Founders edition or XC Ultra

[ChrisZH]

I am having a hard time deciding what gpu to get. Should I get a EVGA Black from microcenter or order a founders/XC Ultra from best buy and pick up in store. I am going to be water cooling it as I have the block on the way. Just can't seem to make up my mind on which one is best.

[Haro]

If your custom water cooling

Go for the reference card as it will have a lot of options for blocks, the XC ultra is a non reference so finding a block for it will be a lot harder.

[Mateyyy]

Well have you checked what PCB your block's compatible with?

If it's compatible with the XC Ultra then I'd definitely get that - much easier to take apart than the Founder's Edition card and EVGA doesn't actually void your warranty when you do teardown the card.

[ChrisZH]

10 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

If your custom water cooling

Go for the reference card as it will have a lot of options for blocks, the XC ultra is a non reference so finding a block for it will be a lot harder.

Xc ultra uses a reference PCB. Only one from EVGA that doesn't is the FTW3. Have already checked with the block maker that all these cards are reference.

[ChrisZH]

5 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

Well have you checked what PCB your block's compatible with?

If it's compatible with the XC Ultra then I'd definitely get that - much easier to take apart than the Founder's Edition card and EVGA doesn't actually void your warranty when you do teardown the card.

Yea they all use the reference PCB model. I was looking for the 300a chip for the higher bin/power limit. The FE card from Nvidia us going for 1199 while the XC Ultra is 50 more.

[Haro]

1 minute ago, ChrisZH said:

Have already checked with the block maker that all these cards are reference

If they are 

And the XC ultra is reference and fits with the block 

Then go with what @Mateyyy said.

[ChrisZH]

Just now, TofuHaroto said:

If they are 

And the XC ultra is reference and fits with the block 

Then go with what @Mateyyy said.

So Nvidia voids warranty when you put a block on the card? I heard EVGA was really lax with that kinda stuff.

[Haro]

9 minutes ago, ChrisZH said:

heard EVGA was really lax with that kinda stuff.

From what I have read 

It's fine for the most part , but if you want to rma it , you will have to re assemble the cooler ( obviously)

[Mateyyy]

10 minutes ago, ChrisZH said:

Yea they all use the reference PCB model. I was looking for the 300a chip for the higher bin/power limit. The FE card from Nvidia us going for 1199 while the XC Ultra is 50 more.

Yeah you're right. I was thinking of the 2070 non-SUPER for some reason lol.

 

Afaik Nvidia stopped producing A dies for their GPUs prior to the Super launch, and instead made all of them to the same standard as said A dies. I remember reading a few articles about this around May/June of last year (close to the Super lineup reveal).

 

Techpowerup mentions a TU104-410-A1 core on the reference 2070S Founder's Edition.

And this is the core on my 2070S XC Ultra (still kind of dirty in this picture unfortunately) - TU104-410-A1.

 

Either way, if the extra cost of the XC Ultra is not a problem, I'd get that, for the same reasons I mentioned previously. Though you'll have to keep in mind that the XC Ultra has a 3 slot rear IO cover.

[ChrisZH]

55 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

Yeah you're right. I was thinking of the 2070 non-SUPER for some reason lol.

 

Afaik Nvidia stopped producing A dies for their GPUs prior to the Super launch, and instead made all of them to the same standard as said A dies. I remember reading a few articles about this around May/June of last year (close to the Super lineup reveal).

 

Techpowerup mentions a TU104-410-A1 core on the reference 2070S Founder's Edition.

And this is the core on my 2070S XC Ultra (still kind of dirty in this picture unfortunately) - TU104-410-A1.

 

Either way, if the extra cost of the XC Ultra is not a problem, I'd get that, for the same reasons I mentioned previously. Though you'll have to keep in mind that the XC Ultra has a 3 slot rear IO cover.

Not worried about the 3 slot, just want a good quality card from a company that has some good customer service lol. Never owned a Nvidia founders card but I know EVGA is a good quality brand. Getting rid of my Radeon VII, these drivers are fucking with it and radeonsoftware keeps hard crashing. So tired of it because some days I can game all day and others it crashes every hour or so... Never had problems like this with Nvidia. Got me a Bykski waterblock on the way for the 2080 to, love their blocks. Great price to performance.

[Mateyyy]

2 minutes ago, ChrisZH said:

Not worried about the 3 slot, just want a good quality card from a company that has some good customer service lol. Never owned a Nvidia founders card but I know EVGA is a good quality brand.

From what I've heard over the years, EVGA's customer support is about as good as it gets. I never actually worked with them personally yet but I've seen quite a good number of posts on forums around the web on this subject.

 

4 minutes ago, ChrisZH said:

Getting rid of my Radeon VII, these drivers are fucking with it and radeonsoftware keeps hard crashing. So tired of it because some days I can game all day and others it crashes every hour or so...

That's too bad. Well, at least you won't really be downgrading from it with the 2070 Super, only thing you'll be missing out on really will be the 16GB of VRAM (though for gaming it's quite unnecessary).

[ChrisZH]

39 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

From what I've heard over the years, EVGA's customer support is about as good as it gets. I never actually worked with them personally yet but I've seen quite a good number of posts on forums around the web on this subject.

 

That's too bad. Well, at least you won't really be downgrading from it with the 2070 Super, only thing you'll be missing out on really will be the 16GB of VRAM (though for gaming it's quite unnecessary).

Was great for 4k gaming tho, was always easy to get 60fps. When I take it out I wanna see if something is wrong on the card that might be causing the crashes. If so I could give it to my girl lol. So I think I will go with the XC, would rather spend $50 for better service and warranty.