My guess from first glance is PSU.

I don't think it's a power supply issue because the 980 ti requires even more power and it ran just fine on my system. I think the mobo is probably just too dated to handle it. last Bios release was way back in 2013. Either that or the sandy bridge. Thoughts?

Even more odd is 3D Mark fire strike runs no problem and score says better than 86%

 

With these new demanding GPUs, older systems can run finicky when push comes to shove.  It just feels that way this time around.

Happy to report that I seemed to have solved the issue. I had beta bios installed on my PC since that was the last available way back in 2013. I rolled my bios back to the previous stable release from 2012. So far so good. BFV and all of my other games load up and appear to be stable. I will report back if I have anymore problems, but I believe we can consider this issue resolved. thank you for your help. 

Now the only other problem is deciding which card to keep. The 2070 or the 2080? lol

2080.

lordmordred
Happy to report that I seemed to have solved the issue. I had beta bios installed on my PC since that was the last available way back in 2013. I rolled my bios back to the previous stable release from 2012. So far so good. BFV and all of my other games load up and appear to be stable. I will report back if I have anymore problems, but I believe we can consider this issue resolved. thank you for your help. 

 
Awesome.  

lordmordred
Now the only other problem is deciding which card to keep. The 2070 or the 2080? lol

2080 SUPER of course.

I'm glad I passed on the 20 series cards. From what I have observed. The cards have a high failure rate even on the 2080's Easy pass! I hope it gets better for current owners.

I built a new rig and put the 2070 super in it and it won't play anything. Crashes...constantly. any ideas?