Well I am upgrading from a GTX970 to a GTX1080 TI. I just placed the order and the next 4 days cannot not come soon enough.

I am not familiar with a GTX970 that has more than 4 gigabytes of VRAM.  Here is a link to the 970 specs:

www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-970/specifications

Mike

Warriorpilot, could you let us know how you make out with your new GTX1080Ti compared to your GTX970?  Any advice on setup, performance, cooling, etc. would be valuable!  Congratulations on stepping up to the best you can get today.  Thanks in advance.

Mike

7 minutes ago, mhamilto said:

Warriorpilot, could you let us know how you make out with your new GTX1080Ti compared to your GTX970?  Any advice on setup, performance, cooling, etc. would be valuable!  Congratulations on stepping up to the best you can get today.  Thanks in advance.

Mike

Definitely. I am quite curious myself and will report back as soon as I test it on Friday morning. 

Mike.. Great explanation. I like that very much.

I think., looking at the rest of my hardware (i7-6700K 4 GHz ( and yes Ieydis -- 4 Gb on the GTX970)) in 2-3 years I think I'll renew my system, A ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1080 OC edition 8GB 11Gbp is probably the best choise.

You are welcome, Theo.  Hope it made some sense!  Your choice of a GTX1080 is a good compromise.  With the advent of 64 bit P3D still in its infancy, it is really difficult to predict what hardware will be necessary in a couple years to support the addons that many envision for flight simming.   What is certain is that the current batch of motherboards, RAM, CPU's, and specifically GPU's are not going to allow ideal simulation.   All of these are going to be running hot and so cooling of the multiple components is probably the number one factor to consider.  That, and one's ability to afford new hardware every 3 years!!!   Nonetheless, it is a fun time to be in flight simming with all the changes happening of late.  Good luck on your install, let us know how you find the transition,  and please report any caveats for others doing the same.  Regards,

Mike H.

I run two GTX 970 4GB cards. One runs a 1080P projector. The other runs an HD 24" monitor for instruments, via the VC only view, and a smaller VGH monitor. I also have a USB touch screen ELO monitor for GPSs. 

I have a i7 5960 six core CPU running at either 3.7 or 4.2 GHz ( I have to manually increase the speed after booting and haven't seen much difference between the two speeds) with 16GB of RAM.

I have done tests flying the IRIS PC-21 (a VAS hungry bird) at 2-3000' AGL along the eastern coast of Florida with FTX Global and LCNA. I find this to be a good stress test with all the autogen that has to be continuously loaded and dumped. 

Running a gpu test program on the usb monitor to reference the two GTX 970 cards, I have found that neither card ever shows more than 45% load. My card temps hold steady at 65 degrees C and don't complain. The only issue I have is that with aurogen set to ultra the system will have trouble refreshing fast enough at 300 kts. If I back off the normal or dense, I have no problems. I have not tried to overclock the GPUs.

Please correct me if my logic is incorrect. Using the above figures, I don't see where a 1080 or better card will give me any better performance. I suspect that most users of 980 cards running a basic HD setup will find that the 980 card is all they, at this time, need. 

My thought process is. I am spending 500 for a 1080 OC I might as well spend the extra 200 and ensure I am getting something that will be good for the future with the TI. It seems that P3D will become more graphics hungry now that the 32BIT limitation is gone. 

Jmig, nice setup you have.  What flight sim program and version are you using?  How do you find the USB ELO touchscreen?  Is there any lag when pressing the buttons?  On your widescreen monitors, have you used Chaseplane, and if so, how is it?   Thanks for your input,

Mike H.

2 hours ago, mhamilto said:

Jmig, nice setup you have.  What flight sim program and version are you using?  How do you find the USB ELO touchscreen?  Is there any lag when pressing the buttons?  On your widescreen monitors, have you used Chaseplane, and if so, how is it?   Thanks for your input,

Mike H.

I am using PD3 V4. I love the usb ELO. It is fast, works without delay. I used it for the Flight 1 650 and 750 GPS/Radios. I wish Flight 1 would get around to upgrading them for V4. The 500 series just aren't the same. :) 

The widescreen monitor is a actually 27". I wrote 24", but I forgot that the 24" was not quite big enough to display a full instrument panel so I bought the larger screen and moved the 24" to another computer. Both are touchscreen. So I can press buttons directly on the screen. Works very well.

I do not know what Chaseplane is. So, I guess I am not using it. :) 

jmig, thanks for your info. Very clever with 2 touchscreens!  Wish I had thought of that. I am still on P3D 3.4 for the exact reason you answered....no current  GTN750  for version 4!   I use it all the time for navigating around. Chaseplane is a camera program by FSFX packages. You can google it or see it in the respective Avsim forum.   Apparently way better than  exdok. It is still in development. I dont know how it works on miltimonitor systems so thatis why i asked. Thanks again for your info and advice. 

Mike

I've used a 970 for a couple of years now and had the same question(s) about upgrading to a 1080. I was lucky and was able to borrow a 1080 from a friend. My bottom line? I'm really glad I didn't spend the money on the 1080. Other than a 10-15% increase in FPS (which wasn't a problem with the 970) I really see no difference in either P3Dv4 or FSX (I'm using two 1920x1200 monitors.) .....Doug

46 minutes ago, W2DR said:

I've used a 970 for a couple of years now and had the same question(s) about upgrading to a 1080. I was lucky and was able to borrow a 1080 from a friend. My bottom line? I'm really glad I didn't spend the money on the 1080. Other than a 10-15% increase in FPS (which wasn't a problem with the 970) I really see no difference in either P3Dv4 or FSX (I'm using two 1920x1200 monitors.) .....Doug

I do QA on VR apps and borrowed one from the office. I was left with the same impression, when testing on the same settings as I used with the 970. I'd like to go back and do more testing with the terrain exponent setting in Prepar3D's config file to monitor the difference in performance. I didn't see my GPU memory usage get anywhere near the 4GB max of the 970 or 8GB of the 1080 on the  default terrain exponent setting. This might be where the added headroom in GPU power and memory could be utilized.

1 hour ago, niyoko said:

I do QA on VR apps and borrowed one from the office. I was left with the same impression... I didn't see my GPU memory usage get anywhere near the 4GB max of the 970 or 8GB of the 1080 on the  default terrain exponent setting. This might be where the added headroom in GPU power and memory could be utilized.

I had the same experience when tracking my two 970 GPUs. The memory like the usage percentage was well below the max. I think the memory usage was averaging less than 2GB? This was with Obrx LCNA and Global. I currently have Vector turned off, until they come out with the V4 upgrade. 

Perhaps with a better CPU, a better GPU will be needed?

13 minutes ago, jmig said:

I had the same experience when tracking my two 970 GPUs. The memory like the usage percentage was well below the max. I think the memory usage was averaging less than 2GB? This was with Obrx LCNA and Global. I currently have Vector turned off, until they come out with the V4 upgrade. 

Perhaps with a better CPU, a better GPU will be needed?

Agreed. In me case, I'm using a i7-4790K at 4.6GHz with DDR3 memory. When I upgrade those parts, my simulator as a whole might benefit more from a GPU upgrade.