Introduction
On our test bench, today is the ASUS RTX 3070 TUF GAMING OC Video card (TUF-RTX3070-08G-GAMING). ASUS positions it above the KO and DUAL variants of the RTX 3070 and below the STRIX series RTX 3070 cards. The model that we are looking at today is the original version which is at the standard hash rates. The V2 of this card is the lite hash rate model but has identical gaming performance.
We would like to offer huge props and thanks to Firedfly from The FPS Review Forums for loaning us this card for review.
Like all other GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs, this card is impossible to find in the retail environment but is priced at $749.99 at both BestBuy and Micro Center at the time of publication. This represents a premium over the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition card, so we will compare it to the MSI Radeon RX 6700 XT GAMING X to see how well it keeps up.
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.
ASUS RTX 3070 Models
ASUS has four air-cooled RTX 3070 models listed on its website. The card we are reviewing today, the TUF RTX 3070 GAMING OC sits just below the STRIX RTX 3070 GAMING in the lineup.
ASUS RTX 3070 TUF GAMING OC (TUF-RTX3070-08G-GAMING)
Specifications
ASUS has given the RTX 3070 TUF GAMING OC a factory overclock of 120MHz on the boost clock, bringing it from the stock 1725MHz up to 1845MHz. 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.
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 11.8 inches long, 5.5 inches tall, and 2.1 inches wide. This is about an inch shorter in length compared to the MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO that we recently looked at. For an additional comparison, the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders edition’s length is 9 inches long, so the ASUS video card is 2.8 inches longer.
Pictures and Information
The ASUS RTX 3070 TUF GAMING OC Video card comes in a regulation size video card box that identifies it as an RTX 3070 TUF GAMING model from ASUS. Once we cracked open the box, we found a black-clad GPU sporting three fans and a solid metal backplate.
The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 OC features a 2.7-slot sized cooling solution that attempts to maximize the amount of cooling and still have some room for the fans to breathe within a 3-slot envelope.
Speaking of fans, ASUS has made axial-tech upgrades to its fans and strapped three of them into the shroud. The center fan turns the opposite direction from the other two which ASUS claims to reduce turbulence. The fans power down when the GPU temperature is below 50 degrees Celsius.
The ASUS RTX 3070 TUF GAMING OC Video card is equipped with a backplate to help further the distribution of heat. It also features a dual BIOS that lets you switch between Quiet Mode and Performance Mode. We found Performance Mode to be rather quiet, so we stuck with that for our testing.
The video card requires two 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors. ASUS recommends a 750W Power Supply based upon the assumption you’ve overclocked your CPU and GPU to 11 on a 10 point scale.