Hey guys. I am fairly new to the pc world. I consider myself between "slightly below average" and "wtf am I doing". 

So i'm looking at upgrading a couple things with pc I purchased pre-built (yeah I know) last year; including the video card and cpu.

I figure I would just go ahead an get the gold standard 1080 to "future proof" my pc for a while. It's actually a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. There are so many third parties with multiple itterations of the 1080 that it is hard to figure out which one to pick. 

I'm seeing a few cards for around $580 on amazon such as Zotac... Which sounds like a good price from a not well known company. ASUS even has their 1080 (turbo) for $569 after a $20 rebate. 

Is it worth it to buy these "basic" versions of the 1080 card? It's difficult to find the differences between that version; and the more expensive versions with fancy lights and extras on it. Do i need these extras??

Here is the example I'm going to use so I can get hopefully recieve some help: 

So this is the "basic" version I was talking about with Asus.  It is $569 after a $20 rebate. It is a plain looking black 1080 card.

Also available with ASUS is the same 1080 card but it's called the "ROG Strix" edition or something. It's being sold for $638. All I can tell is that the card itself has some fancy lights and designs. 

Is one card better than the other?? and if so is it significant enough to be worth that almost $70???

**CURRENT PC BUILD**

Gpu - AMD RX 480 4 gb

CPU - Intel I5 6402p

Memory - 2x8gb 2400

Motherboard - MSI bazooka B150m

HDD - 1 tb 7200 rpm

Psu - no idea

****EDIT**** 

Couple of fixes. i have a 7200rpm not 5400. still not ssd. So I should have elaborated more.... SORRY. But i'm trying to build a new pc if everything needs to be upgraded. I'm not well versed as most experts on pc gaming but I do obviously understand I can't just "plop" a 1080 or any high end Nvidia card into my pc and be good to go. My cpu and psu would not support it and most likely my ram cards as well. 

also i have the 4 gb 480 card not the 8gb

I'm a bit out of the loop so there's could be some need for corrections, but I'd say there shouldn't be any major differences. Basically if you're getting a GTX 1080, it should most likely be the same card no matter which version you get. There could be some differences in the cooling solution, or there could be some overclocked editions, but for the most part, it shouldn't matter too much which one you pick (i.e. you should just pick one of the cheapest ones).

Since it's a big thing you're getting though, you might still want to wait for a few more opinions on this. Like I said, I'm a bit out of the loop, so maybe things have stopped making sense or being easy while I've been out of the loop.

You're upgrading an RX 480 for a GTX 1080? Are you running 4K? If not, don't bother.

Is the RX 480 too slow? If not: save the money, "future proofing" PC hardware is stupid.

When the time comes when the 480 gets too slow for your taste there will be much better options/deals for a new GPU.

lol... Future proof? DX12 is the future, and nvidias cards are meant for DX11, to be honest. And, AMD's current line up isn't exactly "future proof" either.

I didn't even catch the RX 480, thing. Don't change that card. I have an R9 390x, and I wont upgrade to the 1080.

You never told us what games you like to play, nor the FPS, or resolutions you play these games at. Do you have a 4k monitor? No? Do you have a 75+ hertz monitor? No?

What is wrong with these games you are playing? What is this GTX 1080 supposed to fix? You're going to be hurting yourself anyway because as more and more titles take advantage of DX12, the GTX 1080 will look worse and worse.

I mean, games already, for me, run great. I can run everything at least 1080p @ 60 FPS minimum, with good graphics that looks better than anything on console. The exception to this is when I'm streaming. Then, I gotta pull all the notches down to the lowest setting.

So, I just can't see why you want to upgrade.

Asus prices are always premium prices. There are enough review sites that compare all different models. There usually is an alternative that's almost as good as Asus but for a lower price. Since you're new I doubt you have very high standards so even a Zotac might be enough for you.

As others have said, unless you game on a 144Hz monitor or at high resolutions, 1440p or 4K, there's no point upgrading your 480 right now. It's still an excellent card for 1080p gaming.

About the big difference in price between graphics cards with the same GPU, there are several reasons. Brand is one, of course, but others are the cooler used, if the card features an overclocked GPU or not and then the fancy things like lights.

Of those two ASUS cards you listed, the more expensive Strix has a much better cooler (that will also be quieter) and has a backplate that ads rigidity to the card and helps it to deal with the weight of the cooler. And some say that it also helps cooling that part of the card.

Ok so to answer some of you guys....

Honestly I've been extremely disappointed with my RX480. I don't know why everybody supports it so much.

I can't even run Black Flag at max settings with 60fps. It drops to 10-15 with almost near max settings then crashes. And that's an almost 4 year old game.

My processor can't beat that much of a bottleneck. But I don't know what else is wrong with my pc if it's not the weak gpu. Those who say the RX480 is meant to play to 1080p games clearly don't experience what I'm seeing lol.

Other games I've tested:

Skyrim - around 50 fps on max. 6 year old game
Witcher 2 - lower than 30, med-high settings. This one stings. Not even going to attempt Witcher 3

Those results are odd. The 480 should be able to do +50fps in The Witcher 3 at Max detail, and that game is a lot more demanding than those you've listed.

What drivers are you using?

First question is first.
What type of Radeon 480 do you have? There is a fairly large performance delta between the vanilla 4Gb RX 480 and and say... An 8Gb RX 480 Overclocked edition from like every manufacturer.

As for your games...

1) Black Flag is a Ubisoft game. Enough said. - Disable V-Sync or download Radeon Pro and use adaptive V-Sync, turn off HBAO+/SSAO and TXAA.
The RX 480 should be more than capable of hitting and maintaining 60fps in this title. So something is up with your rig, try fixing the problem instead of throwing money away on a new GPU which might not fix the issue.

Skyrim and the Witcher are CPU heavy. Skyrim was never a well optimized game anyway and uses an abundance of scripting. - Are you running the Special Edition which uses the Fallout 4 engine?
There are mods which can increase the amount of DRAM Skyrim can use (If you aren't using the special edition), optimize the scripting etc'.

Witcher 2 is older. Disable Ubersampling, edit the configuration file to set the FPS limit at 60 and increase the render ahead count to 2.

***

With that said, Polaris, Aka. The Radeon RX 480 was never supposed to be a high-end card, people had unrealistic expectations. (Mostly because of the flops.)

It was priced and targeted as a mid-range card, so your expectations need to be aligned to match.

As for upgrading to a Geforce 1080, utterly pointless.
Your motherboard is low-end, your CPU is average... So one must assume you are only gaming at 1080P and lower anyway, so a Geforce 1080 is a waste.
You would be better served with the Geforce 1070 or upgrading the rest of your rig.

Or better yet. Upgrade none of it and get an SSD. - Using a 5400rpm must suck hardcore, how do you handle having to wait for everything to load?