I haven't OCd my card yet but playing GTA 5 I was getting some intermittent lag. I played around with every in-game setting possible and the only way I managed to get the game to be stable was turning on MFAA at x2/x4/x8. Since activating MFAA, game performance is very good but occasionally there is a split second lag in fast paced action.
 
My monitor + Nvidia control panel settings:
165hz
1440p (stock recommended setting)
G-SYNC: Enabled
Connected to GPU via DP cable
Everything else is set on default
 
Current GTA 5 In-game settings:
- 1440p res
- 165hz
- V-Sync: OFF
- MFAA: X4
All other settings are left to default
 
It's my first time getting to acknowledge all these settings, refresh rates, gsync, higher res, etc etc. I'm not familiar with Nvidia control panel and other in-game settings and I've been learning online as I go along. With my new card and a fresh install of Nvidia drivers what should I configure to get the best out of my card for gaming performance? I actually thought the game would auto-detect best settings from the get-go and I even tried 'restore default' but the lag wouldn't go away. I'm not too confident with my recent research on MFAA, FXAA, TXAA and a couple of other settings in game and then there's the multitude of settings in the Nvidia control panel too. Even though I have Gsync enabled, I can't see Gsync options in the game's settings. 
 
How can I achieve best performance with my new build and brand new GPU? 
 

Thanks bro... BRILLIANT GUIDE...bookmarked for reference!
 
I read your reply late but earlier on after re-installing the GPU driver I found a post listing best in-game settings for the 1080 card (though mines a TI). I just copied and applied the same settings. All I can say is 'I finally get to appreciate the EVGA 1080 TI in full force -amazing'. 
 
link: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3091171/gta-settings-gtx-1080.html 
 
I have both my monitor and NV set to 165hz. In the above linked ultra settings I was getting around 90 fps on a 1440p display. Is that good? I mean it looks greattt and I can't fault anything from the visuals, just wondering whether the card is performing at max at stock config. 
 
Sorry, i'm full of questions. If the GSYNC refresh rate sticks around 90fps, are display and NV settings at 165hz max pointless? I could knock them down to 120hz or the monitors stock setting of 144hz. What do you think?
 

It's the same panel. I turned off the OC setting for 165hz, now back on the stock setting of 144hz. Who ever these guys are at TFTCENTRAL...they sure know how to give great in-depth reviews opposed to the crappy summaries i've been reading.
 
Are there any CONS if I left GSYNC enabled at all times? I spend more time working on my new machine than gaming and if its eating power or any other resources I rather keep it off and enable only for gaming. Likewise, 144hz....full time or should I enable only for gaming?

thanks mate :) Mines downclocking from the get go. Hope it stays that way.
 
Today I spent some time playing GTA 5. FPS dropped down to 50-60 at some point (as you suggested earlier - environment variables). It was the greens with its grass, bushes, trees and huge landscapes of mountains and what not.. I'm still pretty new to in-game settings and i was meaning to ask - which of these settings would you recommend reducing or turning off without losing too much visual quality. I initially set everything to Ultra and turned all settings 'on' in Advanced Graphics in order to push the card to the max. The end result is amazing but I prefer the FPS somewhere between 80-120.
 

turn grass to very high, and msaa 2x

I'll recommend you my settings:
 

• Texture Quality: Very High
• Shader Quality: Very High
• Shadow Quality: Very High
• Reflection Quality: Ultra
• Water Quality: Very High
• Particles Quality: Very High
• Grass Quality: Very High
• Soft Shadows: NVIDIA PCSS
• Post FX: High
• Anisotrophic Filtering: 16x
• Ambient Occlusion: High
• Tesselation: Very High

Advanced Graphics

• Long Shadows: ON
• High Resolution Shadows: OFF
• High Detail Streaming While Flying: ON
• Extended Shadows Distance: 100%

 
My benchmark results were this with above settings:
 
2560x1440 - Framescaling OFF:

Frames Per Second (Higher is better) Min, Max, Avg

• Pass 0, 55.136944, 135.409103, 109.567810
• Pass 1, 75.994133, 147.438522, 124.128464
• Pass 2, 74.444527, 166.761307, 119.449478
• Pass 3, 39.104897, 184.263367, 146.731064
• Pass 4, 33.587769, 188.044220, 119.355003

 
2560x1440 - Framescaling 1,5x (this is pretty much as demanding as 3840x2160 aka 4K):

Frames Per Second (Higher is better) Min, Max, Avg

• Pass 0, 41.973660, 135.180679, 95.762451
• Pass 1, 40.129269, 141.895523, 100.100922
• Pass 2, 62.557186, 166.273315, 111.349472
• Pass 3, 69.229897, 164.704697, 114.530197
• Pass 4, 35.794460, 175.479080, 104.837372

 
The average framerate is what matters the most here, the min fps values may be much lower than you'll normally experience because I actually never run below 60fps with 2560x1440 and 1.5x framescaling.
This was done with an older i7 3930K however, an i7 7700K may have the edge in some situations but the game is scaling well so it should be similar if I have to guess.
 
Also do not see GTA Online as a proper benchmark, your framerate may drop like 20-30fps sometimes when a lot of players are present in a lobby, afaik the GPU utilization lowers so this is simply a CPU bottleneck.
I usually stick to reasonably empty lobbies so that's less of an issue to me.
 
About FXAA, in my opinion with a 27" 1440P screen it's pretty much the way to go.
The jaggies won't really be that noticeable and FXAA has the least performance impact, even versus SMAA and maybe TAA.
MFAA is using MSAA partially like TXAA so that's going to tank the framerate, and GTA 5 is really a bad game to use MSAA on because it misses a lot of jaggies and TXAA mostly introduces a ton of blur with even slower performance.
 
I once made long ago a comparison album with different AA methods & combined with supersampling (like DSR does):
https://imgur.com/a/5FyMj
You'll notice how using a higher resolution like DSR or using framescaling to achieve the same result gives a better image quality than messing with MSAA type of methods, especially in regards of framerate.
This was back when I still used a GTX780Ti and a 1920x1080 display.
 
In my opinion you can leave the reflections at Ultra, the 1080Ti can easily handle this with the above settings and it surely can be noticed on cars / mirrors and buildings.
 
Also here I give a few reasons not to raise certain graphical settings beyond this value or turn them on.
 

• Grass quality:

Choosing Ultra would tank the fps in dense vegetation area's, Very High is heavy enough and looks fine.

• Post FX:

Raising it beyond high will likely eat away about 20fps solely for some more shiny lens flares and it increases the blurring of the image quality.

• High resolution shadows:

In my personal opinion it doesn't really add much than making the shadows sharper, but that makes the shadows more unrealistic and less soft, keeping it off with PCSS enabled should give a good enough experience, plus it tanks the framerate.
No PCSS and you'll get pretty bad shadows though, so I'd rather advice to stick to PCSS + Hires OFF for balanced performance.

• Extended Distance Scaling

Leave this bar at 0% because this will introduce a huge bottleneck when increased to higher levels especially at locations where you have a great view, it's simply too many drawcalls for modern CPU's to handle and you'll see your GPU drop it's utilization.
Even a small increase may give more occassional hitches.

Live_Ammo

CriticalHit_NL
About FXAA, in my opinion with a 27" 1440P screen it's pretty much the way to go.
The jaggies won't really be that noticeable and FXAA has the least performance impact, even versus SMAA and maybe TAA.
MFAA is using MSAA partially like TXAA so that's going to tank the framerate, and GTA 5 is really a bad game to use MSAA on because it misses a lot of jaggies and TXAA mostly introduces a ton of blur with even slower performance.

Initially i tried FXAA and i was lagging or experiencing split second pauses every few minutes. Maybe other settings I had activated or ramped up were conflicting. If I turn on FXAA, i take I should leave MSAA off? Currently at MSAA X4 I get some amazing visuals and very smooth gaming experience (GSYNC ON). Though I fancy trying out FXAA too with the correct settings

You can combine MSAA and FXAA, however I don't think you'll really benefit from using MSAA and you'll lose more fps.
Try instead using a higher framescaling like 1,5x and combine this with FXAA, or try using a DSR resolution of 4K with FXAA, it will likely look a lot better than just using MSAA.
Keep in mind though that at higher framescaling or 4K DSR the full potentional from the 1080Ti is asked at higher framerates, so it will run hotter.
 
FXAA may ofcourse give a slighter 'softer' image, but it will catch most jaggies, sure it will be slightly visible still but not as harsh as MSAA leaves them.
To me the softer image quality actually has a kind of charm, but that's personal.
 
FXAA available within games natively is usually better, because Nvidia Control Panel FXAA enforcement also affects menu's and things like that, but performance wise it shouldn't differ.
 
About the lag, yeah it could possibly be a small CPU load spike, I experience this sometimes, or indeed a setting was messing something up.
I run the game from a HDD though, and loading things from the HDD mid-game may also give a lag-spike if it isn't loaded quick enough.
 
Maybe that the Extended shadows slider can introduce slightly more hiccups, I don't think it's that noticeable anyway when it's maxed.
I'd suggest playing with the settings a little and see how it works, sometimes you need a lot of trial and error before you get what suits you most.

motion blur is when you spin round and your view is fuzzy I leave it off my self
 

Live_Ammo
Overall - bro I so appreciate your detailed explanations - they made the difference. I finally got to understand a number of these settings which will help with other games too.

Sorry for the somewhat late response, I do not receive any e-mails because I never subscribe to topics.
I'm happy I could offer some help, good to hear it's working well for you now!