Do I need overclocking?

[JoeR]

I am planning on building a pc within the next week, and I need to know if I even need overclocking. I want to run games like GTA or other highly demanding titles on a 34 inch ultrawide (Acer Predator X34 34.0" 3440x1440 100Hz Monitor) at maxed out, ultra settings and here is my part list so far:

Intel Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor

Asus MAXIMUS IX FORMULA ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

G.Skill TridentZ RGB 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory

Samsung 850 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

Asus GeForce GTX 1080 8GB STRIX Video Card 

 

There is currently a sale at my nearby micro center that has the same graphics card that I was planning to buy but not overclockable. Do I need Overclocking or am I going over what I would need? (I also may be confused because on pcpartpicker the list of gtx 1080s have a one-letter difference between them, and if that's so can you answer this question for me?)

 

Asus STRIX-GTX1080-O8G-GAMING (one I was planning to buy because I believe it is overclockable because of the O before 8G)

Asus ROG STRIX-GTX1080-A8G-GAMING (what does A mean?)

Asus ROG STRIX-GTX1080-8G-GAMING (what does the absence of A or O mean?)

 

The overall question is do I need overclocking with a gtx 1080 in order to be able to play games on a  34 inch ultra wide at max settings 60+ fps

[Saif Zafar]

Overclocking gives a little more perfomance but sometimes that is the difference between 55 and 65 fps ... go for overclocking .. i have a gtx 1070 .. out the box it went to 2000Mhz and i overclocked it to 2130ish .. and the difference is noticable .. i always overclock b4 gaming ... For 1440p 1080 is awesome .. but if your budget allows it wait fr 1080ti.

[JoeR]

Yeah but I'm wondering if I need to overclock to achieve those max settings with a single gtx 1080. I don't think my budget would allow for a 1080ti. 

[phongle123]

4 minutes ago, Saif Zafar said:

Overclocking gives a little more perfomance but sometimes that is the difference between 55 and 65 fps ... go for overclocking .. i have a gtx 1070 .. out the box it went to 2000Mhz and i overclocked it to 2130ish .. and the difference is noticable .. i always overclock b4 gaming ... For 1440p 1080 is awesome .. but if your budget allows it wait fr 1080ti.

It's more of a I can't wait since he's building his computer next week. You also won't get the amazingly customized cards for a month or 2 after release for the 1080 Ti yet so even more waiting.

 

So for all 3 of those GPU's I won't look them up separately. They use the same cooling technology and are all the same. However, 1 of the 3 will be binned higher than the other 2. Just look at all 3 and find the 1 with the highest Boost Clock and buy that one.

[JoeR]

Thank you, but they have a huge price gap and I'm wondering why. The one without a letter before the 8 - $550, 1.61Ghz. with an A before the 8 - $560 1.67Ghz. One with an O before the 8 - $680, 1.76 Ghz.

That's a $130 price difference. What do the letters do and do I need them to run high demanding games on an ultrawide at max settings

[Froody129]

What?? All modern GPUs can overlclock. The OC version just means slightly higher factory clocks

[JoeR]

Why did you have to say that so rudely? Was it not obvious that that was part my QUESTION in the first place? I was asking what they meant. If somebody doesn't know something you don't have to treat them like an idiot. Some people know more things about different subjects than you do. You know more things than others about other subjects.

[PCGuy_5960]

6 minutes ago, JoeR said:

Why did you have to say that so rudely? Was it not obvious that that was part my QUESTION in the first place?

All GTX 10xx GPUs overclock themselves automatically, provided that cooling is sufficient. You don't have to buy a factory overclocked card.

[Lurick]

The O has a different BIOS, is overclocked at the factory and is binned, compared to the standard model which is shipped as is. The A is between the standard and O model so it probably isn't overclocked out of the factory but is binned, perhaps.

 

As for what you should buy, go for the standard version as you're not going to see much of a performance gain between the three different models, maybe 5 FPS out of the box between the standard and O model.

[JoeR]

Thanks to everyone!