Question Should I buy a 1080 Ti ?

[wcbhkids]

I play mostly Total War, Civ, Cities Skylines type of games. My gaming pc is quite old: Core i5 6600K OC'ed to 4.5 Ghz, and GTX 1060. This set up is still ok at 1080p, but it's not quite up to the task ever since I upgraded to a 3440x1440 ultrawide monitor.

A new gaming PC would be ideal but money is kinda tight. Maybe a used 1080/1080 Ti would be a decent stopgap measure for now? These can be had for ~150$ on eBay. I want to target ~50-60 fps.

 

[NanoSuit3]

If anything try to find a GTX ROG 1080 Ti OC ED as my best friend is still using one to this day since 2018 so................................go for that.........................

 

[Order 66]

The 1080ti might be able to run those games at 3440x1440, but since I don't play those games, I have no idea. With that said the 1080ti is still a beast at 1080p even after 7 years. (I know that you are not gaming at 1080p but just pointing out that if you were to play AAA games you would probably need to reduce your resolution to 1080p.

 

[geofelt]

I have played civ in various form for a long time.
I would think a 1080ti would serve you well.
It is a big boost over a 1060, (particularly the 3gb version)
You will do better.

You have control over the settings.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

You might also look at an rx 5700 xt or similar. For example I recently picked up an rx 5600 xt for 85 bucks shipped on eBay. So if you could get a deal like that and see what an i7 would cost might get a decent upgrade.

 

[punkncat]

A 1080ti is still quite relevant for 1080P gaming. The danger aspect is that it could well have been used for mining.

There are quite a few RX cards that would do well here, as suggested above. I would not pay the i7 tax to update this rig unless you stumbled across an insane level deal.

 

[wcbhkids]

At this point I expect the card to have been used for mining, and that's okay. It would be fine if the card lasts another year or so.

I will add RX 5700 XT to my watch list. They seem to cost about the same as 1080 Ti (~$150).

If I come across a real cheap 9th Gen/10th Gen CPU + Mobo combination, it may be worth upgrading, but I think it's not really worth it at this point.

 

[stonecarver]

Also keep an eye out for an Nvidia Titan X Pascal I see them go for $150.00 here and there and 12 Gb's memory. There the same exact thing as a GTX 1080 Ti with one more Gb of memory. Just an FYI

 

[Avro Arrow]

I play mostly Total War, Civ, Cities Skylines type of games. My gaming pc is quite old: Core i5 6600K OC'ed to 4.5 Ghz, and GTX 1060. This set up is still ok at 1080p, but it's not quite up to the task ever since I upgraded to a 3440x1440 ultrawide monitor.

A new gaming PC would be ideal but money is kinda tight. Maybe a used 1080/1080 Ti would be a decent stopgap measure for now? These can be had for ~150$ on eBay. I want to target ~50-60 fps.

I would say that, for 1440p, the GTX 1080 Ti would be the best card to get. Sure, it's performance is very similar to the RX 5700 XT and RTX 2070 but that 11GB VRAM buffer pretty much ensures that you'll be gaming at 1440p for a good, long time. I would say that, at $150, it's definitely the card to get for your situation. Good call!

 

[wcbhkids]

I would say that, for 1440p, the GTX 1080 Ti would be the best card to get. Sure, it's performance is very similar to the RX 5700 XT and RTX 2070 but that 11GB VRAM buffer pretty much ensures that you'll be gaming at 1440p for a good, long time. I would say that, at $150, it's definitely the card to get for your situation. Good call!

The 1080 Ti is actually quite a bit faster than RTX 2070 or 5700 XT, those are comparable to 1080 but not the Ti. Those cards are newer and slightly more expensive too. 1080 Ti is by far the best bang for the buck, thought if one wants longevity, he shouldn't go with 1080 Ti at this point.

 

[Avro Arrow]

The 1080 Ti is actually quite a bit faster than RTX 2070 or 5700 XT, those are comparable to 1080 but not the Ti.

It's 12% faster which I consider comparable. Anything under 5% I consider identical and anything over 20% I consider to be a different tier. That's what I meant by comparable. Now, if you want to talk identical, then the GTX 1080 Ti's performance is identical to the RX 6600 XT.

Those cards are newer and slightly more expensive too. 1080 Ti is by far the best bang for the buck, thought if one wants longevity, he shouldn't go with 1080 Ti at this point.

I disagree. I would say that, for longevity, I would take a GTX 1080 Ti over an RX 6600 XT simply because the performance is the same but the 1080 Ti has 11GB of VRAM instead of 8. When it comes to video card longevity, VRAM is life. As for features, there isn't really much difference:

Ray-Tracing:
GTX 1080 Ti - Completely Incapable
RX 6600 XT - Functionally Incapable (As weak as an RTX 2060, so not worth bothering with)

Upscaling Tech:
GTX 1080 Ti - FSR2
RX 6600 XT - FSR2 (possibly FSR3 in the future)

The only ways that the RX 6600 XT really beats the GTX 1080 Ti are power efficiency, driver support, DX12 Ultimate support and the fact that you can buy them new with a warranty. I would personally take the extra 3GB of VRAM over those things because the GTX 1080 Ti has had no functionality issues stemming from it's DX12 version support. I still have some video cards that are over ten years old and still work perfectly. All of the cards in the following pictures are still 100% functional:

2 × XFX Radeon HD 4780 1GB (Circa 2008):

PNY GeForce 8400 GS PCI Verto 256MB & Palit GeForce 8500 GT 1GB Super+ (both circa 2007), XFX Radeon HD 5450 & 6450 (2010 & 2011, respectively) are all at the bottom of this pic:

I also have in storage:

Dell Radeon HD 5870 OEM 1GB (circa 2010) with that weird Dell Handle at the end:

Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 Windforce 3X 3GB (circa 2012)

If properly taken care of, it is very rare for a video card to actually die.

 

[wcbhkids]

I disagree. I would say that, for longevity, I would take a GTX 1080 Ti over an RX 6600 XT simply because the performance is the same but the 1080 Ti has 11GB of VRAM instead of 8. When it comes to video card longevity, VRAM is life. As for features, there isn't really much difference:

I meant to say 1080 Ti was more far likely to be have been used for crypto mining and therefore may have less life less. I agree it'd remain an effective GPU far longer than RX 5700 XT (or even compared to RX 6600 XT as you mentioned).

Just ordered a 1080 Ti for $145 on eBay. Wish me luck! LOL

 

[Tac 25]

always buy from places where you could return it if the product does not work. I've seen plenty stories here of people buy used, which turned out to be dead mined card. Hopefully, you don't get a dead gpu. Goodluck.

 

[thestryker]

Not that it's a for sure sign, but Alan Wake 2 not officially supporting anything older than RTX 20/GTX 16 and RX6000 due to the use of mesh shaders would make me leery about buying anything older than those if it was a card that one was planning on using for years to come.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Not that it's a for sure sign, but Alan Wake 2 not officially supporting anything older than RTX 20/GTX 16 and RX6000 due to the use of mesh shaders would make me leery about buying anything older than those if it was a card that one was planning on using for years to come.

I agree that this was said but it turned out to be untrue. Even if it were true, when I talk about longevity at this price point, I'm talking a maximum of 5 years which means that, by the time games really do require mesh shaders, these cards would be unusable from their lack of GPU horsepower anyway, so no big loss. The extra VRAM would just help to ensure that the card was viable for as long as possible, without the VRAM being an extra limiting factor.

 

[Order 66]

I agree that this was said but it turned out to be untrue. Even if it were true, when I talk about longevity at this price point, I'm talking a maximum of 5 years which means that, by the time games really do require mesh shaders, these cards would be unusable from their lack of GPU horsepower anyway, so no big loss. The extra VRAM would just help to ensure that the card was viable for as long as possible, without the VRAM being an extra limiting factor.

I wonder if your 7900xtx would be able to run Alan Wake 2 at 1440p ultra. I don't know if the 1080ti would be able to run it at higher than 1080p lowest settings.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I wonder if your 7900xtx would be able to run Alan Wake 2 at 1440p ultra.

I would imagine that it can. If the second-fastest card in the world can't do 1440p Ultra on a game, then the game shouldn't be released for at least another three years because nobody's going to buy it. How much would you be willing to spend on a game that will cost you over $1000 in upgrades in order to be able to actually play it? My hard limit would be $0 until I had a PC that could actually play the game.

I don't know if the 1080ti would be able to run it at higher than 1080p lowest settings.

Oh, that's not what I meant. I meant that the claim "The RX 5700 XT and GTX 1080 Ti are not supported" was false. Neither the RX 5700 XT nor the GTX 1080 Ti seem to be capable of anything that I would call a good gaming experience when running Alan Wake 2.

 

[Order 66]

Oh, that's not what I meant. I meant that the claim "The RX 5700 XT and GTX 1080 Ti are not supported" was false. Neither the RX 5700 XT nor the GTX 1080 Ti seem to be capable of anything that I would call a good gaming experience when running Alan Wake 2.

I know what you meant, I was referring to other comments talking about how the 1070 ran at 1080p lowest at 20fps. I am assuming the 1080 ti would struggle as well. FWIW, my RX 6800 is 226% faster than a 1070 meaning that I can expect about 40 fps at 1080p lowest on a 6800, which is ridiculous considering the 6800 is meant for 1440p. Good thing I am not planning on playing it, at least until the game has had major performance improvements and I can run it a 1080p high.

 

[Wuwu]

The GTX 1080 Ti at 1080P gets about 17 FPS in Alan Wake 2 on low settings.

1080 Ti Alan Wake II

 

[thestryker]

I agree that this was said but it turned out to be untrue.

No it's completely true as I said they're not officially supported (and why they're not), and they're not. The performance on them takes such a massive hit and makes them effectively unplayable. This is something I absolutely would take into account when buying any card today just in case.

Even if it were true, when I talk about longevity at this price point, I'm talking a maximum of 5 years which means that, by the time games really do require mesh shaders, these cards would be unusable from their lack of GPU horsepower anyway, so no big loss. The extra VRAM would just help to ensure that the card was viable for as long as possible, without the VRAM being an extra limiting factor.

Going from 8GB to 11GB is extremely unlikely to net you anything at this performance level (I never had VRAM issues with my 1660 Ti on 1440p UW). If we're looking used anyways I'd much rather get something like the RX 6600/6600 XT/6650 XT to ensure compatibility and likely have longer driver support (RTX 30 series still carrying a big premium sadly).

 

[JeffreyP55]

always buy from places where you could return it if the product does not work. I've seen plenty stories here of people buy used, which turned out to be dead mined card. Hopefully, you don't get a dead gpu. Goodluck.

Ebay guarantees 100% of sales. Even if the seller displays, "no returns."
Since I have some experiences with ugly matters I know it is true.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I know what you meant, I was referring to other comments talking about how the 1070 ran at 1080p lowest at 20fps. I am assuming the 1080 ti would struggle as well. FWIW, my RX 6800 is 226% faster than a 1070 meaning that I can expect about 40 fps at 1080p lowest on a 6800, which is ridiculous considering the 6800 is meant for 1440p. Good thing I am not planning on playing it, at least until the game has had major performance improvements and I can run it a 1080p high.

Yeah, I'm not getting it myself either (at least not for awhile). I usually prefer to play games in order when possible so I'd probably play through Alan Wake first before getting Alan Wake 2. I've found that it makes the sequels so much better because there are so many references that you completely miss and those can really make things more interesting. Of course, this isn't always possible but I'm sure that Alan Wake 1 is still out there to get and won't be hideously old.

 

[Avro Arrow]

No it's completely true as I said they're not officially supported (and why they're not), and they're not. The performance on them takes such a massive hit and makes them effectively unplayable. This is something I absolutely would take into account when buying any card today just in case.

Well, they're playing the semantics game because it always used to be that "unsupported" meant "does not work at all", a sentiment that was echoed by Tim Schiesser (although it might have been Steve Walton). This is why the tech press was speculating that it wouldn't run at all. Personally, I hadn't heard much about mesh shaders and I certainly didn't know that the RX 5000 cards didn't have it because until now, it made literally no difference so it wasn't ever talked about.

Going from 8GB to 11GB is extremely unlikely to net you anything at this performance level (I never had VRAM issues with my 1660 Ti on 1440p UW).

Well, I wasn't only talking about performance. For example, in Far Cry 6, in order to use the HD texture pack, you needed to have at least 11GB of VRAM. With my RX 5700 XT, I couldn't do that so I ended up playing without it. It wasn't a huge deal, but it would have been nice to have. I remember laughing when the RTX 3080 came out because as soon as I saw the 10GB of VRAM, I was like "That new high-end card that Jensen calls the flagship can't use the FC6 HD texture pack?!" and just shook my head about it.

If we're looking used anyways I'd much rather get something like the RX 6600/6600 XT/6650 XT to ensure compatibility and likely have longer driver support (RTX 30 series still carrying a big premium sadly).

Oh I couldn't agree more but the conversation was about the GTX 1080 Ti and RX 5700 XT. I said that I would choose the GTX 1080 Ti over the RX 5700 XT and this was the reasoning:

The extra VRAM would just help to ensure that the card was viable for as long as possible, without the VRAM being an extra limiting factor.

I don't know where you got the idea that I thought it would make a massive performance difference (although the GTX 1080 Ti is, on average, faster than the RX 5700 XT). I considered it to be nothing more that a little bit of insurance (and insurance is something that you hope you'll never need).

 

[Wuwu]

The 1080 Ti is long gone and is rubbish in latest titles, stop falling for the propaganda.
Even the RTX 2060 has caught up.

 

[thestryker]

Well, I wasn't only talking about performance. For example, in Far Cry 6, in order to use the HD texture pack, you needed to have at least 11GB of VRAM. With my RX 5700 XT, I couldn't do that so I ended up playing without it. It wasn't a huge deal, but it would have been nice to have. I remember laughing when the RTX 3080 came out because as soon as I saw the 10GB of VRAM, I was like "That new high-end card that Jensen calls the flagship can't use the FC6 HD texture pack?!" and just shook my head about it.

This is why I wasn't going to buy a 3080 at all until they released the 12GB model and I was able to get one for the same price as 10GB. At that performance level less VRAM than a 1080 Ti/2080 Ti despite being faster than both was just unacceptable to me.

Oh I couldn't agree more but the conversation was about the GTX 1080 Ti and RX 5700 XT. I said that I would choose the GTX 1080 Ti over the RX 5700 XT and this was the reasoning

Ah I was just looking at price point and wondering why anyone would want either one for ~$150.

I don't know where you got the idea that I thought it would make a massive performance difference (although the GTX 1080 Ti is, on average, faster than the RX 5700 XT). I considered it to be nothing more that a little bit of insurance (and insurance is something that you hope you'll never need).

I didn't say anything about extra performance just that the difference between an 8GB and 11GB card at this level of performance (meaning this relative level of GPU performance) is irrelevant. You won't be playing anything at a high enough resolution to really notice the difference in texture quality (barring mods that are potentially VRAM hogs).