Review and testing of the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 video card

Since the announcement of the new generation of NVIDIA GeForce RTX, the GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card has been of particular interest, which was promised the performance of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti at a lower price. On paper, everything looked very good, and the results of the older GeForce RTX 3080/3090 were so good that they inspired confidence and warmed up expectations. Now the moment has come when the GeForce RTX 3070 is officially on sale, and we are in a hurry to share the results of testing this promising video card.

First, let us briefly recall the characteristics. A detailed analysis of the Ampere architecture was presented in the corresponding review. The GeForce RTX 3070 is based on the GA104 processor with six GPC clusters and 48 SM arrays. But 46 SMs are active with 5888 CUDA stream processors, 184 texture units, 184 tensor cores, 46 RT cores and 96 rasterization units. Ampere processors use faster 2nd generation RT cores and 3rd generation tensor cores. The L2 cache of the GA104 reaches 4 MB.

Architectural improvements and the transition to the 8nm process technology allow for better energy efficiency compared to the previous generation. For the GeForce RTX 3070, a TDP of 220 W is declared, which is lower than the declared power of the older solutions of the previous generation.

The full characteristics of the novelty are given in the table:

The GeForce RTX 3070 supports hardware-accelerated ray-traced RTX effects and DLSS mode. All NVIDIA hardware and software innovations are supported, including Broadcast, Reflex, RTX IO, Omniverse Machinima. And the new video processing unit allows you to play and encode 8K video. Users can now stream and record 8K gameplay on the fly with no performance loss.

The reference video card is made in a new unique design, but without double-sided fan placement. The cooling of such a model is more traditional, the radiator is blown by two fans located on one side.

We got a non-reference video card with improved cooling. This is ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3070.

ASUS TUF-RTX3070-O8G-GAMING

The video card comes in a large box with a picture of the device on the front side.

Visually, the video card resembles a copy of the older model ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090, although the cooling design is simpler. Full length 30 cm.

The video card is covered with a metal casing with strict outlines, which gives a solid appearance.

The reverse side is covered with a metal plate. On the side there are slots for the movement of air flows inside the case.

Unlike most ASUS TUF video cards, it takes up less than three expansion slots (form factor 2.7 slots).

The video card is equipped with two eight-pin power connectors. Near them there is a BIOS switch to select Performance or Quiet modes, which differ in fan speed and noise.

The backlight of the side window of the case is provided with the ability to synchronize with other ASUS components and glow mode settings.

There are five ports on the rear panel for displaying images: three DisplayPort and two HDMI.

The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 backplate does not perform the functions of a radiator, no thermal pads are provided for this.

In the older ASUS TUF models, the VRM cooling is separated – half of the power components are cooled by a common radiator, the second half has a separate radiator with a heat pipe. Here we have something similar, but in a simplified version, with the simplest possible additional radiator.

The common radiator is divided into three sections of plates, four heat pipes are used.

The base of the heatsink is treated with ASUS MaxContact technology, which provides a perfectly flat surface for better adhesion to the surface of the graphics chip. Along the perimeter of the base there is a platform for heat removal from memory chips. On the side there are platforms for contact with power elements and chokes.

The radiator is blown by three fans made using Axial-tech technology. The unique shape of the impeller with an outer ring allows increased air pressure. The impeller diameter is 90 mm.

ASUS TUF-RTX3070-O8G-GAMING has 12 power phases. ASUS TUF products are manufactured using quality electronic components for enhanced durability.

The video card uses the GA104-300-A1 processor. Eight Samsung K4Z80325BC HC14 GDDR6 memory chips are soldered around it.

With the standard core base value of 1500 MHz, the average Boost Clock has been increased from 1725 to 1815 MHz. The effective data exchange frequency of the memory is at the level of 14000 MHz.

Testing was conducted inside an open Antec NX800 case at a room temperature of 23°C. By default, the video card works in Performance mode. With these settings, the GPU temperature did not exceed 62 ° C, the fan speed was kept within 1500 rpm. The operating frequency range of Boost is in the region of 1900-1950 MHz, with peak values ​​up to 2010 MHz. This is illustrated below in the screenshots of monitoring during the load with benchmarks Bright Memory: Infinite RTX and Horizon Zero Dawn in 4K.

In the reviews of the GeForce RTX 3080/3090, we noted extremely unstable frequencies in The Division 2. This game managed to sag the frequencies of the GeForce RTX 3070 the most, but only up to 1845-1860 MHz.

If we talk about the “quiet” mode, but with the second BIOS, the video card heated up to 67 ° C with a fan speed of about 1400 rpm. Both modes provide a full stop of fans in idle for completely silent operation in 2D.

The ASUS video adapter pleased with overclocking. The GeForce RTX 3070 managed to achieve higher frequency performance relative to the RTX 3080/3090, which is quite logical.

Without any problems, we raised the core frequency by 150 MHz, which, combined with an increased power limit (+12%), provided Boost frequencies of about 2100 MHz (peak values ​​​​up to 2160 MHz). The final memory overclock was 16150 MHz, which is 15% higher than the initial value.

By fixing the fan speed at 1600 rpm, we managed to keep temperatures within 64 °C.