If I can't get a custom GTX 1080 Ti is the FE still a good option?

[Joshuan]

So I wanted to get a GTX 1080 Ti for a new high-end build but going for the Ti is already quite a monetary push above the regular 1080. Now reports that the custom versions with aftermarket coolers like the Asus Strix will be 100-150 on top of the 1080 Ti FE, so I might not be able to afford that much. In that case is the 1080 Ti Founders Edition still a good option instead of a regular 1080? Performance shouldn't be much different but I'm mostly concerned about thermal throttling as those run always above 82 degrees under load.

 

[burtman88]

Lol My pc is completely silent i love it i can turn every thing off in the room you still cant hear it. However i put the fans on full blast 3300 rpms 120 CFm each one so 6 of them sounds like a airplane taking off

 

[ahoj__]

Well, yes i didn't say it wasn't going to thermal due thermal throttling. Just said better quality in some sense. I would rather put a Water block on a FE card over other cards. Stock cooler is for stock speeds, we understand that. Exactly why it's stock lol. Stock speeds will be fine for many, if you dont mind voiding your warranty do what my buddy.

nothing wrong with you here, I just dont get why people suddenly come up with this and say a stock graphic card will thermal throttle itself
in case of partner cards, yes I would closely look which card to buy, however, the FE or any reference cards from nvidia I have had didnt fail one time or had coil whine or anything like that - hence theyre top notch products to me - but I guess all this RGB color crap has more value than a quality product

It has nothing to do with RGB. Aftermarket cards simply have better coolers than FE and that's why they're more expensive. Have you seen the tests of the Asus Strix 1080 Ti? It completely blows the reference card away in terms of thermals. Also, have you seen the graphics with benchmarks by Anandtech and others? They do show that the FE thermal throttles even at stock clock speeds, bouncing clock frequencies up and down to compensate for hitting that thermal limit. Actually the wording used by the analysts was that it "severely" thermal throttles, stating the users should wait for the superior aftermarket cards and not go for the inferior reference model except if they were planning on doing custom liquid cooling. So in face of all the evidence provided by different sites for the past week how can you insist that the 1080 Ti doesn't throttle at all? Are you sure you have one? Because your claims don't match the evidence found in all benchmarks currently released to the public.

no, actually I have had only 1060,1070,1080 FE's (as I said in a previous post) and they all ran very fine and stable.
In case of these power and thermal target issues, you simply can tweak the card with a few mouseclicks to do even better than stock.
however,giving the better cooling capability of the partner cards, a stock 1060 6gb GoldenSample had an +10fps average than the FE so I give you that, but:
I also know of more than a handfull of people who bought 1070 and 1080 partner cards (zotac extreme, evga ftw, etc) and they all have (to some degree severe) coil whine which none of your sites mentiones (tested again with a bequiet dark power pro platinum, just to clarify the issue) whereas the FounderEditions didnt have that.

Just because the partner cards have better cooler, doesnt mean the PCB is of quality - hence all this RGB etc stuff seems to be more important than sorting out issues like coil whine.

I understand what you mean. I really don't care about all the RGB stuff in the partner cards, my only concern with the FE is noise. Most reports say that the FE are much louder due to single fan design and worse cooling than partner cards, so that kind of worries me as I can appreciate a relatively silent build. In your experience how loud are the FE cards under load after a few tweeks so that it doesn't throttle as much?

I say they arent silent, especially the 1080 in comparison to the 1070, so I guess the 1080ti may be even a tick louder. actually, the fan isnt noisey, as it is the airflow that makes the noise - you can clearly hear the fan is pushing a huge amount of air volume.

on this coil whine issue: I had almost the same noise on a 1080 GoldenSample like this guy here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-4avBpeMP0 - and to compare a 1080 FE against the one shown in this video, the 1080 FE is really approx 1.5times as loud.

which cards have you been using? maybe I can compare them