Question Spending $2k for a RTX 3080 Ti worth it?

I am going for the MSI RTX 3080 Ti Gaming X Trio (LHR), it is priced at a hefty $2k. It's 20% more than the total cost of my PC specs (see my sig below) that Its feels like I could have bought another duplicate of my rig.

I have never spent this much for a GPU in my entire life, but I do need it for production purposes as well and peace of mind from upgrading for the next 3-4 years or so.

Originally the price was around $2.4-$2.5k, but after GPU prices started going down a bit, it landed around $2k flat. I am considering buying the dip.

I kind of don't feel sticking with the 60 series GPU from Nvidia (i.e. 1060, 2060, 3060) albeit it is the economical choice. Its performance just doesn't compare, but its the backup card to go if the higher tiered GPU gets busted.

From what I can research:
MSRP of 3080 is $699
MSRP of 3080 Ti is $1,199, then GPU manufacturers (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, etc.) can then price it even higher than that.

So I am basically spending almost double msrp.
However the reason why I feel like buying is because the silicon shortage is predicted to last up until the end of 2022/start of 2023.
Even if the pandemic ends, there are other factors that bring increased demand to silicon such as:
-Shift from traditional cars to electronic/smart vehicles (cars, trucks, etc.) which use chips
-More IoT devices
-China cutting down on raw material production (Silicon) to meet environmental goals (Chinese government is unpredictable)
-Ethereum keeps delaying EIP-3675 for how long as they want to (where they become proof of stake).

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Silicon is an abundant resource, but it takes fabs to process it to turn it into useable chips. The bottleneck from what I can see is the lack of fabs.

Silicon fabs take years to setup.
I feel like silicon's price over time is starting to behave like copper.
Its good to point out as well that one better be careful with their GPU since replacements may be harder to come by.
The whole situation would just become worse for a long time before it gets better.
Next generation GPU msrp may be priced even higher. (1060 msrp - $299, 2060 msrp - $329, 3060 msrp - $399)
All of the reasons mentioned above, I feel like paying $2k for a GPU seems not so bad if things will continue to be bad for the entirety of 2022, but inside myself I digress for paying something this absurdly high.
Eventually this price bubble should & would collapse, but it would be wishful thinking if one were to hope for it to happen anytime soon.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...surge-throws-another-price-shock-at-the-world
 
At the end of the day it’s a gamble. You are betting that buying now is better than buying in the near future. If you are willing to pay $2k now in the knowledge that the worst case is gpu’s go back to or close to MSRP in the near future. If your not willing to take that chance then you have your answer.

Would I spend $2k on a gpu that I was only going to use for gaming? No, but that’s me.
 
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Definitely not gonna use it only for gaming, but I do also want to avoid buying lower tiered gpus every year.

If the rumors for the next gen Nvidia cards are true, then they're more likely to even be powerful = much more expensive.
I cannot even fathom if power requirements and cooling for GPUs can keep up at that rate, going 400W and beyond.

I wouldn't necessarily say "betting", but rather speculating. Not much of a gamble, but more of like an "educated guess" given the current outlook of supply and demand.
Governments around the world would be hesitant to ramp up silicon fabs if it would cost another 2021 Western North America heatwave

I just can't objectively see how the gpu prices are going back anywhere near MSRP given all these factors.
 
Ah Crystal ball times.....

Perhaps the questions you should ask yourself are: How long will it takes to get the investment back? , How faster will this new card be vs my current one?, or How much time will I cut from my production time using this faster card?

After all you need it for production so I guess you are making money with this system right ?
 
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Yes
How long will it takes to get the investment back
I already did with crypto investing , hence why I have the opportunity.
Plan to put my old 1060 to work by mining.

I plan to refurbish my old youtube channel. I used to upload game play videos before.

To make that 3080 start earning money, I only play video games when I plan to make videos out of them & upload to youtube in max quality, then grow my subs, gain traction, etc.

I'm currently taking my time learning After Effects, but then maybe make a new youtube channel and focus making tutorials on rendering, etc.
Sure I may never be able to use the full 12GB of vram right now, but technological advances in the future would definitely increase the demand for vram on software such as games and rendering.
 
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Yes

I already did with crypto investing , hence why I have the opportunity.

Well, if you use it for work and you can get the money back soon (or already did) then I guess you have your answer.

If you are going to use yours for work I would avoid OC at all cost.

I wonder Whats the performance and price difference for your production tasks between this card and the RTX 3080?
 
Definitely would avoid OC. I favor longevity over performance.

I wonder Whats the performance and price difference for your production tasks between this card and the RTX 3080?
Playing a game, recording it at max settings without fps drop
I couldn't do it on my aging 1060 with say, Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing on. Definitely underwhelming GPU.
But with a 3080, it would be a much needed improvement.
I'd say about a 60-70% improvement.
 
Definitely would avoid OC. I favor longevity over performance.


Playing a game, recording it at max settings without fps drop
I couldn't do it on my aging 1060 with say, Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing on. Definitely underwhelming GPU.
But with a 3080, it would be a much needed improvement.
I'd say about a 60-70% improvement.

No, no, sorry I wasn't clear enough, I wonder whats the performance and price difference between the RTX 3080 and the RTX 3080 TI for you production tasks?

I know in gaming is not huge. But I do not know what it would mean to your production needs.
 
I wonder whats the performance and price difference between the RTX 3080 and the RTX 3080 TI for you production tasks?
For clarity, I only plan to get the RTX 3080 TI tomorrow.
But for the difference between these two cards, I can't exactly ascertain since I only looked at comparing my 1060 model to the RTX 3080 TI.

The only model that they offer on hand happens to be the MSI RTX 3080 Ti Gaming X Trio , so I really can't choose the other choice.
https://www.msi.com/Graphics-Card/GeForce-RTX-3080-Ti-GAMING-X-TRIO-12G/Specification

If there was indeed the RTX 3080 available, I would probably say the performance difference is not that much to the RTX 3080 TI, probably around 30%
Price wise, I am not entirely sure because it depends on the retailer/seller. Probably around 20-30% give or take.

I also stay away from Gigabyte GPUs. Read a lot of complaints on reddit. Some of them are regarding about their thermal pads.

I will be inspecting the card surely for any "tampers" or signs of heavy usage. It may come from a Chinese GPU farm for all I know.

I bought the 1060 back in 2017 @ $348 looking at the receipt. Its been 4 years now. I don't think I can hold on for 1 more year hoping for the best with regards to GPU prices.
 
For clarity, I only plan to get the RTX 3080 TI tomorrow.
But for the difference between these two cards, I can't exactly ascertain since I only looked at comparing my 1060 model to the RTX 3080 TI.

The only model that they offer on hand happens to be the MSI RTX 3080 Ti Gaming X Trio , so I really can't choose the other choice.
https://www.msi.com/Graphics-Card/GeForce-RTX-3080-Ti-GAMING-X-TRIO-12G/Specification

If there was indeed the RTX 3080 available, I would probably say the performance difference is not that much to the RTX 3080 TI, probably around 30%
Price wise, I am not entirely sure because it depends on the retailer/seller. Probably around 20-30% give or take.

I also stay away from Gigabyte GPUs. Read a lot of complaints on reddit. Some of them are regarding about their thermal pads.

I will be inspecting the card surely for any "tampers" or signs of heavy usage. It may come from a Chinese GPU farm for all I know.

I bought the 1060 back in 2017 @ $348 looking at the receipt. Its been 4 years now. I don't think I can hold on for 1 more year hoping for the best with regards to GPU prices.

So this is a 2K video card thats not new? wow

Are you buying from a well known seller (for example: Amazon, newegg, bestbuy ,etc)? I hope the card comes with warranty?
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
Honestly, this doesn't make a ton of sense if the monitors you list are the ones you using. A 3080 Ti is complete overkill for 1080p/144 and by the time 12 GB of VRAM vs. 8 actually mattered in 1080p -- I mean actual use, not simply allocation -- you will likely be able to get something better than a 3080 Ti for the current difference between a 3080 Ti and a 3060 Ti.
 
Are you buying from a well known seller (for example: Amazon, newegg, bestbuy ,etc)? I hope the card comes with warranty?
Local PC shop, with warranty.
I'd never do P2P trade from some shady person for something this high valued, even if they claim they'll warranty it.
Buying it from e-commerce website for warranty, you're gonna pay shipping cost too if you need it RMA'd.
With the local PC shop however, its them who worries about that cost, not you.

So this is a 2K video card thats not new? wow
With the pandemic setting, everything's screwed up.
 
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I've read a lot of horror stories of people trying to RMA their Gigabyte RTX 30 series GPUs , having to pay multiple times for shipping back and forth. Simply off putting.

There's even horror stories buying from 3rd party sellers from Amazon. Personally would always prefer if Amazon is the seller of the product, for extra insurance.

The only components I'd probably buy through an e-commerce platform are durable ones and aren't a pain to ship like RAM and HDDs. I got my RAM from Amazon, the rest I got locally with warranty.
 
I've read a lot of horror stories of people trying to RMA their Gigabyte RTX 30 series GPUs , having to pay multiple times for shipping back and forth. Simply off putting.

There's even horror stories buying from 3rd party sellers from Amazon. Personally would always prefer if Amazon is the seller of the product, for extra insurance.

The only components I'd probably buy through an e-commerce platform are durable ones and aren't a pain to ship like RAM and HDDs. I got my RAM from Amazon, the rest I got locally with warranty.

Of course, I can't use Amazon in my country lately because of huge import taxes but the few times I bought at Amazon, I bought from Amazon :)
 
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Ok I bought it, installed it and everything seems fine so far.
It was the last unit they had in stock. Being the last unit, I am usually paranoid as to why its unsold - but anyhow I took my leap of faith and bought it anyway.

It took me a while to install it since I had to rewire a lot of cables in my chassis, and do some unorthodox jury rigging (more on that later).

Didn't use any pigtails to power up this beast (i.e. Separate PCI-E plugs) for safety measure.
I uninstalled the old driver with Revo uninstaller, cleared left over files with it and then installed the Nvidia driver for the RTX 3080 Ti
I have read of a tool called DDU by wagnersoft, but not sure if its recommended. It recommends to be run on safe mode to remove old Nvidia drivers. Anyhow I'm used to Revo so I skipped that instead.

Shop wouldn't let me test it on the spot, so I am doing the tests now. Here are the stats on idle:

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Idle power consumption seems to be just the same as before with my 1060, ranging from 105-120W

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This card is quite big. It forced me not to be able to use 1x 80mm fan from the bottom, but instead I managed to relocate it to the top.
Am also anticipating it can get quite hot with regards to thermals, so I added a 2nd jury rigged aux fan on the right side.
This will help blow the stagnant hot air pocket in the area where my NVMe is situated in, which also generate tons of heat.

I can't see anything out of the ordinary, unless I'm missing something.
The bios version looks fine as well, doesn't seem to be some random GPU mining bios.
When I inspected the box, it was indeed sealed. There doesn't seem to be any signs of tamper. There was no dust on the GPU, nor some flux splash to indicate a botched repair attempt to fix something. The shop did however only offered 6 months warranty. I would expect to be at least 1 year of warranty, but anyhow I guess I'll take it.
 
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InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
The cost of raw materials in semiconductors is largely irrelevant since a fully assembled RTX3090 only contains about $10 worth of raw materials dominated by copper. Practically all of the cost comes from transformation steps needed to go from raw materials to finished product and all of the middlemen's profit margins.

Since everyone in the supply chain is selling out of everything they can make, most of the inflated prices are due to all of the middlemen marking their prices up offset their own upstream middlemen's markups and add their own markup on top.
 
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Stats when gaming
Power draw ranges around 350-400 watts, compared from my previous 200-300W with my old GTX 1060. As long as I don't run a continuous load of 80% of my max capacity of 700W, should be good (560W).

Temps seem to be even better too. I read that this card usually goes around 70-80C while gaming, but I guess my jury rigged fans helped and pulled it down to the 60s.
Every bit of 1C drop helps!

Thermal vid (Tom's hardware):
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAsQ0o6BsEk


middlemen marking their prices up offset their own upstream middlemen's markups and add their own markup on top.
True. Greed of the middlemen.
Whenever there's FUD, they capitalize on it and justify their high markup.
Overall I still feel 50-50 about my purchase. It doesn't feel good to patronize paying for a high price, but I used a leverage that allowed me to do so and took the opportunity.

PS. I don't bother with liquid cooling. Don't want to wake up one day looking at a water leak at my rig!
 
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Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
Value is in the heart of the owner. With all the bills I have to pay, saving money for getting older, having some sort of financial cushion tomorrow etc, dropping $2K on a graphics card is totally out of the question, I'm not going to get my money's worth by a long shot.

But that's me. That's not you. It's going to be on you to decide if that $2K card is worth it. It's pointless to crystal ball what ifs. If you can wait, I would. The 3000 series will only last so long, the 4000 series will drop, amd 7900xt etc. If you cannot wait, the the question of 'worth it' is kinda moot.

So, Froggy, jump or not. If you do, don't look back because recriminations won't put you back on the cliff top. If you don't jump, what have you lost?
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
If you can wait, I would. The 3000 series will only last so long, the 4000 series will drop, amd 7900xt etc.
From the rumors so far, next-gen GPUs will come with yet another round of massive markups, which means the rumored massive performance increases may yield a relatively small net performance-per-dollar gain and not be worth waiting for on a fixed budget.

Me, I don't even want to spend more than $200 on a GPU, so there is no chance in hell I'd ever consider something that costs 10X as much, there are just too many other far more important things I can spend that sort of money on.
 
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InvalidError

Titan
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Exactly. So a 2k 3080ti will be $1.8k and stand a chance of higher availability since everybody already waiting will be jumping on the 4080/4090 come drop day
Nah, Nvidia (and AMD) will pull the classic "discontinue previous-gen mid-high-end ahead of next-gen mid-high end" so the 3070-3090S' new 'retail' price will be "SOLD OUT" and not really compete against the 4070+ unless you include the used market If we're lucky, maybe Nvidia will then bump production of 3060S and below to burn their remaining 7nm wafers on parts that cannot compete against new stuff.