KFA2 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG 8 GB Graphics Card Review – The Quad Fan Cooler Returns

KFA2 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG Benchmarks (DirectX 12 + RTX/DLSS & SAM)

Keeping their tradition alive of launching a new graphics architecture every two years, this year, NVIDIA introduced its Ampere GPU. The Ampere GPU is built upon the foundation set by Turing. Termed as its biggest generational leap, the NVIDIA Ampere GPUs excel compared to previous generations at everything.

The Ampere lineup offers faster shader performance, faster ray tracing performance, and faster AI performance. Built on a brand new process node and featuring an architecture designed from the ground up, Ampere is a killer product with lots of numbers to talk about.

The fundamental of Ampere was to take everything NVIDIA learned with its Turing architecture and not only refine it but to use its DNA to form a product in a completely new performance category. Tall claims were made by NVIDIA when they introduced its Ampere lineup earlier this month & we will be finding out whether NVIDIA hit all the ticks with its Ampere architecture as this review will be your guiding path to see what makes Ampere and how it performs against its predecessors.

Now NVIDIA is taking things one step ahead with the launch of its GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards that are designed to compete with the Radeon RX 6900 & RX 6800 series graphics cards.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Gaming Graphics Cards - The Biggest GPU Performance Leap in Recent History

Turing wasn't just any graphics core, it was the graphics core that was to become the foundation of future GPUs. The future is realized now with next-generation consoles going deep in talks about ray tracing and AI-assisted super-sampling techniques. NVIDIA had a head start with Turing and its Ampere generation will only do things infinitely times better.

The Ampere GPU does many traditional things that we would expect from a GPU, but at the same time, also breaks the barrier when it comes to untraditional GPU operations. Just to sum up some features:

• New Streaming Multiprocessor (SM)
• New Turing Tensor Cores
• New Real-Time Ray Tracing Acceleration
• New Shading Enhancements
• New Deep Learning Features For Graphics & Inference
• New GDDR6X High-Performance Memory Subsystem
• New 2nd Generation NVLINK Interconnect
• New HDMI 2.1 Display Engine & Next-Gen NVENC/NVDEC

The technologies mentioned above are some of the main building blocks of the Ampere GPU, but there's more within the graphics core itself which we will talk about in detail so let's get started.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Pricing Per Segment

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 series is made up of a diverse portfolio of graphics cards. The lineup starts at the GeForce RTX 3060 with an MSRP of $329 US and goes all the way up to higher-end configurations starting at $499 US for the GeForce RTX 3070, $599 US for the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, $699 US for the GeForce RTX 3080, $1199 US for the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and $1499 US for the GeForce RTX 3090. NVIDIA themselves call the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti the flagship graphics card and not the GeForce RTX 3090.

The RTX 3080 & RTX 3070 are both priced well and in line with their predecessors but the GeForce RTX 3090 goes all out with a price of $1499 US. Even the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has seen a price hike compared to the MSRP of the RTX 2080 Ti ($999 US vs $1199 US). NVIDIA calls the GeForce RTX 3090 the "BFGPU" and as per the terminology, it seems like this is a new marketing name for the Titan graphics card. It is likely that we could see a Titan-based card under the Quadro branding with faster specs out of the box but the GeForce RTX 3090 is purely a gaming graphics card first with all the horsepower for intense professional and workstation workloads.

With that said, the GeForce RTX 3080 replaces the RTX 2080 SUPER at the same price point and the GeForce RTX 3070 replaces the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER at the same price point. Given this trend, we might see the more mainstream variants cost just as much as their RTX 20 SUPER series cards but with a higher performance out of the box.

NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices

Graphics Segment	2023-2024	2022-2023	2021-2022	2020-2021	2019-2020	2018-2019	2017-2018	2016-2017	2014-2016
Titan Tier	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX 3090	GeForce RTX 3090	Titan RTX (Turing)	Titan V (Volta)	Titan Xp (Pascal)	Titan X (Pascal)	Titan X (Maxwell)
Price	$1599 US	$1599 US	$1999 US $1499 US	$1499 US	$2499 US	$2999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$999 US
Ultra Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 4080	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	GeForce GTX 980 Ti	GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Price	$999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$999 US	$999 US	$699 US	$649 US	$649 US
Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB	GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2080	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 980
Price	$799 US	$799 US	$799 US	$699 US	$699 US	$699 US	$549 US	$549 US	$549 US
High-End Tier	GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GeForce RTX 4070	GeForce RTX 4070 GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2070	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 970
Price	$599 $549	$599 US $499 US	$599 $499	$599 $499	$499 US	$499 US	$379 US	$379 US	$329 US
Mainstream Tier	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GeForce GTX 1660	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 960
Price	$449 $299	$399 US $299 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $349 US $279 US $229 US $219 US	$249 US	$249 US	$249 US	$199 US
Entry Tier	RTX 3050 8 GB RTX 3050 6 GB	RTX 3050	RTX 3050	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050	GTX 950	GTX 750 Ti GTX 750
Price	$229 $179	$249 US	$249 US	$159 US $149 US	$159 US $149 US	$139 US $109 US	$139 US $109 US	$149 US	$149 US $119 US

In addition to the specs/price update, NVIDIA's RTX technologies are being widely adopted by major game engines and APIs such as Microsoft's DirectX (DXR), Vulkan, Unreal Engine, Unity, and Frostbite. While there were only three RTX titles around the launch of the RTX 20 series cards, NVIDIA now has at least 28 titles that utilize their RTX feature set to offer real-time ray tracing with more coming soon.

In addition to that, with the upcoming consoles confirmed to feature ray tracing, developers can also make use of the RTX technology to fine-tune future games for the GeForce RTX hardware. Currently, NVIDIA has 13 game engines that are leveraging their RTX technologies for use in their upcoming and existing games while both Vulkan and DirectX 12 Ultimate APIs are part of the RTX ecosystem on the PC platform.

So for this review, I will be taking a look at KFA2 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG  graphics card which comes in at a retail price close to $700 US.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Graphics Card

After the launch of AMD's Radeon RX 6800 series, the GeForce RTX 3070 fell below the RX 6800 in terms of raster performance. While it did keep the lead with RTX and DLSS titles, NVIDIA decided that it was time to fully outpace the Radeon RX 6800 with a new Ti offering. The answer is the RTX 3070 Ti.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is designed to be a 1440p gaming solution and as such, it rocks the full GA104 GPU core based on Samsung's 8nm process node. The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is a bigger upgrade over its non-Ti brother than the RTX 3080 Ti, offering both increase cores and a faster VRAM configuration. Following are the specifications.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Graphics Card Specifications

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti on the other hand is going to feature the GA104-400-A1 GPU.  The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti will utilize the PG141-SKU10 board. The Ampere GPU will feature 6144 CUDA cores or 48 SMs. These are 4% more CUDA cores than the GeForce RTX 3070 & around 30% lower cores than the GeForce RTX 3080. The card features clock speeds of 1580 MHz base & 1770 MHz boost.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti will also feature 8 GB GDDR6X memory and what's important here is the fact that NVIDIA is utilizing the higher-grade GDDR6X chips rather than the standard GDDR6 modules featured on the existing GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti will end up close to the RTX 3080 with a TGP of 290W considering the increased cores & the newer memory modules. The card will retain a 256-bit bus interface and pin speeds will be rated at 19 Gbps like the GeForce RTX 3080 and the RTX 3080 Ti.

The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is expected to launch by the start of June for an MSRP of around $599 US. As for design, the graphics card is rocking a slightly updated Founders Edition cooler. The standard RTX 3070 comes with a single 8-pin connector while the RTX 3070 Ti rocks a 12-pin micro-fit power interface and also a brand new PCB design which is similar to the irregular PCB designs featured on the RTX 3080, RTX 3080 Ti, and RTX 3090.

The graphics card also features a flow-through design vs the dual-fan cooler on the non-Ti variant. Display outputs include the standard 1 HDMI 2.1 & triple DP 2.0 interfaces. The card will officially be launching on 10th June.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Product Gallery & PCB Shots:

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series 'Ampere' Graphics Card Specifications:

Graphics Card Name	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
GPU Name	Ampere GA107	Ampere GA107	Ampere GA106-300	Ampere GA104-200	Ampere GA104-300	Ampere GA104-400	Ampere GA102-200	Ampere GA102-225	Ampere GA102-300
Process Node	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm
Die Size	TBA	TBA	TBA	395.2mm2	395.2mm2	395.2mm2	628.4mm2	628.4mm2	628.4mm2
Transistors	TBA	TBA	TBA	17.4 Billion	17.4 Billion	17.4 Billion	28 Billion	28 Billion	28 Billion
CUDA Cores	2048?	2560?	3584	4864	5888	6144	8704	10240	10496
TMUs / ROPs	64 / 40	80 / 48	112 / 64	152 / 80	184 / 96	192/ 96	272 / 96	320 / 112	328 / 112
Tensor / RT Cores	64 / 16	80 / 20	112 / 28	152 / 38	184 / 46	192/ 48	272 / 68	320 / 80	328 / 82
Base Clock	TBA	TBA	1320 MHz	1410 MHz	1500 MHz	1575 MHz	1440 MHz	1365 MHz	1400 MHz
Boost Clock	TBA	TBA	1780 MHz	1665 MHz	1730 MHz	1770 MHz	1710 MHz	1665 MHz	1700 MHz
FP32 Compute	TBA	TBA	12.7 TFLOPs	16.2 TFLOPs	20 TFLOPs	22 TFLOPs	30 TFLOPs	34 TFLOPs	36 TFLOPs
RT TFLOPs	TBA	TBA	25.4 TFLOPs	32.4 TFLOPs	40 TFLOPs	42 TFLOPs	58 TFLOPs	67 TFLOPs	69 TFLOPs
Tensor-TOPs	TBA	TBA	101 TOPs	129.6 TOPs	163 TOPs	174 TOPs	238 TOPs	273 TOPs	285 TOPs
Memory Capacity	4 GB GDDR6?	4 GB GDDR6?	12 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6X	10 GB GDDR6X	12 GB GDDR6X	24 GB GDDR6X
Memory Bus	128-bit	128-bit	192-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	320-bit	384-bit	384-bit
Memory Speed	TBA	TBA	15 Gbps	14 Gbps	14 Gbps	19 Gbps	19 Gbps	19 Gbps	19.5 Gbps
Bandwidth	TBA	TBA	360 Gbps	448 Gbps	448 Gbps	608 Gbps	760 Gbps	912 Gbps	936 Gbps
TGP	~75W	~100W	170W	200W	220W	290W	320W	350W	350W
Price (MSRP / FE)	$149?	$199?	$329	$399 US	$499 US	$599 US	$699 US	$1199	$1499 US
Launch (Availability)	2021?	2021?	February 2021	December 2020	29th October 2020	10th June 2021	17th September 2020	3rd June 2021	24th September 2020

In case you want to read our full NVIDIA Ampere GPU architecture deep dive and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition review, head over to this link.

 

The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG is one of the many variants in KFA2's RTX 3070 Ti family. The card is positioned close to the Founders Edition model, featuring a triple-fan cooler design within a 2.5 slot form factor. KFA2's Serious Gaming series will rock a black color design and uses their RGB effects which look great.

In addition to the custom design, the RTX 3070 Ti SG comes with a non-reference PCB, featuring an 8+2+1 phase design that features higher quality components than the reference variant which is already a really good design by itself. In terms of clock speeds, the graphics card features the same base frequency of 1580 MHz but the boost clock is rated at 1800 MHz which is 30 MHz higher than the Founders Edition variant.

Following are some of the features of the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG graphics card before we go into detail:

GPU Engine Specs:

• CUDA Cores 6144
• Boost Clock (MHz) 1770
• 1-Click OC Clock (MHz) 1800 (by installing Xtreme Tuner Plus Software and using 1-Click OC)

Memory Specs:

• Memory Speed 14 Gbps
• Standard Memory Config 8GB
• Memory Interface Width 256-bit GDDR6X
• Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 608

Feature Support:

• PCI-E 4.0
• Windows 10 64-bit, Linux 64-bit

Fan Feature:

• 3*92mm
• Fan stop @ Idle (All Fan)

Display Support:

• DisplayPort 1.4a x 3, HDMI 2.1

KFA2 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG Graphics Card Gallery:

KFA2 GeForce RTX 30 Graphics Cards Make Ampere Serious For Gamers!

The KFA2 GeForce RTX 30 SG series of graphics cards rock an aggressive shroud design which is made out of plastic material and covers a large aluminum heatsink that sits beneath it. The RTX 30 SG series has seen a huge uplift in looks and design from the previous generation which featured a standard RGB display & mostly relied on the reference PCB and clock specifications.

The latest iteration of MSI’s iconic GAMING series once again brings performance, low-noise efficiency, and aesthetics that hardcore gamers have come to recognize and trust. Now you too can enjoy all your favorite games with a powerful graphics card that stays cool and silent. Just the way you like it.

KFA2 's RTX 30 SG series makes use of a triple-fan "WINGS" cooling design which includes 92mm fans that are embedded on the front shroud. Each fan comes with 11 fan blades with an acrylic design that not only looks great but is also said to provide higher airflow & air pressure at minimum noise levels.

The fans are fully compliant with KFA2's new fan-stop technology known as Silent Extreme which monitors both GPU and memory temperatures and turns the fans on/off for a balanced noise and performance level.

In addition to the three main cooling fans, KFA2 has also bundled a 1-clip booster fan which is a standalone active cooling solution that equips on the backplate. The 1-clip booster features an 80 mm fan with 9 fan blades and pulls hot air from the heatsink. Do note that since the card comes with a compact PCB design, the shroud and heatsink extend far beyond the PCB, hence KFA2 has left cut-outs in place to direct airflow outwards.

One of the key features that KFA2 has stated for its GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards is the Xtreme Tuner application which is now available on mobile. This application is the only way by which you are getting that extra 15 MHz clock speed out of the graphics card and don't worry, since the desktop application is still available. The mobile application now allows for various range of utilities such as:

1. Don’t need to exit the game to tune your GPU
2. User-Friendly interface, 1-click to boost your GPU
3. Convenience functions to tune your RGB, OC, Fan, etc

You can learn more about the KFA2 Xtreme Tuner Plus application over here!

The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG graphics card comes inside a standard cardboard box. The front of both packages has a large "GeForce RTX" brand logo along with the "KFA2 " logo on the top left corner and the card branding on the lower-left corner. The box features a whole hooded gamer vibe that KFA2 has been using to market their gaming cards for a while now.

The packaging has put a large emphasis on the RTX side of things as the first feature enlisted by AIBs will be NVIDIA Ampere architecture, Ray Tracing & DLSS support. NVIDIA has bet the future of their gaming GPUs on Ray Tracing support as these are the first cards to offer support for the new feature.

The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards.  There's also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature sets of the new cards.

The sides of the box once again greet us with the large GeForce RTX branding. There's also the mention of 8 GB GDDR6X (RTX 3070 Ti) memory available on the card.

Outside of the box, the graphics card and the accessory package are held firmly by foam packaging. The graphics card comes with a few accessories and manuals which might not be of much use for hardcore enthusiasts but can be useful for the mainstream gaming audience.

The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. The card accessories include an RGB holder stick, the 1-clip booster, manuals, and a pack of screws for the holder stick.

After the package is taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. The card comes in a standard width but feels really long due to its extended shroud design.

The graphics card is really big but not the biggest of the ones I have tested. The card measures 329 x 130 x 61 mm and takes up 2.5 slots worth of space for installation. You would have to keep in mind the height when going for a dual card solution as your case or motherboard PCIe slot combination may not allow such a setup. The cooling shroud extends all the way to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation.

You would have to keep in mind the height when going for a dual card solution as your case or motherboard PCIe slot combination may not allow such a setup. The cooling shroud extends all the way to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation.

The back of the card features a solid backplate which looks stunning. The backplate offers a lot more functionality than just looks which I will get back to in a bit.

In terms of design, the graphics card rocks a singular color scheme which is matte black and along with some white and silver linings on the front, sides, and back. The SG series is the mid-tier design offerings from KFA2 so don't expect any fancy designs like the WTF, EX, or HOF series cards.

KFA2 is going fully on-board the RGB bandwagon with their SG series, offering multiple light zones on the front and sides of the card. The shroud itself extends beyond the PCB.

Coming to the fans, the card rocks triple 92mm fans. Each fan is comprised of 11 blades which have a very angular shape that is made to disperse hot air out of the card faster than standard designs.

While all three fans have an acrylic finish to really shine with all the embedded RGB LEDs offering an even more glorious display of this card's RGB capabilities.

KFA2 also features a 0db fan technology on the fans which isn't explicitly mentioned. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold. In the case of the KFA2 heatsink, that limit is set to 60C. If the card is operating under 60C, the fans won’t spin which means no extra noise would be generated.

I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate which the card uses. The whole plate is made of solid metal that adds to the durability of this card. The brushed matte-black finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic. The graphics card also comes with a compact PCB design which means that the shroud, heatsink, and backplate are all extended beyond the PCB. The third fan blows air through the heatsink and blows it out from the cutouts that are situated at the very end of the backplate.

This is also where KFA2 's 1-clip booster fan plugs in. It's an easy fit on the backplate and requires no additional screws to be used. The card has a 12V RGB In and a 4-pin fan header on the back of the shroud for the 1-clip booster.

With the outsides of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of these monster graphics cards. The first thing to catch my eye is the humungous fin stack that's part of the beefy heatsink which the cards utilize.

The large fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB and is so thick that you can barely see through it.

Talking about the heatsink, there are two blocks of aluminum fins which are interconnected by six heat pipes running through the copper base plate and heading out towards the dual heatsink blocks. The heatsink is a slightly updated version of the one used on the RTX 2080 WTF with an increased surface area for additional heat transfer.

There are several heat pads included for the VRMs and memory chips. They are full-sized, making full contact with the components to offer stable and efficient heat transfer.

The very front of the PCB has a third heatsink that goes right over the VRMs and is equipped is screwed to the I/O bracket.

I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme which includes three Display Port 1.4a & a single HDMI 2.1 port.

KFA2 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG  Teardown:

KFA2 makes use of an 8+2+2 phase PWM design that includes high-quality components. The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG graphics card also uses the GDDR6X memory from Micron that operates at 19 Gbps alongside a 256-bit wide memory interface.

Power to the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG is provided through a dual 8-pin connector and the card is rated at a TGP of 290W

KFA2 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG RGB Lighting Gallery:

Following is what the graphics card looks like when lit up.

We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used from AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 10. All games that were tested were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

KFA2 RTX 3070 Ti SG Test Setup

CPU	Intel Core i9-9900K @ 4.70 GHz
Motherboard	AORUS Z390 Master
Video Cards	KFA 2 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SF MSI GeForce RTX 3080 TI SUPRIM X MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SUPRIM X MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio MSI Radeon RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio MSI Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio MSI Radeon RX 6700 XT Gaming X MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio MSI Radeon RX 5700 XT Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Lightning X
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z RGB Series 32GB (4 X 8GB) CL16 3600 MHz
Storage	Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 (512 GB)
Power Supply	ASUS ROG THOR 1200W PSU
OS	Windows 10 64-bit
Drivers	AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 21.6.1 NVIDIA GeForce 471.11 WHQL

• All games were tested on 2560×1440 (2K) and 3840×2160 (4K) resolutions.
• Image Quality and graphics configurations have been provided in the screenshots below.
• The “reference” cards are the stock configs while the “overclock” cards are factory overclocked configs provided to us by various AIB partners.

Doom Eternal

DOOM Eternal brings hell to earth with the Vulkan-powered idTech 7.  We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay as consistent as possible.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Developed by Rockstar San Diego, Red Dead Redemption II is one of the most visually stunning open-world games I've played to date that is backed up by a rich story set around the protagonist, Arthur Morgan. The game is based on the RAGE engine which features an insane amount of graphics fidelity but also requires a lot of power to run maxed out. For the purpose of this test, we set the graphics settings to Ultra with AA turned disabled.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory, and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained their glorious FPS roots and are slaying with every new title.

Ashes of The Singularity: Escalation

NVIDIA and AMD have been tweaking the performance of their cards for Ashes of the Singularity since the title was released. It was the first to make use of the DirectX 12 API and the first to leverage the new Async compute technology that makes use of the DX12 renderer to improve performance.

Battlefield V

Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best-looking Battlefields to date.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Humanity is at war with itself and divided into factions. On one end, we have the pure and on the other, we have the augmented. That is the world where Adam Jensen lives in and this is the world of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The game uses the next-generation Dawn Engine that was made by IO interactive on the foundation of their Glacier 2 engine. The game features the support of DirectX 12 API and is one of the most visually intensive titles that taxes the GPU really hard.

Death Stranding

Sam Porter Bridges has delivered one of PS4's most anticipated games to the PC community and opened a whole new world of possibilities. This was the first game to feature the Decima Engine on PC and unarguably did it the best. Death Stranding may not feature ray tracing effects but it does showcase that DLSS can be used effectively even when RT isn't around. We tested this one just like we did in our launch coverage with DLSS enabled.

Forza Horizon 4

Forza Horizon 4 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series.  The latest DX12 powered entry is beautifully crafted and amazingly well executed and is a great showcase of DX12 games.  We use the benchmark run while having all of the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.

Hitman 2 (DX12 Highest Settings)

Hitman 2 is the highly acclaimed sequel to 2016 Hitman which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47 who embarks on a mission to hunt down the mysterious Shadow Client. The game runs on IO Interactive's Glacier 2 engine which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of DirectX 12 API.

Shadow of The Tomb Raider

Sequel to The Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of The Tomb Raider is visually enhanced with an updated Foundation Engine that delivers realistic facial animations and the most gorgeous environments ever seen in a Tomb Raider Game. The game is a technical marvel and really shows the power of its graphics engine in the latest title.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus continues the journey of Artyom through the nuclear wasteland of Russia and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.

Assassins Creed: Origins

Assassins Creed Origins is built by the same team that made Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. They are known for reinventing the design and game philosophy of the Assassins Creed saga and their latest title shows that. Based in Egypt, the open-world action RPG shows its graphics strength in all corners. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 engine which boosts the draw distance range and delivers a very impressive graphics display.

We tested the game at maxed settings with TAA enabled and 16x AF. Do note that the game is one of the most demanding titles out in the market and as such tweaks and performance issues are being patched out.

Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 has made its way into the test lineup thanks to strong demand by gamers and simply delivering MORE Borderlands. The game was tested with max settings under the DX11 preset since the DX12 preset doesn't deliver any visible improvement in either frame rate or graphics at the moment.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 is a standalone successor to its predecessor and takes place in Hope County, a fictional region of Montana. The main story revolves around doomsday cult the Project at Eden’s Gate and its charismatic leader Joseph Seed. It uses a beefed-up Dunia Engine which itself is a modified version of CryEngine from Crytek.

Final Fantasy XV

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA V is the most optimized gaming title that has been made for the PC. It’s so optimized, it even runs on my crap GT 840M-based laptop with a smooth FPS on a mix of medium/low settings. I mean what???

Aside from being optimized, GTA V is a great game. It was the Game of The Year for 2013. At 1440p Ultra quality, the game gave us smooth frames on all cards tested.

No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. The MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card comes with a triple-fan cooler with 0db fan technology, a massive heatsink that is composed of several aluminum fins and heat pipes, and an extended backplate that covers the entire PCB.

Note – We tested load with Kombuster which is known as a ‘power virus’ and can permanently damage the hardware. Use such software at your own risk!

I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plugin on their custom cards. Default TDP for the RTX 3080 Ti is set at 350W while the MSI custom model has a TDP of 370W-400W.

Also, it's worth noting that the 8nm process from Samsung increases the density by around 2x versus the previous generation. NVIDIA is cramping even larger amounts of transistors and more cores than their previous cards, making it one of the densest chips built to date. It's likely to consume a lot of power and the results are reflective of that.

 

The GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG comes with a heavily updated cooling and shroud design versus the previous generation offerings along with a nifty list of features that make it a very interesting graphics card in the wide RTX 3070 Ti AIB market.

The GALAX SG triple-fan cooler does a great job keeping the card under the low 60's and the added features such as 0db fan technology, a nicely build shroud with a backplate and the cool RGB features are all an added bonus. GALAX has stated that the pricing should either be the same or close to the Founders Edition model at $599 US which is the most significant part. In the case of the former, the graphics card may just offer better performance and better cooling than the FE model.

The GALAX RTX 3070 Ti comes with a few added bonuses such as a 1-clip fan booster which does reduce temps by around 3-4C but you'd have to make sure that you can equip the card in your chassis as it can get things crammed up inside. The RGB support stick is a great addition and I found GALAX's four-pin cable positioning at the back of the shroud quite interesting. The card also features a 30 MHz overclock over the FE variant which should deliver a nice boost in performance.

The RTX 3070 Ti is based on the GA104 GPU which unlike the TU106 GPU is a much denser graphics chip and one that requires a lot of power, even for a 70 class GeForce product. The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SG does end up consuming slightly more power than the GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 SUPER custom designs but at the end of the day, it's nowhere near the same levels as the RTX 2080 Ti which is a big bonus. The updated ray-tracing cores also deliver a wider performance difference, with Ampere clearly being ahead.

One big limiting factor for the graphics card is its 8 GB GDDR6X memory buffer. Now while the RTX 3070 Ti SG delivers exceptional performance at 1440p and 4K resolutions that outperform the RTX 2080 Ti, there can be certain dips in minimums at higher resolutions such as 4K. It should've been better if the RTX 3070 Ti had a similar memory capacity as the RTX 3080 which should've been a more balanced design for this graphics card.

However, while I will call the GeForce RTX 3070 To graphics card is a good option for gamers, it does compete directly with the AMD Radeon RX 6800 graphics card which offers performance faster than the RTX 2080 Ti, will feature ray-tracing support, and will carry an impressive 16 GB GDDR6 frame buffer. The RX 6800 will be a real challenger for the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and with FSR coming to more titles, it does look like a slightly better option in my opinion.

Overall, if the GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 SG can come in around a price close to $599 US, it is a decent graphics card with some interesting features plus NVIDIA still holds the lead in raytracing capabilities and its impressive DLSS suite. If you're into an RGB riddled design with a great cooling design, then it seems like the SG is the card for you!

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