Conclusion
In this review, we took the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G for a ride on our test bench to see how this decked out RTX 3070 GPU would compare to a decked-out 2080 Ti and the Radeon RX 6800. It commands a $80 premium over the RTX 3070 Founders Edition card but also brings a significantly larger cooler, RGB bling and an impressive factory overclock to the game. Of course, it’s about as rare as hens’ teeth in the market, but we’ll complain about that elsewhere.
Gaming Performance
1440p
The GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G pulled out a single performance victory with Shadow of the Tomb Raider. However, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 pulled ahead of it across the rest of the board. When you take step back and look at the results with perspective, they show that all three cards tested are solid “Maxed out 1440p” cards. When we overclock the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC however, this is where it takes over in performance, for the most part.
4K
Moving up to 4K gave us a bit more indigestion than 1440p did. Horizon Zero Dawn, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider turned in playable results while Cyberpunk 2077, Watch Dogs: Legion, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Metro Exodus gave us admission to a slow motion slide show. The GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G continued to get flogged by the AMD Radeon RX 6800 across the board at 4K. That is, until we overclocked it, then it took the lead mostly.
Ray Tracing and DLSS
From our testing, it is very clear that NVIDIA dominates Ray Tracing performance in games. When Ray Tracing was finally added, the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G picked up the pace and vanquished the Radeon RX 6800. For 1440p, the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G can handle Ray Tracing at the highest quality in most situations. If you need higher performance, enabling DLSS in those supported games will provide a noticeable performance boost that allows maximum quality Ray Tracing to be used very smoothly at 1440p.
At 4K though, Ray Tracing starts to become a burden for performance. The only way to get any semblance of playability at 4K on the RTX 3070 is to also enable DLSS, you need DLSS at 4K to make it near playable. However, there are still situations where it isn’t. Our baseline recommendation is that the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G Ray Tracing is best suited for 1440p, and turning on DLSS helps. Otherwise, at 4K you can play at maximum game settings in some games but you’ll for sure want to avoid Ray Tracing at 4K on the GIGABYTE GEFORCE RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G, save that for the RTX 3080.
Power and Temperature
The GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G maintained its cool at 65 degrees Celsius with its default configuration and dropped to 59 degrees Celsius when overclocked and its fans set to full blast.
The GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G was also a power sipper, using a total of 411W of total system power while gaming, landing 13W below the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and 98W below the ASUS ROG STRIX 2080 Ti. Overclocking only increased power draw by 7W as the power limit could not be changed.
Overclocking
The GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G entered the match with a factory overclock that gave it a running start compared to the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition. We were able to take it to the next level and stabilized at an average 2025MHz and 15.6GHz memory. This isn’t the highest overclock we have seen with the GeForce RTX 3070 GPU, in fact, it is the lowest so far.
The MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO we reviewed managed to average an overclock of 2076MHz with memory at 17GHz. Even the Founders Edition overclock averaged out at 2048MHz and 15.8GHz memory. We know that it isn’t the cooling holding back the video card. GIGABYTE’s WINDFORCE 3X Cooling System is doing a phenomenal job keeping the GPU cool. It is much cooler than the Founders Edition.
The cooling system is not holding back overclocking at all. Rather, we think it has to do with the limited power limit option, not being able to increase the power limit at all ultimately holds the potential back. This is, therefore, not the best card for enthusiast overclocking.
Final Points
To wrap things up, the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G is a solid contender from GIGABYTE, so long as overclocking is not your primary goal. As GIGABYTE puts it on their webpage, this video card is perfect for content creators doing video editing, 3D animation, photography, graphic design, architectural visualization, and broadcasting. Combined with NVIDIA Broadcast, this is a powerful video card for the streamer. The white motif that the card sports would be a great addition to your white-themed build while also turning in a performance that slightly exceeds the RTX 3070 Founders Edition at stock.
When comparing its performance to the AMD Radeon RX 6800, it tends to fall a couple of steps behind in non-Ray Tracing scenarios. If you’re focused only on rasterization performance or have concerns about the amount of VRAM, then the RX 6800 might be the better option for you at this price point. You could also argue it’s not fair to compare the RX 6800 with its $579 MSRP to the RTX 3070 which has a base MSRP with the Founders Edition at $499. However, the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G has a large advantage when using Ray Tracing in conjunction with DLSS.
However, the MSRP comparison is getting difficult as we’ve seen significant price increases happening across the board making it uncertain as to the actual price point of this or any other RTX 30 Series card. It’s also unknown whether AMD’s RX 6000 series will follow suit. We’re assuming that if there’s a reasonable stock of all of these cards in the marketplace that the RX 6800 and the factory overclocked AIB RTX 3070s will land at a comparable price point, whatever it happens to be.
That being said, if you’re looking for a white RTX 3070 GPU that is sporting a decent factory overclock, you shouldn’t look any further than the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 VISION OC 8G.