Upgrading to a GTX 3090 (UK) - which brand should I buy?

[Looking Glass]

I am looking to purchase a GTX 3090 soon. I have NO idea which one - PLEASE ADVISE - NO NONSENSE

They are many brands like below chart...
https://www.neogamr.net/best-rtx-3090/

 

 

I will buy from UK supplier like
https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/gpu-nvidia-gaming/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3090-graphics-cards

 

Aim to run either Varjo or RV2 VR.

CURRENT SYSTEM:

GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7800X CPU @ 3.50GHz

32 GB RAM

WIN10

Current resolution: 1920 x 1080, 60Hz

ASUS RAMPAGE IV MB

 

I also play NON VR too

Thanks in advance

[Convexrook]

I went with the Asus Strix 24G but I had the water block version due to custom loop.

 

But to be honest, the most stable was Asus . I have two in two systems Asus and Gigabyte and the gigabyte one gives me periodic lag whenever windows 10 changes the wall paper in the background. the Asus one does not do that.

[VpR81]

I went with the MSI Suprim 24G. Purchasing MSI Mainboards and GFX cards since the very first day i started to build my PC on my own. Never had any issues with MSI, they provide superb quality. The 1080Ti i had before was the only card i ever owned that was not a MSI, but a Gigabyte. And it smoked (yes, there was realy coming smoke out of my PC case back then) away when it was like 4 years old, while my much older MSI GTX 680 is still running without issues in the PC of my niece. This was a clear signal to go with MSI again. And to stay with them.

[Bossco82]

So far I have never had a problem with MSI or EVGA. If it was me that would be my choice. At the moment I have a MSI 6800xt, AMD I know, but its the gaming x trio and the build quality is excellent. 

[LucShep]

You're either picking the least expensive one and be done with it (and be happy whichever way you go), or you'll want to split hairs for minute details because, if you're paying that much, you might as well be that picky. 

 

Let's be realistic here..... the RTX3090 is a flagship model, a halo product, and probably the best, most desirable GPU in the planet for about a year now.

All of the GPU manufacturers done their best for that specific product, so all of those listed will be very good, no matter how you look at them, inside and out.

The original "Founders Edition" is a well finished product (and aesthetically impressive, I'd say) and probably the one that may become "collectible" years from now. But can't see any other advantages in it, really.

MSI "Gaming X" and ASUS "ROG Strix" are know to be well finished products, really nice details. Kind of a "DeLuxe" version when looking at different versions of same GPU within the respective manufacturer.

The one thing that really stands out with EVGA, besides being one of the Nvidia exclusive partners (ZOTAC also is), is that they have probably the best support and warranty services, for many years now, across the GPU universe.

 

Take that for what you will.

 

Edited September 9, 2021 by LucShep

[rapid]

I thought in this day with all that's going on that you would try and get a 3090 with the best price unless................time is not an issue and price is not an issue!

 

For the record I have a 3090 FE

[Bossco82]

I can second what Lucshep advises. I got the MSI gaming X trio for my gpu because it was offered for pre order in the UK. I also already had a MSI motherboard. However saying that EVGA are known for their almost faultless and quick RMA turnaround and customer support.

 

Just look into how they handled the recent fault on 3090's sold last year. They were fairly transparent about the whole thing which is pretty rare in a manufacturer.

[Heli Shed]

go to a 3080 ti and save your pennies, unless you live in the CAD world all day mate.  The 3090 is an anomaly of a giant mistake and most know it.

 

The 3080ti is exactly the same as the 3090 expect 24 gb RAM which even NVidia admit, is 1/3rd useless to anyone for anything.

[Lange_666]

3 hours ago, [WF]-Templar said:

The 3080ti is exactly the same as the 3090 expect 24 gb RAM which even NVidia admit, is 1/3rd useless to anyone for anything.

 

So the 3080ti should have gotten 16GB instead of 12?

[Hector45]

21 hours ago, [WF]-Templar said:

go to a 3080 ti and save your pennies, unless you live in the CAD world all day mate.  The 3090 is an anomaly of a giant mistake and most know it.

 

The 3080ti is exactly the same as the 3090 expect 24 gb RAM which even NVidia admit, is 1/3rd useless to anyone for anything.

I get what you're saying and I agree but you can't saying they are the same minus the VRAM, 3090 does have 256 more working CUDA cores.

 

It's interesting though, userbenchmark.com is showing the 3080Ti as the number 1 GPU now by a slim margin. I believe that's based on on an aggregate of user data.

[ShaunX]

Just looking at your rig I suspect 3090 VR performance in DCS is going to be throttled by your i7-7800X processor unless you can seriously overclock it.

 

I'm no processor expert but I know a GPU can only render frames as quickly as a CPU can pass them. For a 3090 in DCS you really need single thread performance to be closer to 5.0 GHz or you'll be CPU constrained unless you compromise on graphics settings.

 

If you have budget for a 3090 I think the money would be better spent on a CPU/MOBO upgrade with perhaps a 3080.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

 

[Looking Glass]

 

18 hours ago, ShaunX said:

Just looking at your rig I suspect 3090 VR performance in DCS is going to be throttled by your i7-7800X processor unless you can seriously overclock it.

 

 

Yes, spot on, will purchase processor as well. 

Thanks

[ShaunX]

4 minutes ago, beats said:

 

 

Yes, spot on, will purchase processor as well. 

Thanks

 

Nice, though note I'm pretty sure your ASUS RAMPAGE IV MB won't let you drop a more powerful CPU into it (which is why I said upgrade CPU/MOBO)

 

..and then of course the next question is whether your current power supply unit can deliver the wattage required by the 3090? You really need 750 watts+ to cover it and your other components.

..and what about your case cooling ?

 

Sorry, I'm really not trying to put the dampers on your plans. Just relating my own experience.

 

I looked to do the same upgrade late last year coming from a 2080 Super and a I7-6700K. With lots of good advice from this forum I eventually realised that I'd need to replace motherboard, ram and upgrade the power supply and case cooling. With all of that it just made more sence to bite the bullet and build a new PC with a modern case with great cooling to house it all. Your rig may already have the required infrastructure in which case have at it.

 

Full disclosure here - I originally planned to build the new rig myself, then copped out and got a reputable UK gaming pc builder to do it for me. When I priced up the components, I was only going to save maybe a couple of hundy doing it myself as they obviously bulk buy their components...and I'd probably have screwed it up anyway

 

[Wrcknbckr]

I was aiming for a 3090 but settled for a 3080+3monitors+3TbHD for the same price.

[Looking Glass]

3 hours ago, ShaunX said:

 

Nice, though note I'm pretty sure your ASUS RAMPAGE IV MB won't let you drop a more powerful CPU into it (which is why I said upgrade CPU/MOBO)

 

..and then of course the next question is whether your current power supply unit can deliver the wattage required by the 3090? You really need 750 watts+ to cover it and your other components.

..and what about your case cooling ?

 

Sorry, I'm really not trying to put the dampers on your plans. Just relating my own experience.

 

I looked to do the same upgrade late last year coming from a 2080 Super and a I7-6700K. With lots of good advice from this forum I eventually realised that I'd need to replace motherboard, ram and upgrade the power supply and case cooling. With all of that it just made more sence to bite the bullet and build a new PC with a modern case with great cooling to house it all. Your rig may already have the required infrastructure in which case have at it.

 

Full disclosure here - I originally planned to build the new rig myself, then copped out and got a reputable UK gaming pc builder to do it for me. When I priced up the components, I was only going to save maybe a couple of hundy doing it myself as they obviously bulk buy their components...and I'd probably have screwed it up anyway

 

Thanks for letting me know. I guess im looking at a full pc build now then

 

[Lurker]

I'd probably avoid the Founders edition (due to cooling solution) and the EVGA (due to some soldering issues with some cards in the beginning of the production run). With that said I think just go for the one that is closest to it's RRP. 

[reece146]

The only brand I've ever really heard anything negative about is Zotac. I did buy a Zotac 1650 for a low end, SFF desktop computer once (before GPU-apocalypse) and it had such a noisy fan I returned it immediately after firing it up.

 

FWIW, I have mostly Gigabyte GPUs and never had any problems. That said, I've heard they can be difficult to deal with for RMA processing. For GPUs I bought extended warranties, for "cheaper" stuff like mobos I rolled the dice.

 

HTH

[rapid]

Asus or Gigabyte  but on this occasion I went for FE. I Love the design, no problems with cooling most I have ever hit temp wise is 66c my last Gigabyte 2070 always hit 81c.

I feel the FE  will be a collectors item one day as it was a game changer.

[ShaunX]

19 hours ago, beats said:

Thanks for letting me know. I guess im looking at a full pc build now then

 

 

If you're seriously thinking about a varjo vr-3, you're definately going to need a top spec rig for DCS. Personally I think even that will struggle with a vr-3 (unless Vulkan makes a massive difference later this year, lol). If you read around the VR forum you'll see that even top spec rigs can't run Reverb G2's or Vive Pro 2's at maximum resolution and graphics settings in DCS with decent framerates and without ghosting out of the box and we've all had to optimise and mod to maximise the experience, particularly when there's a lot of AI in the mission. Have a read of @speed-of-heat's excellent 3090 G2 optimisation guide to get an idea of what's involved. Good luck !

 

 

[speed-of-heat]

I use an evga 3090 xc3 ultra... and i agree your current i7 is going to bottleneck you , most of my current bottlenecks are at the CPU level ,and my CPU will out run 7800x in most circumstances, by something like 20% 

 

 

that said there is no such thing as no bottlenecks in DCS

 

 

[Looking Glass]

1 hour ago, ShaunX said:

 

If you're seriously thinking about a varjo vr-3, you're definately going to need a top spec rig for DCS. Personally I think even that will struggle with a vr-3 (unless Vulkan makes a massive difference later this year, lol). If you read around the VR forum you'll see that even top spec rigs can't run Reverb G2's or Vive Pro 2's at maximum resolution and graphics settings in DCS with decent framerates and without ghosting out of the box and we've all had to optimise and mod to maximise the experience, particularly when there's a lot of AI in the mission. Have a read of @speed-of-heat's excellent 3090 G2 optimisation guide to get an idea of what's involved. Good luck !

 

 

noted

[Looking Glass]

My current PC SPEC: (updated)
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

Intel i7-7800X CPU @ 3.50GHz, 6 core

ROG RAMPAGE VI EXTREME (MB)

32 GB RAM ()
RiftS

- To summarise, its looking like a new pc build to house a 3090 card or upgrade system above with new processor and extra 32gb ram - comments on above system upgrade?

VR wise, I still need to do some more research. RV2 would be my choice but also considering Varjo VR-3 if I can make it work

Thanks
 

Edited September 14, 2021 by beats

[ShaunX]

As mentioned above, your upgrade problem is probably going to be with the MB. I'm pretty sure it won't support a high spec processor. Take a look at it on the ASUS site. So you'll almost certainly need a new MB. Also, what power supply (PSU) do you have ? It needs to be at least 750 watts.

 

So, replacing MB, Processor, Ram and power supply and adding a 3090 is pretty much a rebuild anyway.

 

What is an RV2 ? Do you mean a Reverb G2 ? I love mine.. I've actually just flown your Sunset Cruise with RAF Tornados sortie this morning in it. Very nice indeed

 

If I were in your position, with the budget to spend on a VR-3, I'd instead get a new high spec build in a modern case with good cooling, dedicated to gaming/DCS and a Reverb G2 for pretty much the same money - or maybe a Vive Pro 2 for a bit more.

 

I've seen the VR-3 Youtube clips and it looks amazing, but pushing those extra pixels in the single threading DCS engine, on the Syria map with lots of AI, that's another matter and I reckon it's gonna be a stutter fest with even the highest spec rigs around at the moment. I have to make compromises with my 5900X/3090/G2 to maintain locked 45 FPS in some complex scenarios, and don't even get me started on the Marianas !

 

Just my opinion. Others MMV.

 

[VpR81]

4 hours ago, beats said:

My current PC SPEC: (updated)
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

Intel i7-7800X CPU @ 3.50GHz, 6 core

ROG RAMPAGE VI EXTREME (MB)

32 GB RAM

Your Mainboard is a LGA2066 HEDT and not a ordinary mainstream mainboard like the LGA1200 most people use. What Chipset is installed on your MB? As long as it has the X299 Chipset, i'm sure it will support the 10900X / 10920X / 10980XE CPU. However, a UEFI update will likely be neccessary to support the latest LGA2066 CPUs. To be sure, do what ShaunX said. Check the ASUS homepage for further information. And if you are willing to upgrade your complete rig, i'd wait for LGA1700 and 12th gen iCore beeing released in November together with DDR5 RAM. Sure, there is no perfect time for an upgrade and people argue that one could wait forever. But 6 or 8 weeks before a complete new socket/CPU and RAM generation is going to be released this is not an arguement. That close to LGA1200 becoming obsolete, i'd say it's a bad idea to spend money for an upgrade. DDR5 of the same clockspeed (i.e DDR5-4800 vs DDR4-4800) is said to be 37% faster than DDR4 and DDR5 will most likely be the biggest step ever achieved with RAM. JEDEC already confirmed DDR5-6400 and that DDR5 will go up to 8400 MHz in 2022/23. Also DDR5-5600 will most likely be released in late 2021. If money is not an issue, i'd definately wait and get the new technology and if money is an issue, i'd wait for the new tech and see if the old stuff has a price drop. 

 

I'm in the same situation and desperate for a PC upgrade. My current system is a LGA 2011-3 6800K @4.2GHz, 64GB RAM (8 x 8GB), RTX 3090 and a Reverb G2. Will definately get the 12900K and 64Gb DDR5-5600 RAM and won't spend any money for a dying socket/RAM generation. My 2 Cents.

[BitMaster]

3 hours ago, VpR81 said:

Your Mainboard is a LGA2066 HEDT and not a ordinary mainstream mainboard like the LGA1200 most people use. What Chipset is installed on your MB? As long as it has the X299 Chipset, i'm sure it will support the 10900X / 10920X / 10980XE CPU. However, a UEFI update will likely be neccessary to support the latest LGA2066 CPUs. To be sure, do what ShaunX said. Check the ASUS homepage for further information. And if you are willing to upgrade your complete rig, i'd wait for LGA1700 and 12th gen iCore beeing released in November together with DDR5 RAM. Sure, there is no perfect time for an upgrade and people argue that one could wait forever. But 6 or 8 weeks before a complete new socket/CPU and RAM generation is going to be released this is not an arguement. That close to LGA1200 becoming obsolete, i'd say it's a bad idea to spend money for an upgrade. DDR5 of the same clockspeed (i.e DDR5-4800 vs DDR4-4800) is said to be 37% faster than DDR4 and DDR5 will most likely be the biggest step ever achieved with RAM. JEDEC already confirmed DDR5-6400 and that DDR5 will go up to 8400 MHz in 2022/23. Also DDR5-5600 will most likely be released in late 2021. If money is not an issue, i'd definately wait and get the new technology and if money is an issue, i'd wait for the new tech and see if the old stuff has a price drop. 

 

I'm in the same situation and desperate for a PC upgrade. My current system is a LGA 2011-3 6800K @4.2GHz, 64GB RAM (8 x 8GB), RTX 3090 and a Reverb G2. Will definately get the 12900K and 64Gb DDR5-5600 RAM and won't spend any money for a dying socket/RAM generation. My 2 Cents.

 

 

https://www.caseking.de/team-group-elite-u-dimm-ddr5-4800-cl40-on-die-ecc-16-gb-dual-kit-metg-398.html

 

329,90€ for 16GB 4800 DDR5 with ...CL 40 !!!  

 

I am also in the same situation, want to upgrade, 64GB minimum, 12cores minimum, but this Z690 thing does not hype me at all. It may be faster in IPC but if you check how much you will have to pay for FOUR of those kits from the link above with even higher speeds, ehhhh  I will rather pull the trigger on 64GB DDR4 3200/CL14 and a Ryzen 5900 or 5950 once the Gigabyte boards are available again. I like the idea of DDR5 but the first iteration of any new DDRx was expensive, not satisfying at initial speeds and latencies, not many modules to choose form, Bios-RAM issues, etc...   Those 64GB DDR4 3200/14 go for 485€, that's a real deal compared to 16GB for 330€.

 

That's 1.320€ for 64GB 4800 DDR5 +/-     Lets hope the prices come down and don't stay that high once the CPUs and Boards arrive.

 

edit:  just looked at my calc on my screen, it says 1.367,62€ 

47,62€ more than what that potential 64GB kit would cost. Just that the number stood for a Ryzen 5900X + Gigabyte Aorus Master X570S + 64GB Gskill Trident Z Neo DDR4 3200-14-14-14-34 4x16GB for a total of 1.367,62€ only 1 click away.  That is the difference between DDR4 and DDR5. Wow !  Indeed a bit shocked.

Edited September 14, 2021 by BitMaster