Keeping their tradition alive of launching a new graphics architecture every two years, this year, NVIDIA introduces 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. This time with the GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB graphics card based on the Ampere GA104 GPU architecture
The Ampere GPU architecture has a lot to be talked about in this review, but so does the new RTX lineup. 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.
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 which 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. Currently, you will only be limited to the higher-end configurations starting at $499 US for the GeForce RTX 3070, $699 US for the GeForce RTX 3080, and $1499 US for the GeForce RTX 3090. NVIDIA themselves call the GeForce RTX 3080 as 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. NVIDIA calls the GeForce RTX 3090 as 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 | 2014-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Titan Tier | Titan X (Maxwell) | Titan X (Pascal) | Titan Xp (Pascal) | Titan V (Volta) | Titan RTX (Turing) | TBA |
| Price | $999 US | $1199 US | $1199 US | $2999 US | $2499 US | TBA |
| Ultra Enthusiast Tier | GeForce GTX 980 Ti | GeForce GTX 980 Ti | GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | GeForce RTX 3090 |
| Price | $649 US | $649 US | $699 US | $999 US | $999 US | $1499 US |
| Enthusiast Tier | GeForce GTX 980 | GeForce GTX 1080 | GeForce GTX 1080 | GeForce RTX 2080 | GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER | GeForce RTX 3080 |
| Price | $549 US | $549 US | $549 US | $699 US | $699 US | $699 US |
| High-End Tier | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce GTX 1070 | GeForce GTX 1070 | GeForce RTX 2070 | GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER | GeForce RTX 3070 |
| Price | $329 US | $379 US | $379 US | $499 US | $499 US | $499 |
| Mainstream Tier | GeForce GTX 960 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GeForce GTX 1660 |
TBA |
| Price | $199 US | $249 US | $249 US | $249 US | $399 US $349 US $279 US $229 US $219 US |
TBA |
| Entry Tier | GTX 750 Ti GTX 750 |
GTX 950 | GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050 |
GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050 |
GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650 |
TBA |
| Price | $149 US $119 US |
$149 US | $139 US $109 US |
$139 US $109 US |
$159 US $149 US |
TBA |
In addition to the specs/price update, NVIDIA's RTX technologies are being widely adopted major game engines and APIs such as Microsft 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 the GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 SG (Serious Gaming). The Serious Gaming is expected to be priced close to the Founders Edition variant at around $499 US. The card will come with a triple-fan design and an additional fourth fan along with a factory boost out of the box. So let's find out if the claims of RTX 3070 being faster than the RTX 2080 Ti are true at all and how it fares against an AIB RTX 2080 Ti graphics card.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Graphics Card
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is a force to be reckoned with. It takes the throne of the fastest PC gaming graphics card with nothing coming even close to it. It's surprisingly much faster than the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti which is its Turing based predecessor.
NVIDIA designed the GeForce RTX 3070 is designed to be the gaming champ, powering the next generation of AAA gaming titles with superb visuals and insane fluidity. It's not just the FPS that matters these days, its visuals, and a smoother frame rate too and this is exactly what the GeForce RTX 30 series is made to excel at. There's a lot to talk about regarding NVIDIA's flagship Ampere gaming graphics cards so let's start off with the specifications.
Marvels of NVIDIA Ampere Architecture - 2nd Generation RTX
Enabling the blistering performance of the new RTX 30 Series GPUs and the NVIDIA Ampere architecture are cutting-edge technologies and over two decades of graphics R&D, including:
- New streaming multiprocessors: The building block for the world’s fastest, most efficient GPU, delivering 2x the FP32 throughput of the previous generation, and 30 Shader-TFLOPS of processing power.
- Second-gen RT Cores: New dedicated RT Cores deliver 2x the throughput of the previous generation, plus concurrent ray tracing and shading and compute, with 58 RT-TFLOPS of processing power.
- Third-gen Tensor Cores: New dedicated Tensor Cores, with up to 2x the throughput of the previous generation, making it faster and more efficient to run AI-powered technologies, like NVIDIA DLSS, and 238 Tensor-TFLOPS of processing power.
- NVIDIA RTX IO: Enables rapid GPU-based loading and game asset decompression, accelerating input/output performance by up to 100x compared with hard drives and traditional storage APIs. In conjunction with Microsoft’s new DirectStorage for Windows API, RTX IO offloads dozens of CPU cores’ worth of work to the RTX GPU, improving frame rates and enabling near-instantaneous game loading.
- World’s fastest graphics memory: NVIDIA has worked with Micron to create the world’s fastest discrete graphics memory for the RTX 30 Series, GDDR6X. It provides data speeds of close to 1TB/s system memory bandwidth for graphics card applications, maximizing game and app performance.
- Next-gen process technology: New 8N NVIDIA custom process from Samsung, which allows for higher transistor density and more efficiency.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Graphics Card Specifications - GA104 GPU & 8 GB GDDR6 Memory
At the heart of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card lies the GA104 GPU. The GA104 is one of the many Ampere GPUs that we will be getting on the gaming segment. The GA104 GPU is the second-fastest Ampere chip in the stack. The GPU is based on Samsung's 8nm (N8) process node. The GPU measures at 392.5mm2 and features 17.4 Billion transistors which are almost 93% of the transistors featured on the TU102 GPU. At the same time, the GA104 GPU is almost half the size of the TU102 GPU which is an insane amount of density.
For the GeForce RTX 3070, NVIDIA has enabled a total of 46 SM units on its flagship which results in a total of 5888 CUDA cores. In addition to the CUDA cores, NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3070 also comes packed with next-generation RT (Ray-Tracing) cores, Tensor cores, and brand new SM or streaming multi-processor units.
In terms of memory, the GeForce RTX 3070 features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. The GeForce RTX 3070 comes with memory at speeds of 14 Gbps. That along with a full uncut bus interface of 256-bit will deliver a cumulative bandwidth of 448 Gbps. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 has a TGP of 220W.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series 'Ampere' Graphics Card Specifications:
| Graphics Card Name | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti? | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Name | Ampere GA104-200 | Ampere GA104-300 | Ampere GA102-150 | Ampere GA102-200 | Ampere GA102-300 |
| Process Node | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm |
| Die Size | 395.2mm2 | 395.2mm2 | 628.4mm2 | 628.4mm2 | 628.4mm2 |
| Transistors | 17.4 Billion | 17.4 Billion | 28 Billion | 28 Billion | 28 Billion |
| CUDA Cores | 4864 | 5888 | 7424 | 8704 | 10496 |
| TMUs / ROPs | 152 / 80 | 184 / 96 | 232 / 80 | 272 / 96 | 328 / 112 |
| Tensor / RT Cores | 152 / 38 | 184 / 46 | 232 / 58 | 272 / 68 | 328 / 82 |
| Base Clock | 1410 MHz | 1500 MHz | TBA | 1440 MHz | 1400 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1665 MHz | 1730 MHz | TBA | 1710 MHz | 1700 MHz |
| FP32 Compute | 16.2 TFLOPs | 20 TFLOPs | TBA | 30 TFLOPs | 36 TFLOPs |
| RT TFLOPs | 32.4 TFLOPs | 40 TFLOPs | TBA | 58 TFLOPs | 69 TFLOPs |
| Tensor-TOPs | TBA | 163 TOPs | TBA | 238 TOPs | 285 TOPs |
| Memory Capacity | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 10 GB GDDR6X? | 10 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Bus | 256-bit | 256-bit | 320-bit | 320-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory Speed | 14 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 320-bit | 19 Gbps | 19.5 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | 448 Gbps | 448 Gbps | 320-bit | 760 Gbps | 936 Gbps |
| TGP | 180W? | 220W | 250-280W | 320W | 350W |
| Price (MSRP / FE) | $399 US? | $499 US | $599 US? | $699 US | $1499 US |
| Launch (Availability) | November 2020? | 29th October | 320-bit | 17th September | 24th September |
In case you want to read our full NVIDIA Ampere GPU architecture deep dive and GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition review, head over to this link.
The GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 SG is one of the many variants in GALAX's RTX 3070 family. The card is positioned close to the Founders Edition model, featuring a triple-fan cooler design within a 2.5 slot form factor. GALAX's Serious Gaming series will rock a black color design and uses their RGB effects which looks great.
In addition to the custom design, the RTX 3070 SG comes with a non-reference PCB, featuring a 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 1500 MHz but the boost clock is rated at 1725 MHz which is 5 MHz slower than the Founders Edition variant but with the Xtreme Tuner application, the speeds can be pushed to 1740 MHz.
Following are some of the features of the GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 SG graphics card before we go in detail:
GPU Engine Specs:
- CUDA Cores 5888
- Boost Clock (MHz) 1725
- 1-Click OC Clock (MHz) 1740 (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 GDDR6
- Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 448
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
GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 SG Graphics Card Gallery:
GALAX GeForce RTX 30 Graphics Cards Make Ampere Serious For Gamers!
The GALAX 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.
GALAX'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 also said to provide higher air flow & air pressure at minimum noise levels.
The fans are fully compliant with GALAX'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, GALAX 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 a 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 GALAX has left cut-outs in place to direct airflow outwards.
One of the key features that GALAX 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:
- Don’t need to exit game to tune you GPU
- User Friendly interface, 1-click to boost your GPU
- Convenience functions to tune your RGB, OC, Fan etc
You can learn more about the GALAX Xtreme Tuner Plus application over here!
The GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 SG graphics card comes inside a standard cardboard box. The front of both packages has a large "GeForce RTX" brand logo along with the "GALAX" logo on the top left corner and the card branding on the lower-left corner. The box features a whole hooded gamer vibe that GALAX 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 GDDR6 (RTX 3070) 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 from the ones I have tested. The card measures at 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 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 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 entry level GPU offerings from GALAX so don't expect any fancy designs like the WTF, EX or HOF series cards.
GALAX 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.
GALAX 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 GALAX 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 with that add 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 GALAX's 1-clip booster fan plugs in. Its 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 increase 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.
GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 SG Teardown:
GALAX makes use of a 8+2+1 phase PWM design that includes high quality components. The GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 SG graphics card also uses the GDDR6 memory from Micron that operates at 14 Gbps alongside a 256-bit wide memory interface.
Power to the GeForce RTX 3070 SG is provided through a single 8-pin connector which sticks to the 220W reference configuration of the Founders Edition variant.
GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 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.
GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 SG Test Setup:
| CPU | Intel Core i9-9900K @ 4.70 GHz |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | AORUS Z390 Master |
| Video Cards | GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 SG MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Gaming X Trio MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio 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 20.7.2 NVIDIA GeForce 456.96 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.
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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.
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Ashes of The Singularity: Escalation
NVIDIA and AMD have been tweaking the performance of their cards for Ashes of the Singularity since the title released. It was the first to make use of the DirectX 12 API and the first to leverage from 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’s 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.
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No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. The MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio 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 which 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 3090 is set at 350W while the MSI custom model has a TDP of 370W.
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.
Coming to the conclusion, NVIDIA has a very strong contender in the $499 US this time around and one that actually delivers better performance than the last generation flagship. Gamers can expect faster performance, lower temperatures and lower power consumption, all that are worthy of title this card as one of the best gaming offerings this generation.
The GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 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 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 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 $499 US which is the most significant part. In case of the former, the graphics card may just offer better performance and better cooling than the FE model.
The GALAX RTX 3070 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 main issue I had with the RTX 3070 SG was its 5 MHz lower clock than the FE variant and while it does come with a 1-click boost feature, you have to install the Xtreme Tuner app to unlock the extra 15 MHz clock which is quite unnecessary.
The RTX 3070 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 Gaming X Trio 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, its no where 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 between the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 3070 with Ampere clearly being ahead.
One big limiting factor for the graphics card is its 8 GB GDDR6 memory buffer. Now while the RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio delivers exceptional performance at 1440p and 4K resolutions that sometimes outperforms and mostly matches 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 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 graphics card as the best graphics card for gamers available right now, I won't set it in the stone as AMD has just announced its own $579 US Radeon RX 6800 graphics card which is said to offer 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 and since the launch of the RX 6800 is just a few weeks away (18th November), I would advise readers to wait to see reviews on that before jumping over to purchase a RTX 3070 graphics card.
Overall, if the GALAX GeForce RTX 3070 SG can come in around a price close to $499 US, it is a decent graphics card with some interesting features. If you're into a RGB riddled design with a great cooling design, than it seems like the SG is the card for you!
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