Best Long Term Value GPU

[traha9]

If initial capital outlay isn't an issue, would the highest performance GPU (i.e. 2080 TI) represent the best value in the long run? I haven't been in the PC space long enough to know the GPU player's pricing tendency, but at first glance it seems that buying a high end card that will last 5-7 years (especially with monitors plateauing to some degree on what the visible eye can recognize) is a better value than buying a mid to "low-high tier" (i.e. 2070 Super) and then having to upgrade again in 3 - 5 years?

[Jurrunio]

No, because Nvidia this time has gone out of their minds in 2080Ti's pricing. Their consumer flagship has never been priced so high.

[badreg]

It depends on your performance target. If you want 4k 144hz, then nothing short of 2x 2080 Ti's is going to get that done. If you're going for something more reasonable like 4k 60hz or 1440p 144hz, then a high mid-range card like a 2080/2070 Super is going to be better value.

 

Keep in mind that 5-6 years ago, the top dog card was a 780 Ti, which is crushed by a mid-range card today. You're always going to have a smoother experience upgrading a mid-range card every 3 years than overpaying for a flagship card and never upgrading.

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, badreg said:

Keep in mind that 5-6 years ago, the top dog card was a 780 Ti, which is crushed by a mid-range card today. You're always going to have a smoother experience upgrading a mid-range card every 3 years than overpaying for a flagship card and never upgrading.

Even then, the flagships were $600-700 cards IIRC. Whereas like @Jurrunio said, the 2080 Ti is wack levels of pricing ($1100+ for most models, that's Titan X pricing). The 2080 is positioned pricing wise where the flagship belongs, but it only just beats last year's flagship, the 1080 Ti. Whereas the jump from 980 Ti to 1080 Ti was massive (980 Ti MSRP was $649, 1080 Ti was $699, so nearly the same pricing). 

If you want the best of the best, that's the 2080 Ti. But on the value front it doesn't offer much, it costs almost twice what the next card down retails for. 

[traha9]

3 minutes ago, badreg said:

It depends on your performance target. If you want 4k 144hz, then nothing short of 2x 2080 Ti's is going to get that done. If you're going for something more reasonable like 4k 60hz or 1440p 144hz, then a high mid-range card like a 2080/2070 Super is going to be better value.

 

Keep in mind that 5-6 years ago, the top dog card was a 780 Ti, which is crushed by a mid-range card today. You're always going to have a smoother experience upgrading a mid-range card every 3 years than overpaying for a flagship card and never upgrading.

The 2070 Super is actually a good example for what I am trying to hash out. Yes, the 2070S can perform at 1440p, but what about Ultrawide 1440p @ 144 hz. I am not sure the 2070 Super could really take advantage of a monitor like that. Bc the monitor market is slightly ahead of the consumer GPU market but also plateauing - would it not make sense to go ahead and pay the extreme price premium now to cover all the "monitor bases" rather than getting a 2070 Super now and then having to upgrade again 2 years, which only then would you be able to comfortably get 144 hz at 1440 something that the 2080 TI could have provided all along. Again newer to the PC gaming space, so all of this could be very, very wrong. I more so wanted to poll the community. I'd be curious to see how the slightly newer flagship models compare against the Super line while thinking about GPU uselife (maintained desired results), CPI adjustments, tech advancements in GPU and other components, etc?

[traha9]

@Zando Bob I see so is another massive jump likely to happen in the foreseeable 5 range future?

[Zando_]

4 minutes ago, traha9 said:

@Zando Bob I see so is another massive jump likely to happen in the foreseeable 5 range future?

I'm not a market analyst but I don't think so. Everything from phones to GPUs to CPUs to RAM has just been getting incrementally better for the most part. Games aren't pushing crazy new stuff either (another Crysis that motivated companies to try and push better and better GPUs would be nice), mostly iterating on the same thing. A lot of 2017 games look comparable to modern titles, some older ones too. On a graphical level, Battlefront 2015 and Battlefront II 2017 could drop this year and not look out of place at all, they're both incredibly gorgeous games. The only really tough thing to run is ray-tracing, but that isn't hitting the mainstream very fast, the 2080 Ti is nearly a year old now and there's still hardly any games to utilize it fully. Devs seem to be looking more at making titles run better and look better on midrange or console hardware then they are at pushing it to the next level of graphical fidelity.

 

Will be interesting to see if Cyberpunk 2077 changes that, it looks to be a jaw-droppingly gorgeous game and has a shit ton of hype, and coming from CD Projekt Red it will hopefully turn out really well. Only other big name games to push RTX features are Battlefield V, which a lot of long time Battlefield players have issues with, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. That was kind of just an adequate sequel to ROTTR, and ray-tracing came a good while after launch, I think it's finally in the game now though. It is a gorgeous game, but doesn't push any of my hardware much harder than ROTTR did, and that game is from 2015 and also still gorgeous (bit darker overall though and I think a bit grainier, at some point I should do a side by side of that vs SOTTR for my own testing). 

[traha9]

@Zando Bob So maybe my line of thinking (see my reply above to badreg) isn't completely off? i.e. if you bought the 2080 TI (especially on release date), it could represent a good long term value bc games, graphics, and monitor tech aren't drastically changing  the next 3-7 years plus your great point about market push for mid-range focus as PC gaming becomes a more viable option and more ppl transition away from console bc its price to performance to utility is not very good?

 

 

[Jurrunio]

1 hour ago, traha9 said:

@Zando Bob I see so is another massive jump likely to happen in the foreseeable 5 range future?

AMD's big Navi should at best might match the 2080ti, only time will tell though as there arent even performance leaks of big Navi, only speculation.

 

24 minutes ago, traha9 said:

good long term value

No, not when "good value" is used on the basis of previous launches. In the past performance per dollar goes up, this time performance per dollar didn't. Sure 2080ti is faster than 1080ti by a big margin, but you totally paid for it, unlike the past which you nearly didnt.

[Zando_]

2 hours ago, traha9 said:

@Zando Bob So maybe my line of thinking (see my reply above to badreg) isn't completely off? i.e. if you bought the 2080 TI (especially on release date), it could represent a good long term value bc games, graphics, and monitor tech aren't drastically changing  the next 3-7 years plus your great point about market push for mid-range focus as PC gaming becomes a more viable option and more ppl transition away from console bc its price to performance to utility is not very good?

Yes but wrong terminology. Good choice? Yes. Good value? No.

 

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

No, not when "good value" is used on the basis of previous launches. In the past performance per dollar goes up, this time performance per dollar didn't. Sure 2080ti is faster than 1080ti by a big margin, but you totally paid for it, unlike the past which you nearly didnt.

^^^ Like I pointed out earlier, the 1080 Ti boasted a massive performance increase over the 980 Ti for the same MSRP. On Turing, the 2080 at the same price point offers the same performance, the 2080 Ti does perform better but it costs much, much more than it should based on previous generations. No increase in performance per dollar, just another, more expensive tier slapped between the 1080 Ti and Titan X (or now RTX, 2x the cost of the 2080 Ti for about the same performance).

[Jurrunio]

2 hours ago, traha9 said:

more ppl transition away from console bc its price to performance to utility is not very good?

btw this is wrong, people would happily buy $400 consoles (PS4 Pro MSRP) for gaming. You simply can't build a PC with the same budget on new parts that plays some games (god of war for example) at 4K 60fps. Oh wait, PCs cant even run console only titles like God of War.

[xg32]

3 hours ago, traha9 said:

The 2070 Super is actually a good example for what I am trying to hash out. Yes, the 2070S can perform at 1440p, but what about Ultrawide 1440p @ 144 hz. I am not sure the 2070 Super could really take advantage of a monitor like that. Bc the monitor market is slightly ahead of the consumer GPU market but also plateauing - would it not make sense to go ahead and pay the extreme price premium now to cover all the "monitor bases" rather than getting a 2070 Super now and then having to upgrade again 2 years, which only then would you be able to comfortably get 144 hz at 1440 something that the 2080 TI could have provided all along. Again newer to the PC gaming space, so all of this could be very, very wrong. I more so wanted to poll the community. I'd be curious to see how the slightly newer flagship models compare against the Super line while thinking about GPU uselife (maintained desired results), CPI adjustments, tech advancements in GPU and other components, etc?

for ultra wide 1440p, 2080 ti is the only choice, it's not good value, and i'd even argue it's about 25% short on needed performance for 1440p/144hz in AAA titles, but that's rarely not the case.

 

I also think this year would be THE worst ever to build a mid range pc, as the rumored specs of next gen consoles would match them for 500usd. I think either build nothing, wait to see what the consoles can do, or go all out for the 2080 ti, knowing the card is still a bit too weak.

 

As for value retention long term, it's probably the RX 570, any of the RTX cards is already too weak for DXR atm.

[CGT]

RX 580 Best Price / Performance as of 2019 Q3 with AMD 2600

[traha9]

13 minutes ago, xg32 said:

for ultra wide 1440p, 2080 ti is the only choice, it's not good value, and i'd even argue it's about 25% short on needed performance for 1440p/144hz in AAA titles, but that's rarely not the case.

 

I also think this year would be THE worst ever to build a mid range pc, as the rumored specs of next gen consoles would match them for 500usd. I think either build nothing, wait to see what the consoles can do, or go all out for the 2080 ti, knowing the card is still a bit too weak.

 

As for value retention long term, it's probably the RX 570, any of the RTX cards is already too weak for DXR atm.

Yes, this makes a lot of sense to me and I think where my head is at; just wanted to confirm that I wasn't completely off and was really curious. Would you consider the 2070 S to be in the "mid range" relative to your post?

 

@Jurrunio When is the high tier Navi rumored to launch? I see your point on the console, but respectfully disagree. Other than gaming, consoles are pretty much useless. For $400 you could make a PC that runs1080 and does pretty much anything under the sun. The closed platform nature of consoles is so limiting. Maybe future gen will change that.

 

@Zando Bob@Jurrunio@xg32 In conclusion, should I buy the 2070 Super or the 2080 TI (waiting isn't an option)? A ultrawide monitor is a very, very attractive proposition for me due to what it can provide productivity-wise. But, I still want to play my shooters competitively and I want some "cushion" for the future and I am not sure if the 2070 Super can provide those things and the 2080 S seems Lost in Space. 

[Jurrunio]

17 minutes ago, traha9 said:

@Jurrunio When is the high tier Navi rumored to launch? I see your point on the console, but respectfully disagree. Other than gaming, consoles are pretty much useless. For $400 you could make a PC that runs1080 and does pretty much anything under the sun. The closed platform nature of consoles is so limiting. Maybe future gen will change that.

rumours? Benchmarks have just been leaked out, and if time taken for 5700xt to go from leak to reality can be used as the basis of a guess, it should come next year Q1. It could come earlier since it's no longer a new architecture, but still leaks are leaks, they dont mean too much.

 

That's the thing. I bought a gaming PC and a gaming laptop because I do more than gaming on it (run CAD software, render videos occassionally), but many only game and do paperwork on their PCs if they ever own one. To them, they would rather buy a laptop for anything they need to do with Windows OS, and let consoles handle the gaming portion of life.

 

20 minutes ago, traha9 said:

In conclusion, should I buy the 2070 Super or the 2080 TI (waiting isn't an option)? A ultrawide monitor is a very, very attractive proposition for me due to what it can provide productivity-wise. But, I still want to play my shooters competitively and I want some "cushion" for the future and I am not sure if the 2070 Super can provide those things and the 2080 S seems Lost in Space. 

2080 or 2070S, depends on price (2080 still has 15% lead in CUDA core count, so about that much in performance). 2080S is another 5% ahead of 2080 only, so it'd better be priced about that much extra only (in most cases they are sold 10%+ more than the 2080).

[Zando_]

If you have the budget for it and want to push 144Hz 1440p ultrawide, just get the 2080 Ti. It’s the best and only

option for the performance you want other than a Titan RTX (2x the price), SLI 2080s (slightly more), or SLI 2070 Supers (probs around the same price. And SLI configs add a shit ton of headaches for many games. 

Could probably push that same res at 100Hz and reduced settings with a 2080 though. 

[traha9]

7 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Could probably push that same res at 100Hz and reduced settings with a 2080 though. 

Super or TI?

[Zando_]

25 minutes ago, traha9 said:

Super or TI?

2080. I always put the S/Super or Ti on the end if I mean those models. The 2080 Super is like 3-5% faster than the 2080 IIRC, so basically no difference. 2080 Ti is the better option but only if you wanna spend $1100+ on a card. If you’re willing to drop settings and want a better value card, the 2080 is the best option. 

[traha9]

@Zando Bob know any sources that have benchmarked the 2080 on ultrawide ?

[Zando_]

1 hour ago, traha9 said:

@Zando Bob know any sources that have benchmarked the 2080 on ultrawide ?

They have 1440p, 1440p ultrawide, and 4K scores for some games with a set of GPUs including the 2080 Ti and 2080: https://techgage.com/article/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-2080-ti-4k-ultrawide-gaming-performance/2/

[Pauleft]

14 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

No, because Nvidia this time has gone out of their minds in 2080Ti's pricing. Their consumer flagship has never been priced so high.

It all also depends on the amount of money you have some people can afford a phone every year for 1k if you are passionate about buying a long lasting gpu sure it's the best choice. I don't agree with the pricing being so high but what are we gonna do about it 

[Jurrunio]

5 hours ago, Pauleft said:

It all also depends on the amount of money you have some people can afford a phone every year for 1k if you are passionate about buying a long lasting gpu sure it's the best choice. I don't agree with the pricing being so high but what are we gonna do about it 

"long lasting" is completely different to "best value in the long run" OP states. For best value, I'd rather you upgrade the card once in say, a 7 year span rather than sticking to the same card for 7 years.

[Pauleft]

31 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

"long lasting" is completely different to "best value in the long run" OP states. For best value, I'd rather you upgrade the card once in say, a 7 year span rather than sticking to the same card for 7 years.

Well I mean what I'm trying to mean like a expensive 2080ti probably has 3 fans a card will have better performance over its life span unlike a 2 fan card

[Jurrunio]

4 minutes ago, Pauleft said:

Well I mean what I'm trying to mean like a expensive 2080ti probably has 3 fans a card will have better performance over its life span unlike a 2 fan card

Not a big enough difference for the price. There are good cards in the cheaper bunch of custom cards for all GPUs (except the really low-end ones), and with the 20 series the more expensive bunch are just overkill.

[Jon Jon]

It's such a hard conversation to have these days.

 

I have had my RX 580 8GB for 2 years now, and though I have the itch to upgrade for better VR performance, it does what I need it to fine overall still, so it is hard to justify upgrading.

 

For what you want you want to target and have last a while, really the RTX 2080S is probably the best way to go. Either that, or get a used GTX 1080ti.

 

The RX 5700XT is great too, along with the RTX 2070S, but if you want to take advantage of ray tracing later down the line, an RTX 2080S I would argue is what you want to even take advantage of SOME of it in later titles.

 

Fact is, ray tracing is coming, since the new consoles will have it with the next Navi, so if that even remotely matters to you, then the RTX 2080S at the minimum is what you want to get for your resolution and for the potential for later game support.

 

Personally, I would push that you get an RX 5700 XT, enjoy the performance for gaming now and leverage Radeon Image Sharpening to get near identical graphics quality while lowering the resolution to get the performance you want. If it were me buying now, I would get an RTX 2070S or 2080S strictly because NVIDIA has better VR support and Oculus leveraged the new NVENC for better quality ASR when dropping performance. That and the NVENC provides way better quality than what the UVD in AMD's graphics cards provides for recording.