Opinions Encouraged

[MrWhy]

So this is very much going to be an opinion piece. But its one that I'd like (Taking a deep breath and hoping) people to consider somewhat seriously. I'm currently running a GTX 1080 FE (With EK Waterblock so yes its OC'd) and I'm looking to upgrade (This will be the last GPU upgrade for this system's usable life span and will most likely be installed in my next build +/- 3 years from now). I'm torn between buying a used 1080ti and slapping another EK block on it and calling it a day, or just saying to heck with it and picking up an AORUS RTX 2080 Waterforce with the waterblock already installed (This seems to be cheaper relatively speaking). I'd like to hear some opinions if anyone knows anyone with the AORUS card about how it runs (Or what its made of because I can't find much on the block construction itself other than it might be a 3rd party block from Ek?), and just in general which route people would go and why? 

For aditional reference I do light video editing (College work & Streaming), and use a 1440p Ultra-wide as my daily driver monitior, the card will be paired with an i7-4790k (OC'd @ 4.7) and 32 GB of ram so bottlenecking isn't a major concern here.

[Radium_Angel]

27 minutes ago, MrWhy said:

isn't a major concern here

It's your money and you are the best judge of if you need the extra horsepower here or not.

[TahoeDust]

Go with the best you are comfortable with.  The 2080 is newer, faster, and has some extra features.  As far as the Gigabyte card, I have not owned one of the watercooled cards.  I have a EVGA 2080 ti FTW3 Hydrocopper I am very happy with.  They make a 2080 version of it you should look at.

[PrinnyExplodes]

2080 is slightly better than the 1080ti. Even if it is not by much, it is better.

 

The fact that it is cheaper with the waterblock, means it is a no brainer if those are your two choices. 

 

Also maybe you can help me. I have 2 builds of 4770k. I need help ocing it. You wouldn't happen to know a good oc guide? (Since the 4770k and 4790k are very similar in family)

[MrWhy]

17 hours ago, PrinnyExplodes said:

2080 is slightly better than the 1080ti. Even if it is not by much, it is better.

 

The fact that it is cheaper with the waterblock, means it is a no brainer if those are your two choices. 

 

Also maybe you can help me. I have 2 builds of 4770k. I need help ocing it. You wouldn't happen to know a good oc guide? (Since the 4770k and 4790k are very similar in family)

The thing I'm struggling with is you have roughly speaking comparable pricing but the 1080ti has way more VRAM and it looks like thats what helping the card remain such a value in terms of price per dollar and performance. But on the flip side I don't think we've come anywhere close to driver optimization for the 20 series cards yet so I'm left kinda wondering what the performance delta will be a year from now when the drivers have matured a bit. 

 

As for the 4770K there seems to be a ton of numbers posted on the CPU Overclocking data base in the CPU Forum which is where I started as a baseline for my OC awhile ago. I'm running an extremly conservative  OC on my 4790k @ 4.6Mhz. From what I've seen really you should be able to get close to 4.8-4.9 depending on your luck and cooling solution without too much hastle.

 

 

[Mick Naughty]

Depends on the look aof the block for me. Ek or barrow look great. Prefer buying a card with an air cooler so I can use it without water and have a way to test it when I go to sell it later without having to make a loop for it. 

 

Give you options on a better or cheaper card if youre going for either of those things. 

 

LTT has a video overclocking the 4770k, plenty of guys as well rog.forums as well. 

 

Also you think either of those cpus are gonna handle that card?

[MrWhy]

9 minutes ago, Mick Naughty said:

Also you think either of those cpus are gonna handle that card?

At 1080p 144Hz you might see a pretty decent slow-down b/c of the IPC of the older Haswell Chips but honestly once you go beyond that up to 1440p and 4k if there is any slowdown its going to only be at a maximum 10-15 fps which if you ask me is pretty negligable considering your going to be running most titles in the upper 90s and above depending on the game. People place way to much emphasis on a CPU "Bottle-neck". Personally I start to consider that a problem when your looking at a difference of 30+ fps which is where my eye at least starts to notice a difference.

[Mick Naughty]

1 minute ago, MrWhy said:

At 1080p 144Hz you might see a pretty decent slow-down b/c of the IPC of the older Haswell Chips but honestly once you go beyond that up to 1440p and 4k if there is any slowdown its going to only be at a maximum 10-15 fps which if you ask me is pretty negligable considering your going to be running most titles in the upper 90s and above depending on the game. People place way to much emphasis on a CPU "Bottle-neck". Personally I start to consider that a problem when your looking at a difference of 30+ fps which is where my eye at least starts to notice a difference.

I don't look at it as fps. I can take the fps hit if the game plays like it should. Stutter bothers more than the lack of fps.

[MrWhy]

2 minutes ago, Mick Naughty said:

I don't look at it as fps. I can take the fps hit if the game plays like it should. Stutter bothers more than the lack of fps.

In my experience you'd see a drop in fps long before you'd see any kind of screen micro-stutter or tearing. Thats assuming you're not trying to push 144+ Hz at a lower resolution. With nvidia finally unlocking adaptive refresh rate even people trying those kinds of things should be okay (ish) I would assume but I haven't had a chance to mess around with the implemtation and see how well it is working at the moment.