Which 1080ti to buy for custom water loop

clayton006

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 4, 2005
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So I'm at a point of indecision. I sold off my air cooled 1080's for a decent amount and I'm looking to put two cards back in my system on a custom loop.

I was thinking of ordering the EVGA 1080Ti FTW3 cards and buying EK's block for them, but I realized that I almost never get a decent overclock because of SLI. I wonder if going with EVGA FE's is a better route? I've bought about a dozen cards with them and always liked their customer service. Since I'm putting them in a custom loop with dual pumps and plenty of radiator space I'm sure that cooling won't be an issue.

And, I can pick up two FE 1080ti cards today with blocks. Not a big deal but it would be nice.

Thoughts?
 
From what i've seem there's almost no gaming difference between the FE and the non versions. Benchmarks seem to be a 1000 bump. The only differences seems to be the temperatures. With that being said, just get a FE and a waterblock for it.
 
From what i've seem there's almost no gaming difference between the FE and the non versions. Benchmarks seem to be a 1000 bump. The only differences seems to be the temperatures. With that being said, just get a FE and a waterblock for it.
That's what I was thinking. I mean, if I had better luck overclocking any cards in SLI and thought I needed more power phases for it then I'd spend the extra $70 per card and buy the FTW3 cards. This saves me enough to buy one waterblock!
 
Another vote for just getting an FE ti. You will very likely get the same OC results, so you might as well save the money.

I don't know if you're near a microcenter, but the one near me has the Asus FE for 40 dollars less than the others.
 
Something else to add:
You can crossflash the BIOS from another card onto the FE while still having maximum compatibility with the available water blocks. It sounds like people are getting good results with the STRIX OC BIOS over at Overclock.net.
 
Another vote for just getting an FE ti. You will very likely get the same OC results, so you might as well save the money.

I don't know if you're near a microcenter, but the one near me has the Asus FE for 40 dollars less than the others.
I'll have to take a look and see if they have any of the Asus cards. I normally stick with EVGA because they don't mind if you pull the stock cooler off, but I may investigate.
 
EVGA FE as you can change the block without 'em crying about it.

OC gains are pretty good when it's cooled adequately, will make more difference than getting one that might be very slightly binned. It's the cooling that generally makes them faster and you're solving that anyway. None of the non-oem ones are clocked to a level you can't get to normally anyway and it's always going to be a crapshoot over whether you would have gotten a few extra MHz with a binned one. No one buys enough to be able to say for sure.

This might be my post purchase rationalisation as it's exactly what I did, for the reasons stated.
 
The 1080 ti aorus cards are priced a lot closer to the founder cards and you get 10 + 2 vrm it also has an incredible air cooler on it. I just got mine last week and I love it!! Ek is releasing a block for itn, we are supposed to hear more about it soon.
 
The 1080 ti aorus cards are priced a lot closer to the founder cards and you get 10 + 2 vrm it also has an incredible air cooler on it. I just got mine last week and I love it!! Ek is releasing a block for itn, we are supposed to hear more about it soon.
The Aorus series seems to be getting some bad impressions when it comes to stability, though. Some are not even able to operate in Silent mode without crashing. Those extra power components count for nothing in the end.
 
Hmm that's odd no problem's so far with the aorus ti for m
I did say "some." It seems the Aorus comes with a bad chip lottery.
That's a sexy water block. The Phanteks that just came out is pretty sexy, too.

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That's a sexy water block. The Phanteks that just came out is pretty sexy, too.

View attachment 25064[/QUOTE]

Holy crap!
 

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I went with founders edition, shunt mod, and waterblock. To be honest, I would go that way again, my experience is that overclocking on these cards hits diminishing returns quickly. Everything I have read points to the overclocking results being more attributable to silicon lottery than the fancier pcbs for the 1080 ti.
 
The EK 1080 TI waterblock comes with a single slot bracket, unlike the compatible EK pascal titan x waterblock. The heatkiller one looks great.

Has anyone used the aquacomputer blocks with the active backplates? https://shop.aquacomputer.de/produc...=3463&XTCsid=lpa8r2cct2nh51vehjsfk9rn9ur31ota

Curious if the active cooling on the backplate makes a difference, as it remains pretty warm with the ek backplate.
 
More power phases on the ftw card can make a difference in overclocking and sustaining your clocks.

From my experiance with thr 1080 fe and custom cards from zotac amped edition,evga ftw and evga classified is that your clocks will dance rapidly up and down with thr small fe cards.. yet stable with custom cards with larger power delivery.

I've used 4 1080 fe cards from pny and evga.

Stable clocks with non fe cards.. as in what you set it at it will hold.. till hest comes into play and it lowers the clock.

Water cooling takes care of that though.. though no idea if the clocks bounce up and down on water cooling fe cards or not.

Also more phases mean less heat in that area.

Though with all that said.. silicon lottery will factor in hard no matter what card you choose!!

Ive been though over a dozen 1080 cards before i got 2 simular cards.

So no easy answer.. its all a crap shoot in the end.

Though i was smart to trst ea card out on air before slapping water on them.

Buying locally at micro centet surely helped a ton haha
 
I went with two EVGA FE cards with EK blocks. The single slot bracket is nice.

My clocks don't dance around too much. Only in stress testing they waiver from 2050mhz. So far so good!
 
I went with two EVGA FE cards with EK blocks. The single slot bracket is nice.

My clocks don't dance around too much. Only in stress testing they waiver from 2050mhz. So far so good!

Wouldnt dance if it was cards other then fe.. but really.. 100-200mhz either way wont be noticable in anything other then benches anyways. ;) enjoy!
 
Sweet just what i was looking for.

I think ill pull the trigger on 1080ti fe and xspc block. Wish i could get my hands on aquvacomputer waterblock those are sexy af. No longer sold in Aus :(
 
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