(EVGA) RTX 2080 Ti Black ($999) Review

[Emanbaird]

 

Spoiler

I'll update the review when i get home and check the stability of the OC 

I'm not going to bother posting detailed benchmark results because my tests are both skewed and i'm lazy

(OVERVIEW)

Between the reports of failing RTX cards and the arguable terrible value of these cards i definitely was a little iffy about upgrading from my trust GTX 1080.

But with new games coming out i have been barely able to achieve even 1440p@60fps, let alone 1440p 100+ in most new titles.

So I decided it was time to upgrade.

And _boy I am glad i did.

Being able to play higher end games at 1440p 100-144fps on highest settings is amazing.

(PERFORMANCE)

The main games i tried were Forza Horizon 4/ And Battle Field V. with both of these titles having SSAO and motion blur disabled i was able to get 120-150fps in forza ^{(this is due to having a 2700x GPU usage hovers around 80%)} 

And in BFV ^{(WITH RTX TURNED OFF)} I'm able to hold around 100fps in the highest settings. which I am more than happy with.

 

(OVERCLOCKING)

The one thing that stood out was how well this $999 card performed which is $200 less than the MSRP reference card mind you.

I was able to get 2010MHz Which is a 660MHz overclock from the base clock and 460MHz over the boost speed on the box.

This was NUTS because I've never had a card that overclocked this well, I've had 1080's even the highest tier models which struggle getting to 2Ghz, but this one just did it with OC scanner and about 5 minutes.

 

(THERMALS)

The other thing that blew me away was the thermals for this card, being the cheapest card i expected they had to skimp somewhere and I assumed it would be the cooling, and sure this is by no means a 3.75 slot card with 5 million heat-pipes. To be honest this is definitely a small card in comparison to the other 2080 ti's but it's still a beefy card. I'd probably say its about 25% heavier than my old GPU which is a Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1.

Despite being a smaller card I still am able to hit over 2000 on the core clock  and after adjusting the fan curve to make the fans hit 100% around 80° C and 60% around 60° C I am hovering between 70° and 80° in game and i am still able to hold the 2010mhz overclock. If i wanted to stay under 75° C at 60% i can go to 1900mhz but the noise doesn't bother me.

 

(SUMMARY)

To sum it all up. I couldn't recommend this card more. This card performs just as well as the other high end options, at least to my knowledge, is sold by a very reputable company (EVGA) features excellent build quality (and yes it does have RGB for those wondering). and to be honest I am not sure whether this features the 300(non-a) or not, but despite this it seems to have no issues reaching very reasonable clock speeds.

 

I would have a hard time spending another $50 on any other GPU

(EDIT/AFTERTHOUGHT)

After about a full 8 hours of gaming the OC seems to stay stable at around 1900mhz and 70c, if i adjust the fan curve from stock it will hold at 2000mhz but the difference in performance is within the margin of error in my test. I got BFV for free and with RTX turned on low and other various settings turned down like SSAO the game looks great and i'm still able to get 100+fps even with RTX on, however it doesn't seem like RTX is well optimized, i'm hoping future updates to BFV and RTX in general will yield higher results, at absolutely max settings including motion-blur and SSAO and i'm still able to hold 60fps 

 

TL;DR I was a little worried at first about buying the cheapest RTX 2080 Ti but for now at least i feel pretty safe.

[Jurrunio]

11 minutes ago, Emanbaird said:

I was able to get 2010MHz Which is a 660MHz overclock from the base clock and 460MHz over the boost speed on the box.

GPU boost itself pushes frequency about 200 - 250 MHz higher than boost clock already so in reality you're just having a 200MHz overclock.

 

11 minutes ago, Emanbaird said:

If i wanted to stay under 75° C at 60% i can go to 1900mhz but the noise doesn't bother me.

dropping frequency AND undervolting can do much more

[Emanbaird]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

GPU boost itself pushes frequency about 200 - 250 MHz higher than boost clock already so in reality you're just having a 200MHz overclock.

  

dropping frequency AND undervolting can do much more

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a way to control the voltage, it seems the voltage just does what it want's (At least with afterburner) And the only thing I can control is the voltage offset/power limit

 

Also it doesn't seem to like going above 1500mhz without touching afterburner, so i guess i was more happy because i was still able to hit the same clockspeeds as other higher end cards.

 

The only thing im worried about is i've heard that the memory modules keep exploding due to high temps, so I've been keeping an eye on those temps.

[Jurrunio]

2 hours ago, Emanbaird said:

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a way to control the voltage, it seems the voltage just does what it want's (At least with afterburner) And the only thing I can control is the voltage offset/power limit

 

Also it doesn't seem to like going above 1500mhz without touching afterburner, so i guess i was more happy because i was still able to hit the same clockspeeds as other higher end cards.

 

The only thing im worried about is i've heard that the memory modules keep exploding due to high temps, so I've been keeping an eye on those temps.

to control voltage you need to use the voltage/frequency graph. The bar chart button next to the core clock offset in Afterburner is exactly that. You can set the card to run a specific frequency at a certain voltage level, at full load the frequency will jump to the dot with the highest frequency and the lowest voltage (though it does refuse to go past a certain voltage and will stick to the previous point instead.

 

Sometimes voltage frequency graph can help cards run at a lower temperature (by using less voltage) and at the same time allow better overclock stability, and at the end run the same frequency as it did before at a lower power draw.

[Jrasero]

I have an EVGA RTX 2080 Ti XC Ultra in my mATX build but now making a console killer/HTPC/secondary PC and I went back and forth between just getting a $600-$700 Radeon VII or RTX 2080 and in the end while $1K is still a lot for just a GPU for a secondary computer this card wrecks 2K, specifically 3440x1440 and is awesome for gaming at 100+ pretty much in 90% of the games I play.  I get my Black Edition Wednesday and the only thing I am nervous about is noise and temps since my XC is pretty much silent and runs at a max 68 degrees.  

I heard anything above 60% fan speed gets pretty loud, your thoughts?

I plan to put this in a Dan Case A4 or Sliger SM550, so airflow will be a concern

As long as the temps are bellow 80 I will be satisfied 

I am not sure I will overclock since I am concerned about raising temps and noise 

 

 

[Emanbaird]

On 4/22/2019 at 4:28 PM, Jrasero said:

I have an EVGA RTX 2080 Ti XC Ultra in my mATX build but now making a console killer/HTPC/secondary PC and I went back and forth between just getting a $600-$700 Radeon VII or RTX 2080 and in the end while $1K is still a lot for just a GPU for a secondary computer this card wrecks 2K, specifically 3440x1440 and is awesome for gaming at 100+ pretty much in 90% of the games I play.  I get my Black Edition Wednesday and the only thing I am nervous about is noise and temps since my XC is pretty much silent and runs at a max 68 degrees.  

I heard anything above 60% fan speed gets pretty loud, your thoughts?

I plan to put this in a Dan Case A4 or Sliger SM550, so airflow will be a concern

As long as the temps are bellow 80 I will be satisfied 

I am not sure I will overclock since I am concerned about raising temps and noise 

 

 

Sorry for the slow reply I haven't been on recently, but yeah these style coolers are LOUD, it's not that bad in my scenario as it's quiet enough I don't notice it.

[Jrasero]

On 4/27/2019 at 4:06 PM, Emanbaird said:

Sorry for the slow reply I haven't been on recently, but yeah these style coolers are LOUD, it's not that bad in my scenario as it's quiet enough I don't notice it.

yeah got mine and I am using it in a Dan Case and while it's louder compared to my other EVGA RTX 2080 Ti XC Ultra (That thing is silent), it's nothing compared to founder edition cards or blower style cards.  To be frank the whole system is as quite or quieter than a Xbox One x