Question Which 2080 ti version is best (ignoring cost)?

MoreMoneyThanSense

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Assume money is not a factor (pretend you have the opportunity to pick a 2080 ti card for free or something).

Which 2080 ti card is the best in your opinion and why?
 
The standard go-to recommendations for best GPUs from me goes to EVGA FTW, Asus ROG Strix, and MSI Gaming X. Now, there are some liquid cooled models that I know with the 1080 Ti were better because they kept it cool enough to keep from throttling a little. I just hate to think that a GPU that might be in use for 10 years would be liquid cooled, and a closed loop for that matter. You can do custom loops, but that's regular maintenance and I just don't like the idea of that either. So, I'd still probably get one of the three I always recommend. I prefer EVGA because I know their warranty and it allows for a lot including removing the fans and heatsink without voiding the warranty.
 
The standard go-to recommendations for best GPUs from me goes to EVGA FTW, Asus ROG Strix, and MSI Gaming X. Now, there are some liquid cooled models that I know with the 1080 Ti were better because they kept it cool enough to keep from throttling a little. I just hate to think that a GPU that might be in use for 10 years would be liquid cooled, and a closed loop for that matter. You can do custom loops, but that's regular maintenance and I just don't like the idea of that either. So, I'd still probably get one of the three I always recommend. I prefer EVGA because I know their warranty and it allows for a lot including removing the fans and heatsink without voiding the warranty.
Would be the liquid cooled ones I think. Don’t some brands do one with a preisntalled water block?

just checked the EVGA kingpin has a 240mm AIO on it
 

MoreMoneyThanSense

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Kind of a weird question but I am sort of stuck between two tradeoffs here.

1. I want to have a 2080 ti card that performs well even on air, should I choose that type of cooling for whatever reason down the line. But:

2. For the time being I am trying to do a custom loop for my build and so I'd like to watercool the 2080 ti. However the reference cards seem to have more compatibility when it comes to high-quality cooling components, but the non-reference cards tend to be more custom and have higher clock potential.

So I'm not sure which card has a decent amount of compatible parts while also being a strong air/watercooling performer.
 
The rog strix line has a few blocks available from high end companies, like ek. Making it a solid performer on both air or water. The evga ftw is offered with a custom block, or a nice cooler, so that should be a solid choice as well. I went with an evga xc (2080 non ti) and it performed very well prior to custom loop. I honestly think once a custom loop is in the question, air performance becomes less important. As once properly cooled, all cards perform within a margin of error. Be that fps or benchmark scores. So unless you plan on attempting record breaking overclocks, any card is worth having.
 
The kingpin should be the best available overclocking card. It is a hybrid card, and therefore no blocks are available for it.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? And what are the needs for the best overclocking? Gaming? Record attempts?

As far as gaming is concerned, all cards will be very close in the end, once overclocked. None of these cards overclock that far that you'd notice a profound difference between two, especially in a custom loop situation.
 
As far as gaming is concerned, all cards will be very close in the end, once overclocked. None of these cards overclock that far that you'd notice a profound difference between two, especially in a custom loop situation.

This is true. It will turn into a personal adventure.. which can also turn into regular tasks/work. There's no major benefit to custom loops other than it looks cool and it might be something you are interested in messing around with. The best benefit is probably noise reduction from better cooling. The very small increase in speed you may or may not get will not be noticeable in actual gaming or other applications besides synthetic benchmarks, and even then you'd have to compete with those who run liquid nitrogen cooling.
 

MoreMoneyThanSense

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The kingpin should be the best available overclocking card. It is a hybrid card, and therefore no blocks are available for it.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? And what are the needs for the best overclocking? Gaming? Record attempts?

As far as gaming is concerned, all cards will be very close in the end, once overclocked. None of these cards overclock that far that you'd notice a profound difference between two, especially in a custom loop situation.

No real need for overclocking, more of a "want." I do game but I also use the computer for coding, virtual machines, photo and video editing, streaming, etc. And so part of me just wanted to get a decked out machine that would handle anything I threw at it, even if it's arguably overkill. It's something I've always wanted to do ever since I was a little kid, and now I'm in a position to do it!

Since my intended build is pretty aggressive I want everything to make sense (nothing like "You sprung for X but only settled for Y over here?").

Going for a custom loop because it seems fun and I've never done watercooling before. I know air cooling tech is really good too but from what I understand, custom loops give you slightly better temps and a huge noise reduction (plus it just looks cool).

If I am already going water-cooling, then I figure I may as well water-cool the GPU. Hence my inquiries into the 2080 ti, because apparently it does take some foreplanning to make sure the version you get is compatible with your loop and all that. Still trying to learn the ropes, it's been a while.

I have no desire to compete or get into nitrogen cooling or anything quite that crazy, but I do want to have a card that performs well water-cooled and achieves a respectable OC.
 
How does that Kingpin model OC on water?
No idea....I don't like closed loops. I'd break the AIO loop and run it with an external radiator. Should be fine that way, though. The card is subject to come creative OCing.

how does it compare to e.g. the RTX Titan?
The Titan has a bit more than double the memory, a few more CUDAs, they both boost at 1770MHz, memory data rate is the same, Titan has about 30GT/s more texture fill rate....overall, the Titan has the potential to be a faster card (not worth the price differential to me), but the break-point for me is after sales service. I'd stick with EVGA based upon that alone.

Personally, I'd leave the block and re-pipe it outside the computer case to my pump, reservoir, and radiator.
 
I went custom loop, for almost the sole reason of aesthetics. With noise suppression and obviously some performance being a given. That being said, I'd just grab a card with a good known block available and be happy. Like stated evga has an excellent warranty, and stellar customer service. They allow water block install and will not deny a warranty claim because of it. I'm extremely happy with my XC, and most/all block makers have a block for it as it's pretty much a reference design. And evga has several good cards available as well as cards with preinstalled blocks. You wouldn't be disappointed, imo.

They will perform well, oc decently and remain cool and quiet. Seem to fit your needs well.

From what I've seen most of the Turing cards reach a wall, no matter cooling, at around 2050-2100mhz. And you'd be hard pressed to see the difference between those speeds and even slightly lower. I can tell you from my experience, in gaming only, oc vs non oc, is inperceivable. Only see a difference in benchmarks.

By all means, build a decked out machine! But don't think any 2080ti vs another is going to make your machine any less capable. Pick your block, pick your GPU based on choice, build loop and enjoy!

Concerning the kingpin, again without ln2, it runs into the same "wall" when overclocking as all the others. It's a card designed for extreme cooling. Jayztwocents did a video on it and found it doesn't oc much better if at all than any other card, without extreme cooling.
 

MoreMoneyThanSense

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Just hard to pick among them when there are so many choices, even when only focusing on e.g. EVGA or ASUS, feeling a lot of choice paralysis.

The Kingpin seems a little pricey to me relative to what I'd be getting from it. Looking at a few videos it seems more for hardcore OC enthusiasts and extreme coolers like you said, so probably not for me.

Also unsure how to contextualize the ones that come with water coolers / hybrid coolers. Might just be because I've never used one before but I don't know if you're supposed to buy other stuff to get it to work, or if most people replace some part of the cooler with something else, etc. For instance the EVGA FTW3 apparently has a Hybrid version (along with the XC and XC2 etc), an Ultra version, etc.