Choosing Between RTX 2080 Ti and Radeon RX 6800 for Aesthetic and Future-Proof Gaming Setup

[Sjokk]

Hello LTT Community,

 

As a follow-up to my previous discussion, where I reached out to the forum to find a card that meets my standards for aesthetics but performs well by modern standards, I'm currently in the process of updating my gaming rig and I'm stuck between two GPUs: the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti and the XFX Speedster MERC 319 AMD Radeon RX 6800. My choice is heavily influenced not just by performance, but also by aesthetics, as my setup is a central piece in my living space.

 

Current Setup:

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D 4.4 GHz 12-Core Processor
RAM: Kingston FURY Beast RGB 32 GB (8x4) DDR5-5200
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVME SSD
GPU: NVIDIA 900-1G611-2500-000 Titan X (Pascal) 12 GB Video Card (x2)
Case: Antec C3 ARGB ATX Mid Tower Case
Monitors: HP E23 G4 23.0" 1920 x 1080 60 Hz Monitor (x6)

 

Problems Facing:

Performance: I've noticed significant performance drops, especially when using Wallpaper Engine (single wallpaper stretched across all 6 monitors), where one of the GPUs hits about 60% utilization just for this task and the wallpaper doesn't appear nearly as smooth as I was hoping for. 
Future Requirements: With upcoming games like GTA 6, I'm concerned that my current setup won't keep up, especially since I'm already seeing strain under simply using wallpaper engine, and others on this forum have speculated my current setup may not be sufficient when GTA6 drops.

 

Workloads:

 

Primary: Gaming (GTA V, Spore Galactic Adventures, Rocket League, Elite: Dangerous, Fortnite, Portal 2, Light Bears)
Secondary: Frequent use of AutoCAD, FL Studio for music production, and general productivity tasks including web browsing and video streaming.
Future Considerations: I'm looking to future-proof my system for GTA 6 and am interested in testing out ray tracing and DLSS capabilities.

Considerations:

 

Aesthetics: My case is set up almost like a display piece in a studio apartment, so the look of the GPU matters a lot. The RTX 2080 Ti has that sleek, modern design with the illuminated logo that would match my existing Titan X Pascal GPUs. On the other hand, the RX 6800 from XFX has a distinct, robust design but does not match the Nvidia aesthetic as closely. I imagine the RTX 2080 Ti with an illuminated "GEFORCE RTX" logo, positioned above the Titan X Pascal, which has a similar illuminated "GEFORCE GTX" logo. This arrangement would not only maintain but enhance the thematic consistency and visual appeal of my setup, but I know the Radeon RX 6800 also looks pretty cool.
Performance: Both cards offer excellent performance, but I'm curious what you all think about the mentioned GPU's suitability for my workloads. While I don't place a lot of value on this, I’m somewhat interested in ray tracing capabilities and DLSS for future games.
Future-proofing: I plan to keep this setup for several years and want to ensure that the GPU I choose will still be relevant for future titles, including GTA 6 upon its release.

Questions:

1) Which card would better suit my needs for both aesthetics and performance?
2) Has anyone had experience with mixing GPU brands in terms of design and visual cohesion inside a case?
3) Are there other models or brands I should consider that meet these criteria?

 

Your insights and suggestions would be incredibly helpful as I make this decision. Thanks in advance for your help!

[jaslion]

Wait you're keeping the titan x's? Just sell these and get idk a 4080super or something? OBLITERATES the 2 titan x's in the 5 sli games that work well. Else well yeah easy extremely better.

 

You won't have enough pcie lanes at all. You can't even do this fully since some slots get disabled in your setup as you simply don't have enough lanes. The third pcie slot should not be functional right now.

 

1) Dunno bout looks up to you. Neither is really an amazing fast card especially since you want it to last 3 ish year for a high graphics title. I'd get something better really.

2) You can mix em quite ok. Look wise again up to you.

3) Idk I like the look of the sapphire pulse I just got because it's basic. I guess?

 

Also what budget?

 

 

[PDifolco]

1 hour ago, Sjokk said:

Hello LTT Community,

 

As a follow-up to my previous discussion, where I reached out to the forum to find a card that meets my standards for aesthetics but performs well by modern standards, I'm currently in the process of updating my gaming rig and I'm stuck between two GPUs: the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti and the XFX Speedster MERC 319 AMD Radeon RX 6800. My choice is heavily influenced not just by performance, but also by aesthetics, as my setup is a central piece in my living space.

 

Current Setup:

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D 4.4 GHz 12-Core Processor
RAM: Kingston FURY Beast RGB 32 GB (8x4) DDR5-5200
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVME SSD
GPU: NVIDIA 900-1G611-2500-000 Titan X (Pascal) 12 GB Video Card (x2)
Case: Antec C3 ARGB ATX Mid Tower Case
Monitors: HP E23 G4 23.0" 1920 x 1080 60 Hz Monitor (x6)

 

Problems Facing:

Performance: I've noticed significant performance drops, especially when using Wallpaper Engine (single wallpaper stretched across all 6 monitors), where one of the GPUs hits about 60% utilization just for this task and the wallpaper doesn't appear nearly as smooth as I was hoping for. 
Future Requirements: With upcoming games like GTA 6, I'm concerned that my current setup won't keep up, especially since I'm already seeing strain under simply using wallpaper engine, and others on this forum have speculated my current setup may not be sufficient when GTA6 drops.

 

Workloads:

 

Primary: Gaming (GTA V, Spore Galactic Adventures, Rocket League, Elite: Dangerous, Fortnite, Portal 2, Light Bears)
Secondary: Frequent use of AutoCAD, FL Studio for music production, and general productivity tasks including web browsing and video streaming.
Future Considerations: I'm looking to future-proof my system for GTA 6 and am interested in testing out ray tracing and DLSS capabilities.

Considerations:

 

Aesthetics: My case is set up almost like a display piece in a studio apartment, so the look of the GPU matters a lot. The RTX 2080 Ti has that sleek, modern design with the illuminated logo that would match my existing Titan X Pascal GPUs. On the other hand, the RX 6800 from XFX has a distinct, robust design but does not match the Nvidia aesthetic as closely. I imagine the RTX 2080 Ti with an illuminated "GEFORCE RTX" logo, positioned above the Titan X Pascal, which has a similar illuminated "GEFORCE GTX" logo. This arrangement would not only maintain but enhance the thematic consistency and visual appeal of my setup, but I know the Radeon RX 6800 also looks pretty cool.
Performance: Both cards offer excellent performance, but I'm curious what you all think about the mentioned GPU's suitability for my workloads. While I don't place a lot of value on this, I’m somewhat interested in ray tracing capabilities and DLSS for future games.
Future-proofing: I plan to keep this setup for several years and want to ensure that the GPU I choose will still be relevant for future titles, including GTA 6 upon its release.

Questions:

1) Which card would better suit my needs for both aesthetics and performance?
2) Has anyone had experience with mixing GPU brands in terms of design and visual cohesion inside a case?
3) Are there other models or brands I should consider that meet these criteria?

 

Your insights and suggestions would be incredibly helpful as I make this decision. Thanks in advance for your help!

You don't have a decent gaming monitor with 6x 23" 1080p 60Hz, do you plan an upgrade ? Do you play on several monitors ?? Anyway 60Hz is not much and I suspect they don't have very good performance

As for GPUs, having 2 GPU is pretty useless now, and mixing both AMD and NVidia won't get well. Plus you'll lack PCie lanes and one of them will be gimped (depends on your board but you didn't tell what it is)

Can't tell about aestethics, as we won't have same views, but I won't get a 2 generation old card with 11GB VRAM ; the 6800XT has 16GB VRAM and is faster anyway

In all cases you won't have decent RT, RTX2000s and RX6000s are bad at it (but less so on NVidia). No DLSS3 neither

If I were you I'd just sell the Titan X and get some 4070TiS or 4080S instead

 

 

[Sjokk]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Wait you're keeping the titan x's? Just sell these and get idk a 4080super or something?

I have the budget necessary that I could get a 4080 and keep the Titans, but I really hate the aesthetics of the 4080. That's the only reason why I'm specifically considering these two cards. 

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

You won't have enough pcie lanes at all. You can't even do this fully since some slots get disabled in your setup as you simply don't have enough lanes. The third pcie slot should not be functional right now.

Can I just upgrade my motherboard to one that will give me enough PCI-E lanes?

1 hour ago, PDifolco said:

You don't have a decent gaming monitor with 6x 23" 1080p 60Hz, do you plan an upgrade ? Do you play on several monitors ?? Anyway 60Hz is not much and I suspect they don't have very good performance

I have 6 of them (3 per row). I play on 1080p max settings for every game I play on only one of the monitor because I don't know how to make a game use multiple monitors or if that's even possible. I'm happy with this setup, I never feel like it's not enough resolution or like my monitor isn't responsive enough. I don't plan on upgrading my monitors since I don't see them as problematic, but I'm happy with upgrading the components in my PC to be overkill so if my stance regarding my monitors changes in the future it's a seamless transition. 

1 hour ago, PDifolco said:

As for GPUs, having 2 GPU is pretty useless now, and mixing both AMD and NVidia won't get well. Plus you'll lack PCie lanes and one of them will be gimped (depends on your board but you didn't tell what it is)

It's a MSI MAG B650 TOMAHAWK but I'm happy to upgrade it if it's necessary to get the PCI-E lanes required to run dual cards effectively. I was under the impression that running dual GPU's like this would mean that the second card would render all content displayed on the monitors connected to that card. Is that inaccurate? 

1 hour ago, PDifolco said:

In all cases you won't have decent RT, RTX2000s and RX6000s are bad at it (but less so on NVidia). No DLSS3 neither

If I were you I'd just sell the Titan X and get some 4070TiS or 4080S instead

My only objection to that was that in this thread I couldn't find any other modern cards that meet my aesthetics standards. The 4070TiS or 4080S don't match the aesthetic theme I have in my case so I wouldn't want to go that route. That's the primary reason I considered the 2080Ti. 

 

It's super helpful to hear that the 2080 would be bad at Raytracing so I shouldn't use that as a factor in my purchasing decision. What else should I consider about that card in terms of my workload and how it performs compared to my Titan X Pascal's? 

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, Sjokk said:

Can I just upgrade my motherboard to one that will give me enough PCI-E lanes?

No your cpu is the limit. Almost all am4 cpu's have thr same amount of pcie lanes yours has the max they offer. Intel has less.

 

You simply have too many devices in the rig.

 

There are PLENTY 4080s cards out there.

 

Also are you verticap mounting it? If not just look at the side view of the cards.

 

Sapphire has many 7900 serirs gpu's that look extremely similar to the xfx you chose from the side.

 

Also we are only looming at performance upgrades over the performance of one titan x pascal since Sli is done, dead, buried, decomposed and now also dissapeared.

 

Nvidia ended support 4 years ago no new card has had it for 2 generations excrpt for the sort of sli thing from the 3090.

 

Aside from that no game in the last 6 years or so has had sli support as far as I know.

[starsmine]

2080ti is like the worst choice for "future proof" to buy today new. blackwell comes out q4 and will make that card three generations old. 
considering the 6x 1080p I would be more focused on cards with the correct IO as the first priority. 
I know DP has daisy chaining. 

If your focus is on aesthetics, just know that there exists dozens of non reference coolers

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

What is it about the aesthetics that concerns you?