it comes with a waterblock out of the box and you wont be hassled to find a waterblock that is compatible with the GPU.

Posted the Gigabyte as it is available in stock as well. No need for waterblock. I always managed fine on air when overclocking. So you'd pick the Trio by MSI even over the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2 Gaming iCX 11 GB OC ? May I as why ? Thanks

 

[feelinfroggy777]

Honestly there is not much of a difference between air cooled cards. Unless you want water cooling, I would go with the cheapest, non blower style, card available. All you are paying more for is "better" cooling, when most cooling options are more than adequate.

All of the chips are made by Nvidia. The difference in an overclock from air cooling will be at most a couple of percent difference. It is nothing you will ever see in the real world. The only difference is one will have a higher benchmark score.

 

[dyl.maltapark]

Honestly there is not much of a difference between air cooled cards. Unless you want water cooling, I would go with the cheapest, non blower style, card available. All you are paying more for is "better" cooling, when most cooling options are more than adequate.

All of the chips are made by Nvidia. The difference in an overclock from air cooling will be at most a couple of percent difference. It is nothing you will ever see in the real world. The only difference is one will have a higher benchmark score.

I'm rooting for the MSI trio or EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2 Gaming iCX 11 GB OC. Price difference is EUR 247. I don't think the extra EUR 247 is worth it. I'd better spend them on a better monitor. What's your opinion ?

 

[dyl.maltapark]

Seasonic PRIME Ultra 850W ATX23

Can this handle a 1080 Ti in SLI ?

 

[feelinfroggy777]

No, 247 euro is not worth the difference between any 1080ti. There are much better things that you can spend your money on.

As for the 850 watt PSU, that will depend on the rest of your system. I have a 1950x and a 1080ti with a 850 seasonic focus 850 watt PSU. I have sold my CPU in another rig and while I am waiting for the new CPU to come in I installed my second 1080ti to the threadripper system. My system crashed when I added the second 1080ti, and that is without an OC to the CPU. With that being said, threadripper does consume a bit of power, but if you are running a heavy overclock on any CPU it will use a bit of power. You may need 1000 watts, but the seasonic prime is a better PSU than the focus gold.

But I would not recommend running SLI. Scaling is terrible and support is limited. Even when the scaling is good and SLI works your monitor will be your bottleneck as 4k @ 60hz is all that is available now.

 

[dyl.maltapark]

No, 247 euro is not worth the difference between any 1080ti. There are much better things that you can spend your money on.

As for the 850 watt PSU, that will depend on the rest of your system. I have a 1950x and a 1080ti with a 850 seasonic focus 850 watt PSU. I have sold my CPU in another rig and while I am waiting for the new CPU to come in I installed my second 1080ti to the threadripper system. My system crashed when I added the second 1080ti, and that is without an OC to the CPU. With that being said, threadripper does consume a bit of power, but if you are running a heavy overclock on any CPU it will use a bit of power. You may need 1000 watts, but the seasonic prime is a better PSU than the focus gold.

But I would not recommend running SLI. Scaling is terrible and support is limited. Even when the scaling is good and SLI works your monitor will be your bottleneck as 4k @ 60hz is all that is available now.

8700k overclocked
32gb ddr4 3000mhz
1080ti

That is my system. Overclocking is my thing but I dont think I'll ever do SLI again. Last time I had SLI was with the 980tis. I am now deciding on which monitor to go for since I'm settled for the rest of the system. Last monitor I used was the acer predator 27'' 144/165hz. I am considering ultra wide 1440p as well but there arent any in 144/165hz.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

I have the preadator x34, and it is an awesome monitor. They have a newer version that has 120hz and they will release a 200hz ultra later this year.

I cant say enough good things about ultrawides. There is a much more noticeable difference from going to 60hz to 100hz than from 100hz to 144hz. So I would not get too hung up on the difference in refresh rate. Once you get above 100hz, you really start to get diminishing returns in visual fidelity. For me, I cant tell a difference between 120hz and 144hz.

 

[geofelt]

To answer your question:
The FTW has a slightly higher boost clock(1682 vs. 1670) An all but unnoticeable difference.
The FTW is longer at 11.8" vs 10.6" because of the extra cooling fan.

If these differences mean little to you, buy the cheaper.
I like EVGA as a brand for their usa support and warranty

 

[aquielisunari]

I chose the 1080 Ti FTW3 Hybrid by EVGA because it stays extraordinarily cooler than any other 1080 Ti.

There is not a 247 euros difference between any 1080 Ti. The difference there is only the seller's greed.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asus-rog-strix-geforce-gtx-1080-ti-oc,5225.html
and
https://overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/evga_gtx_1080_ti_ftw3_hybrid_review/7 helped with my decision.

What are the individual prices? I'd drop Inno just because I can. I'd either pick the least expensive one or one that might be a LITTLE more expensive. I'm not sure without prices. I didn't pick Nvidia's reference model and spent considerably more but it was less than $900. With a little 50MHz boost the core clock stays at 2050MHz. Gaming in the 30's, 40's and very low 50's is something so very odd when you're used to air cooled.

Imo EVGA has one of the best RMA services in the business. We don't ever want a card DOA or unstable in one way or another but things do happen and when they do you want the situation handled professionally and QUICKLY!!!!!! A week turn around time for my 970's RMA was pretty good. I've heard Asus takes a little longer but I can't say anything good about their tech. support. EVGA's tech. support is usually top notch.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139234

 

[dyl.maltapark]

So let's say one has a higher boost clock than the other, 1650 vs 1850. What's the difference in FPS when gaming ? I always overclock GPUs to their maximum pontential, the highest clocks stable possible. The price gap i found of 247euros was on computer universe website. I live in Europe.

 

[geofelt]

So let's say one has a higher boost clock than the other, 1650 vs 1850. What's the difference in FPS when gaming ? I always overclock GPUs to their maximum pontential, the highest clocks stable possible. The price gap i found of 247euros was on computer universe website. I live in Europe.

Factory overclocked versions have already been binned and are overclocked to perhaps their safe potential,
You can get lucky and get more, but I would not count on it.

The fps you get will depend on the game and also your cpu.
Some games will be cpu limited, even with an overclocked 8700K.

You can't do better with either cpu or gpu so no use dithering about which to buy.

 

[dyl.maltapark]

So let's say one has a higher boost clock than the other, 1650 vs 1850. What's the difference in FPS when gaming ? I always overclock GPUs to their maximum pontential, the highest clocks stable possible. The price gap i found of 247euros was on computer universe website. I live in Europe.

Factory overclocked versions have already been binned and are overclocked to perhaps their safe potential,
You can get lucky and get more, but I would not count on it.

The fps you get will depend on the game and also your cpu.
Some games will be cpu limited, even with an overclocked 8700K.

You can't do better with either cpu or gpu so no use dithering about which to buy.

Ok, so just to be clear, if a certain GPU is labeled at 1500 core clock and 1700 boost clock, will i be able to hit 1800 with an overclock ?

 

[aquielisunari]

Ok, so just to be clear, if a certain GPU is labeled at 1500 core clock and 1700 boost clock, will i be able to hit 1800 with an overclock ?

There is no clear. Only murky there is with overclocking. More art than science it is.

Those numbers don't really mean much with GPU Boost 3.0. Let's go find my card. I see

Core Clock
1569 MHz
Boost Clock
1683 MHz


when I go to https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487377 it tells me my boost clock is 1683MHz.

Out of the box my card boosts to 2000MHz which is normal for these cards and some won't boost as high due to temp. issues that GPU Boost 3.0 would rather avoid which some mistake for thermal throttling. . EVGA's product page for that card has identical specs. The user's experience may vary.

With a simple number change in MSI AB I can't push it 100 MHz higher. If I was Jay from Jayz2Cents I might be able to. Not all silicone is created equal. Maybe with some skill and luck you could. I just tacked on 50MHz. It was quick and easy. I'm not going to stress about less than 100MHz. I'd rather get back to gaming which won't miss the 50 or so MHz. Joe Blow can get to next door.

There are zero guarantees with OC'ing.

 

[aquielisunari]

Ok, so just to be clear, if a certain GPU is labeled at 1500 core clock and 1700 boost clock, will i be able to hit 1800 with an overclock ?

There is no clear. Only murky there is with overclocking. More art than science it is.

Those numbers don't really mean much with GPU Boost 3.0. Let's go find my card. I see

Core Clock
1569 MHz
Boost Clock
1683 MHz


when I go to https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487377 it tells me my boost clock is 1683MHz.

Out of the box my card boosts to 2000MHz which is normal for these cards and some won't boost as high due to temp. issues that GPU Boost 3.0 would rather avoid which some mistake for thermal throttling. . EVGA's product page for that card has identical specs. The user's experience may vary.

With a simple number change in MSI AB I can't push it 100 MHz higher. If I was Jay from Jayz2Cents I might be able to. Not all silicon is created equal. Maybe with some skill and luck you could. I just tacked on 50MHz. It was quick and easy. I'm not going to stress about less than 100MHz. I'd rather get back to gaming which won't miss the 50 or so MHz. Joe Blow can get to next door.

There are zero guarantees with OC'ing.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

Ok, so just to be clear, if a certain GPU is labeled at 1500 core clock and 1700 boost clock, will i be able to hit 1800 with an overclock ?

This is why they call it overclocking. Because you are pushing the GPU past the manufacture's specified clocks. So there is no guarantee.

One reason why cards are vary in price is because the AIBs are overclocking and binning the cards at the factor. This is called a factory overclock. EVGA has multiple lines of 1080ti's because they are overclocking them from the factory. The chips that can overclock higher, go to FTW, the chips that are lower go to SC and so forth.

The truth is, for air cooled cards, in real world scenarios it really does not matter. You will never see any visual difference between the cards as it pertains to the game being played. The only time you will ever see a difference is if you are benchmarking as the higher clocked card may have a higher score overall. But none of it will be noticeable by the human eye.

With all that being said, the way Nvidia's boost 3.0 works I would be amazed if the card was not running over 1800mhz. I have two 1080ti FE cards. I use water cooling on them now, but even with the terrible reference cooler with no factory overclocking I was getting 1987mhz out of the box for both cards.

 

[geofelt]

So let's say one has a higher boost clock than the other, 1650 vs 1850. What's the difference in FPS when gaming ? I always overclock GPUs to their maximum pontential, the highest clocks stable possible. The price gap i found of 247euros was on computer universe website. I live in Europe.

Factory overclocked versions have already been binned and are overclocked to perhaps their safe potential,
You can get lucky and get more, but I would not count on it.

The fps you get will depend on the game and also your cpu.
Some games will be cpu limited, even with an overclocked 8700K.

You can't do better with either cpu or gpu so no use dithering about which to buy.

Ok, so just to be clear, if a certain GPU is labeled at 1500 core clock and 1700 boost clock, will i be able to hit 1800 with an overclock ?

abel/shmable
The nvidia specs for a GTX1080ti are:
graphics clock 1480
processor clock 1582

Anything more is a overclock, and what kind of an overclock is determined by your luck in getting a good chip.
The good chips have already been taken to be used in factory overclocked cards.