Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti review: A GPU for wild situations

Label More

Nvidia’s $600 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is a upright graphics card for what it does. But if we weren’t within the heart of a crippling GPU shortage, it’d be remarkable to point out.

While the ferocious RTX 3080 Ti we reviewed closing week bears extra resemblance to Nvidia’s flagship 3090 than the graphics card that shares its identify, the spec sheet reveals that the contemporary RTX 3070 Ti wields only a reasonably extra remarkable GPU than the vanilla 3070. That modest uplift proved correct across our gaming benchmarks even after Nvidia grafted grand faster GDDR6X memory to it. Serious about that our roundup of the correct GPUs recommends that the majority PC avid gamers ought to mild make a choice for the $400 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti over the $500 RTX 3070 for 1440p gaming, spending one other $100 on a barely faster RTX 3070 Ti is a remarkable sell at that resolution. (Or as a minimal it might maybe per chance presumably be in long-established situations.) Conversely, spending $700 on a GeForce RTX 3080 would get you vastly faster 4K and 1440p performance.

So the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is a extraordinary creature: a truly upright graphics card that’s bracketed by better recommendations. But its start helps Nvidia in key strategic ways. First, the corporate can slap the ‘Ti’ moniker on these beefy-GA104 dies and sell them for a sizeable top rate over the very a minute of cleave-down 3070. That’s fats for Nvidia’s final analysis at a time when every high-end GPU sells out straight. Second, this card boosts GeForce encourage into opponents against its AMD opponents, after the $580 Radeon RX 6800 blew past the 3070 in a lot of video games. Nvidia hates to lose in benchmarks (even though AMD’s $580 Radeon RX 6800 mild edges it out total).

Let’s dig into Nvidia’s occupy $600 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Founders Model, which shall be (sporadically) accessible thru the GeForce online page online to boot to Simplest Take when the 3070 Ti launches on June 10.

GeForce RTX 3070 Ti specs, aspects, and price

Nvidia compares the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti against closing generation’s GeForce RTX 2070 Big within the specs page it offered reviewers, as it’s most likely you’ll per chance presumably presumably look below. It’s price bringing up that the price creep we’ve witnessed across all tiers of graphics card pricing (and talked about on the end of our 3080 Ti review) continues right here: The RTX 3070 Ti costs $600, whereas the RTX 2070 Big fee $500, whereas the GTX 1070 Ti fee $450. So within the occasion you’re having a seek for to upgrade from a GTX 1070 Ti, this isn’t truly an apples-to-apples comparison despite the the same branding.

Nvidia

The comparison that issues within the occasion you’re purchasing contemporary is against the playing cards bracketing the 3070 Ti in Nvidia’s product stack. With 6,144 CUDA graphics cores, the RTX 3070 Ti only has a pair of hundred extra than the 5,888 reward within the vanilla 3070, however thousands fewer than the 8,704 CUDA contemporary within the RTX 3080. About a hundred extra cores presents a minute extra oomph, as you’ll look in our benchmarks, however nothing recreation-altering. (By comparison, the replacement contemporary Ti card, the RTX 3080 Ti, ache up only a pair of hundred CUDA cores short of the step-up 3090, and thousands ahead of the vanilla 3080—the opposite of this scenario.)

Nvidia sweetened the pot by equipping the Ti version with 8GB of cutting-edge GDDR6X memory, which rockets the card’s total memory bandwidth to a swiftly 608GB/s. The vanilla 3070 uses a archaic non-X version of GDDR6 memory, which runs grand slower, bringing its effective memory bandwidth all of the system down to 448GB/s. The additional VRAM tempo helps the RTX 3070 Ti get a minute extra pep in its step in memory-constrained video games, within the occasion you’re playing on the increased resolutions for which this card is constructed.

Brad Chacos/IDG

That acknowledged, Nvidia mild only gave this card 8GB of raw skill (despite giving the $330 RTX 3060 16GB of GDDR6). As with the non-Ti 3070, the resolution is a minute relating to in an know-how when video games are tense extra VRAM for prime-res textures. That quantity ought to mild suffice for now, for most video games at 1440p resolution—even though some video games, love Behold Dogs Legion, already blow past that even at 1440p with all the things cranked. But this modest serving of RAM might presumably also fair map AMD’s rival Radeon RX 6800 and its immense 16GB of GDDR6 extra appealing, in particular within the occasion you intend on playing at 4K. We acknowledged the next about the vanilla 3070, and it mild holds correct:

“The 8GB memory buffer presents me cease for 4K gaming. It holds up loyal ravishing in most (however no longer all) video games on the present time with all visual recommendations cranked to Ultra, however it might maybe per chance presumably also fair preserve encourage performance in a pair of years, in particular for the reason that PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles are both tantalizing to 16GB of VRAM once they start in a pair of weeks. It’s remarkable to know what the prolonged inch holds, however it’s price brooding about before you map your spend. When you happen to thought to preserve onto your graphics card for four or five years, and thought to play at 4K resolution, it’s most likely you’ll per chance presumably also desire one with extra memory.”

In any other case, this is yet one other RTX 30-series Founders Model card. Nvidia’s 3070 Ti cooler create in most cases splits the adaptation between the 3070 FE and 3080 FE setups. While the RTX 3070 FE extinct dual followers on the bottom face of the card, the 3070 Ti FE returns to the unconventional one-fan-on-prime, one-fan-on-bottom “waft-thru” configuration deployed by increased-end Founders Model devices. The fan closest to the rear of your PC acts love a blower-style cooler, whereas the end fan sucks air thru the card and pushes it up into your CPU cooler and case followers, so those components can take care of the warmth.

Nvidia

The 3070 Ti’s proprietary 12-pin energy connector peeks out thru the thick metal warmth fins within the aspect of the card in 3080 FE-love style, in position of being deployed horizontally. Despite the a immense different of similarities to the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Model cooler create, the 3070 Ti uses the smaller, thinner warmth fins realized on the 3070, in position of the bristling-thick metal realized on the 3080.

Brad Chacos/IDG

You’ll must make spend of Nvidia’s bundled 12-pin energy adapter to join to a pair of archaic 8-pin plugs. (It’s mild gruesome, and within the occasion you care about aesthetics to your uncover, it might maybe per chance presumably also very nicely be significant to spring for a luxurious beefy-dimension converter cable, in case your explicit modular energy offer helps it.) The energy necessities for Nvidia GPUs went up vastly this generation, and the RTX 3070 Ti drives that dwelling. The closing-gen RTX 2070 Big drew 215 watts of total graphics energy, and Nvidia in actual fact handy pairing it with a 650W energy offer. The 3070 Ti takes 290W and a 750W PSU.

The card comes with a single HDMI 2.1 connection and a trio of DisplayPorts, identical as every diverse RTX 30-series Founders Model offering. Beyond that, the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti involves all the things you get with all RTX 30-series GPUs: Simplest-in-class ray tracing, DLSS 2.0, Nvidia Reflex’s superior latency lowering capabilities, the sublime NVENC encoder for streaming and video creation, etc.

Let’s get to the benchmarks!

Subsequent page: Our test machine, benchmarks start

• Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Founders Model

  Nvidia’s contemporary $600 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is a upright graphics card for 4K and in particular 1440p gaming, in a time where it be remarkable to uncover any GPU. If stock turns into plentiful again you’ve better recommendations nonetheless.

  Mavens

  • Gargantuan 1440p and upright 4K gaming performance
  • Lustrous Founders Model create
  • Ultra-swiftly GDDR6x memory
  • Nvidia’s very fair correct software/aspects: G-Sync, DLSS, Reflex, and extra
  • Nvidia’s most tantalizing-in-class ray tracing, DLSS 2.0

  Cons

  • 8GB of memory might presumably also fair limit future 4K gaming ability
  • Founders Model cooler is no longer as effective as on diverse RTX 30 devices, and lacks extra aspects
  • Most diverse GPUs around this label offer better fee or performance
  • 12-pin energy adapter is gruesome