Please help with the best option for me

[JediSamReye]

Hello all! Sorry this is going to be a wall of text, and I really appreciate anyone willing to look at this and help me work through this 

 

My current rig isnt anything fancy, 1700x and 16gb ram, and a rx 580 (8gb) . I currently have only gamed on 1080p, and that is all I am really looking to do for now. However I would love to go to 144hz once I have the cash for the monitor. I am really lost on what I want to do next. I was running a rx 480 in crossfire build awhile ago, and I did see how it is great power when you can get it working. However I also was having alot of issues with thermals, BUT that was in a case that didnt have great airflow that will not be an issue here. The case will be a thermaltake p3. Here is the thing, this month I will have a few extra parts laying around. Such as a 500gb SSD, a i7 that I am going to sell. I was originally planing on selling the stuff for another rx580. But now I am thinking maybe sell the parts and my rx580 and upgrade to a much more powerful single card, or a wild card setup such as 980ti in SLI. Here is how I see it: 

 

RX 580 crossfire 

pros- 

Performance is there when its working or optimized. 

Looks great 

One of the fastest options, and I can still game in the meantime 

 

cons-

Finding a 2nd card due to miners might be harder for now 

my rx580 has a reference cooler, so its going to be even harder to find a matching card 

The general buggy performance of Crossfire 

 

Bigger single card 

I think after all said and done I will probably have about $650 ish working money, I was thinking about doing a GTX 1080 but with them SO close in price to a 1080ti, I dont understand why I wouldnt just pay the little more and get the 1080ti. But I would like a AIO card, I do understand I can add that a different time, would it be better to get a standard reference 1080ti or a aftermarket high end 1080? I assume in the end the 1080ti is the best option here, especially if I am willing to just do the better cooling solution a little down the road. I havent looked at much in the way of vega, but with the pricing the way it is, and also with to me it seems like it is right around a gtx 1080, and I feel like I can get the 1080ti for just a tad bit more.

 

Pros - 

Not as buggy as a crossfire / SLI build -much better compatibility 

Should be pretty easy to find 

Should keep me gaming longer (future proofing might be considered better) 

Down the road, if life is crazy then I can always buy a 2nd card I guess and still SLI later

 

cons-

I will be down once my rx 580 is shipped, and the new card arrives 

Might not look as appealing, depending on the card, that can be subjective 

might be considered overkill also 

 

Off the wall / crazy ideas

I am also open to suggestions for something I havent listed, like last generations titan, or gtx 980 ti hybrids in SLI. Just let me know what you think, I have been going so back and forth about this. 

 

Things to note- 

-I am planning on doing 144hz but plan on staying at 1080p but I might look at 1440p if the card supports it, and since I am buying the monitors 2nd, then freesync / g-sync shouldnt matter as much 

-I dont normally play the latest and greatest games, for instance I believe the latest game I own right now is Doom. Which I did love, but I generally play games once they have hit a decent price on steam, for instance I played bioshock 2 for the first time this year. however I WILL be buying shadow of mordor 2 release week, that will be the latest game for awhile, also I play GTA 5 alot

-For some reason I HAVE to run games on ultra settings. My mind hates when I have to tone down settings to play atleast 60fps in a game. I would think considering I am playing older games that it wouldnt be that hard to get 60+ FPS on ultra, but I still cant do that with my rx580 with GTA 5. 

[LienusLateTips]

Sell that RX 580 and get a 1080 or 1080 Ti,

 

BTW the CF config doesn't have to have another reference to work, any RX 580 is fine

[JediSamReye]

Just now, JDE said:

Sell that RX 580 and get a 1080 or 1080 Ti,

 

BTW the CF config doesn't have to have another reference to work, any RX 580 is fine

Am I seeing this right? the 1080 and the 1080ti are not that far apart money wise? So the 1080ti seems like the better option of the two? 

 

Also I totally get the CF config doesnt have to match, that would be visually for me, when I had the rx480 crossfire setup before I mixed the cards, and I hated how it looked, so I spent a good amount of time and shipping costs to swap someone on reddit to match coolers. 

[LienusLateTips]

Just now, JediSamReye said:

Am I seeing this right? the 1080 and the 1080ti are not that far apart money wise? So the 1080ti seems like the better option of the two? 

yeah

Just now, JediSamReye said:

Also I totally get the CF config doesnt have to match, that would be visually for me, when I had the rx480 crossfire setup before I mixed the cards, and I hated how it looked, so I spent a good amount of time and shipping costs to swap someone on reddit to match coolers. 

References are the easiest to find, personally, tied with ARMOR OC

[JediSamReye]

Just now, JDE said:

yeah

References are the easiest to find, personally, tied with ARMOR OC

Not really the RX580 is a partner launch only card, and the only company I have seen making a reference cooler rx580 is msi, and that was just their website about product info. I havent seen anything actually for sale 

[FizzyGreen]

I too would say go with a single strong card when you are going for performance.

 

Common SLI Knowledge told out of own expierience:

Spoiler

 

I don't exactly know how well it works on AMD Crossfire but i do have 2 970's because it was cheaper for me to just buy the second one from my friend for 150 € less and i also wanted to have an SLI setup once in my life and also it looks cool.

 

But when it comes to performance, there are sync issues than cause unexplained stutters, games that don't utilize it don't have any to little to negative performance gain (when i force SLI on minecraft i get 15 fps), and temps are also a problem as they are both open air

My PC case gets as hot as a car engine that runs for 20 minutes sometimes. (and my cpu can reach really high temps)

 

So if you want to have better performance, go with a single strong card, as it doesn't have to deal with synchronizing itself with another card and generates way less heat.

 

 

[JediSamReye]

2 minutes ago, FizzyGreen said:

I too would say go with a single strong card when you are going for performance.

 

Common SLI Knowledge told out of own expierience:

  Hide contents

 

I don't exactly know how well it works on AMD Crossfire but i do have 2 970's because it was cheaper for me to just buy the second one from my friend for 150 € less and i also wanted to have an SLI setup once in my life and also it looks cool.

 

But when it comes to performance, there are sync issues than cause unexplained stutters, games that don't utilize it don't have any to little to negative performance gain (when i force SLI on minecraft i get 15 fps), and temps are also a problem as they are both open air

My PC case gets as hot as a car engine that runs for 20 minutes sometimes. (and my cpu can reach really high temps)

 

So if you want to have better performance, go with a single strong card, as it doesn't have to deal with synchronizing itself with another card and generates way less heat.

 

 

yeah, I believe it, that is the same type of issues I ran into also, I wasnt sure if the open air case helped clear alot up. But that also wasnt sure if the issues were canceled out by how easy it made the process, just match and buy a card on my time sorta thing. But I think you really narrowed it down. 

 

Now to decide on a 1080 , 1080ti or look into a vega. But the vega cards look like its pretty much only the bundle where ever I look 

[FizzyGreen]

3 minutes ago, JediSamReye said:

Now to decide on a 1080 , 1080ti or look into a vega. But the vega cards look like its pretty much only the bundle where ever I look 

I'd say, if you got the extra bucks for the 1080 Ti, you'll get the extra performance from the 1080 Ti

 

Of course you can also go Vega, if it's worth it. I don't really know vega yet.