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I bought an RTX 3080 for 1080p gaming!

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24 Sep 2020
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293
Call me stupid! Haha. Seriously though, is anyone else doing this?

My reasons and cool things about this decision (some of which I wouldn't have known at the time I ordered)

1) 3080 has more vram, and faster vram than 3070 and has about 50% more processing power so should last longer. I would guess 2-3 years more.
2) I have four 1080p screens and would like to play some titles on all 4 (particularly flight sims). This is same number of pixels as 4k. I recently bought them and so have no intention of upgrading for years. Anyhow, 1080p is about all my old eyes can see. Haha.
3) 3080 came with watchdogs which is £60 value (a game I wanted anyway). This makes the difference between the £650 I paid for Ventus 3080 and the 3070 Ventus (£570) only £20.
4) I don't intend to upgrade this GPU for many years. So I wanted the most powerful I could get within my budget (3090 is not good value IMHO)
5) I have a huge backlog of older games to finish so when this card is too slow for new games, I still have stuff to play.

Anyone else have any reasons (for and against) for buying a 3080 for 1080p? Interested to hear your thoughts. Flame me if you wish. Haha.
 
IMO it is a personal thing - what is sensible with your personal finances and needs/desires - I often ran higher end multi-GPU setups back in the day despite running displays slightly behind resolution wise for gaming like 1680x1050 when everyone was jumping on 1920x1080, etc. but that was largely for high framerate/high refresh gaming purposes.
 
IMO it is a personal thing - what is sensible with your personal finances and needs/desires - I often ran higher end multi-GPU setups back in the day despite running displays slightly behind resolution wise for gaming like 1680x1050 when everyone was jumping on 1920x1080, etc. but that was largely for high framerate/high refresh gaming purposes.
Yes, stuttering drives me crazy. I prefer smoothness over resolution. Thats another good reason! No doubt a higher res screen looks better but it really breaks the immersion if it stutters. Shouldn't be a problem for the 3070 now at 1080p but give it a few years and it will be.
 
I am doing the same thing as I only want to upgrade my PC to play raytraced games on max settings at a smooth >60 fps. No other GPU bar the 3090 is as good in demanding RTX titles.

Really looking forward to Cyberpunk especially but I have Control, Metro Exodus and BFV campaign waiting to play as well. Sadly my 3080 is due to arrive mid December but my Ryzen 5800x won't be here before late January :(
 
Up to the user and circumstance. Most cases now 1080p=1440p in terms of performance due to bottle necks or very close to. However the graphical differences are quite large.

3x 1080p screens will be a doddle for the 3080 at 60fps.

Chances are the 3080 could do 3x1440p screens at 60hz. Probably worth testing with DSR which will give you a similar result and probably a free resolution bump.
 
I am doing the same thing as I only want to upgrade my PC to play raytraced games on max settings at a smooth >60 fps. No other GPU bar the 3090 is as good in demanding RTX titles.

Really looking forward to Cyberpunk especially but I have Control, Metro Exodus and BFV campaign waiting to play as well. Sadly my 3080 is due to arrive mid December but my Ryzen 5800x won't be here before late January :(
Good point yes. RT is still in its infancy so definitely lower resolutions are required to get high framerates. Not many games support it, but that will change. I also can't wait for cyberpunk
 
I do too, I run it on a 55 inch HD Sony TV which has low latency, now I am a big WarThunder fan and my game was flashing on some surfaces indication I was maxing out the two 970 stik OC's I was using, and I have FS2020 now that is running in ultra on most but isn't smooth, so logic says go for the best card about now, then if I want to upgrade the rest later the graphics will be good for a few years.. (I7 6800K with a X99-a11 board and 32 of ram.) I have even considered a chip change to a 10 core 6950X but in FS I would not see any difference. the other option is a 17 9 series or even an I9.
 
I take it you're running a 120-144hz screen or something?
That would be the ideal use case, but nope. 60fps. My monitors are for video / photo editing. I chose them for colour accuracy over refresh rate. The GPU will also come in handy for that video rendering.

I don't play first person shooters much so don't think I need higher than 60fps. I prefer racing games, flight sims, real time strategies, role playing games etc. I want all settings on max including ray tracing where possible. Having flight simulator 2020 or xplane on three 1080p screens is hard work for any GPU.
 
Call me stupid! Haha. Seriously though, is anyone else doing this?

My reasons and cool things about this decision (some of which I wouldn't have known at the time I ordered)

1) 3080 has more vram, and faster vram than 3070 and has about 50% more processing power so should last longer. I would guess 2-3 years more.
2) I have four 1080p screens and would like to play some titles on all 4 (particularly flight sims). This is same number of pixels as 4k. I recently bought them and so have no intention of upgrading for years. Anyhow, 1080p is about all my old eyes can see. Haha.
3) 3080 came with watchdogs which is £60 value (a game I wanted anyway). This makes the difference between the £650 I paid for Ventus 3080 and the 3070 Ventus (£570) only £20.
4) I don't intend to upgrade this GPU for many years. So I wanted the most powerful I could get within my budget (3090 is not good value IMHO)
5) I have a huge backlog of older games to finish so when this card is too slow for new games, I still have stuff to play.

Anyone else have any reasons (for and against) for buying a 3080 for 1080p? Interested to hear your thoughts. Flame me if you wish. Haha.

Agree it's a personal decision, though I think you've made a big mistake.

You'd have a far better gaming experience buying a 4K TV and a PS5/Xbox series X. Your 'old eyes' would be able to see a huge difference between 1080 and 4k as long as you're looking at a screen 32" or larger.

Flight Sim 2020 is coming to the new Xbox as well, and will look absolutely beautiful on a big 4k screen, compared to your 4x1080P call centre setup.
 
Its a stupid decision, but each to their own. Should have bought a better monitor.
Chicken and egg, if he bought the better monitor he would need the better card to run it, so not stupid. either way he has the option to upgrade at a later date when and how his budget allows him. FS2020 struggles to get to 60 Frames per sec regardless of your set up, so on that game it is an advantage.
 
It's a good decision - you evaluated your own needs & judged accordingly rather than what the collective foolishness of the Internet propagates. Plus, in just 2 years the 3080 will become a mid-range card at best, so it's not like it's so overpowered that you're gonna beast every game for years and years, especially with ray tracing. Enjoy!
 
Agree it's a personal decision, though I think you've made a big mistake.

You'd have a far better gaming experience buying a 4K TV and a PS5/Xbox series X. Your 'old eyes' would be able to see a huge difference between 1080 and 4k as long as you're looking at a screen 32" or larger.

Flight Sim 2020 is coming to the new Xbox as well, and will look absolutely beautiful on a big 4k screen, compared to your 4x1080P call centre setup.
Fair point, but I have had consoles in the past and don't like them. I prefer keyboard and mouse. Another point is that we don't have a 4k TV.

Also, when it comes to flight sims, you can't compare a single screen in front of you to having 3 screens that wrap around you. When flying a plane you need to look left and right to see where runway and other traffic is. You can do so with a single screen by moving the view, but it's not the same. You lose some of the immersion. Having said that, FS2020 doesn't do surround view well at the moment, but Xplane does. With XPlane A 2080ti struggles to reach 50fps with three 1080p screens.

I get your points, and was fully expecting to have some responses saying I am stupid (I did ask for it after all!) But just pointing out that I think any less than a 3080 will not do what I want. For most games though, I do agree its a waste unless you have a high refresh rate monitor.
 
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