best value upgrade from a PNY GTX 1080Ti? (Primarily VR Focused.)

Cael Thunderwing · May 21

i know a decent chunk of performance bottle-necking is both the use of Virtual Desktop (extra load for encoding/decoding) + i only have an Ryzen 5 3600 CPU. i know the most immediate performance boost will be coming from upgrading the CPU. let it not be said i don't suffer in alot of cases in VRC from lag, its Primarily Platforms like CVR & Especially Resonite. ( i have gone from over updates from capping around 80~90FPS in my own home world there to the lower 50~64FPS.). I don't primarily look at my performance values w/ an unbiased viewpoint for something like Beatsaber as compared to the Native Quest 2 version, there's a small (but enough to cause issues) latency vs the Quest native release. (as a result i don't play many maps on expert. )

i know until Resonite has its new Renderer in place (much less even started) upgrading for the sake of performance there based on the GPU will likely be a fools errand, but at the same time this 1080Ti is a "well Loved" card (Blower edition, wasn't used in crypto but was a gamer's previous card.), I'm just looking at options like FSR & DLSS that i could use in other games to increase performance that i just cant w/ the 1080Ti and an upgrade should be on my radar.

That all said, barring i upgrade my CPU First, what's the better GPU for an upgrade within Reason? I don't want to Murderlate both my wallet and power bill by getting anything like a current 4000 Series GPU unless there's no real option for Equal or better performance in the 2000/3000 or in the AMD lineup that matches memory & overall performance (that & i do not know what even is an equiv. to the GTX 1080Ti in team Red's lineup as have squat all paid attention as the last AMD GPU i had was a XFX Radeon HD 5750 when that was *new*. )

Edit: should of added i tend to settle for usually 1080p in non VR titles / "2k" (2560 x 1440) when i can make it work. in VR i usally keep for performance reasons in said mainly focused platform, Virtual Desktop to "potato (targets plebs w/ a 980.)/ Max targeted FPS 90 and in SteamVR i left it sit at Auto for Render Resolution & 72hz for refresh rate.

Edited May 21 by Cael Thunderwing
forgot to put what Resolution targets/VR settings i try to aim for.

Gaires · May 21

I would stay away from the RTX 2000 series, the 2070 super is equivalent to the 1080TI, thus only real upgrade would be the 2080TI. As for the RTX 3000 series, 3060(TI) is roughly the same as 1080TI. If you want a good performance boost, 3080 would be the best option. Just make sure your PSU can handle the 3080's power spikes.

From the current gen, well the 4060's are just rebranded 3060's, meaning you would want at least 4070, which you might be able to find on sale for a decent price.

Since you mentioned the focus on the VR gaming, you probably don't care about the DLSS and ray tracing, thus I've only looked at the cards from the rastirization point of view.

From the AMD, anything over the RX 6800 would be a substantial improvement.

As for your worries about the CPU. Don't worry about it, because it's really dependant on the games you play, personally I'm rocking 4070 TI with Ryzen 3700x and its been fine for me. If you're really worried about it, take a bit of money from the GPU budget, buy the new GPU and start looking for a good deal on a Ryzen 5000 series CPU.

Salted Spinach · May 21

10 hours ago, Cael Thunderwing said:

...I don't want to Murderlate both my wallet and power bill by getting anything like a current 4000 Series GPU unless...

The 3000 series consumes wayyy more power than the 4000 series for the same level of performance. With the latter, power consumption is not considered high at all with the exception of the 4090

10 hours ago, Cael Thunderwing said:

...i intend to settle for usually 1080p in non VR titles / "2k" (2560 x 1440) when i can make it work.

For a the new GPU to last at 1440p, do not get one that has less than 12GB of VRAM

I would recommend no less than the 4070 (12GB) or 7800XT (16GB) for a sizeable jump in performance, and they will support the latest upscaling and frame generation features for being the most recent generation of products.