GPU to buy

[RedhaRay]

Hi everyone, i recently built a new system with 5950x 128gb ram at 3600 and RTX 3080 with X570S Motherboard,

It's going to be my new workstation, and i'm going to retire my old pc and use it mainly for gaming,

single player AAA Games with tons of VR games using my Oculus Rift S.

 

i won't bother going for anything higher than 3070ti because my monitor is a

133-inch projector running at 1080p 60hz,

with that i'm better off buying 3060, but i'm also using VR so that should make a use of a stronger GPU,

here are the system specs
i7 6950x 10 cores 20 threads " it's slow for these GPUs"
32 GB of ram quad channels
750w power supply

 

EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti XC3 ULTRA GAMING
LHR 8GB GDDR6X 256 Bit
$872

 

ASUS TUF GAMING OC GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8G OC
GDDR6X 256 Bit LHR
$959

 

ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua OC Edition 8GB
GDDR6 256 Bit LHR
$976

 

i was leaning towards the Noctua edition because i believe it will offer the best thermals,

and it looks so good, and i have no plans to overclock anything at all, it's a special product.
i heard that there is a design fault in the heat sink of the 3070ti tuf card that will make it run way hotter,

I'm not sure about that, anyway, which one would you recommend?

Prices might be different from you, i'm in Europe.

 

[Middcore]

This is a no brainer. The EVGA 3070 ti performs the best for the least money. 

[RONOTHAN##]

The performance between the EVGA and the TUF card will be basically identical, and the EVGA card being $90 less is hard to justify the TUF card. The Noctua card uses the exact same PCB and heatsink as the cheaper TUF 3070, but it just has better fans on it and a different shroud, again making it hard to justify it for a slower card. 

 

That said, I'd probably drop down to a 3060 or 3060 Ti instead. Even in VR you aren't gonna use more than those cards can offer, all of those cards are overkill and hard to justify, especially with a 6950X. 

[RedhaRay]

1 minute ago, Middcore said:

This is a no brainer. The EVGA 3070 ti performs the best for the least money. 

Thank you so much, But isn't the Noctua the best in terms of thermals? Please note that i have other cheaper options for the RTX 3070ti but from brands i never used before, such as Gainward, Galax, Palit, yes i can save 100 or so, but they use cheap components, what about the TUF 3070Ti? And is the EVGA any good? I usually buy Asus and havn't tried EVGA before there is also MSI etc...

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, RedhaRay said:

Thank you so much, But isn't the Noctua the best in terms of thermals?

So what? The EVGA will be fine on temps and still perform better. 

[Origami Cactus]

4 minutes ago, RedhaRay said:

Thank you so much, But isn't the Noctua the best in terms of thermals? Please note that i have other cheaper options for the RTX 3070ti but from brands i never used before, such as Gainward, Galax, Palit, yes i can save 100 or so, but they use cheap components, what about the TUF 3070Ti? And is the EVGA any good? I usually buy Asus and havn't tried EVGA before there is also MSI etc...

  

4 minutes ago, RedhaRay said:

Thank you so much, But isn't the Noctua the best in terms of thermals? Please note that i have other cheaper options for the RTX 3070ti but from brands i never used before, such as Gainward, Galax, Palit, yes i can save 100 or so, but they use cheap components, what about the TUF 3070Ti? And is the EVGA any good? I usually buy Asus and havn't tried EVGA before there is also MSI etc...

Yes, but no amount of thermals will magically transform a 3070 into a 3070ti. The EVGA XC3 models are good, and TUF models are also pretty quiet.

 

But btw, these prices still look bad for europe, should be able to get a  3080 for that amount of money. Try to look for a store that ships to your country from here:

https://geizhals.de/?fs=rtx 3080&sort=p&hloc=at&hloc=de&cat=gra16_512

And paying 20€ more for a 3080 is absolutely worth it, it is much faster than the 3070 or 3070ti, will come in handy in vr.

 

MSI, EVGA, ASUS, PALIT, ZOTAC all make good cards btw, but look for reviews on individual models.

[RedhaRay]

1 minute ago, RONOTHAN## said:

The performance between the EVGA and the TUF card will be basically identical, and the EVGA card being $90 less is hard to justify the TUF card. The Noctua card uses the exact same PCB and heatsink as the cheaper TUF 3070, but it just has better fans on it and a different shroud, again making it hard to justify it for a slower card. 

 

That said, I'd probably drop down to a 3060 or 3060 Ti instead. Even in VR you aren't gonna use more than those cards can offer, all of those cards are overkill and hard to justify, especially with a 6950X. 

 

Thank you so much, I thought the Noctua version uses a different heatsink, because it takes 4 slots, the 3060 is way cheaper, but how good is it for AAA VR games?

in terms of brands, is EVGA better than asus or msi? Going cheaper is not always the case there are cheaper brands with the worst quality and cooling, i won't be happy saving 100 or 200 and my card runs at 80C, so which brand would you recommend? and which card in my use case would you recommend? thanks a lot.

[RedhaRay]

4 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

  

Yes, but no amount of thermals will magically transform a 3070 into a 3070ti. The EVGA XC3 models are good, and TUF models are also pretty quiet.

 

But btw, these prices still look bad for europe, should be able to get a  3080 for that amount of money. Try to look for a store that ships to your country from here:

https://geizhals.de/?fs=rtx 3080&sort=p&hloc=at&hloc=de&cat=gra16_512

And paying 20€ more for a 3080 is absolutely worth it, it is much faster than the 3070 or 3070ti, will come in handy in vr.

 

MSI, EVGA, ASUS, PALIT, ZOTAC all make good cards btw, but look for reviews on individual models.

Thank you my friend, but i heard that PALIT, ZOTAC along with Gainward, Galax are low end, i do have an option for 3080 galax, and it's cheap, but the brand isn't good,

between the tuf and the EVGA, which one would run cooler and perform better as a 3070Ti?

[RONOTHAN##]

12 minutes ago, RedhaRay said:

but how good is it for AAA VR games?

It will depend on the exact games and everything, but most games that are somewhat GPU intensive are also very single threaded so you will likely be limited by the 6950X before the 3060. Look at exact benchmarks for the games you want to play though, but high settings should be completely fine (I still do VR on a 1080 Ti, a card that's slightly worse than the 3060 Ti and it does just fine with my Vive playing Beat Saber and Project Cars)

 

12 minutes ago, RedhaRay said:

in terms of brands, is EVGA better than asus or msi?

EVGA has the best RMA policy, but all their cards are pretty similar. 

 

12 minutes ago, RedhaRay said:

Going cheaper is not always the case there are cheaper brands with the worst quality and cooling

But with the 3070 Ti and lower, they don't run that hot, they don't draw that much power, so just because it's got a worse VRM and heatsink doesn't mean that it still won't run cool and last a while. Avoid the single fan 3060s, but that's about the only thing I would actually care about. Just get whatever the cheapest card with a dual fan cooler is, odds are the cooler will still be overkill for it. 

 

12 minutes ago, RedhaRay said:

i won't be happy saving 100 or 200 and my card runs at 80C

Nvidia cards are designed to run at 80C though for their entire lives, there's a reason why a lot of reviewers stop looking at core temps and just refer to boost clocks, because with how Nvidia's boost algorithm works the cards will just increase the voltage and the clock speed until they're running at 80C. 

 

EDIT:

6 minutes ago, RedhaRay said:

Thank you my friend, but i heard that PALIT, ZOTAC along with Gainward, Galax are low end, i do have an option for 3080 galax, and it's cheap, but the brand isn't good,

They're all fine. You need to look at specific cards and not judge by the specific brand, every manufacturer has made a bad card. EVGA had the 1080 FTW, MSI had the 1080 Ti Armor, Gigabyte had their RX 480 lineup, ASUS had IIRC bad 5700 XTs. All of those manufacturers have good card. Galax actually has one of, if not the best 3090 ever released. 

Edited June 13, 2022 by RONOTHAN##

[RedhaRay]

16 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

It will depend on the exact games and everything, but most games that are somewhat GPU intensive are also very single threaded so you will likely be limited by the 6950X before the 3060. Look at exact benchmarks for the games you want to play though, but high settings should be completely fine (I still do VR on a 1080 Ti, a card that's slightly worse than the 3060 Ti and it does just fine with my Vive playing Beat Saber and Project Cars)

 

EVGA has the best RMA policy, but all their cards are pretty similar. 

 

But with the 3070 Ti and lower, they don't run that hot, they don't draw that much power, so just because it's got a worse VRM and heatsink doesn't mean that it still won't run cool and last a while. Avoid the single fan 3060s, but that's about the only thing I would actually care about. Just get whatever the cheapest card with a dual fan cooler is, odds are the cooler will still be overkill for it. 

 

Nvidia cards are designed to run at 80C though for their entire lives, there's a reason why a lot of reviewers stop looking at core temps and just refer to boost clocks, because with how Nvidia's boost algorithm works the cards will just increase the voltage and the clock speed until they're running at 80C. 

 

EDIT:

They're all fine. You need to look at specific cards and not judge by the specific brand, every manufacturer has made a bad card. EVGA had the 1080 FTW, MSI had the 1080 Ti Armor, Gigabyte had their RX 480 lineup, ASUS had IIRC bad 5700 XTs. All of those manufacturers have good card. Galax actually has one of, if not the best 3090 ever released. 

Thank you so much for this informative answer, i made a final list to chose from, here they are,

 

MSI GeForce RTX 3070 TI VENTUS 3X 8GB OC 256Bit GDDR6X
regarding this, some customers reported receiving non OC version if that matters.
 872

 

EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti XC3 ULTRA GAMING 8GB GDDR6
872

 

MSI GeForce RTX 3070 TI GAMING X TRIO 8GB  GDDR6X
930

 

ASUS TUF GAMING OC GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8G OC GDDR6X
 959

 

Can you rank  these cards as 1,2,3,4? It will really help in case one of them was sold out i would go for the second and so on, i'm not looking for saving anything at all the 100 i might save will not do me anything, i'm looking for the one with

1- best cooling and

2- the best performance.
i don't change my GPU every year and i don't sell my old stuff,

so i need to purchase something very good.
Based upon your answer, i'm going to place my order.
I trust you.
Thank you.

[RONOTHAN##]

2 hours ago, RedhaRay said:

Thank you so much for this informative answer, i made a final list to chose from, here they are,

 

MSI GeForce RTX 3070 TI VENTUS 3X 8GB OC 256Bit GDDR6X
regarding this, some customers reported receiving non OC version if that matters.
 872

 

EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti XC3 ULTRA GAMING 8GB GDDR6
872

 

MSI GeForce RTX 3070 TI GAMING X TRIO 8GB  GDDR6X
930

 

ASUS TUF GAMING OC GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8G OC GDDR6X
 959

 

Can you rank  these cards as 1,2,3,4? It will really help in case one of them was sold out i would go for the second and so on, i'm not looking for saving anything at all the 100 i might save will not do me anything, i'm looking for the one with

1- best cooling and

2- the best performance.
i don't change my GPU every year and i don't sell my old stuff,

so i need to purchase something very good.
Based upon your answer, i'm going to place my order.
I trust you.
Thank you.

Performance will be the same (within 1-2% from the best card to the worst), and temps will be +- 5C across all the cards, practically nothing. I don't see a reason to spend the extra $100 on the other models, it will make no difference whatsoever. 

 

If the cards are the same price, I'd aim for the EVGA since they really do have the best RMA department in case anything happens, but that's about the only criteria I'd have. Specific card models only really matter when you're looking at doing XOC and making sure there's no issues with the cards blowing up or anything (none of those are known for blowing up, and realistically if they were we wouldn't know for a couple of years anyway). For a 3070 Ti it just really doesn't matter. 

[jaslion]

19 hours ago, RedhaRay said:

 

Thank you so much, I thought the Noctua version uses a different heatsink, because it takes 4 slots, the 3060 is way cheaper, but how good is it for AAA VR games?

in terms of brands, is EVGA better than asus or msi? Going cheaper is not always the case there are cheaper brands with the worst quality and cooling, i won't be happy saving 100 or 200 and my card runs at 80C, so which brand would you recommend? and which card in my use case would you recommend? thanks a lot.

I run aaa vr games and experiences to demo on a vega 64 and now steam vr headset.

 

I can tell you right now this thing doesnt have the slightest issue running anything and a 3060 is faste than it

[TECHNOMANCER303]

Def EVGA asus is great but terrifies and evga is usually cheaper or on sale. And noctua as much as i love them you dont need the cooling on 3070 get the ti