Which GTX 1080 Ti to get

[Borscht4eVR]

I'm debating getting a GTX 1080 Ti as I'm hoping to get into 4K headsets in the future as they become more available (that, plus Rift isn't gonna suffer performace because of it either, lol). But being a newbie to VR, I'm a little confused as to why there are so many flavors of this card.

What would be a recommended card for the below hardware? I just want a good balance between the price and the performance.
MoBo: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI
Ram: 32 GB
Processor: Intel Core i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz (4-core 8 logical processors)
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
USB: 3.0 (x4)
Power Supply: Antec 750 W HCG-750M

[RuneSR2]

I think this one is the most silent you can get - and it should match your mobo perfectly for optimal compatibility:





https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_1080_Ti_Xtreme_Gaming/

And it's extremely fast too:



BTW, the noise, simply awesome 😉

[Anonymous]

Tbh in terms of performance there isn't really a great deal of difference between them as far as I'm aware. This is coming from a 1080 owner but I would imagine the same can be said for the Ti cards too.

The only two differences are the fans and factory overclocks. And as far as overclocking goes for the 1080 cards the vast majority of them overclock to a maximum of 2050MHz.

With my 1080 I just went for the cheapest I could find and suggest you do the same.

[Sneakygloworm]

Snowdog's right. Nvidia do the reference design for the chips, etc. Third party companies have to stick to the nvidia template and build their version of the card according to nvidia's chipset. Some will offer factory overclock which will benefit you if you're worried about bricking it. Others will offer fancy designs (rgb lighting) and quiet fans or all three at once. But in reality, get a standard 1080ti from a reputable company and you're good to go.

[Borscht4eVR]

Sneakygloworm said:

Some will offer factory overclock which will benefit you if you're worried about bricking it

As in if I tried to overclock it myself instead?
I built computers before, but I never got into overclocking cause I mostly did video rendering (no gaming), and didn't have the need for benefits that overclocking provided. All of my builds came down to simple assembly.
So when I first read your response I thought you were referring to bricking the card cause it's not overclocked. But as I'm writing this I'm starting to realize you probably meant worried about bricking the card if I did the overclocking myself 🙂

[RuneSR2]

sdaehria said:

Sneakygloworm said:

Some will offer factory overclock which will benefit you if you're worried about bricking it

As in if I tried to overclock it myself instead?
I built computers before, but I never got into overclocking cause I mostly did video rendering (no gaming), and didn't have the need for benefits that overclocking provided. All of my builds came down to simple assembly.
So when I first read your response I thought you were referring to bricking the card cause it's not overclocked. But as I'm writing this I'm starting to realize you probably meant worried about bricking the card if I did the overclocking myself 🙂

All 1080 Ti GPUs are more or less the same - you can always just buy the cheapest and see if you're a winner in the silicon lottery. Buying a factory overclocked card just guarantees you a higher speed than normal, and maybe you can overclock even more due to great cooling (my own GTX 1080 is overclocked way beyond MSI's factory overclocking). Buying the cheapest non-overclocked card does not guarantee any success in overclocking, and the cheapest cards may use more noisy and less effective cooling. But of course it's completely up to your preferences, and maybe you can find quite awesome cards with custom cooling that don't cost (much) more than cards using similar cooling as Nvidia's reference design. 

[TomCgcmfc · Accepted solution]

My Zotac 1080ti blower (basically FE) works great and was the most inexpensive one I could find down-under.

[Digikid1]

MSI has the best and most silent coolers. I would check out the MSI Gaming X series. Dead silent and cool.