Can you recommend me my first Nvidia in 20 years RTX 2080

[Illuminist]

Hello people, just about to join the green side for the first time in 20 years, sold my radeon 7 to get a 2080, can you lovely people recommend what is the best one to get from these :-

evga black
evga xc ultra
gainward triple fan thing
Asus Dual OC
Msi Sea hawk X
Inno 3d Gaming Oc
Gigabyte windforce
Zotac AMP Extreme

they are all around the same price ish but are any of those no goes, or go to's I have heard evga is worth it for the service, but which card has the highest pwer limit, is the coolest and quietest combined.
Ideally I would like to water block it one day so whichever one can have the highests power limit or is bios moddable, I like tinkering!
Failing that just the best out the box performance

Thank you for any help you can give before I return to the green

 

[Illuminist]

You base it on warranty because trust me the fan or memory will fail my Zotac failed within 2.5yrs. The only decent people out there who back thier chinese products are Gigabyte (4yr) and Zotac (2yr 5 if reg within 28days) and EVGA apparantly have a 10yr warranty. I would look into this first but if true EVGA all the way.


I only wish i could get a ten year warranty... And do NOT use Paypal either all paypal purchases lose protection after 180days. Pay with Mastercard or Visa thats my advice.

Thank you for that, but which card is good? I only plan to keep the card for a year. So as long as they all have 1 year warranty i'm okay with that.
Which is the fastest/quietest/best cooling/highest power limit as I asked?

 

[Illuminist]

If someone opened up a bag with those mentioned cards in, and said you can take 1 , which would you grab?

 

[Illuminist]

Slow down boy,
I know you just sold your v7, but the rtx2080 isn't the full chip, so hold off a little just to see if Nvidia release the full chip for the superbs/ prices may change.

Hello Davedree

The only reason is that there is 10% off sitewide somewhere for today only and combine that with not having a graphics card at all for 3/4 weeks , i would crack and rock in the corner of my garden with plant pots on my head.

I know whats supposedly coming, but im commited, plus this same question will apply in the future also.

 

[Illuminist]

Thanks guys, I might buy one and then return it within the 28 days consumer do dah thingy then i get the best of both worlds, and if it doesnt happen as planned and prices dont drop e.t.c i will have a card
So zotac is a good bet?
Any of the others?

 

[Illuminist]

I'm a little confused. You sold an R7 to replace it with a card of the same power which you may not keep. Wouldn't it have been better to keep the R7 until whatever you're waiting for? I'm sure it would have been more cost effective/less hassle.

More power, and I want to see ray tracing for myself, then next year it will be a 2nd gen turing.

I am contemplating getting a 2080 ti asus dual OC in this occasion also, but not sure although it is £750

 

[Illuminist]

If you buy EVGA you may be able to upgrade program it to the 2000 super series when that comes out (though you can only upgrade to their bottom version so likely a dual slot XC Black).

Also it's a paltry 20-30 euros or something to extend to 5 year warranty with them (I did so with my 1080ti ftw3 hybrid despite being unlikely to keep it that long).

A good point in the upgrade program at evga, thanks for reminding me!

 

[Illuminist]

Fair enough, I'd just heard that the two cards traded blows. Whatever you get make it has a good warranty

Thank you my friend, I will do this

 

[Illuminist]

Hey I would have kept the VII than get a RTX 2080 fella, same speed in games and only 8G of Vram on the rtx2080. raytracing and DLS isn't all that anyway. A step up would be wait for 2080 super, but if your desperate then EVGA would be a good choice for warranty
and the fact they don't mind if you fit a water block which I presume you will want to. As the saying goes the grass isn't greener on the green side unless you go 2080 super or 2080ti

I'd just had enough dissapointment from amd, i was hanging on to their products as an upgrade path and to support them but after the recent navi announcement that was the last time i pin hope on them. fury x , vega, radeon 7 , navi all too expensive and underpowered.
The 2080 is overall faster than the R7 and I just want to see what raytracing e.t.c is like for a year before I upgrade to something like rtx 3000 series or if AMD get their act together in 2020 i will pop back over , but brand loyalty is gone for me now, I will just buy what i feel comfortable with in the power to price point.

If the super 2080 is better and the same price as the 2080's now then I will return my new gpu and get one, its no biggy, I have 28 days consumer return rights

 

[Illuminist]

I feel your pain, was hopeing Navi would be a big leap forward with all the speculation surrounding it. Just goes to show how the hype train builds up hope. I just hope ryzen 3000 proves its self to be the big intel killer. but back to 2080's I would go with EVGA for the warranty and ability to fit a water block.

Yep, the bubble burst, I've been loyal to them since good knows when, 20 years...

Thanks for the advice, is there any particular model of evga you'd recommend over others?

 

[Illuminist]

As mentioned you would want an A chip variant, better overclocking head room I believe, but I have no idea which card uses the A chip. perhaps an owner in the 2080 owners thread can help there.

I can look them up on techpowerup its relatively simple, I think anything above the black (although there are two types of black edition one a and one not)
So the xc, xc ultra upwards are all A chip.

how much do you have to spend? I would get the 2080ti XC Ultra which is available for £1099 at the moment. But if you deffo want a 2080 then the XC ultra version is £709 on OCUK

£650 was my limit really, I saw a £750 brand new 2080ti elsewhere on the internet for a gigabyte gaming oc 2080 ti but that was with a 10% discount that ran out last night

I did spy the palit game rock which is an A chip with custom pcb and 10+2 Vrms.. are they any good, Pny and Palit are companies I don't know much about as like mobile phone people only go for the well known brands whether they are better or not like asus , gigabyte ,evga e.t.c as they are more well known.

 

[Illuminist]

Chances are it will be the same price. NV are OOS now on both the 2070 and 2080 (FE cards - UK site) so these probably will soon be superseded at likely the same price point.
Just wait a month rather than using the 28 day consumer protection thing. That doesn't come without cost somewhere along the line and is meant for protection really, not to get free use of somethign for 28 days

Protecting me from spending too much for a card that costs too much in the first place

 

[Illuminist]

@Illuminist are you going to water cool the 2080?

I'm not sure tbh, I only plan to keep it for 1 year until the 7nm nvidia, Intel Xe or navi big boy 20s come out next year and offer something spectacular. I will want something lovely to play Cyberpunk 2077 and bloodlines 2 on with raytracing working much better i imagine.

 

[Illuminist]

I'm actually exited to get an nvidia, i think i might be ill or something............

 

[Illuminist]

Good point, you will need to purchase a card they do a water block for, these 2080's like to throttle back when they get hot for sure.

I will do some research into that for sure, in case I need/want to go that route at some point, it will apply to the supers i guess also.

 

[Illuminist]

One thing I will say about Nvidia, their colours are "different". I won't say worse but I prefer the output of AMD cards.

Waaaittt , what ?! lol , is this the thing i read that the rgb settings sometimes get set to 50% in windows display preferences by default, and you have to go and change it manually to 16:16:16 Rbg or whatever it is
Or do you mean the graphics just have a different look to them?
I remember that nvidia graphics looked a bit more cartoony, way back 10 years ago and AMD looked a bit more gritty and realistic in games, is that what you mean?

 

[Illuminist]

If they change the PCB on the supers it could mean a wait time for blocks to become available I guess. if you decide to leave it air cooled I would go for one with the best air cooler to save thermal throttle.

Any ideas on which ones on my list are good air coolers?

 

[Illuminist]

Have a look how thicc the XC Ultra cooler is mate
https://youtu.be/_2W0zNBTuPE

Yeah I understand what you are saying, geez I havent had this much choice before with Amd cards its just a handful of the usual suspects, sapphire, powercolor e.t.c and jsut a couple of variants, im literally overwhelmed with choices...... thanks for the help though guys

 

[Illuminist]

You'll be amazed at the difference

In what ways? Tell me tell me!

 

[Illuminist]

Have to agree here, the VII just looked that bit better to my eyes.




dual larger fans could move more air than smaller triple fans

I hope i dont notice any difference, if i do i will have to poke my eyes until it blurs enough to not see them