$999 EVGA 2080ti Black Edition: A good deal?

darrpara

Gawd
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All,
I have a friend willing to sell me his 2080ti black edition:
https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=11G-P4-2281-KR
At his buying price of $999.

I know this is the cheapest 2080ti and isn't 'A binned' but should that really matter? It is still faster than the 2080s I see priced at like $850+

I considered the 2080ti XC
https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=11G-P4-2282-KR
But I am not sure there is really $150 of improvement there.


FWIW I will be gaming @ 3440x1440 but I normally don't overclock my cards too much. I'm more likely to undervolt them if anything for temperature control in my NCase M1.
 
Why does he want to sell it. Is it a bad overclocker. You know you can buy it brand new from EVGA for that price.

Nah, he is an IRL friend. He bought it when it showed up on the EVGA website a week or so ago and decided he didn't really need it with a wedding coming up and is going back to his 1080ti.

If I buy it, I save taxes and he saves the restock fee.
 
it should be a very nice card for the resolution you game at. You should be able to max out settings in most games. If you are still using the 980ti, then it would be a very nice boost performance wise.
 
Would be fine. Better choice than a standard 2080 IMHO if you want the extra speed/performance. As long as you don't ever need to overclock, go for it.
 
It will overclock worse than the XC because the Black Edition doesn't have the 300A chip in it so BIOS swaps are also not possible to get higher power limits. Otherwise I think you will be happy with its performance at the resolution you are using.
 
The XC is more inline with the FE out of the box and could potentially overclock higher than the Black Edition, but I don't know if it's worth $150 more. Both are using the same PCB, as far as I know.

No matter what he says the card is still used. And if he was really your friend he'd add a friend's discount. Just saying... I'd buy it for like $850.
 
I debated the Black Edition for a long time debating between spending the extra cash or not to get one that wasn't binned "low". I did the same thing as you, a friend had one as an temporary RMA replacement until his card came back and once it did I bought his Black Edition for $1000.

My card actually doesn't do too bad, it gets a decent overclock but is fully power limited no matter how high you try and clock it just as one of the guys above said. The slider on Precision X1 lets me go to 112% power. I get 1950mhz-2000mhz depending on game and load on the core. BfV sits steady between both of those and my temps are between 70-75c under full load. I set a custom fan curve on it so that when it hits higher than 70c the fan kick up quite a bit. Under a normal load fans are at 70-75% which is enough to hear with my tower being in line with my eyes and ears on my desk but not unbearable.

JayzTwoCents just did a review of the supposedly highest overclocking card the MSI Lightning card. He got it to 2100mhz and that costs more than $600 from the black. A 5% core clock increase for $600 is not worth it at least for me.

Hopefully this can help you decide. There are very few reviews of these cards out there so I was in the same spot you are. Feel free to ask me anything else, happy to benchmark anything I've got if you want a more specific number/score for your use case.
 
I debated the Black Edition for a long time debating between spending the extra cash or not to get one that wasn't binned "low". I did the same thing as you, a friend had one as an temporary RMA replacement until his card came back and once it did I bought his Black Edition for $1000.

My card actually doesn't do too bad, it gets a decent overclock but is fully power limited no matter how high you try and clock it just as one of the guys above said. The slider on Precision X1 lets me go to 112% power. I get 1950mhz-2000mhz depending on game and load on the core. BfV sits steady between both of those and my temps are between 70-75c under full load. I set a custom fan curve on it so that when it hits higher than 70c the fan kick up quite a bit. Under a normal load fans are at 70-75% which is enough to hear with my tower being in line with my eyes and ears on my desk but not unbearable.

JayzTwoCents just did a review of the supposedly highest overclocking card the MSI Lightning card. He got it to 2100mhz and that costs more than $600 from the black. A 5% core clock increase for $600 is not worth it at least for me.

Hopefully this can help you decide. There are very few reviews of these cards out there so I was in the same spot you are. Feel free to ask me anything else, happy to benchmark anything I've got if you want a more specific number/score for your use case.

Awesome. Yeah I just can't justify over $1k for a GPU and especially can't justify 25% higher price for 5% higher performance. At least the cost jump from 2080 to 2080ti is somewhat comprehensible.

Really my main concern is idle noise and full gaming noise. I plan to put this in my ncase with additional fans to move air to the card but I don't know if any 3rd party coolers (accelero/morpheus II) would be worthwhile. My 980ti is basically 100% silent under load with my accelero III + Noctua fans but I am willing to ease that requirement to play widescreen 1440p in better detail. I play with headphones these days anyways now that I have 2 young kids who go to bed around 8 or 9 PM.

Current setup:
20190210_195813.jpg
 
I picked up the black edition card myself, but my plan all along was to slap a water block on it and water cool it. Now just trying to get some help with cutting and bending some tubes so I can finish that build.
 
If you're going to do the every two year GPU upgrade, might as well spend the little extra and go with a 2080ti, might buy you a little more time or at least a bit more of resale when an actually decent Ray Tracing oriented card comes out. Currently I am idling at 22% fan at a 31c. I'm running one 1440p high refresh monitor and a 4k secondary so even on desktop it's got some pixels to push. I'll just into a game here in a second and turn those fans down to see what a 1440p DXR off Ultra BfV load will take until it gets a bit hot.

I just ran a quick "test" and at 20% fan speed, the noise is less than my H110 cooler fans and two crappy case fans. The heat vent next to my desk is louder than both for comparison. Temps hardly rose at all without the fans even being on so you might be able to get away with them less than 20% or maybe almost off.

On the quiet note, I'm not sure if/how those DIY AIO water block solutions would work for this card but you could always spend a bit less on the Black Edition and use the difference to get one of those. I had a great luck with my 980ti Sea Hawk before this.
 
I picked up the black edition card myself, but my plan all along was to slap a water block on it and water cool it. Now just trying to get some help with cutting and bending some tubes so I can finish that build.

Get a heat gun, and silicon. Don't be scared. Take your time heating and bending. If you do that, all will be fine.

Some people go crazy trying to use tools, which I bought. But honestly I found it easier to custom bend the tube. And if it isn't perfect for some OCD person as the bend is done by hand. Let's be honest. Who cares. Well. Unless you are OCD.

I got the EVGA Black months ago. I average anywhere from 1975 to 2050. For $999. Yeah. A dollar a megahertz or more for the 300A silicon. Yeah. Not worth it.
 
how do you know which cards are 'A binned'?

In GPU-Z you can check the device ID. "10DE 1E04" will indicate a non-A chip, "10DE 1E07" is an A chip.

Other than that I don't know any way of knowing for sure a card is an A bin. It seems you are only guaranteed to get one on the OC versions of the higher tier cards, or the FE model that Nvidia sells.
 
In GPU-Z you can check the device ID. "10DE 1E04" will indicate a non-A chip, "10DE 1E07" is an A chip.

Other than that I don't know any way of knowing for sure a card is an A bin. It seems you are only guaranteed to get one on the OC versions of the higher tier cards, or the FE model that Nvidia sells.

does this only apply to the 2080ti or all 2000 series cards?
 
Non-A cards are stock frequency. Any overclocking at all indicates an A binned card.

I would imagine this matters more for people using air. I'm on water and see no need to ever consider an A card for $200 more.
 
does this only apply to the 2080ti or all 2000 series cards?
Non-A cards are stock frequency. Any overclocking at all indicates an A binned card.

I would imagine this matters more for people using air. I'm on water and see no need to ever consider an A card for $200 more.

From what i have read the only difference is the A chips have a higher power limit and are generally factory overclocked.

Non A chips have no overclocked from factory Nvidia specs. Doesn't mean you can't overclock them though. They will just hit there power limit a lot more often.
 
does this only apply to the 2080ti or all 2000 series cards?

Seems to apply to all RTX cards so far. Looking in the TPU database they all have two variants. The device IDs on the 2080 and below would be different of course.

Non-A cards are stock frequency. Any overclocking at all indicates an A binned card.

I would imagine this matters more for people using air. I'm on water and see no need to ever consider an A card for $200 more.

yes, though the regular 2080 Ti Strix is overclocked a bit and you aren't guaranteed an A chip with that one. I recently bought one and it didn't have an A chip and so did someone else on Reddit. If you want to be sure I would stick with the cards that specifically are labelled as OC models.
 
Seems to apply to all RTX cards so far. Looking in the TPU database they all have two variants. The device IDs on the 2080 and below would be different of course.



yes, though the regular 2080 Ti Strix is overclocked a bit and you aren't guaranteed an A chip with that one. I recently bought one and it didn't have an A chip and so did someone else on Reddit. If you want to be sure I would stick with the cards that specifically are labelled as OC models.

I am pretty sure you bought the base Strix model that has a 1545mhz clock, which is the maximum for non-a chips.

From what i have read the only difference is the A chips have a higher power limit and are generally factory overclocked.

Non A chips have no overclocked from factory Nvidia specs. Doesn't mean you can't overclock them though. They will just hit there power limit a lot more often.

yes, though the regular 2080 Ti Strix is overclocked a bit and you aren't guaranteed an A chip with that one. I recently bought one and it didn't have an A chip and so did someone else on Reddit. If you want to be sure I would stick with the cards that specifically are labelled as OC models.[/QUOTE]
The vendors aren't supposed to be selling any non-a chips with a factory overclock. That is what I meant.
 
The EVGA 2080 Ti Black is great. Mine overclocks to around 1850-1920Mhz depending on the workload. I had an EVGA XC Ultra which I returned and the performance difference is not worth the extra money. You wouldn't be able to notice the difference in games, just a couple of FPS. The best overclocking 2080 Ti's still power max at around 2100mhz. Why would you pay hundreds of dollars more for maybe 5% improvement in performance, which you will not perceive.

FYI, I have mine running on an NCASE M1. I put two 120mm fans underneath the card, bringing air in. I thought it would be detrimental, but actually reduced the temperature to a max of 78c, and helped with positive air pressure so the hot air escapes from the side panels. With the XC Ultra (3 slot card) I had to remove the side panels or the case would overheat and the card would throttle.
 
The EVGA 2080 Ti Black is great. Mine overclocks to around 1850-1920Mhz depending on the workload. I had an EVGA XC Ultra which I returned and the performance difference is not worth the extra money. You wouldn't be able to notice the difference in games, just a couple of FPS. The best overclocking 2080 Ti's still power max at around 2100mhz. Why would you pay hundreds of dollars more for maybe 5% improvement in performance, which you will not perceive.

FYI, I have mine running on an NCASE M1. I put two 120mm fans underneath the card, bringing air in. I thought it would be detrimental, but actually reduced the temperature to a max of 78c, and helped with positive air pressure so the hot air escapes from the side panels. With the XC Ultra (3 slot card) I had to remove the side panels or the case would overheat and the card would throttle.

How do you find the noise from your 2080ti black in your Ncase setup? I have a 980ti w/ accelero III right now so I am considering going through the effort of mounting an accelero III on a 2080ti unless the noise isn't too bad. I suppose I can always just flip my fans to intake and see how it goes.. if the card ever comes back in stock..
 
How do you find the noise from your 2080ti black in your Ncase setup? I have a 980ti w/ accelero III right now so I am considering going through the effort of mounting an accelero III on a 2080ti unless the noise isn't too bad. I suppose I can always just flip my fans to intake and see how it goes.. if the card ever comes back in stock..

It's fine.
I have never used an Accelero setup so I can't compare it to that. But compared to a Founders Edition 1080 Ti (blower) its much quieter and lower pitch. A whoosh instead of a whine. I mostly game with headphones so I can't notice it.

Flip your fans as intake and try it out. I was surprised it performed so well. I went from having to keep the side panels open and temperatures in the 80's, to case fully closed at temperatures under 80, just by adding those two high pressure Noctua intakes in the bottom. Positive air pressure is magic.
 
Well, my friend ended up selling it on ebay which I can't blame him for doing.

As a side note, the market for 2080tis totally fucking sucks. Everything is like $100-$200 over MSRP and crap. As if the MSRP wasn't high enough.........
 
Well, my friend ended up selling it on ebay which I can't blame him for doing.

As a side note, the market for 2080tis totally fucking sucks. Everything is like $100-$200 over MSRP and crap. As if the MSRP wasn't high enough.........
You can still get the Black Edition from EVGA directly for $999. They just charge sales tax everywhere, which would be an additional $60 for me. If you're an Elite member you can get free shipping. You just need to have 100 posts on their forum, owned and registered one EVGA video card, or registered two other EVGA products as a single owner in the last 12 months to become an Elite member.
 
You can still get the Black Edition from EVGA directly for $999. They just charge sales tax everywhere, which would be an additional $60 for me. If you're an Elite member you can get free shipping. You just need to have 100 posts on their forum, owned and registered one EVGA video card, or registered two other EVGA products as a single owner in the last 12 months to become an Elite member.

Sure, when it is in stock. Guess I just missed when they had some.
 
You can still get the Black Edition from EVGA directly for $999. They just charge sales tax everywhere, which would be an additional $60 for me. If you're an Elite member you can get free shipping. You just need to have 100 posts on their forum, owned and registered one EVGA video card, or registered two other EVGA products as a single owner in the last 12 months to become an Elite member.

They didn't charge me sales tax on a $999.99 2080 Ti Black. Billed and shipped to New York.

If its out of stock, set Auto-Notify and buy it as soon as you get an email saying its in stock. Thats how I got mine. Great video card.
 
Ask your friend to knock off $100. Come on, it's still a used video card, even if it was only used a week or whatever. $900 is still a 90% return on investment for him.
 
Ask your friend to knock off $100. Come on, it's still a used video card, even if it was only used a week or whatever. $900 is still a 90% return on investment for him.
OP already said his friend sold it on ebay. Some friend he is, am I right?
 
Dang sorry to hear he sold it. I was waiting to hear back if you had got it or not and how you liked it. They're out there, really worth picking up a used one because the tax alone kicks it into a whole new realm.
Also wondering why he sold it on eBay, they take quite a bit out of the sales along with Paypal. Best of luck in your hunt, this whole market for these are ridiculous and now at least you know you're not missing anything with Ray Tracing and DLSS!
 
I am just wondering. I've been waiting for it to go back in stock and it still not in stock and i'm getting impatient. I already have one but I want another one for NVLINK reasons. Is it possible to pair this with a different card let's say with an XC ultra?
 
I am just wondering. I've been waiting for it to go back in stock and it still not in stock and i'm getting impatient. I already have one but I want another one for NVLINK reasons. Is it possible to pair this with a different card let's say with an XC ultra?

no reason it couldn't be, the only differences are base clock speeds.
 
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