Conclusion
In this review, we took the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING for a ride on our test bench to see how this mid-market RTX 3070 GPU would compare to a decked-out 2080 Ti and the AMD Radeon RX 6800. It commands a $130 premium over the RTX 3070 Founders Edition card but also brings a more traditional three fan cooler 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 EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING performed well against the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and the ASUS ROG STRIX 2080 Ti. It provided a solid 1440p gaming experience with all of the image quality knobs turned up to 11 (except for Ray Tracing). If you’re rocking a 1440p monitor, the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING will do just fine for your gaming needs at this time.
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 circled the drain rather slowly. While the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING generally brought up the rear at 4k, none of the cards provided a good 4k gaming experience.
Ray Tracing and DLSS
From our testing, it is very clear that NVIDIA dominates Ray Tracing performance in games. When Ray Tracing was added to the testing equation, the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING picked up the pace and jumped ahead of the Radeon RX 6800. However, that difference is quite moot due to none of the cards producing a great gaming experience with Ray Tracing at 1440p.
Adding DLSS to the mix brought the frame rate up enough for a good gaming experience with Ray Tracing turned on. It especially helped in Watch Dogs: Legion where the game was performing as if it was short of VRAM. It’s fair to state in the games tested with Ray Tracing and DLSS that you get a playable experience with the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING GPU.
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,” near playable” would be a very optimistic way to describe performance – “just don’t even” describes it better. Perhaps the better approach here would be to run DLSS with no Ray Tracing if you want to take a shot at 4k gaming with the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING video card.
Power and Temperature
The EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING maintained its cool at 67 degrees Celsius with its default configuration and dropped to 60 degrees Celsius when overclocked and its fans set to full blast.
The EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING was also a power sipper, using a total of 402W of total system power while gaming, landing 22W below the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and 107W below the ASUS ROG STRIX 2080 Ti. Overclocking only increased power draw by 42W.
Overclocking
The EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING 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 it at an average 2145MHz and 15.6GHz memory. That makes the observed core clock 210MHz and the memory 800MHz faster than the maximum overclock on the Founders Edition.
While this is the highest sustained clock speed that we’ve seen on a GeForce RTX 3070 GPU, the real-world performance fluctuates significantly from title to title. This tells us that GPU boost was pushing down the performance as we bumped on the power limits of the card.
Final Points
To wrap things up, the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING is a solid contender from EVGA. We saw the highest observed gaming clock of any RTX 3070 that we’ve reviewed to date, though, the performance didn’t quite arrive in all of the games. The low-profile black three fan design makes it a classy-looking addition to your rig while adding just a little bit of EVGA RGB flair.
When comparing the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING to the AMD Radeon RX 6800, it typically turns in fewer frames per second but stays close enough that it’s able to provide the same gaming experience across the suite that we tested. 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 EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING has a large advantage when using Ray Tracing in conjunction with DLSS.
Yes, we know that most of the comments on this article will snipe at the lack of availability and pricing of any modern GPU. Go ahead, join the forums and add to your post count by airing your grievances. That being said, 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.
With all things considered, if you have a split second to buy a 30 Series GPU, then the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING is absolutely worth making the purchase and enjoying your upgraded gaming experience.