Last week Nvidia announced their new RTX 3080 Ti gaming flagship but at the same time, they also announced a second card, the RTX 3070 Ti. The RTX 3070 Ti is set to fit in between the RTX 3070 and the RTX 3080 with the same GA104 GPU as the original 3070 but with a few more SMs and a few other big upgrades as well. Today we can finally talk about how it performs, so I’m going to run through what Nvidia has changed to make the Ti then put it through our benchmark suite to see if it's worth the extra money they are asking. The GPU market is still extremely tough, but we still want to keep everyone informed of what to expect to help you figure out what cards you want to try to seek out.

Product Name: Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition

Review Sample Provided by: Nvidia

Written by: Wes Compton

Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE

 

What's the RTX 3070 Ti all about

Before getting into our testing I did want to run through the changes that Nvidia made to the RTX 3070 Ti compared to the RTX 3070. I’ve also included the specifications for the 3080, 3080 Ti, and the 2070 as well just to give a little reference to how it fits in the current product stack and against the previous xx70 card. So while it does have the same base GPU, the 3070 Ti has gained two SMs which have expanded its capabilities over the 3070. Each SM has its own set of CUDA cores, RT cores, and Tensor cores. Even with just the addition of two, the 3070 Ti ends up with 3144 CUDA cores over the 5888 of the 3070 which is still a far cry from the 10240 of the new 3080 Ti but does get it closer to the original 3080 which has 8704. The RT or ray tracing core count matches the SMs so there are now 48 and for the AI or tensor cores it is now up to 192 from 184.

The boost clock speed was improved up to 1770 MHz from 1725 MHz which is higher than the 3080 and 3080 Ti as well. But one of the big changes was the memory. The 8GB VRAM is still the same, but it is now GDDR6X and it runs at 19 Gbps from the previous 14 Gbps. The 3070 Ti still has the same 256-bit memory controller but the faster memory increases the memory bandwidth from 448 GB/s on the 3070 to 608 GB/s on the 3070 Ti which is a big improvement. Looking at some of the other details, the 3070 and 3070 still have the same die size and transistor count. But to handle the new memory, high clock speed, and the two additional SMs the RTX 3070 Ti does have a higher TGP which is now 290 watts from 220 of the RTX 3070. Nvidia announced the price of the RTX 3070 Ti as well as being $599. We all know that currently with how the market is that MSRPs are out the window. But for reference when things settle back down to normal this is $100 more than the RTX 3070 and $100 below the RTX 3080 and not nearly as big of a jump as they did with the 3080 Ti.

 

Specifications

RTX 2070 FE

RTX 3070 FE

RTX 3070 Ti FE

RTX 3080 FE

RTX 3080 Ti FE

SMs

36

46

48

68

80

CUDA Cores

2304

5888

6144

8704

10240

Tensor Cores

288 (2nd Gen)

184 (3rd Gen)

192 (3rd Gen)

272 (3rd Gen)

320 (3rd Gen)

RT Cores

36 (1st Gen)

46 (2nd Gen)

48 (2nd Gen)

68 (2nd Gen)

80 (2nd Gen)

Texture Units

144

184

192

272

320

ROPs

64

96

96

96

112

GPU Boost Clock

1710 MHz

1725 MHz

1770 MHz

1710 MHz

1665 MHz

Memory Clock

14 Gbps

14 Gbps

19 Gbps

19 Gbps

19 Gbps

Total Video Memory

8192 MB GDDR6

8192 MB GDDR6

8192 MB GDDR6X

10240 MB GDDR6X

12288 MB GDDR6X

Memory Interface

256-bit

256-bit

256-bit

320-bit

384-bit

Memory Bandwidth

448 GB/s

448 GB/s

608 GB/s

760 GB/s

912 GB/s

TGP

185 Watts

220 Watts

290 Watts

320 Watts

350 Watts

Transistor Count

10.8 Billion

17.4 Billion

17.4 Billion

28.3 Billion

28.3 Billion

Die Size

445 mm²

392 mm²

392 mm²

628.4 mm²

628.4 mm²

GPU Codename

TU106

GA104-300

GA104-400

GA102

GA102-225

Launch MSRP

$599 (FE)
$499

$499

$599

$699

$1199

 

Before diving into everything I do always take a look with GPUz to double-check that the listed specifications match up with what I am getting in my testing. GPUz does have the 3070 Ti boost clock at 1770 Mhz so we are good there. It also documents our vBIOS version and the driver I tested on which was 466.61, the prerelease press driver.

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Packaging

Nvidia is consistent with their Founders Edition packaging and the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition was no different. It has the same black box with grey stripes on the front that they went with for the 3080 Ti and the original launch 3000 series cards as well. Beyond the stripes, it has a small Nvidia logo on the top left with the full model name below that. Unlike aftermarket cards, Founders Editions don’t have to have the green wrap around that other Nvidia cards get so the packaging is even cleaner than normal. Around on the back, they have the two tape seals that hold the top on the box as well as a set of barcodes that include your serial number and the model number. The rest of the box doesn’t have much going on compared to aftermarket cards, they let you know the base specifications and a list of what is in the box but there isn’t a picture of the card at all, the dimensions, your display outputs, or specifications like the clock speed. Those are all nice to have when shopping in retail, but most of these are selling online through Nvidia so it isn’t too big of a deal.

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When you pull the top off the box, Founders Edition cards like this give a unique experience that no other video card ever has. They don’t come in a static protective bag or under plastic, when you take the top off the card is right there like it is on display. It sits in a foam tray cut to fit it and the top of the box also has foam to hold it from that side as well.

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Up under the card, there is a thin layer of foam that comes up and under it, Nvidia has the quick start guide and a support guide along with the power adapter. The paper with the warning to only use the supplied Nvidia adapter is gone and that info is now on the cover that you have to lift to get to the power adapter.

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Speaking of the power adapter, this is the same dual 8-pin to 12-pin that the 3070, 3080, and 3080 Ti used. It takes two 8-pin cables and packs them down into the much more compact single 12-pin plug that Nvidia has been moving to. The reason Nvidia has the warnings to use their adapter is because other lower-end models come with a single 8-pin to 12-pin cable and swapping between those could cause damage. The 12 pin makes the two 8-pins look big and bulky as well when you have them so close together.

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Card Layout and Photos

When it comes to the styling and overall build quality of the Founders Edition cards, Nvidia goes completely overboard and I love it. Each of them when you pick them up is heavy due to the all-metal construction where aftermarket cards often use plastic for thin fan shrouds and sometimes even backplates Nvidia doesn’t do that. With the 3000 series of cards they evolved their card design once again where they used to do blower designs, then went to a dual-fan design with the 2000 series. Well, the 3000 series cards has a new exterior heatsink design that no other card is using. For the 3080 and 3090 cards, the front of the card is split up with an X shape but for this card and the original RTX 3070, it has an S shape to the metal fan shroud that goes around the outside edge and bottom of the card. This silver has great contrast against the black exposed heatsink. This is also a huge change from the original RTX 3070 Founders Edition which had both fans on the front, that design did have the S shape but this seems to combine the S shroud design with the dual-sided fans of the 3080 and higher.

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The side of the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition also lets us know that this is a completely new design as well. The original 3070 was 240mm long where this card is 270mm long. It isn’t the full length of the RTX 3080 and RTX 3080 Ti but it is close. The card is just under 40mm thick which means it is a standard 2 slot card which other than other Founders Edition cards is becoming rarer and rarer. Then for height, it sits at just 5mm up over the top of the PCI bracket which is also standard height, which is another area a lot of cards have been going crazy with.

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A direct side view of the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition gives us a better idea of how the exposed heatsink is moving air around. So on the left half of the S shape, the front of the card has an 85mm axial fan. The fan has 9 blades with a solid ring on the outside to give the blades more strength. This blows down into the heatsink. To the left of the fan, all of the heatsink fins are oriented to the side to direct the air that goes that direction to go out the back PCI bracket. Then to the right, they are all aimed up to focus this air up and out of the top of the card in the opening where the S-shaped shroud isn’t over it. On the right side, all of the airflow comes from the back of the card which I will touch on here in a second.

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The backside of the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition has the same S shape as the front, but this side doesn’t have any exposed heatsink. This is still the backplate, even though there is a fan. The backplate has a black finish to match the heatsinks on the front and they have the model name etched in the middle and oriented so that it will be readable when installed in your case. The fan on the left has the same 85mm width as the front fan. It also has the same 9 blades, metal center ring, and outer ring. But this is a different fan. The front fan blows air down, but the blades here are designed to pull air through the heatsink and blow out of the back. This means in a normal case orientation it will blow this air up which is good. This pull-through design is how the entire half of the heatsink gets its airflow. It's also important to know that this back design is drastically different than what the RTX 3070 Founders Edition had. This is more like the RTX 3080, only without the X shape. The original 3070 didn’t have a fan on the back and had a full black back with just the heatsink passthrough area.

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The top edge of the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition is mostly covered in the metal S-shaped shroud but in the center, you do have the heatsinks that push air up out of the card. This gives a small glimpse of the black PCB here and is also where Nvidia has the power plug. This is because this is the end of the PCB to allow for the blow-through heatsink design. For power, the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition has one 12-pin plug which is angled to the end of the card slightly. This is Nvidia’s new power connection and the card does come with a 12-pin to dual 8-pin adapter which you can see in the packaging section. The top of the card also has the normal RTX GeForce branding on it but unlike the RTX 3080, it isn’t backlit here and there isn’t any lighting on the fan side as well.

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Looking around the top, end, and bottom of the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition mostly just gives us another look at the S-shaped metal shroud. We can see the openings for airflow at the center on the top and bottom. The end of the card also has two removable screws for server and some OEM mounting to stabilize the card. The all-metal design overall doesn’t have to worry at all about sagging, however.

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At the end on the PCI mounting bracket, Nvidia has etched the serial number and model information here along with all of the required certification logos. This keeps the rest of the card clean which is nice. The bracket has a tinted finish but isn’t full black which I think would match the card better and look better in most cases. While not a blower card, the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition does still push air out the end of the card and they do have ventilation in the bracket. Surprisingly this card doesn’t have the same extremely opened-up design that the RTX 3080 cards have, these smaller vent holes will allow air but block a lot compared to the giant holes in those cards. Then for display connections, it has the standard three DisplayPort and one HDMI.

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So here is a look at the included power adapter coming out of the top. I know the PCB has to end in the middle of the card and there isn’t a better option. But I don’t think I will ever be a fan of center-mounted power plugs. Once we start seeing 12-pin cables directly from the PSU it will help a lot though to clean this up.

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Test Rig and Procedures

 

Test Rig

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3900X

Motherboard: Asus Crosshair VIII HERO WiFi

Memory: G.Skill Trident Z Royal 3600MHz 16-16-16-36

Storage: Corsair MP600 2TB

Cooling – Corsair H100i RGB Pro XT

Power Supply - Corsair AX1200w

Case - Primochill Wetbench

OS - Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

 

Our Testing Procedures

3DMark

The same goes for the most current version of 3DMark using the Fire Strike benchmark in normal, extreme, and ultra settings. Tests are also run in the DX12 focused Time Spy benchmark as well as the Time Spy Extreme test. Port Royal is also used on video cards that support DirectX Raytracing

Unigine Superposition

1080p Medium, 1080p Extreme benchmarks along with the VR Maximum and VR Future tests, both done at the Vive resolution

VRMark

Cyan and Blue rooms tested, use Average FPS for the result

Borderlands 3

Built-in benchmark testing with the ultra detail setting and medium detail setting, done at full screen with default settings at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k.

Metro Exodus

Using built-in benchmark, testing at ultra and normal details at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k.

The Division 2

Built-in benchmark at Ultra detail with V-Sync turned off at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k resolutions.

Total War: Three Kingdoms

Built-in benchmark using the Battle Benchmark setting. Tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k at both Medium and ultra detail settings

World War Z

Tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k in both Medium and Ultra Detail using the built-in benchmark.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Built-in benchmark, tested using the Medium texture setting and again at the highest texture detail setting. Both tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k

Far Cry 5

Built-in benchmark, tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k with the Ultra and Medium detail settings

Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War III

Built-in benchmark, Image and Texture settings set to the maximum setting and V-Sync turned off. Tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k

Watch Dogs: Legion

Built-in benchmark testing at ultra and high details. Tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Built-in benchmark, tested using the Medium texture setting and again at the highest texture detail setting. Both tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k

Far Cry 5

Built-in benchmark, tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k with the Ultra and Medium detail settings

Passmark Performance Test 9

Test using the GPU Compute Score inside of Passmark’s Performance Test 9

Blender

Using the new Blender Benchmark with the Quick Benchmark setting set to use the GPU, not the CPU. The result is in total seconds the test took, lower is better. All cards tests were done using the 2.90 build for compatibility with the latest cards

Basemark GPU

GPU tests were done using the OpenGL and DirectX12 APIs

Power Usage

Results come from a Kill-A-Watt hooked up in line to the power cord for the test rig. Two tests are done, one using the AIDA64 Stress Test and the second uses the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark on the Performance setting using the combined test.

Noise Testing

Our Noise testing is done using a decibel meter 18 inches away from the video card on the bottom/fan side of the card. We test at both 50% and 100% fan speeds. The 100% test isn’t a representation of typical in-game noise levels, but it will show you how loud a card can be if you run it at its highest setting or if it gets very hot. Under load testing is also done, measuring the noise levels of the card when under load in AIDA64 over a half hour. This is done using a Protmex PT02 Sound Meter that is rated IEC651 type 2 and ANSI S1.4 type 2. Tests are done set weighted to A and set to a slow response using the max function. The ambient noise level in the testing area is 33.3 decibels using the test settings.

Temperature Testing

Using AIDA64, the GPU stress test is run for 30 minutes or until the result has leveled off. The test is run twice, once with the stock fan profile and a second time with 100% fan speed.

 


Synthetic Benchmarks

As always I like to start my testing with a few synthetic benchmarks. 3DMark especially is one of my favorites because it is very optimized in both Nvidia and AMD drivers. It's nice to not have to worry about it being favored too much either way and the repeatability of the results makes it a nice chance to compare from card to card, especially when comparing with the same GPU. In this situation, I am curious to see how the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition compares with the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080.

The first round of tests were done in the older Fire Strike benchmark which is a DX11 test. There are three detail levels, performance, extreme, and ultra. In Fire Strike, Nvidia has been a little behind compared to similar cards from AMD where Nvidia does better with Time Spy. This can be seen with the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition running right with the various RX 6700 Xt’s in the performance and extreme tests but it did jump out ahead in the ultra detail setting. This is an improvement over the original 3070 as well as the RTX 2080 Ti.

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The next two were both based on the Time Spy benchmark. One is the standard test and then there is the extreme detail level. Like I said before in these DX12 Time Spy tests Nvidia’s latest-gen cards have been doing well. The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition is right up in the top ahead of the RTX 2080 Ti but the gap between the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition and the RTX 3080 is still a large one in both detail settings.

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The last test was using the Unigine based Superposition benchmark and I tested at 1080p with medium detail and again at 1080p with the extreme detail setting. In the extreme detail setting the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition came in ahead of the RTX 3070 as well as the 2080 Ti but the gap between it and the 6800Xt is still large.

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VR Benchmarks

As for Virtual Reality, I love it but it is more demanding than traditional gaming. This is partially because of the resolutions needed to render for two eyes and because they render more than what is immediately visible. But also because of post effects to get the proper “fisheye” effect for it to look proper in your eyes with the HMD. You also have to have much higher expectations for frame rates in VR, skipping frames or lower FPS can cause motion sickness in VR. Because of that, I ran a few tests.

My first test was again in Superposition. This time I tested the VR Maximum and VR Future tests using the Vive resolution. Here the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition was just .02 FPS off from the 2080 Ti in the VR Future test which is 5 FPS over the RTX 3070.

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My second round of VR testing was in VRMark which has two tests that are similar to the VR tests in Superposition. One is future-looking and extremely demanding and the other (cyan room) is more like modern VR games. The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition was still under the target FPS for the very demanding blue room test but it did come in right with the RTX 2080 Ti in the blue room and was even faster in the cyan room test. That put the 3070 Ti 8 FPS over the original 3070 for an 8.5% improvement.

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In-Game Benchmarks

Now we finally get into the in game performance and that is the main reason people pick up a new video card. To test things out I ran through our new benchmark suite that tests 9 games at three different resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4k). Most of the games tested have been run at the highest detail setting and a mid-range detail setting to get a look at how turning things up hurts performance and to give an idea of if turning detail down from max will be beneficial for frame rates. In total, each video card is tested 48 times and that makes for a huge mess of results when you put them all together. To help with that I like to start with these overall playability graphs that take all of the results and give an easier to read result. I have one for each of the three resolutions and each is broken up into four FPS ranges. Under 30 FPS is considered unplayable, over 30 is playable but not ideal, over 60 is the sweet spot, and then over 120 FPS is for high refresh rate monitors.

So how did the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition do? Well, starting at 1080p all of the tests were of course over 60 FPS, but a majority were even higher with 11 being 120+ FPS and 5 between 60-119 FPS. No big surprises here and frankly the biggest limitation for a lot of these is on the CPU side with a card like the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition. At 1440p the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition dominated once again, this time with 9 up over 120 and 7 in the 60-119 FPS range. All being smooth with a majority perfect for high refresh rate gaming. Then at 4K the lower VRAM and memory interface being 256-bit where the higher-end cards like the RTX 3080 have a 320-bit interface and 384-bit on the new 3080 Ti. Even then the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition still handled things with all of the testing being playable. 11 were smooth at 60+ FPS and 5 were playable but not smooth at 30-59 FPS. Nvidia has cemented the 3070 Ti at the top of the 1440p range with even more games now reaching 120 FPS and beyond which is impressive considering these are all modern high detail games running at their highest detail settings.

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Of course, I have all of the actual in game results as well for anyone who wants to sort through the wall of graphs below. Diving into the numbers a little more starting with Watch Dogs Legion I have retested all of the cards after our 3080 Ti review which had issues with slowdowns that showed inconsistent numbers. The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition matched the 6700Xt here on the 4K result and was faster at 1440p but a little slower at the ultra detail at 1080p. This was 7 FPS at 4k and 4 FPS at 1440p at ultra compared to the original RTX 3070 and 3 FPS at 4k and the same at 1440p (CPU limited) in high detail. The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition sees the biggest improvements at 4k when compared to the RTX 3070 which is partially due to having the two extra SMs, but the faster memory will make a big difference as well. Not to mention some of the games we are testing are starting to reach the limits of our CPU as well at those resolutions. The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition does show a consistent performance increase in all of the games which pushes it up closer to the RX 6800XT, sadly we haven’t been able to get our hands on a 6800 which would be the best comparison here but the card shortages have hit us as well.

4k

1440p

1080p

RTX 3070 Ti FE

72.06

115.25

130.63

RTX 3070 FE

64.93

109.18

128.17

% Improvement

11%

5.6%

1.9%

 

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Compute Benchmarks

Now some people don’t need a video card for gaming, they need the processing power for rendering or 2D/3D production, or in some cases people who game also do work on the side. So it is also important to check out the compute performance on all of the video cards that come in. That includes doing a few different tests. My first test was a simple GPU Compute benchmark using Passmark’s Performance Test 9 and the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition came in right in between the founders edition RTX 3070 and the overclocked EVGA 3070.

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In Basemark I test with the DirectX12 setting and again with OpenGL. The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition has a big lead up over the overclocked 3070 here but the gap between it and the 6800XT is still large except on the OpenGL test where AMD cards just fall on their face.

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Blender is always my favorite compute benchmark because the open-source 3D rendering software is very popular and it isn’t a synthetic benchmark. Here I render two scenes and combine the total time it takes. The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition took 142 seconds to complete the two blender renders which wasn’t all that good, our previous 3070 and even the 3060 Ti were faster. On the other hand, the Optix performance was amazing, taking just 62 seconds for the two renders.

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RTX and DLSS

Being an RTX card I also like checking out the performance of some of Nvidia’s features. Namely the ray tracing performance and the performance improvements you can see by using DLSS combined with the tensor cores. In most of the tests, I’m only comparing a few of the RTX cards as well as a GTX 1080 Ti for comparison. But in the 3DMark Port Royal test, I have been tracking ray tracing performance in all of the RTX cards as well as a few of the GTX cards introduced into the mix as well. The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition is slightly ahead of the 2080 Ti here with the RX 6800 XT the next up. The 3070 Ti saw a 10.7% performance improvement compared to the original RTX 3070 as well.

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Next, I wanted to check out the performance in Metro Exodus which I do our normal testing in as well. Here we can get a look at the performance of the always popular Metro Exodus with and without both DLSS and RTX. Running just RTX was playable at 32.31 FPS but you can see just how much of a hit it was compared to the nothing on number that is our normal 4K Ultra detail test at 52.26. But you can still enjoy RTX when you turn DLSS on with that jumping up to 48.56 FPS. Or running DLSS on its own is a great way to take the 4K Ultra performance up to over 60 FPS.

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With Wolfenstein: Youngblood I tested at 4K using their Mein Lenen! Detail setting which is the highest detail. I tested with RTX on and just compared running with DLSS on the balanced setting and with it off entirely. Overall this test shows how much of an improvement DLSS can get you in Wolfenstein: Youngblood especially when adding RTX into the mix. For the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition, it went from 73 FPS which is solid up to 116 FPS which is close to the 120+ high refresh rate monitors.

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Next, I tested using a benchmark based on the game Boundary. For this one, I wanted to see how all of the different DLSS settings would perform, including turning it off completely. Here like all of the other cards the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition struggled with DLSS turned off. But Running DLSS performance or balanced was enough to edge the performance up over 30 FPS to make it playable without even getting into detail settings at all.

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The last tests were done in a benchmark based on the game Bright Memory. Here I wanted to check out the performance difference between different RTX settings. All of the settings still had the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition in the 30-59 range but the RTX low does make a big performance difference. From there you can tweak the ray tracing performance up and down but with the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition, I think I would stick with the very high for the best detail while still staying over 30 FPS or go with low and get it up to 51 to smooth things out.

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Cooling Noise and Power

For my last few tests, rather than focusing on in game performance, I like to check out other aspects of performance. These are also the most important ways to differentiate the performance between cards that have the same GPU. To start things off I took a look at power usage. For this, I use our Kill-A-Watt hooked up to the test bench to record the total wattage of the system. I ran two tests with the first using 3DMark Fire Strike to put the system under a load similar to normal in game performance. Here our test system with the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition ended up pulling 456 watts which is high compared to the original RTX 3070 which pulled 375. At 456 the power draw was up near the RTX 3080 and even above the old GTX 1080 Ti. Switching over to AIDA64 for a GPU only workload dropped things down to 400 watts and for this, the RTX 3070 pulled 334, the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition pulling 66 watts more than the RTX 3070 is a bigger jump than the RTX 3070 Ti gets in overall performance.

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My next round of tests were looking at noise levels. These are especially important to me because I can’t stand to listen to my PC whirling. Especially when I’m not in game and other applications are using the GPU. For my testing, though I first tested with the fan cranked up to 100% to get an idea of how loud it can get, then again at 50% to get an idea of its range. The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition ends up in the upper middle part of our graphs for the 100% fan speed results which were 60.4 dB. Cranking the fans up had the front fan at 3408 RPM and the back at 3800 RPM, so they were moving. It's also interesting that Nvidia has the free flowing pull-through fan running at a higher RPM. But under load, the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition is smack dab in the middle of the pack with the noise level with a load at 38.1 dB which isn’t too bad considering Nvidia packs it all in a standard sized card, not a tall and thick design like most aftermarket cards.

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To finish up my testing I of course had to check out the cooling performance. To do this I ran two different tests. I used AIDA64’s Stress Test run for a half-hour each to warm things up. Then I documented what temperature the GPU leveled out at with the stock fan profile and then again with the fans cranked up to 100%. With the stock profile, the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition ends up in the top ¼ of the charts running at 73c. This isn’t a huge surprise as this isn’t far off from the original RTX 3070 which ran at 71c and it's lower than the two RTX 3080’s, but it is a lot higher than any of the aftermarket cards. Cranking the fans up to 100% did drop the temperatures down to 55c which is still in the top half of our charts. But the delta between the two results is 18c meaning that Nvidia is being conservative with their fan profiles and that there is still a lot of headroom left in the Founders Edition cooler as long as you don’t mind cranking the fan speeds up.

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While running the stock fan profile testing I also took the time to get a few thermal images so we could see what is going on. The front side of the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition which has the fan up over top of the PCB has a small warmer spot to the bottom right of the fan, but you can see how it is pushing warm air into the exposed heatsink and the farther up the heatsink the air goes the cooler it gets before venting out the top. The solid heatsink blow-through side on the right runs 6c cooler. Then up on top the middle where the air is being pushed up and out is of course the warmest, we can also see that the card isn’t pushing hot air down against the motherboard which is rare. Then on the back, the bottom right area next to the back fan is the hottest area on the entire card. The rest of the backplate has a consistent temperature.

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Overall and Final Verdict

While the RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition just used the same cooler as the RTX 3080 Founders Edition, the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition is a unique design. The card comes in between the 3080 and 3070 in length and mixes features we saw in the 3080 like having the fans on both sides and the backplate design with the S-shaped shroud design of the original RTX 3070 Founders Edition. The end result is a really good looking card, I might even like it more than the X-shaped design that the 3080 uses and I like that a lot. Being a Founders Edition, it is of course an all-metal design which means solid construction, no worries of the card bowing or flexing in the future, and it feels like you have something valuable when you hold it. I hate that I even have to say it, but Nvidia also keeps the size of the cards down to reality, sticking with the standard 2 slot design and with the height being that of a standard PCIe card not just going crazy with things. So you only have to worry about length when figuring out if it will fit.

As for performance, the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition is a monster. I saw an 11% improvement across all of the games we tested at 4K. The other resolutions were lower, but still not bad as well, and the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition is the new top dog when it comes to 1440p. Especially if you want to run modern titles with a high refresh monitor which is it capable of doing.

The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition does pull a lot more power considering the performance improvement so there is some efficiency lost with the addition of two SMs, a higher clock speed, and the new/faster memory. Like with all other Founders Edition cards, the cooling performance could always be better as well. It isn’t bad, but the smaller card size does limit things when you compare it against the giant aftermarket cards.

The other downside, and I hate having to mention it again because it isn’t specific to this card. But overall the limited availability of ANY cards which has caused pricing to go just completely crazy is a big downside currently. In fact, the MSRP that Nvidia has put with the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition of $599 which isn’t bad considering where the card fits between the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 doesn’t matter right now because we know that they will be selling for a LOT more than that soon. That said, if the prices were back to normal that wouldn’t be a bad price and right now that would be a steal!

fv5

Live Pricing: HERE

Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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