Advice on upgrading to RTX 2080 card

P

Paulsw2

Ambling on the slow line
I've got some spare cash to invest in an upgrade from my existing GTX 1070 card to something super-duper, so I'm thinking of an RTX 1080. Any advice that people can offer? ie:

  1. what kind of RTX 1080 should I be looking for?
  2. what maker or company?
  3. what sort of price frame?
  4. how easy to upgrade from the GTX 1070? (eg. dimensions, power requirements, drivers etc.)

All suggestions gratefully received! :p

Paul

EDIT: oh, and the rest of the set-up: CPU i7-6700 @ 3.40GHz; 16GB DDR4 RAM; 650W PSU; Trainz installed on an SSD.
 
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The RTX 2080 has now been replaced by the RTX 2080-Super (for the same price) but with comparatively smaller performance gains than nVidia achieved with the RTX 2070 to RTX 2070-Super transition.
Nonetheless - the RTX 2080 Super is a superb card offering very high levels of performance at much less cost than the formidable ~US$1000 RTX 2080Ti.
Your current system specs should easily accommodate this upgraded card. (nVidia suggest a minimum 600W PSU).
Personally, I prefer the partner card variants of nVidia's offerings that deliver better cooling solutions and higher clocks than nVidia's proprietary ones. In particular, I like the Asus (ROG Strix OC) cards, but these come with premium pricing in the UK, NZ and elsewhere.
Note the high ranking of this card on the Tom's Hardware Gaming GPU Hierarchy here: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
 
I think you have to ask yourself what you will use the video card for. If it's just for TS19 then anything newer than the worthy GTX1080Ti will eat it.

A few months back I bought a very expensive Gigabyte AORUS RTX2080Ti card because I have other software, such as the Alegorithmic products, that are performance demanding. I use those to make PBR materials for Trainz. My PC has an I9-9920X CPU, 32Gb RAM, an M.2 500Gb SSD for the O/S and an M.2 1Tb SSD for Trainz. The PC is essentially a gaming machine although I don't play games other than Trainz.

I rarely run Trainz sessions but at least I can now crank up the settings to maximum without a performance hit. Was it worth the money - TBH, I'm not sure.

AFAIC Windows is the real problem. With a fresh O/S install, it flies. But when you start adding anti-virus and all those programs that want to phone home, etc, then it starts to slow.

In answer to your questions, I rather like Gigabyte because they make nice stuff. Costs? Well, since you are in the UK you will almost certainly get a better bargain than us distant colonials. My setup was expensive but I can afford it and my old machine was 4 years old and that was a good enough reason for me. :hehe:

The power requirements for the higher end cards seem to be much the same in the 225-250W range. In my case I asked the dealer to select a suitable power supply. I do have a 1000W P/S in my old machine should I run into issues.

The problem is the video card market keeps changing so you have to draw a line somewhere. If I were doing it again I might look a little closer at the newer "super" variants. They have less RAM than the 11GB in my RTX2080 but you may not notice the difference.
 
I'd go for Asus, Gigabyte and EVGA or slightly cheaper but have never let me down Zotac.
Currently using a Gigabyte Aorus GTX1080TI in main PC, runs cool under load and is very quiet. Zotac 980TI in number 2 which is still working very well.
Upgrades? I'd consider a RTX 2080 Super, anything else isn't IMO a big enough jump from a 1080TI to warrant the expense and I would really need a motherboard and CPU upgrade anyway or more likely a new build.
Things to watch with newer cards is they are unlikely to have VGA or DVI, just HDMI and Display port, so make sure your monitor has one or the other or both, if not may need an adaptor.
 
Here's a tip for all those planning to upgrade their existing graphics cards - or about to purchase a new one: Always check out the independent reviews!
One great source, which aggregates GPU reviews from all over the Internet, is VideoCardz.com.
For example, here is their collection of reviews, from all around the globe, available for the latest RTX 1080 SUPER graphics card alternatives:

https://videocardz.com/81510/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-super-review-roundup
 
Thanks chaps, good advice as ever. The Asus and Gigabyte versions of the RTX 2080 super are about £800 - not cheap! Time to reach for the credit card.....

Paul
 
johnwhelan said:
The RTX 2070 super is very close to the performance but a fair bit cheaper. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php have a look at the video card value column.

Cheerio John
Click to expand...

Darn things retail for near $900 here in oz ....:-( I've been considering a PC with a nvidia card as cant use the Turf fx effects on the Mac without the nvidia card, but an upgrade for a machine that will last me a good few years will end up costing me around $3000 over here, even if i get a non branded build from a local business.
 
dangavel said:
Darn things retail for near $900 here in oz ....:-( I've been considering a PC with a nvidia card as cant use the Turf fx effects on the Mac without the nvidia card, but an upgrade for a machine that will last me a good few years will end up costing me around $3000 over here, even if i get a non branded build from a local business.
Click to expand...

Ann in New Zealand picked up a refurbished xeon server and shoved a decent graphics card in it. Runs quite well. Locally I have a T3610 Dell 6 core with 16 gigs off lease that was fairly cheap direct from Dell but watch the height of the video card if you go that way. I have an ASUS RTX 2070 that fits nicely. The refurbished or off lease work stations have very good components including the power supply but do your homework and look for USB 3 support.

In TS19 and TANE the GPU is the only thing that matters. Well an SSD makes things jump up more quickly.

Cheerio John

Cheerio John
 
Cheaper and currently as good as Intel and a lot cheaper are AMD's Ryzens and it doesn't have to be high end either. I have a Ryzen5 1600 (six cores 12 threads) that actually beats my i7 6700K in multicore benchmarks for a third of the cost. Initially had it running with a 6GB GTX1060 and it was happily running TRS19 on mid to high settings. Having upgraded my i7 Rig last year from a GTX980TI to a 1080TI its now using the 980TI and is running TANE and TRS19 nearly as well as the i7 1080TI setup.

The 1060 is now in an ancient Phenom 1090T x 6 and will run TRS19 on Normal settings with TurfFx, takes for ever to load as it's got ancient drives and unmatched ram in it but once loaded its happily runs at between around 30 to 60 FPS.
f
Point of all this is you don't have to break the bank to get a setup that will run TRS19
 
johnwhelan said:
Ann in New Zealand picked up a refurbished xeon server and shoved a decent graphics card in it. Runs quite well. Locally I have a T3610 Dell 6 core with 16 gigs off lease that was fairly cheap direct from Dell but watch the height of the video card if you go that way. I have an ASUS RTX 2070 that fits nicely. The refurbished or off lease work stations have very good components including the power supply but do your homework and look for USB 3 support.

In TS19 and TANE the GPU is the only thing that matters. Well an SSD makes things jump up more quickly.

Cheerio John

Cheerio John
Click to expand...
My Mac Pro is a Xeon workstation, if I could put a nvidia card in as well as the rx580 I'd run it in windows using boot camp, but it would have power supply issues and I doubt i could fit another card in as the rx580 as it is a bit chunky. The decision by apple not to provide native nvidea drivers is infuriating. I have a 4gb Gtx 970 that is sitting inside a hardly used pc as it's such a pain to work on two different computers with different operating systems , I don't have the time to maintain two versions of trainz and build a route simultaneously. Last time I tried to transfer my personal cdps from the Mac to the pc so I could test my route on there I had masses of issues. I have adobe cs5.5 only for Mac and I would have to subscribe to their online apps which would cost a lot , although it's 32 bit and the latest version of Mac OS is going to drop 32 bit support so will have to bite the bullet eventually.....very , very annoying as the Mac runs TANE beautifully with an 8gb Rx 580
 
clam1952 said:
Point of all this is you don't have to break the bank to get a setup that will run TRS19
Click to expand...

Sound advice as always Malc. Nevertheless I've just lashed out £860 on an ASUS RTX 2080 Super ROG STRIX OC card. Ahem! :o

Oh well, we'll see what happens - TRS19 had better run like it's on steroids! :hehe:

Paul
 
Sorry for not coming back on this to give an update. So the ASUS RTX 2080S card arrived and my PC guy installed and tuned it all up. It is the most monstrous beast of a graphics card I've ever seen - we only just squeezed it into the case! So how does it perform (for £860)? The UserBenchmark test result is interesting - bearing in mind that all the other specs are the same, the GPU scores were:
GTX 1070 = 92.3%
RTX 1080S = 130.2%​
So a considerable improvement there. In Trainz, I'd say there's roughly a 50% increase in framerates - most performance parameters are maxed, with the exception of 'shadow quality' which is 'high' rather than 'ultra'. I've noticed this one parameter has the biggest impact on framerates, roughly halving them at the 10 locations on my test layout. I'm currently working with an 8000m draw distance which is fine for my purposes.

So, all in all, I'm happy and it's definitely enhanced my Trainz experience. That said, framerates are not sky-high (generally in the 30 to 50fps range), so it does say something about how challenging Trainz is for GPUs if even the third most powerful one in the world struggles slightly!

Paul
 
Great. Thanks for the feedback Paulsw2. Appreciated.
Enjoy that new beast of a card. It will likely be my next GPU upgrade too.
 
It could well be that, having upgraded your GPU, it is your CPU that is now the performance bottleneck. I too have an i7 6700K and have seen, on some complex routes / sessions, my GTX 1080 only being 60% utilised at times while the fps is around 25 - 30.

The spending never stops :eek:.
 
Well, a CPU / motherboard update means a new PC - no!!! :'( (well, maybe in five years time...)

Paul
 
Vostrail said:
It could well be that, having upgraded your GPU, it is your CPU that is now the performance bottleneck. I too have an i7 6700K and have seen, on some complex routes / sessions, my GTX 1080 only being 60% utilised at times while the fps is around 25 - 30.

The spending never stops :eek:.
Click to expand...

Interesting as my GTX1080TI will use 90 to 100% on full settings with my i7 6700K, doesn't show any signs of bottlenecking.
 
It really depends on the route / session. Routes containing lots of procedural track (e.g. Paddington-Westbury) seem to give my cpu a good hammering.

John
 
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