ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 2080 Ti Video Card Review @ [H]

Lord have mercy on my rig. . .it's installed. Let the testing begin, and some gaming!
 
I had to go p/u my wife right after I installed and didn't wan't to leave running. Just got back about 30 minutes ago and nervously turned on. . . .and it posted. It's the little things in life ;)

Not going to OC it for awhile. Figure I'll keep an eye on temps and performance for now. So far, so good.
 
All in all a good 1st night. Did some real world game testing and a few canned benches. The usual suspects: Crysis 3, Metro Last Light(original-I need to reinstall redux for this now), Witcher 3, Mass Effect Andromeda, Resident Evil 7, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Numbers were more or less the same as [H]ard's. Have to say that for those out there with older 3930k/4930k's this card is a pretty good match up for 4k/60fps. All testing done using 417.01 driver. I also made sure Riva, Afterburner, and GPU Tweak II(newest version came out yesterday 11/27) are all the latest versions. Also gaming at 4096x2160.

Card has performed admirably. I actually got 1st place on timespy for 4930k cpu w/ single 2080ti with total score of something like 11877, card scored over 14000. Not bad for stock settings other than a basic fan curve I set up. I took a snip of it since it'll likely be the only one I ever get. Usually my only claim to fame is being in the top 100 for rigs like mine and them being air cooled. Seemed a little hotter than I like so I used GPU Tweak II to adjust the fan curve. Also kept MSI afterburner running just because I like the OSD but that probably cost me a few fps to have both on. Set all fans to 50c/60% & 60c/75%. Pretty much the same settings I use on my 1080TI in the other rig. Card never got above 57c and averaged between 1800-1900mhz and sometimes just under 2000mhz. Not sure of what to make with having control of outer and middle fans. It also takes a little getting used to in seeing the mem clock at 7000mhz! Point of reference is that I previously had some nicely OC'd Gigabyte G1 1080's in SLI in this rig. They seemed about 15% or more faster than my Strix 1080TI and this seems about 15% or more faster than them.

The real test is how long will it last. Already falling in love with it. Gonna wait until Kyle and his resources confirm whats causing those FE and other partner cards to die off before I do any OC'ing beyond what Asus already has. Haven't done any real stress testing with it yet either since I hoping to have some quality game time this weekend, that is assuming it turns back on ;)
 
Kyle, just went through OC on my 2080 ti Strix ( w/Micron ) before I read your review in detail. Mine was very similar on the numbers. I could not get the Time Spy Extreme stress test done until I dropped the GPU to 1750 and mem to 15500, which gave fr stability of 98.6%; mem at 16000 was not good for temp or stability. After 20 minutes, my GPU temp was 63 deg and stable. My case side was off, so now I have to work on my case fans a bit.
 
Replaced my two front case fans with TY-143's, one tied to the GPU, and numbers not quite as good, but still OK. Done.
 
Well, almost done. I tried installing partitions on the mb so the 8700K (+ U14S) had one fan and the Strix the other. It improved the mid tower's long-term cooling to almost the same as with the case door off.
 
Well a little over a month in and still going strong. Hopefully not cursing myself by stating it. I've been near exclusively playing at 4096x2160 with it.

Was lucky enough to have some time off over the last week or so for the holidays and got to do some extensive testing and playing. Overall I'm loving it. The price still hurts a little but the performance is awesome. I have been a bit shocked how much heat this thing displaces. I initially was trying to keep it under 60c all the time. It could do it but with the OC settings the fan's pretty much ramped up and stayed ~75%-85% all the time and the room got a little toasty(even in winter). Recently OC'd the CPU(4930k) to 4.3ghz plus a larger T.V. and new receiver so there's multiple items with increased heat in the room now. Recently we've had outside single digit temps where I live so I opened a window all the way a couple days ago. My case is barely a foot away from it. I cranked all the fans in the case and GPU to 100% and pushed the OC to almost the exact settings Kyle used. It was holding 2055-2085mhz with occasional spikes to 2100mhz! Impressive to see on air. The canned bench for SOTTR showed an average increase in FPS ~6-8 fps. Still only using smaa x2. It held mostly 60fps nonstop just like Kyle's real world review. Funny thing was that the room never really got below 68 degrees Fahrenheit the whole day.

Well back to the real world. I made another custom setting in Tweak II. The only thing I changed was setting a manual fan curve for all three fans to 65c/85% max and something like 55c/75% middle setting. Generally speaking I just don't like seeing CPU/GPU's getting in the 70-80c range. My case fans are running ~60% and the CPU fan is 100%. I also added some fans that came with the G.SKills ram kit in the top front of the case to help push air out. I had a sensor there at the same level at the Hyper 212 that used to show peaks around 24c with recently showed 26c. Doing this kept it in 21-23c range and the volume seems equal to all other fans in the case. Well the card tends to peak and average 1985mhz and I've yet to see it go beyond 62c/75% fan usage. These are basically settings to keep the whole rig as quiet as possible while maintaining the factory OC w/o compromise. Performance wise I'm back to the 50-60fps most reviews mention but keeping everything much cooler and quieter but it is nice to know that on those days when I just don't care I can crank it all and gain almost 10 fps depending on the game.

My complaint with the Strix 1080TI was that the 11GB there is rarely used since that card needs substantial game setting compromises to hold 50-60fps in demanding games and by then it's usually only using 6-8GB in 4k. With this generation the rest of the card has caught up substantially and I'm seeing that 11GB getting used now. Most of the games I play are averaging 7-10GB with nearly all settings maxed. Before this card I was using 2 G1 1080's in SLI and they surpassed the single 1080TI but between the 8GB Vram, SLI scaling, and slower all around clocks, they performed significantly less than this single card. Really happy with this and hoping it lasts.

Can't wait for Metro Exodus and RE2 remastered to come out and play on this.
 
Seriously considering this card. Just waiting on the MSI 2080ti Lightning Z to hit the street. If too high, I'll get this card instead. The Z looks very, very nice. But not willing to pay gouge prices.

Great review as always on this card.
 
revenant said:
Alright... bit the bullet on this card tonight. Looks like a beast.
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I've got nothing but love for mine. After doing some extensive changes for the fans in my case I'm now able to mostly hold 2130MHZ. The most demanding games can definitely bring it down at 4k but anything less and 60+ fps quickly becomes a reality. Still not happy about the price but I don't regret it.
 
lostin3d said:
I've got nothing but love for mine. After doing some extensive changes for the fans in my case I'm now able to mostly hold 2130MHZ. The most demanding games can definitely bring it down at 4k but anything less and 60+ fps quickly becomes a reality. Still not happy about the price but I don't regret it.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have a pretty good air setup in my case. I put a black exhaust fan below the video card (sort of stealth) with all the pci slot covers removed because heat was really pooling there. I am looking at rebuilding into one of those new LianLi 011 Dyanmic cases and really attack this RTX with air... or maybe my old Thermaltake Core x5 which I had some killer airflow going on in that box. Anyways... It's on truck for delivery today...
 
revenant said:
Yeah I have a pretty good air setup in my case. I put a black exhaust fan below the video card (sort of stealth) with all the pci slot covers removed because heat was really pooling there. I am looking at rebuilding into one of those new LianLi 011 Dyanmic cases and really attack this RTX with air... or maybe my old Thermaltake Core x5 which I had some killer airflow going on in that box. Anyways... It's on truck for delivery today...
Click to expand...


I love O11 Dyanmic - have 9900k (on AIO) with Titan RTX (on air) - the bottom has place for up to 3 intake (or exhaust guess) fans - I have them blowing right on Titan RTX with Corsair 115 Platinum AIO mounted on top (roof) case - I'm considering EK Classic loop. O11 is my new fav case.
 
nEo717 said:
I love O11 Dyanmic - have 9900k (on AIO) with Titan RTX (on air) - the bottom has place for up to 3 intake (or exhaust guess) fans - I have them blowing right on Titan RTX with Corsair 115 Platinum AIO mounted on top (roof) case - I'm considering EK Classic loop. O11 is my new fav case.
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Yeah that case really has about as ideal airflow as it gets with all of the fans populated.. I would have the bottom three as intake for sure.. top as exhaust.. the three sides as intake to experiment with.. That would draw air from the psu area but I think that combo would properly drench the gpu in air. :) Sweet case for sure.
 
lostin3d said:
I've got nothing but love for mine. After doing some extensive changes for the fans in my case I'm now able to mostly hold 2130MHZ. The most demanding games can definitely bring it down at 4k but anything less and 60+ fps quickly becomes a reality. Still not happy about the price but I don't regret it.
Click to expand...

OK got the card in and am experimenting a bit with afterburner.. I have the mem up to +500 (7500mhz) and the core to +125 (which hits 2100 at times) and cranked the fan up pretty good.. It's not silent but it's kicking ass in games.. avg 65c and core 2010mhz at 4k with all bells and whistles on... WOW the RT really does make the environment look .... real. The lighting in Metro is breathtaking with RT on high.
 
revenant said:
OK got the card in and am experimenting a bit with afterburner.. I have the mem up to +500 (7500mhz) and the core to +125 (which hits 2100 at times) and cranked the fan up pretty good.. It's not silent but it's kicking ass in games.. avg 65c and core 2010mhz at 4k with all bells and whistles on... WOW the RT really does make the environment look .... real. The lighting in Metro is breathtaking with RT on high.
Click to expand...

Pretty close to the same settings I used on mine. A trick that Kyle taught me is that most cards can't supply enough power to fully maxed mem and core clocks. So lower the mem a little and the core will go a bit higher. I used +200(could probably go a little higher) on the mem, about the same on the core, and ~ +20% voltage. I didn't change anything else other than the fan profiles.As long as I can keep it all at ~60-63c it'll mostly hold 2130mhz. I do see some dips around 1985-2010 occasionally but I think that has a lot more to do with the complex usage algorithms(seems anything less than 90% usage and it quickly drops the core clocks) that Turning firmware controls the cards with.

I begrudgingly have been using Asus Tweak II for this. I normally love Afterburner but as of yet it's not letting have full control of the card's 3 fans like Tweak does and I also seem to remember it not giving access to the voltage but I could be wrong there. Anxiously awaiting them to update so I can go back to it. It's what I use with my 1080TI in my other rig. Tweak II's OSD overlay does have some issues with some programs so if you do tinker with it be aware of this.

Yeah, some people complain about the Asus tax but until you experience one of these maxed most will never know how nice it is to have one. Compared to a FE it's almost like a different gen or tier. I found the same to be true for the Strix 1080TI's too.
 
revenant said:
Yeah that case really has about as ideal airflow as it gets with all of the fans populated.. I would have the bottom three as intake for sure.. top as exhaust.. the three sides as intake to experiment with.. That would draw air from the psu area but I think that combo would properly drench the gpu in air. :) Sweet case for sure.
Click to expand...

Not familiar with that case but it sounds like you guys have got a similar set up to what I did to my HAF 932. I removed the 200mm fan on the side and replaced it with four 120mm fans hooked up to a NZXT controller for intake. It has a 160mm fan on the bottom front for intake. I had a pair of fans that came with the G.Skill kit that I was able to mount on the grill middle-rear of the case, just above the PSU and almost directly behind the GPU) that I directed for exhaust. There's a 160mm above that for exhaust also connected to the NZXT. The top of the case has a 160mm for exhaust. I also added a 120mm fan onto the grills in the front of the case drive bays for exhaust. All together, 10 fans. So much air flow that dust isn't even gathering anymore inside it. Case volume is definitely a bit louder but still low enough that I can hear when the GPU fans wind up.
 
lostin3d said:
Pretty close to the same settings I used on mine. A trick that Kyle taught me is that most cards can't supply enough power to fully maxed mem and core clocks. So lower the mem a little and the core will go a bit higher. I used +200(could probably go a little higher) on the mem, about the same on the core, and ~ +20% voltage. I didn't change anything else other than the fan profiles.As long as I can keep it all at ~60-63c it'll mostly hold 2130mhz. I do see some dips around 1985-2010 occasionally but I think that has a lot more to do with the complex usage algorithms(seems anything less than 90% usage and it quickly drops the core clocks) that Turning firmware controls the cards with.

I begrudgingly have been using Asus Tweak II for this. I normally love Afterburner but as of yet it's not letting have full control of the card's 3 fans like Tweak does and I also seem to remember it not giving access to the voltage but I could be wrong there. Anxiously awaiting them to update so I can go back to it. It's what I use with my 1080TI in my other rig. Tweak II's OSD overlay does have some issues with some programs so if you do tinker with it be aware of this.

Yeah, some people complain about the Asus tax but until you experience one of these maxed most will never know how nice it is to have one. Compared to a FE it's almost like a different gen or tier. I found the same to be true for the Strix 1080TI's too.
Click to expand...

Yes I have lowered my memory clocks on other cards to get a little more out of the core. I have power and temp limit locked and at max and core voltage % +50 and I haven't pushed the card past +125c +500m (samsung memory on my card / should hit +1000 if pushed) but have yet to see any instability.. I had to monkey with the custom fan profile in Afterburner (4.6.0 beta 14) a bit which does work but applies the speed to all three fans at once. At 100% they are not exactly quiet but for sure more reasonable than my 1080ti ftw3 was at max. I wanted a curve that would keep the card under 65c while playing Metro. And I wasn't exactly methodically probing each part of the card for tolerance last night - I wanted to get a quick idea of how well it behaved with a moderate oc on it. It seems to be a good card. With the temps reeled in it stayed above 2ghz at +125c with minor dips under. My 1080ti never was able to do that. This weekend I will lower the core voltage to +0 and mem to default and push the core until it gets unstable, then apply bits of core voltage to stabilize, the ol oc dance.. but for the next couple of nights . . . gaming!
 
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