Would you upgrade? (980ti to 1080)

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

Hello all.

I'm looking at an upgrade. As the title says, I'm looking at possibly upgrading from a 980ti to a 1080. I got some Christmas cash and that will knock a decent chunk out of the price, and I got a Christmas bonus from work, but even still, it's a lot of money.

Upgrading will allow me to hand down my 980ti to my brother who is still using a 780ti, and the 780ti can be used to upgrade the "guest" PC that's on life support with a withered GTX 670.

But the main reason I'm looking at getting an upgrade is because I recently got a 144hz monitor, and while a few games do run well enough in the 144 FPS range at 1440p on the 980ti, there are other games that barely manage 100 FPS on my current card, so I'm not getting a lot of use out the monitor right now.

Would a 1080 manage at least 100 FPS at 1440p in most titles with a mix of high and max graphical settings? I'm mostly asking for personal experience here, as I can look at benchmarks all day, but user experience can vary.

Would you upgrade, or would you use the money for something else?

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Would a 1080 manage at least 100 FPS at 1440p in most titles with a mix of high and max graphical settings? I'm mostly asking for personal experience here, as I can look at benchmarks all day, but user experience can vary.

A lot of it depends on your RAM and processor. Though my gut instinct is to go with yes, you'll be able to squeeze 100fps at 1440p out of 1080 even if your RAM is limited or your processor old. You might not be able to go all in with Ultra settings, but if you are ready to compromise some post-processing the 1080 should get you comfortably above 100fps in pretty much all games.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

No, but only because 100 FPS is more than enough for me. As long as it's 60, I don't care.

 

[Bad Jim]

The Tier list says no.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

Specifically:

"I don't recommend upgrading your graphics card unless the replacement card is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel, and you may not even notice a worthwhile difference."

You're only upgrading a single tier. Your brother and the guest PC would appreciate the upgrade, but you probably won't notice the difference. The fact is that you already have a very good card, and you don't have much room for improvement. The 1080 is only about 20% better as far as I can tell:

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-980-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1080/3439vs3603

The 1080ti is more expensive, but has a more convincing improvement over the 980ti. Maybe enough to turn 100 fps into 144fps. But I'd recommend just holding your cash and waiting for the cryptomining madness to end and for a new generation of spiffy graphics cards to give you a real improvement.

Also, most games aren't really designed to run at such a high fps. Some games are capped at 60fps or 90fps. Others are dependent on a single CPU thread and will dip below 90 fps no matter how good your GPU is. Some games have strange physics at high fps. You're just going to have to accept that you won't get 140+fps in everything.

My GPUs aren't as fancy as yours (I recently upgraded from a 660 to a 1060) but I have had a 144Hz monitor for a few years and I have found a lot of games that don't want to give me 144fps, and it's not always because of my 660.

 

[sanquin]

Let's also not forget the price spike that happened not too long ago because of cryptocurrency mining. The prices seem to have gone done a little again, but they're still pretty high. I'd wait a bit longer and look into a 1080 in half a year or so.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

I'd say no, if you want to upgrade you should be getting the 1080Ti or wait for the next generation of GPUs.

 

[The Lunatic]

I went from a 980Ti to a 1080Ti, and I only did this because I had somebody offer to buy the 980Ti from me.

So, my advice would be to hold off.

Besides, likely by May or so, we'll know when Nvidia is doing the next series, and the new cards usually retail for what the current cards are priced at.

 

[demoman_chaos]

You could snag a 1060 for your brother, they are comparable in performance to what you have but run only about $300.

 

[Bad Jim]

You could snag a 1060 for your brother, they are comparable in performance to what you have but run only about $300.

Look at the Tier list:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

The 1060 is in the same tier as the 780ti, so it would offer barely noticeable improvement for 'only' $300.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I would not upgrade right now. GPU prices are super inflated, it's really not worth it. Give it until this whole bitcoin craze dies down a little, otherwise you'll be spending 1.5 times what the card is actually worth.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I think I?m upgrading, according to that graph.

EDIT: Yep, by replacing the R9-290X I have with a GTX1070 I am going up at least two tiers.

I suppose the only thing holding me back is my CPU since its a Haswell i7-4790. Solid but I'm a few generations behind now. I think.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

I wonder how long it will take for prices to return to normal.

 

[Bad Jim]

I wonder how long it will take for prices to return to normal.

I think buying GPUs for cryptomining is already a questionable investment as crypto prices are headed south for the foreseeable future and recouping the investment is far from guaranteed. But I'd give it a year or two before manufacturers make enough cards to satisfy gamer demand.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

As someone with a 1440p 144hz monitor and a 1080 in my experience I am rarely hitting 144fps at this resolution even with a 1080. 100 is doable but without maxxing certain graphics settings.

I used the EVGA step-up program to go from a 1070 to a 1080 when I got the monitor because I wasn't super happy with the 1070's performance at 1440p. The 1070 is a bit stronger than the 980ti I believe, so you'd be making a solid upgrade, but I wouldn't bank on hitting 100-144fps at max settings in every game. For example I'm playing Dishonored Death of the Outsider right now and with everything maxed out I'm usually in the 80-100 range.

Gtx 1080
i7 7700k
16gb DDR4 3200mhz

 

[demoman_chaos]

Look at the Tier list:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

The 1060 is in the same tier as the 780ti, so it would offer barely noticeable improvement for 'only' $300.

That "Tier List" is crap, considering I am running Tekken 7 at 60 fps online on max settings, same with Fallout 4 (minus engine goofs), Doom 4, Skyrim SE (With numerous graphical enhancements), Dark Souls 3, GTA5, and everything else I've tried on this rig (32 gb of ram and an AMD 8350 processor).

As you can see from this comparison video, it hangs nose-to-nose with the 980:

 

[Jeroenr]

The GTX 1070ti is also something to consider.
The entry model price lays fairly in the middle of a 1070 and a 1080.
But the performance leans considerably towards the gtx 1080.
And with OC software like MSI Afterburner can easily match it, without any real heat/noise impact.

I think I?m upgrading, according to that graph.

EDIT: Yep, by replacing the R9-290X I have with a GTX1070 I am going up at least two tiers.

I suppose the only thing holding me back is my CPU since its a Haswell i7-4790. Solid but I'm a few generations behind now. I think.

Is it a 4790 or a 4790K?
Running a 4770K myself and bumped it up to 4GHz, so i imagine with the higher stock clock of a 4790K you can easily surpass that.

 

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[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

The GTX 1070ti is also something to consider.
The entry model price lays fairly in the middle of a 1070 and a 1080.
But the performance leans considerably towards the gtx 1080.
And with OC software like MSI Afterburner can easily match it, without any real heat/noise impact.

I think I?m upgrading, according to that graph.

EDIT: Yep, by replacing the R9-290X I have with a GTX1070 I am going up at least two tiers.

I suppose the only thing holding me back is my CPU since its a Haswell i7-4790. Solid but I'm a few generations behind now. I think.

Is it a 4790 or a 4790K?
Running a 4770K myself and bumped it up to 4GHz, so i imagine with the higher stock clock of a 4790K you can easily surpass that.

Just the regular 4790. Overclocking was one of the few frontiers I was never comfortable exploring with my hardware.

 

[Bad Jim]

Look at the Tier list:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

The 1060 is in the same tier as the 780ti, so it would offer barely noticeable improvement for 'only' $300.

That "Tier List" is crap, considering I am running Tekken 7 at 60 fps online on max settings, same with Fallout 4 (minus engine goofs), Doom 4, Skyrim SE (With numerous graphical enhancements), Dark Souls 3, GTA5, and everything else I've tried on this rig (32 gb of ram and an AMD 8350 processor).

As you can see from this comparison video, it hangs nose-to-nose with the 980:

A more relevant comparison would include the 780ti:


Now yes, maybe I underestimated the difference a little. But it still doesn't make much sense to buy a mid range card unless you are doubling or tripling your performance. Otherwise, you end up buying new cards too often and cannot afford to spend much per card. It's better to go for a 1070, 1080 or not at all.