NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Review: High Performance at a Very Reasonable Price

Credit: TechRadar

Verdict

For most people, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 is without a doubt the best graphics card on the market. It offers performance comparable to the RTX 2080 Ti for less than half the price, making 4K gaming accessible to the masses for the first time.

Last year, I called Nvidia’s RTX 3070 the “sweet spot” for 1440p gaming in my review. It came in at $499, making it a more affordable choice for people who aren’t ready to leap 4K. Nvidia now offers the $599 RTX 3070 Ti as an alternative.

The RTX 3070 Ti has been modified in comparison to the original version, and now has 8GB of newer and more efficient GDDR6X RAM instead of GDDR6. The RTX 3070 Ti, like all of Nvidia’s 30-series cards, uses ray tracing and AI-powered DLSS technology to boost frame rates and image quality.

However, the performance improvement is minor. I spent the previous week evaluating the RTX 3070 Ti at 1440p and 4K resolutions, and it falls short of AMD’s RX 6800 card in most games. I wasn’t expecting the RTX 3070 Ti to match the RTX 3080’s performance, but there’s a significant enough difference that it’s better to get AMD’s RX 6800 or pay a premium for the RTX 3080.

However, none of this price matters. We’re amid a global chip shortage, which has boosted GPU prices well past $1,000 per card. You’ll most likely wind up purchasing whichever GPU is available at your desired price point. Also, you can see the best external ssd

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• Also, see the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Review

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Review

1. GPU SPecification of Graphics Cards
2. Price of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
3. Feature and Chipset
4. Performance
5. Meet the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition
6. Conclution

GPU SPecification of Graphics Cards

Price of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

Credit: NVIDIA

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Graphics Card is available starting October 28, at $499 (£469, AU$809). That price is simply where the RTX 3070, including the Founders Edition reviewed here, will start, with certain aftermarket cards jumping up in price from there.

At this price, it outperforms the nearest AMD GPU, the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, which costs $399 (about £315, AU$580) and performs 55 percent worse. However, with the next AMD Big Navi cards, performance will almost certainly improve at this price point.

With the RTX 3070’s performance, you’re effectively receiving for $499 (£469, roughly AU$700) what the RTX 2080 Ti would have cost $1,199 (£1,099, AU$1,899) just a week ago.

Feature and Chipset

Credit: TechPowerUp

The Ampere GA104 GPU powers the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070. Based on the same Nvidia Ampere architecture as the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, this GPU contains 5,888 CUDA cores spread among 46 Streaming Multiprocessors. And, like those cards, there is a slew of upgrades here, both in terms of raw performance and power efficiency, that propel this mid-range graphics card to levels of performance rivaling only the top graphics cards from the previous generation. 

The largest difference between Turing and Ampere is that both data streams on the Streaming Multiprocessor now handle FP32 workloads, thus doubling the number of CUDA cores per SM. That’s why, despite having 36 SMs, the RTX 2070 only has 2,304 CUDA cores. While the RTX 3070 only increases the SM count by 27%, it more than doubles the CUDA core count, resulting in substantial improvements in raw rasterization performance. 

That’s amazing enough, but we’ll also receive second-generation RT cores and third-generation Tensor cores, implying that ray tracing and DLSS will be significantly faster and more efficient. This new RT core has double the throughput of the first-generation RT core available on graphics cards like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080, making ray tracing substantially quicker. This is why, even though the RTX 2080 Ti has far more RT cores, the RTX 3070 can keep up with the RTX 2080 Ti in ray tracing-intensive workloads like the new 3DMark Port Royal benchmark.

With a TGP rating of 220W, 100W less than the RTX 3080, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 is also the only graphics card in the Ampere portfolio with a tolerable level of power consumption. This implies that cooling needs will be far lower than those of the more powerful Ampere cards, which is great news for those who don’t have many places in their cases for larger graphics cards.

That’s a lot of jargon, but the point is that, despite being a considerably smaller chip, the RTX 3070 can put a lot more meat into it for a cheaper price, bringing last-generation flagship performance to the people. 

But, beyond simply architecture enhancements, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Graphics Card comes with a slew of capabilities that will come in handy whether you’re a PC gamer or just caught in a never-ending loop of video calls.

Nvidia Broadcast is one of the most notable features here; it’s geared towards game streamers, but its value is far broader. In video conversations, for example, this piece of software will employ AI Tensor Cores to blur or replace your background, and it will do so much more effectively than built-in alternatives in apps like Zoom. The best feature is that it works with any type of video conferencing software. You may use this program to remove the backdrop from Google Meets, Discord, OBS, or Zoom. 

This program also includes the RTX Voice software, which was released earlier this year and masks background noise from your microphone or the voice inputs of other participants in the meeting. 

There are a few technologies, such as Nvidia Reflex and RTX IO, that will directly help gamers. RTX IO is perhaps the most important, especially with the PS5 and Xbox Series X on the way, which will deliver true next-generation data access thanks to their SSD solutions.

Nvidia’s RTX IO will operate in conjunction with Microsoft’s future DirectStorage API to improve data transport from your SSD to the GPU. When a game wants to access data, it sends it from your storage to your CPU, then to system memory, where it’s then routed back through your CPU to your graphics card, before eventually reaching your VRAM.

When it becomes available, RTX IO will remove the CPU from the equation, removing one of the most significant bottlenecks in current PC gaming. There aren’t any games that use this storage API yet, but when they do, large load times and overhead in massive open-world games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey should be drastically reduced. 

Nvidia Reflex, on the other hand, is now accessible and reduces latency between your CPU and GPU by emptying the Render Queue, allowing frames to be produced only when they’re required.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, like the rest of the Nvidia Ampere range, is a full-featured solution that does more than just render the top PC games. If any of this software appeals to you, and RTX graphics card should be on your shopping list, and the RTX 3070 is the greatest value RTX graphics card currently available. The RTX 3070 will be the graphics card we suggest to the great majority of consumers until Nvidia chooses to release a GeForce RTX 3060.

Performance

Because it provides flagship-level performance to the mid-to-high-end market, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 is a fantastic piece of hardware. The GeForce RTX 3070 Graphics Card delivers incredibly smooth gameplay and performance at 4K, as well as the high-frame-rate performance at lesser resolutions, in test after test. The RTX 3070 may be used to take advantage of a 144Hz 1080p display without reducing quality settings.

Even in difficult-to-run games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Red Dead Redemption 2, the RTX 3070 delivers outstanding performance, with the latter achieving 75 fps at 1080p with everything but MSAA maxed on. Given how taxing Rockstar’s Yee-Haw simulator is, that’s astounding – especially considering the RTX 2070 Super only manages 57 fps in the same test. 

What’s more amazing is that the RTX 3070 is inside the margin of error of the RTX 2080 Ti across the testing suite in Red Dead Redemption 2 — as it is across the rest of the lineup. Take a look at the results of the 3DMark TimeSpy Extreme test: the RTX 3070 receives a score of 6,990, while the RTX 2080 Ti receives a score of 6,986. That’s almost the same score, which is amazing considering the graphics card has 3GB less VRAM and uses less power. 

What’s more amazing is that the RTX 3070 is inside the margin of error of the RTX 2080 Ti across the testing suite in Red Dead Redemption 2 — as it is across the rest of the lineup. Take a look at the results of the 3DMark TimeSpy Extreme test: the RTX 3070 receives a score of 6,990, while the RTX 2080 Ti receives a score of 6,986. That’s almost the same score, which is amazing considering the graphics card has 3GB less VRAM and uses less power.

And when it comes to AMD, let’s just say that Team Red is expecting a big performance from Big Navi. The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is the closest competitor on the market right now, and it’s anything from 38 % to 64 % slower at 4K than the RTX 3070. Sure, the Radeon RX 5700 XT is less expensive at $399, but considering that it’s a 25% price increase for up to 64% greater performance, it’s simple to urge that people save up that additional hundred dollars. 

The RTX 3070 continues to impress when compared to the RTX 3080. In most scenarios at 1080p, the graphics card is around 25-30% slower than its bigger sibling — and it’s 40% cheaper. 

This demonstrates the most significant difference between those who will purchase the RTX 3080 and those who will buy the RTX 3070. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 is a graphics card for the masses, providing jaw-dropping 4K performance at an affordable price. The only individuals who should be buying the RTX 3080 instead are those who have a lot of money to burn and want to boast about it. And don’t even get us started on those that buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 only for gaming.

It’s never the Titans or the xx80s when you think about the graphics cards that have had the most effectiveness over the last decade. Graphics cards like the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, the GTX 970, and the Radeon RX 580 have all been popular because they provided exceptional performance at a reasonable price. 

Only time will tell if Nvidia’s exorbitant costs, which began with Turing, have an influence on whether the RTX 3070 becomes as popular as any of those graphics cards, but for now, it offers the greatest value in the graphics card market. Now, all we have to do is wait for AMD to announce its Big Navi strategy.

Meet the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition

In many aspects, the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition is identical to the RTX 3080 and 3090 Founders Editions in terms of design and aesthetics – it’s simply not as big. On the main body, you’ll find a finned radiator design, as well as two fans with a built-in rim to improve static pressure, all in a dark grey hue with silver highlights.

However, there are a few notable changes between the 3070 FE and the 3080/3090 FE.

The fans are on the same side of the cooler, for starters. The silver cross with no ‘X’ on the side is facing up. Instead, the air may still flow through the radiator fins thanks to a wide grooved rectangular piece with a cutout on the back of the card. Nvidia spoke a lot about how the 3080/3090 will be redesigned to accommodate the increased TDP. The 3070 isn’t in the same league in terms of power and heat, and being a smaller card, it may not have been as useful. As we’ll see later, the card remains cool and quiet.

The other big change in terms of aesthetics is that there’s no lighting at all, RGB or otherwise. The GeForce RTX logo on the top of the card is pretty tame compared to some graphics cards, though for some people, this would be a positive change. There’s also only a small RTX 3070 logo on the side of the card, which is a bit weird to me as there’s a ton of room for a larger logo. All of Nvidia’s previous-gen 20-series Founders Edition models at least had a green GeForce RTX logo on the top edge, and the 3080 and 3090 have RGB logos. The RTX 3070 eschews all such nonessentials and just provides the basics as far as looks go.

The remainder of the card is largely unremarkable. It includes three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs and a single HDMI 2.1 connection, thus it can easily handle four monitors. The rest of the IO bracket is for the front fan’s exhaust, however instead of the matte black finish found on the 3080 and 3090 FE cards, it’s silver.

Instead of a y-combiner that accepts two 8-pin PEG connections, the RTX 3070 Founder Edition features a single 8-pin port that is transformed into a 12-pin port. Was it really necessary? I mean, I like the extension cable since it’s much easier to leave it attached and just disconnect the 8-pin connector. But, then again, I switch GPUs regularly, so my use is far from usual. The 12-pin connector is also the same length as an 8-pin connector and is only a few millimeters thinner, but the orientation is such that using an 8-pin connector would have been no issue.

 We haven’t had time to do a full teardown of the 3070 Founders Edition yet, as we wanted to finish benchmarking before taking it apart. We’ll update this section with additional images and commentary shortly.

Conclution

The Nvidia RTX 3070 seems like a tiny little graphics card in comparison to the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, but it packs a lot of gaming performance under an unassuming black and brushed aluminum shroud.

Whereas the flagship Ampere GPU blew us away by completely outperforming the RTX 2080 Ti, it’s even more remarkable to see this third-tier card equal the top Turing chip for less than half the price.

Sure, at $499, the RTX 3070 isn’t exactly a budget graphics card, but it brings ultra-enthusiast gaming performance to a more affordable price point. It’s also making high-end ray tracing and 4K games more accessible to a far larger audience.

Because of its power, cooling, and compact size, this card should sell a lot of stock and might become the darling of the small form factor brigade. 

However, this might be both a benefit and a burden for Nvidia. When a successful launch results in a sellout, the green team will be chastised for not making and providing enough to make everyone pleased, regardless of how much it hoped to fill the shelves with a delayed launch date.

I’m not sure if AMD’s RX 6000-series cards have planted enough doubt in the minds of potential GPU purchasers to have them hold off on purchasing a new Nvidia toy. After all, there is an entire ecosystem surrounding Nvidia’s cards that offers a lot more than just raw gaming frame rates, so I don’t think the Big Navi announcement will have a major influence on demand.

The GeForce Experience app, ShadowPlay’s recording and the new Broadcast suite, the remarkable Reflex latency-spiking setup, and the latent potential of RTX IO bringing the next-gen consoles’ most powerful feature to the PC are all included. There’s also ray tracing and the ever-improving DLSS improvements.

That’s a lot of value to add to the bare hardware, and it affects a lot of people.

For PC gamers, Nvidia’s xx70 line of cards is frequently the sweet spot, and the RTX 3070 is no exception. This is the Ampere card, which for the great majority of us delivers a true performance boost at a price that we can nearly afford. For those who have been waiting to update their GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti cards throughout the RTX 20-series, now is the moment.