What's The Very Best GTX 1080 ti to get?

[Carsomyr]

I'd like to know what is the absolute best non reference GTX 1080 ti to buy?
ON AIR?
cooled with custom water loop?

Should I go for all in one solution (like asus poseidon or zotac cards) that already come with a waterblock attached... Are these cards known to use good thermal paste and coverage or am I better off getting a straight up reference card and getting a block seperatly? If so, which block would be best?

PLEASE CONSIDER this:

• I run a custom water loop with colored liquid in it (but it runs 24/7 therefore reducing the chance of buildup in the tight places)
  
• My color Scheme (which is highly important to me) is White/Black/Green)

 

[Toothless]

I heard the founders was pretty good under water.

 

[MrGenius]

Choose your favorite brand. Buy the most expensive one they make.

 

[RejZoR]

AORUS, MSI GamingX, ASUS Strix and lets say also Inno3D iChill X4 because of over-engineered cooling. I'd recommend ZOTAC AMP+ Extreme, but they screwed up the VRM cooling design and also fan profiles, so it's a no-no. The rest like Palit, KFA and stuff, I don't know, I just don't have the confidence in them because they tend to screw up things like ZOTAC did. It rarely or pretty much never happens with first mentioned brands...

 

[ixi]

AORUS, MSI GamingX, ASUS Strix and lets say also Inno3D iChill X4 because of over-engineered cooling. I'd recommend ZOTAC AMP+ Extreme, but they screwed up the VRM cooling design and also fan profiles, so it's a no-no. The rest like Palit, KFA and stuff, I don't know, I just don't have the confidence in them because they tend to screw up things like ZOTAC did. It rarely or pretty much never happens with first mentioned brands...

How did ZOTAC screw up, when? I'M I my self would say MSI or ASUS if you want liquid edition cooling. Gigabyte can plug thrm selfes up.

 

[Carsomyr]

How did ZOTAC screw up, when? I'M I my self would say MSI or ASUS if you want liquid edition cooling. Gigabyte can plug thrm selfes up.

u mean the seahawk from msi and the poseidon from asus?
and the aorus waterforce?

 

[ixi]

u mean the seahawk from msi and the poseidon from asus?
and the aorus waterforce?

Which are coming out of facfory - yes,otherwise buy reference and buy your self liquid cooling kit and slam it on GPU.

 

[qubit]

How did ZOTAC screw up, when? I'M I my self would say MSI or ASUS if you want liquid edition cooling. Gigabyte can plug thrm selfes up.

This and the hot VRMs. I've got the 1080, but it looks like the 1080 Ti isn't much better.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...sive-zotac-gtx-1080-amp-extreme-cards.233102/

 

[RejZoR]

How did ZOTAC screw up, when? I'M I my self would say MSI or ASUS if you want liquid edition cooling. Gigabyte can plug thrm selfes up.

While AORUS is essentially Gigabyte, the cooler design is absolutely superb. Excellent fan curve, excellent VRM cooling design and the backplate is actually functional as it has thermal pads that actually contact components, allowing heat to be removed by backplate as well. I hate it when backplate is there just for decoration when it could help cooling. It's also one of reasons why I've gone with AORUS. But like I've said, MSI and ASUS also have proven designs that are also excellent.

ZOTAC looked awesome as well until I realized they screwed up VRM cooling and fan curve through research of reviews and examining disassembled images of the cards.

 

[flmatter]

@RejZoR is yours the non extreme version? I have been kicking around the Aorus Extreme for a month or 2. Waiting for my new gaming laptop to show up..... working on wifes van and building out an AR, figured I would upgrade my 1070FE to something a bit more.

Back on topic, Aorus, Asus Strix or MSI.....

 

[Eric3988]

No love for EVGA and their life time warranties?

 

[Carsomyr]

What are your thoughts on the AORUS WATERFORCE? (water)
You guys are confusing that one with the aorus xtreme edition. (air)

 

[Vayra86]

MSI TwinFrozR or bust

That is all

EVGA I would avoid. They have a habit of fucking up cooling solutions, since Kepler they've had two bad designs already, and the last bad design was on Pascal's 1080. They even completely redesigned the shroud to make us forget that as fast as possible go figure. And the only perk is the solid warranty, EVGAs are never the coolest or the most silent cards. For perspective: I had a (lower TDP) GTX 1070 EVGA FTW and it was noisier than my current MSI TwinFrozR GTX 1080, with the latter having a higher TDP. The EVGA would also have an annoying fan profile where you could hear fans revving up all the time, the MSI you just don't hear at all below 50% fan speed.

Note that Asus is also not free of troubles and weird segmentation; not only through the 'Asus premium' (everything with Strix/ROG on it is heavily overpriced) but also through reusing shrouds that arent a perfect fit, and locking down overclocking to only the priciest of models. Gigabyte: it works, and they are going the MSI route now, producing ever better cooling solutions, but the Windforce 3X was horribly loud for its performance before that (they kept that way too long and needed to rebrand to Aorus to regain market share). MSI's last real fuckup was the GTX 660ti Power Edition, which they gave too much juice (more than Nvidia would allow) to win benchmarks. After that, they became top dog fast.

Another real contender IMO is the Palit/Gainward Phoenix GLH/SuperJetStream. Identical coolers, great VRM temps, good noise profile, just a less familiar brand - which reflects in its price (thats a good thing obv).

 

[flmatter]

no not confusing the waterforce vs extreme auros extreme has high clocks out of box next to the zotac amp extreme but I am sure under water it would oc higher. if you are going for air cooled then the aorus, srtix or twinfrozr. If you are going for a custom water loop then the same and put it under water.

 

[Vayra86]

Clocks are irrelevant all of Pascal clocks similar and binned catds are rare, zero guarantees and it never pays off in noticeably higher clock.

All that matters is temperature due to the nature of gpu boost 3.0

 

[RejZoR]

@RejZoR is yours the non extreme version? I have been kicking around the Aorus Extreme for a month or 2. Waiting for my new gaming laptop to show up..... working on wifes van and building out an AR, figured I would upgrade my 1070FE to something a bit more.

Back on topic, Aorus, Asus Strix or MSI.....

Yeah, I have a regular "non-Xtreme" version. The cooling is the same, the only difference were the out of the box clocks. Which, I'm sure non Xtreme version can achieve as well. So, no point in wasting money on that.

I need to figure out overclocking on Pascal anyway. No matter what I do, I'm getting "Vrel" status which is preventing me from clocking it higher. Tried increasing voltage, power limits and all and I keep on getting that. Oh well, I'll eventually figure it out. For now, the clock I'm getting in OC Mode at 1950 MHz (actual effective clock in games) is already as awesome as I currently want it. When it'll be at its EOL, I might push it higher.

 

[Vayra86]

Yeah, I have a regular "non-Xtreme" version. The cooling is the same, the only difference were the out of the box clocks. Which, I'm sure non Xtreme version can achieve as well. So, no point in wasting money on that.

I need to figure out overclocking on Pascal anyway. No matter what I do, I'm getting "Vrel" status which is preventing me from clocking it higher. Tried increasing voltage, power limits and all and I keep on getting that. Oh well, I'll eventually figure it out. For now, the clock I'm getting in OC Mode at 1950 MHz (actual effective clock in games) is already as awesome as I currently want it. When it'll be at its EOL, I might push it higher.

Vrel is a boost limitation perfcap; you may very well still be able to push the core clock OC further. Vrel is mostly attributed to GPU boost 3.0 on pascal; every 5 C in temps will cost boost bins. When Pascal drops a boost bin because of temps, you will see Vrel, which in practice means you'll always be seeing it.

 

[Athlon2K15]

I have a Ti Founders on full cover block and its fantastic.

 

[Sasqui]

MSI GamingX

I've had two MSI gtx 1060 Gaming cards, one was faulty (a fluke, I guess). In any case, the heatsink is MASSIVE. Also silent and rather cool looking with LED lights. Compare with a ASUS gtx 1070 DUAL at about 1/2 the weight, the ASUS card was about the same noise and nice boost levels. But felt cheap just because it was light. Beautiful PCB tho

 

[Vellinious]

To keep on air? Find the one with the best cooling solution and run with it. On air, there is no "best" GPU. It's just "best" cooling.

 

[Rehmanpa]

Buy the cheapest 1080 ti you can get and put a waterblock on it. Other wise the asus strix is pretty good, and the evga ftw 3 is too I think.

 

[eidairaman1]

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti PGF Edition Graphics

Or INNO3D,

PNY

 

[thebluebumblebee]

I'm not a big fan of pointing to other sites/channels, but look at Jay's experience with the ASUS GTX1080Ti Poseidon: