What 1080 Ti AIB card are you getting and why?

I

Island

Gawd
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Sep 28, 2005
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Times ticking down and getting close, and i'm getting excited :woot: I've always went with EVGA ,as I like their customer service and warranty offerings although I have never had to use it. I think there step up program is cool too, but don't see most people using it as it seems too little of time between upgrade eligibility.

That being said, I want to go with 2 FTW3's in SLI to replace my almost 2 year old 980 Ti's. They have served me well, but I cannot wait to upgrade. Hopefully SLI will still remain relevant for the next few years but we shall see. Would like to know what you guys want to go with? I see a lot of Asus Strix fanboys out there. Never had an Asus card or mobo for that matter.... Hope these AIB cards come out soon!
 
If asus didnt go 2.5 slot for the 1080ti, I'd probably be aiming to get that one, mainly for aura sync compatibility with my z270 board

But since I need 2 slot, my top choices if they were all available today are the EVGA FTW3, MSI Armor, and Zotac Amp Edition

Seeing as the wait time is likely to be longer for EVGA than any other AIB, and that EVGA is not sold in my country..I will likely go with MSI (their focus on keeping their cards quiet is a big plus for me too)
 
I'm holding off until next year, but I've been in love with the MSI Sea Hawk AIB. I can overclock the crap out of my 1080 and the fans never speed up even at max load and stays very cool. I wish it had more unnecessary flashy lights like other cards, but I'm okay that it doesn't.
 
MSI Gaming X, I had an MSI Gaming GTX 970 and GTX 980Ti and it served me well, card looks cool and not to loud at load and temps were average as well. I was interested in the Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme, until I heard it was a triple slot cooling card which turned me off. Do not like huge bulky cards that takes up too much space.
 
I'll most likely go for Asus or MSI for no other reason than those are the cards I've used in the past and been happy with
 
I'm not getting a Ti but if I was I would go with Gigabyte...I love their cooling plus they always have a nice backplate on their cards
 
asus 1080 ti strix and EK block most likely been happy with Asus ROG stuff for years

should work well on my new crosshair vi hero and 1800x and be better than 980 sli
 
bill_d said:
asus 1080 ti strix and EK block most likely been happy with Asus ROG stuff for years

should work well on my new crosshair vi hero and 1800x and be better than 980 sli
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If your gonna put the card under water, why spend the money on a strix card with the upgraded cooler if you are adding a water block? If you like Asus, just get an Asus FE card. I have a custom loop in my rig with XSPC fittings, but I never wanted to watercool the vid cards as I feel the AIB air cooler are good enough as well as I like the look of the fan shrouds with the LED logos...
 
EVGA SC since it looks like it's the only one that doesn't have a massive PCB/cooler that extends way beyond the mounting bracket (which as big as I can go for my HTPC).
 
Island said:
If your gonna put the card under water, why spend the money on a strix card with the upgraded cooler if you are adding a water block? If you like Asus, just get an Asus FE card. I have a custom loop in my rig with XSPC fittings, but I never wanted to watercool the vid cards as I feel the AIB air cooler are good enough as well as I like the look of the fan shrouds with the LED logos...
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The Strix card comes with an upgraded pcb in addition to the beefed up cooler. And the air cooler may be good enough, but you're still looking at a >20 degree delta in favour of a serious watercooled setup.

Personally I'm waiting for the MSi Sea Hawk X EK. Because I want to chicken out for once and have a watercooled gpu with the warranty intact.
 
Island said:
If your gonna put the card under water, why spend the money on a strix card with the upgraded cooler if you are adding a water block? If you like Asus, just get an Asus FE card. I have a custom loop in my rig with XSPC fittings, but I never wanted to watercool the vid cards as I feel the AIB air cooler are good enough as well as I like the look of the fan shrouds with the LED logos...
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way too many reference cards have coil whine and can't stand it on water .
makes my teeth itch


I never had any coil whine from my DC2's, strix's or Poseidon's
I still test them on air for a month

plus when i'm done with them I put the air coolers back on and give them to family members
 
i'm keen on an asus poseidon if they change up their black/red color scheme. i may splurge and go with a galax hof edition.
 
After seeing the results on my 1070FTW it really was a fluff card that I probably could have done just as well with a Zotac... I would like to give a Zotac Amp a go, or Gigabyte (Except they're fugly).
9953_zotac%20gtx%201080%20ti%20amp.jpg[img]
 
Not buying evga cards due to consistent problems coil whine issues etc etc. also usually poor cooling performance.
Going for Strix.
 
I can't decide, but price will likely play a part. Leaning toward MSI Gaming or another Zotac. My Zotac 980ti impressed me a lot, so I think they might actually be at the top of my list right now. Also worth noting that they tend to be a little cheaper than other brands.
 
I don't know....but i've always loved EVGA. I know they had issues with their vrms on the 1080's but i still like the company, and i've never had issues with my 980 Ti's. it's pretty much what you want with bling, cooling, etc. versus price. I really dont think the upgraded power phases and extra monitoring is really all that beneficial for the extra money you pay. but that's how it goes with new tech. I'm sure the FTW3 will be pushing north of 800$ and with tax and shipping, it's going to be closer to 850-900$. I'm also getting 2 cards for SLI. and....... I just bought a new HB bridge (I had the older led bridges for my 980 Ti's) So...when it's all said and done...the $$ just keeps adding up, but I still can't wait!!

BTW-Here's a video on Youtube on the new Asus strix cards for all you Strix fanboys :)


 
Sodapopjones said:
After seeing the results on my 1070FTW it really was a fluff card that I probably could have done just as well with a Zotac... I would like to give a Zotac Amp a go, or Gigabyte (Except they're fugly).
9953_zotac%20gtx%201080%20ti%20amp.jpg[img]
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I have a 1070 amp extreme thing never droops under 2ghz at stock and can never hear it temps top out at about 55
 
You guys that want to go EVGA seem to have short memories....
Quality with the brand has gone downhill around the SR-2 days... Before the 1080 vrm thermal pad problem their was the whole issue with them wanting Unwinder (maker of Riva Tuner and MSI Afterburner) to port features to their EVGA OC tool and not wanting to pay for the implementation of said features ( i.e contract that was had between the two said features were not covered). Let's not forget they changed the rules of their stepup program which now only covers upgrades to reference designs and not the custom PCB models. I'd choose any of the other custom PCB designs before I'd choose EVGA.
 
LBJM said:
You guys that want to go EVGA seem to have short memories....
Quality with the brand has gone downhill around the SR-2 days... Before the 1080 vrm thermal pad problem their was the whole issue with them wanting Unwinder (maker of Riva Tuner and MSI Afterburner) to port features to their EVGA OC tool and not wanting to pay for the implementation of said features ( i.e contract that was had between the two said features were not covered). Let's not forget they changed the rules of their stepup program which now only covers upgrades to reference designs and not the custom PCB models. I'd choose any of the other custom PCB designs before I'd choose EVGA.
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You seem to be forgetting they still have American speaking California based support/customer service. That is very important to alot of us. If you need to rma a card you will come to appreciate that very very quickly. To be I do not like how they changed their lifetime warranties a few years to three years but that's life. I usually don't keep a card past three years anyway.

As far as unwinder is concerned I am not privy to the details of his contract with Evga when he had one. Not my business. I will say years ago I chatted with him over on their forums and I found him to be a rude arrogant asshole. That was my experience with him. Take it for what it is worth.
 
MSI because Afterburner. Also never had an issue with one of their cards.
 
If I were getting 1080ti, I'd probably choose MSI Gaming X.

Reasons:

1. MSI is often the second cheapest, or joint second cheapest version of any GPU available where I live, often tied with EVGA and second only to Galax. Asus & Gigabyte are usually $60 or $30 more expensive respectively, if not more. (This is the other way round for US cards I think). This is actually an anomoly as the 3 companies are usually fairly close in prices, only Pascal did Asus and Gigabyte start jacking their prices.
2. MSI's local office is literally right above the mall I usually go to purchase these GPUs, it's even more accessible than Asus here, and it's pretty close too, so RMA is easy. Galax has no local office that I am aware of.

The combination of Price and RMA convenience usually are the deciding factors.
 
I picked up the gigabyte 1080 water force back in November and been pretty happy with it. Didn't have the issues other folks mentioned. I'm planning on picking up another to SLI in my main machine, and I will most likely pickup the TI version of it for my dedicated VR machine.
 
MSI, simply because I can transfer my AIO watercooler on it easiest because it has separate plate and heatsink for VRAM and VRM that stays on even if you remove the regular cooler.
 
Savoy said:
You seem to be forgetting they still have American speaking California based support/customer service. That is very important to alot of us. If you need to rma a card you will come to appreciate that very very quickly. To be I do not like how they changed their lifetime warranties a few years to three years but that's life. I usually don't keep a card past three years anyway.

As far as unwinder is concerned I am not privy to the details of his contract with Evga when he had one. Not my business. I will say years ago I chatted with him over on their forums and I found him to be a rude arrogant asshole. That was my experience with him. Take it for what it is worth.
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Asus has US based support till about 8pm central in Indiana, at for their motherboard they do.... I guess I can be happy I haven't had to RMA a video card since my 9800 pro.
 
The way pascal is designed I really don't see any advantage of one bran over she other. They all seem to overclock very similar and all cards tend to be fairly quiet. I have a zotac gtx 1080 mini. Runs 1950-2088 MHz with OC and never goes past 70c. Card is set up bump the speed to 80% fan speed after it hits 60c and damn I still can't hear it. I have no idea why they are making these monster coolers over two slots. I guess they are all trying to impress with bigger and better but most people here should be well informed that all those extra VRMs don't do nothing over reference design the way nvidia has pascal set up to overclock unless you rig it to push more power through the card.

I would recommend getting a brand you have had good experience with in the past. For me MSI has been the best but zotac was an off buy for me and I have been fairly impressed by the 1080 mini.
 
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misterbobby said:
Afterburner has nothing to do with what company your card is from.
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I know it works with all brands, but doesn't MSI fund and/or produce it?

I've tried tools from other companies and they were god awful and some didn't work. (Precision X for instance.)
 
Dayaks said:
I know it works with all brands, but doesn't MSI fund and/or produce it?

I've tried tools from other companies and they were god awful and some didn't work. (Precision X for instance.)
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Well your statement made it seem afterburner was the reason for your card choice. But if you are buying because of MSI is the one that makes afterburner and you appreciate their efforts and rewarding them, then it makes perfect sense. MSI tends to be favorite choice as well. I was looking for a 1080 mini by then but zotac was the only one I found and for 470 it just was sweeter deal on top as well. Now it's back up to 600 or so.
 
Pretty f'in lame....Been up since 6 AM waiting for the EVGA pre order launch and they just updated that there cards wont ship for almost 3 weeks! And the FTW3 won't ship till May 1st. So lame.....
 
Probably the Gigabyte G1 Gaming card with the windforce cooler. A 1080Ti with this cooler would be my 4th card from them with a nice factory OC.
 
Island said:
Pretty f'in lame....Been up since 6 AM waiting for the EVGA pre order launch and they just updated that there cards wont ship for almost 3 weeks! And the FTW3 won't ship till May 1st. So lame.....
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Wow. This launch is a bit strange with how long AIB cards are taking to release. I guess NV is doubling down on the FE stuff trying to make a a bit more money. I really hope this trend doesn't continue for future releases, but I bet it becomes the norm.
 
FINALLY!!!!! Got 2 EVGA FTW3's for 749$ each. Some kick ass deals if you are willing to Preorder and wait at least 3-4 more weeks. GOGOGOGOGO!!!
 
Island said:
FINALLY!!!!! Got 2 EVGA FTW3's for 749$ each. Some kick ass deals if you are willing to Preorder and wait at least 3-4 more weeks. GOGOGOGOGO!!!
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Actully that is about 5 weeks away before you will get your card since it wont even ship until May 1st.
 
misterbobby said:
Actully that is about 5 weeks away before you will get your card since it wont even ship until May 1st.
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Wow..thanks for clarifying that for me. Because of you I cancelled my pre-order =\

Seriously. An extra few days is no big deal...We've waited how long for the Ti's? And EVGA kicked in 3 days UPS ground for free....
 
Island said:
Wow..thanks for clarifying that for me. Because of you I cancelled my pre-order =\

Seriously. An extra few days is no big deal...We've waited how long for the Ti's? And EVGA kicked in 3 days UPS ground for free....
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Well I was just calling it what it really was which is 5 weeks not "3-4 more weeks". I personally do not want to wait that long and hoping either the MSI Gaming or Asus Strix comes on in the next week or so.
 
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