I'm choosing my next VGA (upgraded my ancient system to an i7 8700 with 16GB of RAM, but it is running on my good old EVGA GTX 980 SC, that is starting to show its age). So, I'm between the RTX 2080 and the 2070, probably from EVGA, MSi or Gigabyte. The thing is that my display is 4k (2160p) and I'm afraid the 2070 won't be able to handle it... But the price difference here in Brazil is enormous between the two. Think that with that difference I could buy a GTX 1070! 2080Ti cards costs as much as a second hand car here (no kidding), so it's a no go. So, 2080 or 2070?? What about the brands? Or any other ideas?? Thoughts please!
You should purchase what your budget allows. Between the two cards, get the 2080 for sure if you are able to do so. The 2070 can for sure do 4k. You might need to compromise on a few graphical settings to get a frame-rate above 60 FPS in newer games though. Granted, the same logic applies to the 2080 as well, just not as heavily. 4k is just hard to run (and imo not worth it). Brand wise, EVGA is my go to personally, but honestly any vendor would be fine. Other ideas would be to get a 1080 or 1080 Ti used second hand. That would depend on how you feel about used parts, and how much you care about emerging tech like ray tracing and DLSS.
The thing is I'm also worried about not bottlenecking my CPU. AND once you go 4k, you don't go back, it's worth it, specially after you've played some games on proper 4k and HDR+. And there's this one game called Kingdom Come Deliverance that is bringing VGAs to their knees, and the 2070 averages at the 30 fps on it @4k... The 2080 goes to a much healthier 48 fps. I don't care much about Ray Tracing as I believe it'll be another "nvidia hair" feature, that is completely forgetable and a FPS killer, also, most of its effects (reflections and shadows) are already being done on games. Even AMD doesn't care about it and it won't be present on their next GPU line. Speaking of AMD, there's a possibility that nVidia would cut their prices when AMD launches their 3000 series of VGAs... That could be a motive for me to wait a bit longer to upgrade.
You will for sure not have any bottleneck to speak of, the i7 8700 will be fine with any GPU at pretty much any resolution. And remember, higher resolutions actually DECREASE your bottleneck on the CPU. You have nothing to worry about. Games like Kingdom Come Deliverance have horrible optimization, you really should be lowering things like view distance and shadows with a game like that. But again, if you can get the 2080 with no regrets on the price, then why not. Whether or not you wait is up to you. There will always be the threat of new hardware, the question is CAN you wait. If you need a GPU now, then the future is irrelevant. IF you can wait, then do so.
Love my 2080/8700k combo. It's fine at stock clocks, but you could easily delid and run it at 4.8-5ghz
You should pair GPU rather with a monitor (AKA: desired resolution and refresh rate) and desired amount of eye candies. If you current monitor resolution is 1920x1080@60hz, your current GTX980 would be enough. For 4k@60hz panel with ULTRA settings in games, I'd consider RTX2080. If you willing to drop a view settings, RTX2070 / GTX1080 should be enough. As for your CPU, it's enough to get up to 144fps in most games, so I wouldn't bother with it.
Thank you guys for the help! I'm pending for the 2080 to be more future proof. I'll look for better prices and then decide.
Yeah, that's another option I'm considering. Also, with the new AMD cards coming, we might see a price drop on the nVidia cards. Just talked to my seller and they just didn't lower the price on any vga... One more reason to wait...
Save the money and get an 8600k or lower and then get a 2080ti. Gpu is the main bottleneck at 4k and you need all the power you can get. 2080 will drop below 60fps. Unless you're doing something outside of gaming, the 8700k isn't going to give you any better performance because even the 2080ti will be a bottleneck at 4k. Actually it bottlenecks most modern cpus at that resolution even my 6600k @4.6ghz although getting to be less of a bottleneck.
I have already bought the 8700, and that's because I usually stay a very long time with the same mobo/cpu. Also, I had an excellent deal and the 8700 ended up being cheaper than a 8600k. My last system was based on a phenon X6 and I had the same mobo for 9 years! Now my system is running with the 8700 and the gtx 980. At anything above 1080p the 980 bottlenecks the rest of the system. And running 1080p or even 1440p on a 40' 4k display makes everything blurry... As I said, I'll probably try to wait for the launch of the next AMD gpus, that may drive Nvidias prices down. Or maybe they'll even be good enough to make me switch sides... (my new mobo is crossfire ready).
Oh I see, sorry I was under the impression you hadn't already bought the cpu so that's where my suggestion was coming from. Save more on the cpu to afford a better gpu. Well, the 8700k is a monster cpu that is for sure but unfortunitely you won't see it's true potential at 4k for a while with the current state of gpu's. Still should last you years. Coming from a 1080ti which roughly performs like a 2080, I can say that you definetly want at least a 2080ti to run games on ultra 4k. Using a 2080ti now and it's a much better experience than my 1080ti was giving me. I'm not sure how good AMD's gpus are going to be but hopefully like you said, it lowers prices. Also yes, 1440p looks terrible on a 4k screen but you could try a custom resolution of 3200x1800 or 3584x2016. That is what I was doing when I was on my 1080ti and it didn't look half that bad.
Great tips you just gave me... I'll try playing with those custom resolutions at least on games I can use them. And wait a bit to see if there's a price drop. Thanks a lot !
1070 is too little of a gain compared to my current GTX 980 SC. Sometimes it goes for just a single to two fps on games running @4k. I'll wait to see if there's a price drop on the 2080/2080ti/2070 cards, and then make up my mind... I had great imput from the guys here on this thread, and now most games I was struggling to run @4k, I'm using custom resolutions like 3200x1800 and getting great IQ, and much better fps count on games. For instance, Kingdom Come Deliverance now runs @40fps on "high" settings @ 3200x1800. That's amazing compared to the 23fps I was getting @4k. Almost no IQ lost, and almost double the fps. Thanks everyone!
Update: Just bought a Gainward RTX 2080 "Phoenix" model. Price has dropped just about what I needed. Can't wait to put my hands on it! Thanks again for all the help!
