Wait for Zolta 2080/2080 Ti ? Can I upgrade without building a new PC?

[Ransome]

My Rig:

Spoiler

GPU: X2 Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 980 SLI
CPU: Core i5-3570K (@ 4.2 Ghz auto voltage OC)
MOBO: Asus Sabertooth Z77
RAM: 16 GB of G.Skill Ripjaw-X DDR3 1600Mhz (XMP profile)
SSD: 256GB Crucial M4
HD: Western Digital Black 2TB
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14
Case: Corsair CC600T Graphite White Special Edition
PSU: Corsair 850AX Gold
Monitor: Asus ROG SWIFT PG278Q 2560 x 1440p @ 144 MHz + Nvidia G-Sync.
And: 55" TV: Samsung UA55D6400 TV1080p @ 60 MHz
+ Home Theater 5.1 System: Pioneer VSX-823-K AV Receiver

I'm a high end PC Gamer. Also owns and plays on the PS4 PRO.
My take - I'm very happy about upgrading my PS4 to a PS4 Pro. Sold my launch PS4 - while keeping my original DualShock controller! - for 55% the price of the Pro in my country - and got the Pro at a great price.

Now, the only games I have been really looking forward to, for a while now, are already here:
FF XV, Gravity Rush 2, Nioh and Horizon Zero Dawn.
Nier could be alright, but was underwhelmed but what I saw and heard so far. Nothing else really peaks my interest.

So beyond Horizon, there aren't any interesting but more importantly - truly demanding PC games on the horizon (yeah, I know 😉).
To me, it's actually great news because it means I can postpone my future PC Upgrade or build to a later year, while keeping my Gaming hunger satiated by the excellent PS4 and console exclusive games, and clear up some backlogging on my gaming PC.
Juat can't think of any demanding PC games on 2017, heck even 2018+.

I live in Israel, so getting good hardware is very difficult (to find a proper, reliable and affordable store) and ultra expensive to buy. Prices are bloated- as everything is imported and taxed.
And I'm starting to think I should import most/some hardware from Amazon - even if it means no warranty. Quite a headache.

Got 3 main considerations I would like to discuss with you:
1. Should I wait long enough and skip current GPUs and buy 2080 Ti or 2080?
(Is Ti still a thing? No word about 1080Ti and 1080 has been around).
Found this article about future cards.

2. Or should I just wait for Zolta? (What's that going to be 3080, 3080 Ti?)
If they arrive in 2018, and no real demanding games anytime soon, then it's a small difference.

3. Will I be fine upgrading ONLY my GPU - to 2080 Ti / 2080 / Zolta 80 or Zolta 80 Ti ?
- Or should / must I build a brand new gaming PC from scratch?

 

[turbopixel]

We can't see the future. Nvidia did not announce officially the 1080 Ti now and you ask us if you should wait for upgrading later to 2080 or 3080?? With your cpu, even a regular 1080 should bottleneck it a little. For the future cards, you should upgrade your system too. If it is really expensive, then stay with your setup until you have the money to buy new cpu, ram and board. You can still play most future games at high quality (if sli supported). I was happy with my GTX 970 too (upgraded to 1070) and could play almost all games at very high or ultra at 1080p. If you are happy with your PS4 Pro, then you should be happy with your current pc setup too.

 

[Ransome]

Thanks for the input.
I'll appreciate more opinions.
I'm not asking for a prophecy here, just a predication, and to hear from people who have being following news closely about upcoming Nvidia cards and other hardware.

I want to make a good educated choice, and I feel like 1080 has been around for a long time, 1080p Ti might never happen and 2080/80Ti might be just around the corner, with Zolta cards beckoning just over the hill.
According to that article, 2080 Pascal refresh cards are arriving 2017, and Zolta in 2018.

I've asked in the past, also read about my CPU or similar rigs to mine -and found mixed statements about the actual need to invest in a new system:
Some say that i5-3570K CPU should have no or negligible bottle-neck on 1080, while others claim it's more significant.
I'd love a more substantial, perhaps numerical, answer.
In the end, CPU upgrades - in those ranges - don't net that big a gain in Gaming performance. It's usually the GPU that makes the big difference.


Additionally, I've concluded that SLI should be avoided from now on, and one should always aim for a strong single GPU.
Nvidia and developers just don't care enough to support it. Sadly, more often than not - you would find your sought out games having zero SLI support and functionality.
When SLI does work, it works wonders, though!
I can run The Witcher 3 at 1440p everything at Ultra (except Foliage) at very high framerates from above 60 to 110 roughly -and that's the most demanding game I can think of, that's not heavy due to being poorly optimized. Also the best looking overall, most open game on PC.
Unfortunately many games like those of Unreal Engine 4 (Obduction, Vanishing of Ethan Crater) games and ID Engine Games (Doom, Fallout iirc) have no SLI support, and lots of random AAA games have zero or poor SLI support for no reason.


I've also reached a conclusion- that it's probably best and wise to wait and invest in a Ti card, instead of the vanilla version.
Since if you are going to invest in a single GPU, you might as well make it a big more future proof and add that extra "umph", best bang for buck.

At any rate, I play on either 2560x1440 (1440p or "2K") or on a 1080 55" TV.
But in the not so near future, I plan to invest in a good 4K HDR TV, which means also replacing my AV RECEIVER sound system. In order to be compatible and able to run HDR 4K,with audio, and 60fps (which is a very frustrating investment to make...).
So I keep 4K in mind, just probably not anytime soon.
Imo 1440p is the best most optimal resolution for gaming on a PC monitor, and 1080p might be just fine if everything else is Ultra and FPS is rock solid.

 

[turbopixel]

I also upgraded to single card, instead getting second GTX 970. Did you saw the sticky thread http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-3192807/ultimate-bottlenecking-guide.html? From there your cpu I5-3570K gets blue rating (Blue = Semi-Bottlenecked in CPU Demanding Games) for regular GTX 1080 card. Its only one class below red rating (Red = Bottlenecking In Everything). It would get worse with even higher class gpu cards like TI version of 1080 or even worse worse the 2080. Thats why I don't recommend to wait for these cards.

 

[renz496]

1080ti has been confirmed.

http://www.geforce.com/

 

[Ransome]

1080ti has been confirmed.

http://www.geforce.com/

Yeah I saw the Facebook Nivida page's Teaser. Wanted to post it just now.
But some people are saying, and rightfully so, that buying the 1080 Ti might be truly unwise since the VOLTA architecture cards are less than a year away.

When is Volta coming? (People seem certain that it arrives in less than a year).

So, I'm thinking.. Can you name a single interesting and demanding game that really requires a PC Upgrade and arrives anywhere during 2017 and even 2018?
Not really.
In 2015 it was The Witcher and MGSV perhaps.
Nothing like that anytime soon.

Thus, why not wait for the VOLTA xx80 GPU that supposedly lies just around the corner?
(or 2080Ti even you can stretch it) Bang for buck, patience is virtue is it not?

 

[The_Staplergun]

The real question is do you want to wait that long for a card?
What are you using in the mean time?
If you have the patience and want to wait to chance the release of Volta, or the 1080ti specs, or whatever, just do it.
That's literally a matter of opinion.
If you don't plan on doing anything between now and then, what's the point of buying now?

 

[dontlistentome]

Unless you want to spend money just to spend money, and I'm not judging you if you do, then what determines what you buy is the question of 'what do you need now?'. If the answer is nothing, if your current setup does the job, then you have no reason to worry about what is available now or what will be available in the future.

Someday there may be a 2080, that's irrelevant. Someday your current setup will no longer be acceptable to you, THAT is relevant. That's when you look around to see what options you have.

I think SLI and Crossfire don't get a lot of effort put into them because the market for that is too small. It's hard to convince someone to buy one good videocard, much less two. Most people want the cheapest they can get, that's why cards like the GT 610/710 and such still have people buying them.

4k is still in its infancy, so if you buy into it now you do so knowing that standards may change and what you buy now may be outdated soon.

 

[Ransome]

The real question is do you want to wait that long for a card?
What are you using in the mean time?
If you have the patience and want to wait to chance the release of Volta, or the 1080ti specs, or whatever, just do it.
That's literally a matter of opinion.
If you don't plan on doing anything between now and then, what's the point of buying now?

Thanks..
Uhm, I've already answered these questions. Rig is posted above too. Using 980 SLI.
I wonder when Volta comes, and if it's truly so shortly after the just announced 1080 Ti.
Yeah I can wait, for reasons mentioned above.
I've waited from 670 to 980 and couldn't be more satisfied from the huge leap.
Hey, I know it's a matter of opinion - that's why I'm here - to hear other's opinions and predictions.

I also wonder if I can still upgrade my GPU to a single Volta XX80 - without changing anything else in my system - and not suffer a significant bottleneck.
Then build a brand new PC later (because I will need to buy and assemble everything: case, psu, board etc).
And keep my current rig as a secondary PC for side gaming, work, home LAN-Like coop games (Online).

If not, then perhaps when Volta arrives, I might just make a new build.
I know most of my rig has been aging gradually for a while now, but I've also found many posts encouraging users of my CPU to still buy a 1080 or 1070, since the bottleneck is not that big a deal in most Gaming scenarios.

 

[The_Staplergun]

If you have that you're going to be good for a while.
No one knows if there will be a bottleneck without actually seeing specs.
If you do see that and want you could in theory sell your rig as a complete set, or components of it.
There is no bottleneck with a 6th or 7th gen and most higher end 5th gen intel processors for any of the 10 series cards.

 

[renz496]

1080ti has been confirmed.

http://www.geforce.com/

Yeah I saw the Facebook Nivida page's Teaser. Wanted to post it just now.
But some people are saying, and rightfully so, that buying the 1080 Ti might be truly unwise since the VOLTA architecture cards are less than a year away.

When is Volta coming? (People seem certain that it arrives in less than a year).

So, I'm thinking.. Can you name a single interesting and demanding game that really requires a PC Upgrade and arrives anywhere during 2017 and even 2018?
Not really.
In 2015 it was The Witcher and MGSV perhaps.
Nothing like that anytime soon.

Thus, why not wait for the VOLTA xx80 GPU that supposedly lies just around the corner?
(or 2080Ti even you can stretch it) Bang for buck, patience is virtue is it not?

that's normal. when nvidia launch their fastest card for that architecture the next will come in less than a year. flagship kepler (780ti) launch in november 2013. then nvidia launch maxwell 980/970 on september 2014. that's roughly 10 months apart. maxwell flagship (980ti) launch in june 2015. then 1080/1070 launch in may 2016. almost a year but it is still less than a year. of course this not counting the titan series.

as for demanding games....i'm not sure yet. maybe cyber punk 2077 in 2018. our high end gpu is very capable right now unless it was 4k res.

 

[Ransome]

that's normal. when nvidia launch their fastest card for that architecture the next will come in less than a year. flagship kepler (780ti) launch in november 2013. then nvidia launch maxwell 980/970 on september 2014. that's roughly 10 months apart. maxwell flagship (980ti) launch in june 2015. then 1080/1070 launch in may 2016. almost a year but it is still less than a year. of course this not counting the titan series.

as for demanding games....i'm not sure yet. maybe cyber punk 2077 in 2018. our high end gpu is very capable right now unless it was 4k res.

Interesting analysis, good point.
Not sure why, but it seems like their timing now is quite off, according to what I hear online and generally since 1080 been around for a long time. As if they were late with releasing the 1080 Ti.

I very much doubt that Cyber Punk 2077 will release in 2018. There's just no freaking way. If you look at the development time of TW3. It might be scheduled to end of 2018 but then get repeatedly delayed to something like 2019 or about 2020.
If they do end up releasing it by 2018, then they either rushed it up, which is unlikely, or perhaps they wanted to make room for another The Witcher game.
Which further strengthen my point that if we buy new hardware or even just a GPU now, we will simply "burn it out" for 2-3 years - and when it's finally time give it a good workout - it will already be dated in comparison on other next gen cards, with more advanced architecture and capabilities. Of course I am not a prophet, things may change.

Like you, I still regard our cards and systems as high end.
I just wish more games will have proper SLI support because that puts me in the 1080 territory.
And I play some of my games on 1440p - which is quite a demanding resolution - but without SLI - it's hard to achieve high and stable framerates/times.
(My backlog games: Doom, Vanishing of Ethan Crater, Obduction, and more - all have no SLI support. With a few you can try to force AFR 2/1 with varying degrees of success and possible heavy glitches). Also Disonhord 2 has no SLI support, so I read.
Seems the majority of game in 2016 have no or shoddy SLI support.

 

[renz496]

1080ti seems late because nvidia coming out a bit early with titan x (pascal) after launching 1080. 980/970 launch in Q3 2014. 980Ti was launch on Q2 2015. then 1080/1070 was launch in Q2 2016. now 1080ti coming out in Q1 2017. if you look back the time gap between 980 and 980ti and compare them with 1080 and 1080ti they are about the same. personally i'm waiting for volta before replacing my 970.

 

[Ransome]

1080ti seems late because nvidia coming out a bit early with titan x (pascal) after launching 1080. 980/970 launch in Q3 2014. 980Ti was launch on Q2 2015. then 1080/1070 was launch in Q2 2016. now 1080ti coming out in Q1 2017. if you look back the time gap between 980 and 980ti and compare them with 1080 and 1080ti they are about the same. personally i'm waiting for volta before replacing my 970.

Sounds like a plan.
Would you be replacing just your GPU for a Zolta card- or build a whole new PC then ?

I'd personally much rather wait for a Zolta GPU, preferably Zolta 2080 Ti.
(Not sure if I can actually keep my current setup with that kinda of card for 2k+4k gaming. Also I still somewhat consider getting a 1080 Ti).