Choose between these two high end graphics cards (poll)

[qubit]

What would you rather buy, an overclocked Zotac GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme Edition for £550 that's 11% faster than a GTX 1080 Founders Edition, or a GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition for £650? It's actually possible to buy these cards for these prices now if you look around a bit.

I've got the Zotac card and I'm very happy with it, especially with its speed and quietness. Sure, the 1080 Ti FE will be somewhat faster, but it's saddled with that crappy FE cooler which runs hot and noisy, fan doesn't stop at idle and throttles the GPU when playing games. It's also £100 more and as £500 is about the maximum that I want to spend on a graphics card, it's way over at £150 more, really putting me off. In its favour, it looks nice, but that's hardly a reason to get it, lol.

Note that the Zotac card is a really large 3-slot design, so we'll assume that you have a case big enough for it for the sake of this poll.

I'm running at 1080p 144Hz refresh and won't be getting a 4K monitor for a minimum of 6 months, more likely a year.

I've linked to the TPU reviews to help you decide.

TPU REVIEW

TPU REVIEW

 

[Melvis]

What res will you be using?

 

[qubit]

What res will you be using?

Good point - 1080p 144Hz refresh. I've edited my OP to show this.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Voted Ti.

Edit: Problem with the FE is you need to keep em cool. I'm pretty sure there was some throttling. But ill still keep my vote.

 

[MrGenius]

Ti with some liquid metal TIM applied.

 

[aznever]

Vega is only 17 days away, I would wait and see what it has to offer. It may even force Nvidia to drop prices.

 

[Caring1]

Ti just for looks and collectability.
I would love to have a full set of reference Nvidia cards from the first version.

 

[Melvis]

Good point - 1080p 144Hz refresh. I've edited my OP to show this.

Ok well id go with the 1080 non Ti I guess for that res? unless your planning on upgrading soon in the future?

 

[cdawall]

1080 is a midrange card with a high dollar price. I would get a Ti any day and every day.

 

[RejZoR]

The gap between vanilla GTX 1080 and Ti one is quite big one. But considering you're aiming at 1080p 144Hz, I think you should be fine with vanilla GTX 1080 and save 100 pounds. Which is what I'm also aiming with my next upgrade, be it GTX 1080 or RX Vega. Or wait for Volta. Not exactly sure yet, but I'd really like to grab RX Vega because of novelty factor. GTX 980 that I have is still alright for the most part, but I'm seeing it's slowly starting to hiccup as far as performance goes. Not sure why, but Killing Floor 2 can't be played at Ultra anymore. Which is odd and I'm suspecting it's an issue rather than a lack of raw performance by the card (since other games still run as fast as before).

 

[infrared]

Tricky one. It's 18% more expensive for the TI so considering the zotac would be faster than a generic 1080 already, the performance/£ is probably about the same for both. I like MrGenius' idea of liquid metal on the FE.. Although (as you know ) you'd have to be extrememly careful, insulate all the smd components around the die first.

And might be worth waiting a little bit for Vega to emerge first, that's what I'm doing before making this choice myself

 

[P4-630]

This one:

£674.91

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MSI-GeFor...096157?hash=item36171e4e9d:g:jT4AAOSwrhBZAo1E

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Ti. Because buying a 1080 makes very little sense when any good half decent 1070 can OC within a fraction of stock 1080 performance.

I want a Ti too but prices are just too damn high.

 

[jboydgolfer]

Here
&
Here

are Sub-$700 ti 's. that arent Founders.

 

[BiggieShady]

If you use the gpu until it's dead, then go for the Ti but aftermarket model ... gotta look at it as an long(ish) term investment

 

[AsRock]

Vega is only 17 days away, I would wait and see what it has to offer. It may even force Nvidia to drop prices.

This^, other wise the Ti, you can always change the cooler at a later time if need be.

 

[qubit]

Interesting, I see that most people would take the better GPU, even though it's got the inferior cooler. There's no right or wrong here, so fair enough.

Normally, I'd go for the top GPU too, but I really don't like to spend much more than £500 on a graphics card, especially as they tend to get replaced relatively frequently, so £650 for a Ti with the crap cooler isn't a good buy for me. There's a Ti version of my card too, but at over £800 it's not worth it for me, either. TPU REVIEW.

By the way, the only brand that I saw this cheap is Inno3D. All the others are at least £20 more and usually over £700, which I definitely wouldn't spend.

Vega is only 17 days away, I would wait and see what it has to offer. It may even force Nvidia to drop prices.

That's a good point. I think the reason why we're seeing 1080 Tis this cheap in the first place could be due to the impending Vega launch.

@Caring1 I get where you're coming from, as I like to collect them too.

Ok well id go with the 1080 non Ti I guess for that res? unless your planning on upgrading soon in the future?

If you use the gpu until it's dead, then go for the Ti but aftermarket model ... gotta look at it as an long(ish) term investment

I would probably upgrade next year yes, but not straight away. I'd wanna get a better CPU and 4K monitor at the same time, which all together costs a lot of money.

@jboydgolfer Unfortunately that's an American site.

@P4-630 Now that's just porn. Stoppit!

 

[dorsetknob]

Vega Release will be a Kick in the graphics Supply chain Nuts
two things will happen ( if its not just a paper launch)
If its good enough it will sell like hot cakes in an Eskimo village and drive nvidia prices down
If its not quite up to par it will still take some sales from nvidia and they will drop price's

if you can bare the wait --- see what happens in the post Vega market

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I mean if Vega is good bang for buck, I dont mind going AMD again either.... Just not crossfire this time

 

[qubit]

if you can bare the wait --- see what happens in the post Vega market

It's all true, but I've already bought the card. While I could still return it and see what comes out soon, I really can't be bothered lol

 

[FreedomEclipse]

It's all true, but I've already bought the card. While I could still return it and see what comes out soon, I really can't be bothered lol

Then why make a thread about it....???

You ask peoples opinions but you've already made your decision and acted upon it?????

Why waste everyones time??

 

[RejZoR]

I think biggest challenge for RX Vega will be how it'll handle lower resolutions, which 1080p certainly is. R9 Fury X was great for higher resolutions, but didn't use all its potential for 1080p. I wonder if they addressed this for RX Vega. If not, it's quite possible I'll be forced to go with NVIDIA once again. I don't care about 4K, but I do care about very high framerate to utilize full potential of 144Hz screen. Something companies need to recognize and something NVIDIA has an edge at with narrower pipeline with higher speed opposed to wide rendering pipeline and lower speeds on Radeons...

EDIT:
Ugh, so you already bought it? Why the question then?

 

[qubit]

I think biggest challenge for RX Vega will be how it'll handle lower resolutions, which 1080p certainly is. R9 Fury X was great for higher resolutions, but didn't use all its potential for 1080p. I wonder if they addressed this for RX Vega. If not, it's quite possible I'll be forced to go with NVIDIA once again. I don't care about 4K, but I do care about very high framerate to utilize full potential of 144Hz screen. Something companies need to recognize and something NVIDIA has an edge at with narrower pipeline with higher speed opposed to wide rendering pipeline and lower speeds on Radeons...

EDIT:
Ugh, so you already bought it? Why the question then?

You miss the point of the thread, so I don't think you understood my OP. There's no waste of time here.

I've already bought the card and clearly explained why I chose it in my OP. I'm just curious how others would choose as it makes for a nice talking point.

@RejZoR Looks like you missed the point too.

 

[P4-630]

In that case I see no point in this thread.....

 

[jboydgolfer]

I can't speak for the newer reference design coolers, but from the nine series my reference 970 outperforms most aftermarket shroud temperatures I've seen not including water of course.

I suppose Id always go for the more powerful GPU chip because you can always upgrade the cooling but there's no way in hell aside from buying a new video card that you're going to upgrade the chip. And as for the ref cooler cooling perf, ime its perfectly fine, and keep in mind that even if the reference cooler card is running at 70 Celsius it's still going to outperform the aftermarket card that's running 55 or 60 Celsius, i dot lose any sleep if my GPU is not as cool as the next guys