The arrival of adjacent-gen Ampere graphics in the course of the GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 had us testing and showing you benchmarks of these incredibly fast new GPUs. Unfortunately, very few of yous have been able to buy them six weeks after the release of the RTX 3080, and availability is expected to be depression for some time to come up. Whether this is deliberate activeness (unlikely), need miscalculation, or manufacturing issues -- as so ofttimes happens in the manufacture -- time is running out for Nvidia to hit the holiday flavour.

This state of affairs has put more pressure level on the more affordable GeForce RTX 3070. The card's launch was pushed to Oct 29, assuasive Nvidia to build up a larger stockpile for release solar day. Hopefully your chances of buying a new RTX 3070 in two days' time when they hit shelves are much higher. Moving on from availability woes, the GeForce RTX 30 series is bound to remain an attractive selection for gamers for months and even years to come.

Now let's talk about the RTX 3070 GPU.

The GeForce RTX 3070 is based on the GA104 dice which is virtually 40% smaller than what's used on the 3080 and 3090 (GA102). The GPU packs 32% fewer CUDA cores and TMUs, with the same 96 ROPs. The cores are clocked slightly college, near 4% for the base clock and 1% for the boost clock.

GeForce RTX 3090 RTX 3080 RTX 3070 RTX 2080 Ti
Cost MSRP $1500 $700 $500 $1200
Release Date September 2022 September 2022 October 2022 September 2022
Process Samsung 8N TSMC12FFN
Transistors (billion) 28.3 17.4 xviii.6
Dice Size (mm2) 628.4 392.5 754
Core Config 10496 / 328 / 112 8704 / 272 / 96 5888 / 184 / 96 4352 / 272 / 88
Core Clock Frequency 1400 / 1700 MHz 1440 / 1710 MHz 1500 / 1730 MHz 1350 / 1545 MHz
Memory Capacity 24 GB ten GB 8GB eleven GB
Memory Speed xix.v Gbps 19 Gbps 14 Gbps
Memory Type GDDR6X GDDR6
Bus Type / Bandwidth 384-flake / 935.8 GB/due south 320-bit / 760 GB/due south 256-bit / 448 GB/south 352-scrap / 616 GB/s
TGP 320 watt 320 watt 220 watt 250 watt

The memory subsystem has also been downgraded, moving abroad from 10GB of high speed GDDR6X retention to 8GB of standard 14 Gbps GDDR6 on a narrower 256-bit wide retentiveness bus. This allows for a peak bandwidth of 448 GB/southward. Despite those changes, Nvidia claims that the RTX 3070 is on par with the RTX 2080 Ti (with 3GB less VRAM), but at a $500 MSRP, seriously, who tin mutter.

A natural advantage of the cut-down blueprint is the much lower TDP rating of 220 watts, that'southward 100 watts lower than the 3080 and 30 watts lower than the outgoing 2080 Ti. This ways RTX 3070-based graphics cards will be cool, repose and easy on your power supply.

But enough about all that, it'southward time to become into the blueish bar graphs. For testing we're using our Ryzen 9 3950X examination system, featuring four sticks of low latency DDR4-3200 retentivity...

Benchmarks

Kicking off the benchmarks with Death Stranding at 1440p nosotros immediately notice 2080 Ti-like functioning from the new RTX 3070, pumping out 134 fps on average. When compared to the similarly-priced 2070 Super, we see a 30% functioning boost and a 24% increase from the 5700 XT.

Even at 4K, the RTX 3070 is seen matching the 2080 Ti with 83 fps on average, making it just shy of 30% slower than the 3080. A skilful overall result for a GPU expected to toll just $500.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2022 has the RTX 3070 matching exactly the formerly super-loftier-terminate 2080 Ti at 1440p.

The 3070 does drop off a little at 4K, probable due to simply having 8GB of VRAM. The performance hit isn't massive simply Flight Simulator 2022 will be pushing across the 8GB capacity with the ultra quality settings at 4K and as a result the RTX 3070 pays a pocket-size performance penalty.

Nosotros're starting to sense a trend hither. Very similar functioning to the 2080 Ti at 1440p, this fourth dimension in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. That means we're looking at a ~thirty% performance increase from Nvidia at the $500 price betoken when compared to the 2070 Super and 55% from the vanilla 2070.

The 3070 is at a disadvantage at 4K, here VRAM usage hits up around seven.5 - 8GB, so it's possible we're on the edge of VRAM capacity limitation, or the tiny performance hitting could be due to retentivity bandwidth, either way the 3070 is only a few frames down on the 2080 Ti.

Tom Clancy'due south Rainbow Six Siege makes heavy use of compute and this hands the Ampere compages an reward. It'southward not a huge boost over Turing but it does help, as a consequence the RTX 3070 is 5% faster than the 2080 Ti at 1440p, and 44% faster than the 2070 Super.

The 3070 as well remained strong at 4K, edging out the 2080 Ti past a few frames, making information technology 21% slower than the 3080 simply 47% faster than the 2070 Super.

Moving on to F1 2022, once more we're looking at 2080 Ti-like functioning from the 3070, making it 34% faster than the 2070 Super, or 19% faster than the Radeon 5700 XT.

The RTX 3070 slips a few frames behind the 2080 Ti at 4K, only nosotros're talking a mere ii fps margin, so allow'southward just call it even. That means the new RTX 3070 is almost twoscore% faster than the 2070 Super, and xxx% faster than the 5700 XT.

In Gears 5 the RTX 3070 matches and very slightly outdoes the 2080 Ti, though it's basically the same operation. A smaller 27% boost over the 2070 Super is seen, and fifty-fifty less over the 5700 XT.

At 4K the RTX 3070 is 33% faster than the 2070 Super and well-nigh 40% faster than the 5700 XT.

Interestingly, the RTX 3070 was viii% faster than the 2080 Ti at 1440p in Horizon Zilch Dawn, delivering 96 fps on average and that fabricated it 45% faster than the 2070 Super and 37% faster than the 5700 XT, then a solid result here.

Performance for the 3070 remained very strong at 4K every bit it was 10% faster than the 2080 Ti and a whopping 51% faster than the 2070 Super.

Moving on to Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and you guessed it, 2080 Ti-similar performance at 1440p.

The gains over the 2070 Super are weak in this title, at least when using a third-gen Ryzen processor, nigh a 14% increment.

In that location's no CPU bottleneck at 4K and as a result the 3070 was 39% faster than the 2070 Super and even managed to trounce the 2080 Ti by a nine% margin, quite an impressive upshot.

Nosotros're seeing a small performance boost over the 2080 Ti at 1440p with 4% more than frames on average, though interestingly nosotros did run into an viii% increase to the 1% low outcome. Anyway, that meant the 3070 was 38% faster than the 2070 Super and 36% faster than the 5700 XT.

Jumping upwards to 4K sees the 3070 running just a single frame alee of the 2080 Ti, and then over again we're looking at 2080 Ti-like performance. This meant that while the 3070 was 25% slower than the 3080, it was almost xl% faster than the 2070 Super.

Next up nosotros have Metro Exodus and the results here are a piddling unexpected as the RTX 3070 trails the 2080 Ti by a 7% margin. We haven't seen a similar result and so far, fifty-fifty if the margin is not huge, that means the 3070 is simply 16% faster than the 2070 Super at 1440p.

The 4K information follows the same pattern where the RTX 3070 gets shut to the average framerate of the 2080 Ti, simply the 1% low operation only matches the 2080 Super.

The Resident Evil 3 results are more what we've come to expect, the RTX 3070 is seen delivering performance at the 2080 Ti level.

The RTX 3070 drops off a little further at 4K, here information technology was half dozen% slower than the 2080 Ti, but that'due south all the same far from a terrible event and it was 39% faster than the 2070 Super.

The Doom Eternal results sees the 3070 offering 7% slower performance than the 2080 Ti at 1440p, which is a little surprising to see. We're still talking virtually a ~40% operation boost over the 2070 Super and 35% over the Radeon 5700 XT.

At present at 4K, using the ultra nightmare textures which call for 9GB of VRAM we discover that the RTX 3070 falls further behind the 2080 Ti, trailing past a 14% margin. But other 8GB graphics cards like the RTX 2070 Super as well suffer hither and as a upshot the higher memory bandwidth of the RTX 3070 plays a more crucial office, allowing information technology to crush the 2070 Super by a 52% margin.

Nosotros also tested with lower texture quality (downward to 'ultra') which requires 7GB of VRAM. The 3070 is able to match the 2080 Ti in this scenario, rendering 141 fps on average.

In Wolfenstein: Youngblood we're seeing the 3070 lucifer the 2080 Ti to a T, making it 21% slower than the RTX 3080 and 38% faster than the 2070 Super.

Then at 4K the RTX 3070 was 3% slower than the 2080 Ti and 26% slower than the 3080, simply also 37% faster than the 2070 Super.

Last up, we have Hitman ii and you guessed it, 2080 Ti-similar functioning at 1440p. We do see the 3070 drop off slightly at 4K, simply it was just 4% slower than the old 2080 Ti flagship and 55% faster than the 2070 Super.

Functioning Summary

All those criterion runs later on, we think information technology'southward safe to say the RTX 3070 is very much a match for the RTX 2080 Ti as promised by Nvidia. Here's a wait at the boilerplate information across our 14 game sample in both resolutions.

Power Consumption, Performance per Watt

Here's a look at total system consumption using our Ryzen ix 3950X exam system. The RTX 3070 pushed total organisation usage to 371 watts. Under the same conditions the 2080 Ti reached 433 watts, which means the 3070 consumed 14% less ability. It also used about 30% less ability than the RTX 3080. We're looking at a similar power describe to the RTX 2070 Super, and then a very efficient GPU indeed.

Using PCAT to measure the power describe of just the graphics card we see that the 3070 consumes just vi watts more or 3% more than power than the RTX 2070 Super and 10% less than the 5700 XT.

We're also looking at a 31% reduction when compared to the RTX 3080, and xiv% less than the 2080 Ti.

In terms of functioning per watt, the GeForce RTX 3070 is the most efficient graphics card we've ever tested, delivering 9% more performance per watt than the 3080 and 17% more functioning per watt than the 2080 Ti.

It's also 59% more efficient than the 7nm Radeon RX 5700 XT, so it will be interesting to see how AMD tin improve on that shortly.

Taking a look at how the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition graphics card ran after an hr of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the GPU peaked at just 72C with a fan speed of 1650 RPM, which is very reasonable and the card was very quiet. The boilerplate clock speed in this exam was 1890 MHz, just shy of 1.ix GHz, with the retention operating at 14 Gbps.

Price Per Frame

Brace yourselves. Here's a expect at toll per frame, starting with the 1440p data.

As you can see the RTX 3070 is now the best value graphics menu in terms of toll per frame, coming out 7% cheaper compared to the standard RX 5700 and 25% more price effective than the 2070 Super.

Of course, you're now getting RTX 2080 Ti operation for well under half the price.

The cost per frame data is arguably a trivial more reliable at 4K where we remove any and all system bottlenecks.

The RTX 3070 remains on top, merely chirapsia the RTX 3080 which is still pretty sugariness for such a powerful GPU. This means the new GeForce is 27% cheaper per frame than the 2070 Super, and a much improved value proposition at the $500 price point.

What We Learned

Overall, Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3070 is a groovy high-operation value product. Upcoming competition bated, in today's market the RTX 3070 is as proficient equally it gets in terms of cost per frame and even performance per watt.

The RTX 3070 is the new and much more affordable 2080 Ti. In making that comparison, you get 3GB less VRAM, but make upward for that with improved ability consumption, shaving off about 60 watts. That ways it'll exist possible to make more than meaty graphics cards, or larger models that run cooler and quieter. Oh yea, did we mention this carte will run you $500 instead of $1,200?

Compared to the GPU it is replacing, the GeForce RTX 3070 is nearly forty% faster than the 2070 Super. Now, it'south going to be extremely of import that Nvidia addresses supply and makes sure those base models hit the MSRP.

While nosotros watch that happen (or not), AMD is set to show off 'Big Navi' this week, and no doubt we'll be able to provide reviews of Radeon RX 6000 series cards within a reasonable time frame. Nvidia will see directly contest for nearly of its GeForce 30 range, including the RTX 3070, which means it may no longer be the best value option at $500. Nosotros'll learn that soon plenty, and of course, nosotros are counting on AMD to bring some contest that will ultimately benefit gamers and consumers alike.

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  • AMD Ryzen 9 3900X on Amazon