NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition Review

Brent_Justice

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Introduction



On September 16th, 2020 NVIDIA launched the new GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition video card based on the next-gen Ampere architecture.  In fact, this was also the announcement of the GeForce RTX 30 Series itself, with two cards being announced alongside the launch.  The GeForce RTX 3090, and GeForce RTX 3070.  The Ampere architecture is what powers the GeForce RTX 30 Series.The GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition launched at an MSRP of $699 and replaces the GeForce RTX 2080 and GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER.  Those video cards also launched at $699 when they were released in 2018 and 2019 respectively. In our review, we found the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition provided an over 50% performance bump over the GeForce RTX 2080 FE at 1440p and an even...
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A little disappointing after the hype. I was expecting it to be close to the 2080 Ti in rasterization, but be faster in ray tracing. I suspect that it is actually the lower memory bandwidth that is hurting the card here rather than memory capacity.
 
Thank you Brent for the awesome review! This card checks off a lot of the boxes I'd want in a card, with exception for 1. VRAM. I will be making the move to 4k monitors this fall, and I don't believe 8GB of VRAM is going to be enough to last for the long haul. While the FPS #'s shown for this card are most definitely "usable", I fear the longevity of the solution won't be there.
 
Great review, Looks good for 1440p RT, DLSS.
 
I agree 100% with the conclusión. As a gtx 1070Ti owner this is the card I should ve looking for... Except this could all change by tomorrow
 
Wow...this is looking like the best current option for 1080p or 1440p with high refresh.

Going to feel like a true competitive market again once the Radeon 6000 series drops. Well, depending on their price points.


Thanks for the amazing review!
 
Space_Ranger said:
Thank you Brent for the awesome review! This card checks off a lot of the boxes I'd want in a card, with exception for 1. VRAM. I will be making the move to 4k monitors this fall, and I don't believe 8GB of VRAM is going to be enough to last for the long haul. While the FPS #'s shown for this card are most definitely "usable", I fear the longevity of the solution won't be there.
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Given how close the 3070 seems to be to the RTX 2080 Ti, let me tell you. The card is NOT a 4K gaming card to begin with. I've used the RTX 2080 Ti extensively at 4K and its great for some titles, but many of them perform at frame rates I'd consider sub par for it. You sometimes end up having to turn settings down if you want to maintain 60FPS. At the very least, I often had to ditch anti-aliasing or drastically reduce it. While average frame rates are usually sufficient, minimums can fall into the 45FPS range or sometimes worse.

In 8 of the games Brent tested at 4K, neither the RTX 2080 Ti or the 3070 could achieve a 60FPS average. That would mean that the minimums would likely be in the toilet. I can tell you from extensive testing on the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 Super cards, that they are. These cards can sometimes do OK at 4K, but generally, they are NOT 4K cards. You need an RTX 3080 if you want a good experience at 4K without having to turn games down to potato mode.
 
Dan_D said:
Given how close the 3070 seems to be to the RTX 2080 Ti, let me tell you. The card is NOT a 4K gaming card to begin with. I've used the RTX 2080 Ti extensively at 4K and its great for some titles, but many of them perform at frame rates I'd consider sub par for it. You sometimes end up having to turn settings down if you want to maintain 60FPS. At the very least, I often had to ditch anti-aliasing or drastically reduce it. While average frame rates are usually sufficient, minimums can fall into the 45FPS range or sometimes worse.

In 8 of the games Brent tested at 4K, neither the RTX 2080 Ti or the 3070 could achieve a 60FPS average. That would mean that the minimums would likely be in the toilet. I can tell you from extensive testing on the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 Super cards, that they are. These cards can sometimes do OK at 4K, but generally, they are NOT 4K cards. You need an RTX 3080 if you want a good experience at 4K without having to turn games down to potato mode.
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to think the RTX2080Ti WAS THE 4K gaming card just last year. Heck even the RTX2080 Super was a 4K capable card on plenty of games.

On a sidenote, DLSS could be a game changer when going 4K, specially with its new modes. Time will tell...
 
btw can I buy one now? or are they already gone..
 
Dan_D said:
Given how close the 3070 seems to be to the RTX 2080 Ti, let me tell you. The card is NOT a 4K gaming card to begin with. I've used the RTX 2080 Ti extensively at 4K and its great for some titles, but many of them perform at frame rates I'd consider sub par for it. You sometimes end up having to turn settings down if you want to maintain 60FPS. At the very least, I often had to ditch anti-aliasing or drastically reduce it. While average frame rates are usually sufficient, minimums can fall into the 45FPS range or sometimes worse.

In 8 of the games Brent tested at 4K, neither the RTX 2080 Ti or the 3070 could achieve a 60FPS average. That would mean that the minimums would likely be in the toilet. I can tell you from extensive testing on the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 Super cards, that they are. These cards can sometimes do OK at 4K, but generally, they are NOT 4K cards. You need an RTX 3080 if you want a good experience at 4K without having to turn games down to potato mode.
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I've only had a few games drop below 50 FPS with the 2080 Ti. Funnily enough, I was playing through Dying Light again to experience all the DLC I missed and it was one of the games that did this, so I had to drop the draw distance. That was the only thing I changed. Average framerate was still in the 70s prior to dropping the draw distance. The 3070 is solidly a 1440p card, but it is a fine entry-level 4K card going by the review and based on relative 2080 Ti performance.
 
Stoly said:
to think the RTX2080Ti WAS THE 4K gaming card just last year. Heck even the RTX2080 Super was a 4K capable card on plenty of games.

On a sidenote, DLSS could be a game changer when going 4K, specially with its new modes. Time will tell...
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No, the RTX 2080 Ti was the fastest gaming card on the market last year. It was "the 4K gaming card" by default as there was nothing better. That's the only reason it was "the best" at 4K. That didn't mean it was good at 4K. The data speaks for itself on that. It's really not. 3840x2160 is still too demanding for most graphics cards. The RTX 3080 is really the first graphics card that has enough performance to provide a solid gaming experience at that resolution.

I used the RTX 2080 Ti at 4K for a year. The experience was lacking in several games. I also have an RTX 2080 Super on the test bench. An overclocked one at that. I do a lot of 4K testing with it. It's certainly capable of 4K gaming in some titles, but it leaves even more to be desired than the 2080 Ti does. The data is in the review. The RTX 2080 Ti and 3070 failed to achieve a 60FPS minimum in 8 out of 10 games. Many were 50FPS, but one was as low as 33FPS. Some were in the 40FPS range. This isn't up to par by most standards unless you have a slideshow fetish.

Hitman 2 is a good example of what I'm talking about. In this game, the RTX 2080 Super can't hit an average of 60FPS on any of the test configurations. It's close, though minimums are basically awful.

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Ghost Recon Breakpoint is another great example of what I'm talking about. This game is entirely GPU limited. The RTX 2080 Super cannot achieve a 60FPS average frame rate while maxing the game out. The settings used here are "VERY HIGH". Not "Ultra" and **** sure not "Ultimate." I played this game on my RTX 2080 Ti on Ultimate settings and it can average 60FPS as was Brent's conclusion. However, the minimums do drop into the 45FPS range enough that you notice it. At least on DirectX 12. Vulkan rendering wasn't available when I played the game at 4K on my RTX 2080 Ti. Keep in mind the graph above references the RTX 2080 Super at "Very High" using Vulkan. In DirectX 12 mode things are even worse as there is roughly a 20% drop in performance vs. Vulkan.

Again, the RTX 2080 Super and RTX 2080 Ti (and by extension, the 3070 Super) are not good cards for 4K gaming. The data is clear on this point. That said, they can do a decent job of it in certain specific situations. Shadow of the Tomb Raider actually performs quite well on the RTX 2080 Super at 4K. However, it only does so without ray tracing enabled. Obviously, the RTX 2080 Ti would certainly be fast enough in that situation. I haven't tried ray tracing at 4K, but at 3440x1440, it was surprisingly good. But that only proves the point. In some titles, its' fine. In others, not so much.

When you start using things like ray tracing that performance gets even worse. If you are the kind of gamer that doesn't mind turning settings down to get better frame rates and you can live with that, go on and get a 3070. But, as someone with a 4K display who has used the RTX 2080 Super and RTX 2080 Ti extensively at 4K, I'm telling you (and so is the data) that those cards are NOT suited to it. In newer titles they struggle. That's not going to get better over time. The 3070 has less VRAM and less memory bandwidth than the RTX 2080 Ti does as well. That doesn't bode well for the long term aging of the card at 4K.

The thing is, most people that shoot for 4K gaming tend to be into the fidelity of it. They usually aren't the crowd that wants to turn settings down. As a result, the 3070 isn't really or shouldn't be their target graphics card. Let's also not kid ourselves. 60Hz sucks ***. What you really want is at least 3840x2160@120Hz minimum. Nothing short of an RTX 3080 or RTX 3090 is remotely capable of achieving that. 4K is very much a "pay to play" resolution. Just because last years card was the best you could do, doesn't mean that it was great at the task.

To be clear, I think the RTX 3070 is fantastic. It delivers almost identical performance to that of the RTX 2080 Ti at less than half the price. That's amazing. However, that does not make it ideal for 4K. Anytime you have to start turning settings down at a given resolution for several games, its clear that card isn't well suited to playing those games at that resolution. Again, 8 out of 10 games in Brent's review couldn't hit 60FPS average using an RTX 2080 Ti or RTX 3070.
 
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I think the review was nice.
I don't like the mindset that says this card is "high end" or "middle-end" or "low-end".
This is not a high-end card. It cannot push 4K with all the top choices clicked off.
Look it barely runs Metro Exodus with RT enabled.
Much more RT intense games are coming.
This card was judged at 1440 which is not where the "high-end" lives anymore.
I use 1440 all the time because I can't see plunking down money for 4K......yet and I don't game that much anymore. But when I do, I want 1440 with all the buttons pushed. I think the 3080 will give me that AND RT, if there is ever one to buy.
If you are gaming at 1080 and want all the stuff checked, this is your card, and at a great price.
I am a little disappointed, I thought this was going to be the 1440 card for everything and RT, but looks like a bust in that regard.
 
Stoly said:
to think the RTX2080Ti WAS THE 4K gaming card just last year. Heck even the RTX2080 Super was a 4K capable card on plenty of games.

On a sidenote, DLSS could be a game changer when going 4K, specially with its new modes. Time will tell...
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In my mind, "4k gaming" is an ambiguous term that's being tossed around too much. You don't need 3080 to play Diablo 3 in 4k, but obviously, the same cannot be said if you want to play Control. "4k gaming" really only applies to a small number of latest triple A games, or some poorly coded crap that I'm sure is out there.

Myself, I play a lot of older games or small indy titles that rival solitaire with its graphics... and I play them all in 4k with max settings without having the need for 3080.. or even 2080Ti for that matter. YMMV.
 
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Armenius said:
A little disappointing after the hype. I was expecting it to be close to the 2080 Ti in rasterization, but be faster in ray tracing. I suspect that it is actually the lower memory bandwidth that is hurting the card here rather than memory capacity.
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Looking at OC reviews, increased bandwidth doesn't increase performance much, if at all.

Actually I'm really dissapointed with OC figures, I expected much better results, since the card pulls 100w less than the rtx3080.
 
northrop said:
In my mind, "4k gaming" is an ambiguous term that's being tossed around too much. You don't need 3080 to play Diablo 3 in 4k, but obviously, the same cannot be said if you want to play Control. "4k gaming" really only applies to a small number of latest triple A games, or some poorly coded crap that I'm sure is out there.

Myself, I play a lot of older games or small indy titles that rival solitaire with its graphics... and I play them all in 4k with max settings without having the need for 3080.. or even 2080Ti for that matter. YMMV.
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Amen

A lot of games out there that will run great at 4K with the 3070.
Not everyone plays AAA titles only, just like not everybody cares for RT.
I think the 3070 is gonna make a nice upgrade for a lot of ppl :)

I logged 600+ hrs in NMS in 4K with a 2070, Played the **** outta a bunch of WH40K titles etc.
Not to mention a slew of DLSS enabled stuff.

I'll probably go 3080 or 3090 at this stage, but I could easily keep going with a 3070 at 4K60 at everything I play atm.
But I'm curious about 4K144, so that changes things for me.
 
Awesome review Brent!!!!!!!!!

As others have said, I'm not all that hyped about the card other than the fact that it pretty much exchanges blows with the 2080Ti which is pretty impressive.
One can certainly expect to see the prices of new and used 2080Ti's to drop drastically in price in the coming months!
 
People complain that the 3070 only has 8GB vs 2080Ti 11gb, but the performance difference even at 4K doesn't seem to reflect this.

If the RTX3070 was memory starved the performance hit would be so much bigger.

I recall when the FuryX came out, people complained about it having only 4GB of ram, but it really didn't hurt performance until a few years later.
In contrast VegaVII never really took advantage of its 16gb of ram, until FS2020 came out @4K and still its only slightly faster than the GTX1080Ti.
 
Great review. Regarding how to tier cards, shouldn't it be by volume? i.e. bulk of cards sold is at $xxx.xx that would define one tier, then based on that you define the rest. Then you have tiering based on use - blender/creative work/AI with large RAM requirements, etc.
 
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