GTX 1080 SLI or RTX 2080 - 4K/60

[luci5r]

I'm feeling a little like being caught between a rock & a hard place.

Currently I have a GTX 1080 in my Gaming rig, which I bought for $549 in 2016. It replaced an old GTX 760. All of my Gaming is on a 55" 4K TV (TCL 55R617) which supports both HDR & Dolby Vision. The machine has a 6-Core Intel & 16 GB DDR4, with an NVMe HDD & other HDDs.

When I built the system in 2016, I had built it with GTX 1080 SLI in mind. I was going to wait for a couple of years when GTX 1080 was around $350 to install a 2nd one. I already have the SLI Bridge which came with the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1080.

With the announcement of RTX Series, the prices of GTX 1080 are coming down. Just a couple weeks ago, a fresh GTX 1080 could be had for $350 on eBay using a coupon. They are around $400 or so easily right now.

Two other strong points to note here:
- The entire 31 page list of Games listed as supporting SLI on Nvidia's page here (https://www.geforce.com/games-applications/technology/sli) is essentially my entire Gaming library. In other words. Over 90% of the games I play support SLI, and even with upcoming games, I don't believe that percentage will change.
- I've already spent an enormous amount of time deep rooted into the SLI discussions and communicated with people who actually have an SLI setup, have opted for one, or in some shape or form experienced SLI first hand; not hearsay, opinions or second hand information. I have yet to meet one individual who would trade it for a non-SLI setup, and am extremely convinced of SLI's benefits, at least in my given situation.

However, now enter RTX 2080.

The thing with GTX 1080 is, while it's an amazing GPU and was a big upgrade for me coming from GTX 760, it does fall short of excelling at full 4K. I'm not able to max out most of the AAA games. Some or the other setting has to be brought down for smooth game play. Secondly, frame rates hover between 30 fps & 60 fps. If you're standing in a closed up room with maybe one other AI, you'll get 60 fps. But if you go out into the streets with expansive world around you, frame rates drop to 30 fps.

I'm looking to max out Settings and achieve a higher frame rate during action scenes, open worlds and large number of moving objects on screen.

This has been achieved by almost everyone who has GTX 1080 SLI setup.

I don't know for sure if RTX 2080 will deliver the same (And I will be waiting for reviews before making my decision), but let's assume it does.

RTX 2080 sounds great, the thing is, economically I'm not sure of it's viability.

RTX 2080 is not the same leap from GTX 1080, as say, GTX 1080 from GTX 760.

I can get away with $350 - $420 for a GTX 1080; but around $700 at the very least for RTX 2080. From everything I've read, RTX 2080 doesn't appear to be DOUBLE the performance & benefits of GTX 1080, yet it's demanding DOUBLE the price.

The other issue with RTX 2080 is, then I'll need to sell my GTX 1080 as it becomes a $549 Coaster in the house. Selling on eBay, CL etc might come easier for some who sell online often - I don't. Which makes it a very cumbersome effort for me.

While all of this might favor GTX 1080 SLI in my head - I need opinions of others. Some people are more knowledgeable about GPU's then I am. I might be missing some great big advantage of RTX 2080. Or not looking at all points.

Would seriously like some serious advice.

One note, the "SLI is dead" proclaimers can stay away from this thread. You have no idea how wrong you are and I don't have the time to bother debating with you.

I'm not planning to purchase one way or another until after Sep 20th when real world RTX 2080 reviews come out, UNLESS, I'm totally convinced I won't be going with RTX 2080 and GTX 1080 SLI is a better deal.

Thanks all.

 

[Philballer17]

It's probably best to either buy a used 1080 TI on eBay for $450-550, Or wait for a 2080 TI price drop in my opinion.

Many people are simply just selling off their 1080 TI for either cryptocurrency mining failures or because they want to upgrade to the 2080 TI, and just want money back from their card.

I highly doubt users running the 1080 TI are even eyeballing the 2080 as an option. Just simply because based on the Nvidia cycle in the last generation, It won't make a reasonable upgrade anyways. They will be eyeballing the 2080 TI.

Applying a nice overclock to the 980 TI made it pointless to upgrade to a GTX 1080.

Arguably the same can be said to an aggressively overclocked 780 TI. It wasn't worth the jump to a GTX 980.

I agree on the 1080Ti. I doubt very much about this overclocking to the next gen concept however.

the 1080 TI doesn't have as much overclocking headroom as the 980 TI did. Manufacturers such as MSI,EVGA,ASUS etc, factory overclocked the cards pretty much to their max before selling them. It'll still take an overclock, just not as aggressive as the previous generations.

 

[luci5r]

It's probably best to either buy a used 1080 TI on eBay for $450-550, Or wait for a 2080 TI price drop in my opinion.

I'm in agreement with the latter half.

All things said & discussed, I've ruled out 1080 Ti, partly because I wasn't necessarily looking for an "interim" card to hold me over or something; and partly because I just don't believe 1080 Ti will provide the bump I'm looking for. I'm not even convinced RTX 2080 is entirely worth the upgrade from GTX 1080. So the round-robin of selling my GTX 1080, plugging in an interim, then selling that to get the actual card a year or so later, is just not worth it in my opinion.

While it has not been proven in real-world yet, and only have what's on paper, RTX 2080 Ti might be the only real-world option that would make the upgrade worth it and give me what I set out for; but that ridiculous price point has to come down as I'm not convinced it's justified - sounds like monopolistic price-gouging.

Ultimately I'm sold on either hanging on to my GTX 1080, skipping this RTX lineup and waiting for the next iteration; Or, upgrading to an RTX 2080 Ti if it can come down in pricing maybe another 6 months or so. (The only other recourse to that is, if RTX 2080 Ti is unequivocally proven to be absolutely worth every dollar of that asking $1,100 price tag, I would certainly consider it).

Either way, I wanted to THANK all of you guys for chiming in. Especially coming in with personal experiences and a wealth of GPU knowledge. These kinds of posts tend to attract a lot of 'lovers' & 'haters' and strongly opinionated people who's opinions are not based on facts or experiences, but personal tendencies, hearsay, etc.

So thank you. I was very undecided but I've gained the clarity I was looking for.

 

[RobCrezz]

Better off making a more informed decision when the cards are out and reviews published.

 

[luci5r]

Better off making a more informed decision when the cards are out and reviews published.

Absolutely 100% Agreed. That was always going to be the way to go from my very first post. (BTW, absolutely love Brian!)

One thing I wanted to add; stumbled upon this very early, raw and essentially unsubstantiated article:

"Although we haven’t had the chance to benchmark the card thoroughly, we did get to play multiple PC games at 4K and in excess of 60 frames per second (fps) with the RTX 2080 Ti

In terms of frame rate, Shadow of the Tomb Raider ran at a mostly consistent 50-57 fps, which is impressive giving the game is running on a single GPU and in such an early state – on top of all the new ray tracing techniques.

We also played a variety of other PC games that shall not be named, and saw performance run in excess of 100 fps at 4K and Ultra settings."

Source: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-ti

I just wanted to point out that the above is EXACTLY, to the T, what I'm looking for with this Upgrade.

IF, and only IF, and that's a big IF, the RTX 2080 Ti can actually perform as the article states above - which will have to be proven across the board at various reviewing and benchmarks sites, plus actual home user reviews, and deliver the above with full disclosure, then I would be very interested in RTX 2080 Ti.

This will only become known once the card is in the hands of many, probably October, possibly even November this year. So currently I just need to hang on tight and wait for the benchmarks & reviews to come in on a market scale.

Still, I would not be interested in the 'Founder's Edition', but more so the base edition which is touted to be priced around $999.

Thanks.

 

[luci5r]

This is interesting if it holds up in wide consumer / user tests later this year when the card starts seeing aftermarket tests and benchmarks. I'm curious about RTX 2080 Ti now.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/8/22/17769122/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-performance-benchmarks-games

I'm currently playing both Hitman & Mass Effect: Andromeda on my 55" 4K HDR TV (GTX 1080), and Mass Effect does not go beyond 30 - 38 fps unless you're standing still in an elevator. Settings are almost maxed out but not fully.

Hitman is much worse. Have to bring down quite a few settings otherwise very choppy / stutter playback. I don't think it goes above 35 fps unless in a small room by yourself.

 

[illutian]

Well, the RTX 2080 is being touted as "50% more performance than a GTX 1080 Ti". I would go with the RTX 2080, as you can always drop another one in SLI. But if you go with a GTX 1080 in SLI, then all you have to look forward to is...well...nothing; you're at the peak. - Unless you hop over to the 'RTX' models, which is exactly what you're debating on do now.

In short, I'd rather drop money on the more expensive thing and find out it's either overkill or 'not as impressive' than "save money" and find out it's still not enough. I did the same thing with my first build, went cheap and got a GTX 26(5??) instead of the GTX 4xx; ended up replacing it with a GTX 570 with in a year. THEN I had to upgrade to a GTX 670 because Skyrim dunked on the 2.5GB VRAM of the GTX 570...so in the span of about two years I went through 3 GPUs. - NEVER AGAIN!

 

[Philballer17]

Well, the RTX 2080 is being touted as "50% more performance than a GTX 1080 Ti". I would go with the RTX 2080, as you can always drop another one in SLI. But if you go with a GTX 1080 in SLI, then all you have to look forward to is...well...nothing; you're at the peak. - Unless you hop over to the 'RTX' models, which is exactly what you're debating on do now.

In short, I'd rather drop money on the more expensive thing and find out it's either overkill or 'not as impressive' than "save money" and find out it's still not enough. I did the same thing with my first build, went cheap and got a GTX 26(5??) instead of the GTX 4xx; ended up replacing it with a GTX 570 with in a year. THEN I had to upgrade to a GTX 670 because Skyrim dunked on the 2.5GB VRAM of the GTX 570...so in the span of about two years I went through 3 GPUs. - NEVER AGAIN!

That's not very smart advice, especially based on false predictions. the RTX 2080 won't be 50% faster than the 1080 TI. Your logic on how the GTX cards perform is also quite off, this explains why you've purchased so many GPU's and wasted your money; because you don't understand the hierarchy of how Nvidia places their cards in terms of performance within their system. You can empty your wallet out for small performance gains if you want, but don't advise others to do so.

 

[RobCrezz]

But the chief of Tomshardware said to just buy it! :lol:

 

[illutian]

Well, the RTX 2080 is being touted as "50% more performance than a GTX 1080 Ti". I would go with the RTX 2080, as you can always drop another one in SLI. But if you go with a GTX 1080 in SLI, then all you have to look forward to is...well...nothing; you're at the peak. - Unless you hop over to the 'RTX' models, which is exactly what you're debating on do now.

In short, I'd rather drop money on the more expensive thing and find out it's either overkill or 'not as impressive' than "save money" and find out it's still not enough. I did the same thing with my first build, went cheap and got a GTX 26(5??) instead of the GTX 4xx; ended up replacing it with a GTX 570 with in a year. THEN I had to upgrade to a GTX 670 because Skyrim dunked on the 2.5GB VRAM of the GTX 570...so in the span of about two years I went through 3 GPUs. - NEVER AGAIN!

That's not very smart advice, especially based on false predictions. the RTX 2080 won't be 50% faster than the 1080 TI. Your logic on how the GTX cards perform is also quite off, this explains why you've purchased so many GPU's and wasted your money; because you don't understand the hierarchy of how Nvidia places their cards in terms of performance within their system. You can empty your wallet out for small performance gains if you want, but don't advise others to do so.

Where I got the 50% performance: https://wccftech.com/nvidia-rtx-2080-ti-2080-2070-gaming-performance-50-faster-vs-pascal-but-is-it-worth-it/

"If you do the math, you will quickly realize that the price premium for owning a Turing however is actually more than that 50% performance uplift. The 2080 Ti Founder’s Edition costs nearly twice what you can get a 1080 Ti for right now."

And I'm not telling him to get another GTX 1080 for SLI, I'm saying to go for the RTX 2080 because it'll have better room for improvement.

As for my own experience, I got the GTX 26(5??) and my main game at the time was WoW, which ran amazing. Until the next expansion dropped (Wrath)...I could barely get over 15 fps in instances, and was lucky to get 5fps in cities. I upgrade to the GTX 570, but didn't know there were different VRAM capacity models. So when Skyrim came out and I started loading it up with mods to improve the visual experience I quickly ran up to the VRAM limit and would crash.

Like I said, I tried to save money because I didn't want to drop several grand on the system. So I opted to skimp on the parts that could be easily upgraded...as opposed to skimping on the Mobo and CPU, which would be considerably more expensive.

 

[RobCrezz]

Yeah because wccftech are a solid source of reliable information.

But you did the right thing with GPUs in the past. Its much better to upgrade on the mid range more frequently than a high end card for a longer term.

 

[Philballer17]

The CUDA core count on the RTX 2080 is below the GTX 1080 TI. So, its very easy to see that there won't be a 50% boost between those two. Because it won't even match the performance.

 

[king3pj]

The CUDA core count on the RTX 2080 is below the GTX 1080 TI. So, its very easy to see that there won't be a 50% boost between those two. Because it won't even match the performance.

The 980 Ti has 2816 CUDA cores. The 1080 has 2560 CUDA cores and the 1070 has 1920 CUDA cores and both of those cards outperform a 980 Ti. I'm not saying I believe the 2080 will be 50% better than a 1080 Ti but the fact that it has less CUDA cores isn't enough information to say it won't even match the performance of a 1080 Ti.

 

[Philballer17]

The CUDA core count on the RTX 2080 is below the GTX 1080 TI. So, its very easy to see that there won't be a 50% boost between those two. Because it won't even match the performance.

The 980 Ti has 2816 CUDA cores. The 1080 has 2560 CUDA cores and the 1070 has 1920 CUDA cores and both of those cards outperform a 980 Ti. I'm not saying I believe the 2080 will be 50% better than a 1080 Ti but the fact that it has less CUDA cores isn't enough information to say it won't even match the performance of a 1080 Ti.

Not entirely true. An Overclocked 980 TI gets very close to the 1080, outperforming the 1070. Those cuda cores come in handy.

 

[illutian]

Yeah because wccftech are a solid source of reliable information.

But you did the right thing with GPUs in the past. Its much better to upgrade on the mid range more frequently than a high end card for a longer term.

Well, there's also this article: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3299446/components-graphics/geforce-rtx-2080-will-be-15x-faster-than-the-gtx-1080-in-traditional-pc-games.html

And my mistake was not going for mid-ranges of the 'latest model'. I got that GTX 26(5??) when the GTX 400-series was about to be replaced by the GTX 500-series.

If the OP wasn't having sub-par FPS, I'd say wait a generation and get that one (21xx??). But they're saying they get sub-60s, which is just...yuck I couldn't stand playing a game at below that.

But, I don't think SLI-ing another 1080 will give them the boost they want. So they'd end up getting a RTX card anyways, and then be stuck (like me) with an older card that won't resell for crap (plus you have to deal with Ebay or similar site, shipping, taxes.. ugh...no thanks).

 

[king3pj]

The CUDA core count on the RTX 2080 is below the GTX 1080 TI. So, its very easy to see that there won't be a 50% boost between those two. Because it won't even match the performance.

The 980 Ti has 2816 CUDA cores. The 1080 has 2560 CUDA cores and the 1070 has 1920 CUDA cores and both of those cards outperform a 980 Ti. I'm not saying I believe the 2080 will be 50% better than a 1080 Ti but the fact that it has less CUDA cores isn't enough information to say it won't even match the performance of a 1080 Ti.

Not entirely true. An Overclocked 980 TI gets very close to the 1080, outperforming the 1070. Those cuda cores come in handy.

All I know is that the professional benchmarking sites show a 1070 to be about 17% better than a 980 Ti at 1440p and a 1080 to be about 32% better. Maybe a highly overclocked 980 Ti is enough to make up that gap but the typical benchmarks I see don't show that kind of information. They usually stick to stock cards.

Either way, my point was that CUDA cores don't tell the whole story. A 1070 has nearly 1000 less than a 980 Ti and when both are running out of the box the 1070 is about 17% better.

 

[Karadjgne]

You can't really compare Cuda cores across generations. Later generations use Cuda more effectively and efficiently than older gen cards do, which is exactly what happened when Maxwell dropped and the 750ti (640 cuda) can just about keep up with and sometimes surpassed the 660 (960 cuda). And yet comparing a 970 (1664) vs a 1070 (1920) the performance difference cant be attributed to simply having 250 odd Cuda more. You have to take into consideration clock speeds, memory speeds, vram size, vram gen, power distribution, drivers, pixel fill rates and a heap of other things.

So supposition on exactly how a card is supposedly going to perform is nothing more than an engineers best guess until gaming benchmarks start showing up.

Might as well try comparing vram on amd cards vs vram on nvidia.

 

[Killer01ws6]

Not going to try to debate all of the negative comments on SLI...
I am running 32" 4K monitor and 2 1080TIs zero ill affects, all settings set to ultra on everything I play.

 

[drivinfast247]

All I want for now is a rock steady 60fps @ 4k. Even without the ray tracing, that's all I'm asking for. I want to use my Sony TV as a monitor for gaming.

That is until a manufacturer makes a 32-35" 120+hz 4K HDR G-Sync monitor.

 

[Killer01ws6]

All I want for now is a rock steady 60fps @ 4k. Even without the ray tracing, that's all I'm asking for. I want to use my Sony TV as a monitor for gaming.

That is until a manufacturer makes a 32-35" 120+hz 4K HDR G-Sync monitor.

That is my only flaw in my system and so far, no issues... my 32" 4K monitor is 60hz, but as you know if you have looked nothing better out there really and when it becomes main stream and I see the need, I will make that change also. but I think the G-Sync my monitor has will put off the need for a while.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

Not going to try to debate all of the negative comments on SLI...
I am running 32" 4K monitor and 2 1080TIs zero ill affects, all settings set to ultra on everything I play.

What games are you playing? Cuase there are tons of games that give crap performance.

I ran SLI 1080ti's on that same monitor (predator xb32) and got tired of poor support. Moved one of the 1080ti's to another system and I still play everything on ultra with just one card. You don't need 2 cards to push that monitor. The only reason 2 cards would be needed is if you have one of those new 144hz 4k panels.

 

[sr13798]

The quadro line uses nvlink, same as the 2080's. This is not SLI. It works completely differently. Nvidia is going to actually work to make sure nvlink does what it should in games. Just wait for reviews. They will be impressive. What if even non-supported games (SLI) could use the combined VRAM of two cards?

 

[Karadjgne]

That's DX12, it's based on the concept of multiple gpus (mgpu), where technically any gpu can be used, so you could pair an Rx580 with a gtx970 and still get both cards full functionality. Not gonna happen that way, pretty much guarantee nvidia will have some sorta proprietary coding in its firmware, so you'd still be brand bound, but vram will stack, as will other things that get shared in sli.

What's currently lacking in games is full DX12 support. It's partly budget and partly size. If you figure the general size of Steam games and all the content that's downloaded, your game will be several times larger. That's going to put a strain on the servers. AMD and nvidia will also need 'all on one' drivers (the core drivers are all the same anyways) to accommodate different possible cards setups, and that'll include any optimizations that are currently 'per card' based, and get those working without conflicts, and somebody has to code all of that. It's really a massive undertaking all told, which is why it hasn't really happened yet.

 

[sr13798]

Two different cards? Not what I said or meant at all. Virtualizing the gpu's (same cards) across a 50-100gb link vs 1 or 2gb on SLI is what I am infering to.

 

[CRO5513Y]

I think the common recommendation has been echoed quite a lot as it is already. SLI isn't really worth it at this point. No support for DX12... Nvidia has announced newer standards such as NVLinks so SLI is probably going to have very minimal support and optimisation in upcoming titles. Not to mention you spend double the amount over a single card when SLI performance scaling can range from anywhere between 50% higher performance, all the way down to 0% or even negative from some titles... Plenty of games go as far as to artefact, crash or have instability with SLI too. Not worth the investment imo. Although, i believe like others above the 1080 Ti will either match or slightly outperform the RTX 2080 without taking RTX into consideration. I'd personally just pick up a well priced 1080 Ti and call it a day. RTX looks like an appealing technology, but i'd wait for next generation when we can see exactly how well it has been adopted in the market and by then more cards will support it, do it faster and be cheaper. Hope this helps!

EDIT: Also, WCCFTech is legendary for 'leaks' being false... They're always the first leaking information because they don't wait for verification on things. If someone whispered 100% better performance on an RTX 2080 over 1080 Ti at some random event, no doubt you'd see a full article on it too. I wouldn't go vouching for their information as factual.

 

[me.earle]

Wow, there is alot of SLI hate on this thread. I have a 1080 SLI and had a 980 SLI and have had some nice gains when using a 4k monitor if your not CPU limited. Usually I see 50-70% increase in FPS at 4k. Especially if you use the new HB SLI bridge. That got rid of most of my micro shuttering. Even with unsupported games you can do some googlig to edit the SLI profiles to get 30% increase. You can almost always get SLI to work. Having a fast CPU really helps the SLI scaling. It is definitely more work to tweaking the settings but you can get some serious gains. 4k SLI really does owm.