What monitor are you planning to use for this 1080? If you're using a 1080p monitor or even a 1440p monitor, you're kind of spending more money than is needed for a GPU for those resolutions. a 1070 will handle both those resolutions, even some 4k titles on a single card; while saving yourself a couple hundred of dollars. If you're set in stone to get a 1080, it might be worth waiting until the 1080TI comes out to see if you should jump on that or go ahead and buy the 1080.

As for what 1080 to get, that kind of depends on your case.

Hybrid has the tubing, which if your case is small or if you have an AIO cooler for your CPU, now you have all this tubing just everywhere in your case and it looks ugly. Hybrid will keep your GPU much cooler than the FTW, but like I said, you can end up having this tubing mess trying to mount the rad which may look unappealing and if your case is smaller, make it so there is less airflow getting through the rest of your case.

The ACX cards are fine now. Before they had some issues with temps, getting way hotter than they should, one guy posted on Reddit about his card exploding (extreme example, but nonetheless) and the solution to fix it at the time was very poor. I believe any cards after mid November are fixed. This will be your cheapest option while still offering the same performance as a 1080 Hybrid.

Personally I would opt for the STRIX line of GPUs. I've been a STRIX fanboy (except for when I had Titan Blacks) for a while now. I've always had very desirable temps with their cards even when under load. Even now with a 1070, on a 4k monitor and playing games on 4k, I never go above 56c with fan speeds on 38%. The EVGA FTW is cheaper than the STRIX by $30-$60 if you're concerned about budget and it looks like it has a better core clock speed, however I was able to overclock it multiple times to about 2009 MHz while sitting at about 64-70c depending on the weather near me. If you care about RGB, you're also getting RGB LEDs on the STRIX.

TaigaAisaka wrote What monitor are you planning to use for this 1080? If you're using a 1080p monitor or even a 1440p monitor, you're kind of spending more money than is needed for a GPU for those resolutions. a 1070 will handle both those resolutions, even some 4k titles on a single card; while saving yourself a couple hundred of dollars. If you're set in stone to get a 1080, it might be worth waiting until the 1080TI comes out to see if you should jump on that or go ahead and buy the 1080.

As for what 1080 to get, that kind of depends on your case.

Hybrid has the tubing, which if your case is small or if you have an AIO cooler for your CPU, now you have all this tubing just everywhere in your case and it looks ugly. Hybrid will keep your GPU much cooler than the FTW, but like I said, you can end up having this tubing mess trying to mount the rad which may look unappealing and if your case is smaller, make it so there is less airflow getting through the rest of your case.

The ACX cards are fine now. Before they had some issues with temps, getting way hotter than they should, one guy posted on Reddit about his card exploding (extreme example, but nonetheless) and the solution to fix it at the time was very poor. I believe any cards after mid November are fixed. This will be your cheapest option while still offering the same performance as a 1080 Hybrid.

Personally I would opt for the STRIX line of GPUs. I've been a STRIX fanboy (except for when I had Titan Blacks) for a while now. I've always had very desirable temps with their cards even when under load. Even now with a 1070, on a 4k monitor and playing games on 4k, I never go above 56c with fan speeds on 38%. The EVGA FTW is cheaper than the STRIX by $30-$60 if you're concerned about budget and it looks like it has a better core clock speed, however I was able to overclock it multiple times to about 2009 MHz while sitting at about 64-70c depending on the weather near me. If you care about RGB, you're also getting RGB LEDs on the STRIX.

I have 2 GTX 1080 FTW Cards and they both run easily @ 2025Mhz with a slight OC

GT40 wrote

TaigaAisaka wrote What monitor are you planning to use for this 1080? If you're using a 1080p monitor or even a 1440p monitor, you're kind of spending more money than is needed for a GPU for those resolutions. a 1070 will handle both those resolutions, even some 4k titles on a single card; while saving yourself a couple hundred of dollars. If you're set in stone to get a 1080, it might be worth waiting until the 1080TI comes out to see if you should jump on that or go ahead and buy the 1080.

As for what 1080 to get, that kind of depends on your case.

Hybrid has the tubing, which if your case is small or if you have an AIO cooler for your CPU, now you have all this tubing just everywhere in your case and it looks ugly. Hybrid will keep your GPU much cooler than the FTW, but like I said, you can end up having this tubing mess trying to mount the rad which may look unappealing and if your case is smaller, make it so there is less airflow getting through the rest of your case.

The ACX cards are fine now. Before they had some issues with temps, getting way hotter than they should, one guy posted on Reddit about his card exploding (extreme example, but nonetheless) and the solution to fix it at the time was very poor. I believe any cards after mid November are fixed. This will be your cheapest option while still offering the same performance as a 1080 Hybrid.

Personally I would opt for the STRIX line of GPUs. I've been a STRIX fanboy (except for when I had Titan Blacks) for a while now. I've always had very desirable temps with their cards even when under load. Even now with a 1070, on a 4k monitor and playing games on 4k, I never go above 56c with fan speeds on 38%. The EVGA FTW is cheaper than the STRIX by $30-$60 if you're concerned about budget and it looks like it has a better core clock speed, however I was able to overclock it multiple times to about 2009 MHz while sitting at about 64-70c depending on the weather near me. If you care about RGB, you're also getting RGB LEDs on the STRIX.

I have 2 GTX 1080 FTW Cards and they both run easily @ 2025Mhz with a slight OC

I mean, the 1080 FTW cards have better average clock and boosts speeds than a STRIX, hitting that with "a slight OC" doesn't mean too much. If it was a 1070 hitting that boost clock speed then yeah, comparing that would make sense. I already mentioned the FTW would offer better clock speeds, I stated that the STRIX too is possible to get those speeds if OP is planning to overclock or was thinking that the STRIX wouldn't be able to hit any higher speeds. It comes down to the GPU, you can have a STRIX that can OC better than a FTW or have a FTW that can hit better stock speeds than a STRIX can OC; just like with CPUs and their overclocking. OP would get better cooling and RGB on his GPU (if he cares about that) while still being able to hit an OC that can match the FTW for about $60 more. He could pay about $70 more for the EVGA Hybrid and get better cooling for his GPU than the STRIX and hopefully the same speeds as the FTW (again, it's different per GPU) but at the cost of now a case full of tubing and/or possible temperature increase to other hardware due to less consistent airflow because of the extra tubing. If money is tight, his option should be within getting just the FTW or opt for a 1070 if he's only using a 1080p monitor and I could even argue using only a 1440p monitor would warrant a 1070 over a 1080.

I could go higher, i just choose not to stress my card because i hit 72FPS on 4K with ultra settings, so why push my cards further if i dont have to

GT40 wrote I could go higher, i just choose not to stress my card because i hit 72FPS on 4K with ultra settings, so why push my cards further if i dont have to

I might have made my original post worded poorly, but that's what happen when you get drunk.

Anyways, I wasn't comparing 1080 speeds, I was comparing 1070 speeds to that of the 1080. I opted for the 1070 as I'm hoping onto the 1080 TI bandwagon. In my original post I said this

Personally I would opt for the STRIX line of GPUs. I've been a STRIX fanboy (except for when I had Titan Blacks) for a while now. I've always had very desirable temps with their cards even when under load. Even now with a 1070, on a 4k monitor and playing games on 4k, I never go above 56c with fan speeds on 38%. The EVGA FTW is cheaper than the STRIX by $30-$60 if you're concerned about budget and it looks like it has a better core clock speed, however I was able to overclock it multiple times to about 2009 MHz while sitting at about 64-70c depending on the weather near me. If you care about RGB, you're also getting RGB LEDs on the STRIX.

What I didn't word properly was when I was talking about the budget, if he's on a budget he can buy a 1070 and still hit speeds with those that match a 1080. I have SLI 1070's but for the sake of posting, I mentioned one card as I didn't start with two, I added another one in barely 2 months back. On my first card I have been able to hit 2009 MHz which is pushing it, yes, but others have hit higher somewhere like 2030-2070-ish. I have not overclocked my second card to anything too big, 1874 MHz is about it but even then I don't like to keep both OC'ed at once.

Having a 1080 FTW card hitting 2025 MHz is fine, but what I was trying to say is the boost clock speeds on the 1080 FTW are better than the 1080 STRIX and even a bigger difference on a 1070 STRIX [1506 MHz 1070 STRIX vs 1721 MHz 1080 FTW] I was trying to give OP insight that if he's on a budget, he can save himself a couple hundred of dollars, opt for a 1070 and still be able to overclock it to speeds that are on par with a 1080. A single 1070 can handle a good majority of 4k games too. Before I added in my second card, Overwatch never dipped under 68 FPS with max settings and render distance to 100%, BF1 never dipped under 60 on max settings with AA off (don't really need that on a 4k anyways) unless a Behemoth blew up next to me. Call of Duty was all over the damn place with different updates, so that's a coin flip. The Division also ran pretty much at constant 62 FPS but sometimes would dip too. Once I OC'ed I noticed I want to say anywhere from a 7-13 FPS increase on all games for 4k. After adding a second card have not had one game under 80 FPS, except for Fallout 4 but that's loaded with a shitload of mods.

Im gonna go with a EVGA ACX 1070, and I will SLI in the future if I feel like upgrading.

GPU Boost makes clock speeds totally irrelevant tbh. Every GTX 10** GPU is going to overclock itself when safe/capable and it's all going to depend on the silicon lottery so brand loyalty means nothing. Just but whichever card is cheapest and looks nicest to you. I personally like the new Strix cards. I don't like Asus that much, but I have a Strix 970 and an Asus motherboard so I'd probably get a Strix GTX 1070 tbh. That being said, I know EVGA have ridiculously good customer support and they have that step up program which is pretty tight.