Introduction
On our test bench, today is the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING (08G-P5-3755-KR) video card. Among the four RTX 3070 cards that EVGA offers, the XC3 ULTRA GAMING sports the second-fastest factory overclock that EVGA currently offers. It is equipped with EVGA’s iCX3 cooling solution which includes three fans.
Like all other GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs, this card is impossible to find in the retail environment but has an MSRP of $629.99 direct from EVGA at the time of publication. To get the card from EVGA, jump into their notification queue and await your turn (it’ll probably be a while). We’ve seen the card pop up from time to time at NewEgg and BestBuy, but is still as hard to get as any other RTX 30 Series card. This represents a premium over the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition card, so we will compare it to the AMD Radeon RX 6800 which weighs in at an MSRP of $579 as well as an ASUS ROG STRIX 2080 Ti to see how well it rivals the previous generation’s king.
The GeForce RTX 3070 GPU is based on the Samsung 8nm manufacturing process and Ampere architecture. It has 46 SMs, 5,888 CUDA Cores, 184 Tensor Cores (3rd gen), 46 RT Cores (2nd gen), 184 Texture Units, and 96 ROPs. It has a GPU Boost Clock of 1725MHz. It has 8GB of GDDR6 memory at 14GHz on a 256-bit bus providing 448GB/s of memory bandwidth.
EVGA RTX 3070 Models
EVGA has four RTX 3070 models listed on its website. The card we are reviewing today, the RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING sits just below the RTX 3070 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING in the lineup with the RTX 3070 XC3 GAMING cards (with and without a backplate) landing below it.
The EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING comes in a regulation-size video card box that identifies it as an RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA model from EVGA. Once we cracked open the box, we found a black-clad GPU sporting three fans and a solid metal backplate.
Compared to its bigger sibling, the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 FTW ULTRA GAMING, the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING is about an inch shorter in all three dimensions.
Specifications
EVGA has given the GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING a factory overclock of 45MHz on the boost clock, bringing it from the stock 1725MHz up to 1770MHz. Keep in mind that the boost clock is a target based upon power, workload, and temperature and that value will typically be exceeded via the card’s boosting algorithm NVIDIA GPU Boost. It also sports 8GB of 14GHz GDDR 6 memory that is equal in speed to the reference specifications. EVGA offers a 220W TGP on the card.
From a size perspective, it’s a fairly standard size card. While it is long, it’s not tall so your case doesn’t have to grow two ways to make room for it. Specifically, it is 11.25 inches long, 4.38 inches tall, and 1.8 inches wide. This is about an inch shorter on each measurement compared to the MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO that we recently looked at. For additional comparison, the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders edition’s length is 9 inches long, so the EVGA video card is 2.25 inches longer.
EVGA iCX3 Cooling
EVGA is utilizing its iCX3 cooling setup that consists of 3 HDB 2.0 noise motor fans with fan blades that have raised “E”s on them to reduce noise. The fans feature an asynchronous fan mode and will switch off when temperatures are under 55 degrees Celsius. The PCB features cutouts (along with the backplate having cutouts) to improve airflow and reduce exhaust recovery. EVGA claims a 5.1% improvement over the iCX2 cooling system while being 9.7% quieter.
Pictures and Information
The front of the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING sports the iCX3 cooling design which features five heat pipes and three fans. Turning the card around shows off the metal backplate and cutouts where the rear fan can blow straight through the card.
The EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING sports three Display Port 1.4a connections and one HDMI 2.0 connection and requires two standard8-pin PCI-Express power connectors. EVGA recommends a 650W Power Supply.