NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition Review: Gaming, Thermals, Noise, & Power Benchmarks

This review and benchmark of the NVIDIA RTX 3070 Founders Edition GPU looks at thermals, power, gaming, overclocking, and performance vs. the GTX 1070, RTX 2070, 3080, 5700 XT, et al.

Sorry, there's an error in the specs section at 4:00. We based it off initial info from announcement, but final spec is actually 14Gbps memory and 448GB/s memory bandwidth. That doesn't change any benchmark data, but the specs table should read 14Gbps and 448GB/s.

Benchmarks today look at the RTX 3070's performance in gaming most heavily, but also include a big focus on thermals (including GPU, MOSFET, & GDDR6 memory temperatures), mechanical design and pressure application, frequency boosting, and overclocking. The gaming benchmarks include a lot of video cards, but some noteworthy ones are the RTX 3070 vs. GTX 1070 comparisons, RTX 2070 & 2080 Super comparisons, and AMD RX 5700 XT benchmarks. Remember that you can always look at old charts and determine a relative percent difference between your current card and something that is on these charts, then roughly approximate where yours would fall relative to the 3070 (just some simple percent scaling math will work). The GTX 970 could be compared in this fashion.

RELATED PRODUCTS (Test Bench Parts)

GPU - This is what we're testing!

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - NVIDIA RTX 3070 Founders Edition
02:00 - GPU Reviews Are Weird Right Now
04:38 - Block Diagram of RTX 3070 & Die Shot
05:02 - Strong Point: Pressure Map of RTX 3070
06:08 - 3070 FE Pressure vs. Other Cards
06:27 - Coldplate Depth on RTX 3070 Cooler
06:56 - RTX 3070 Frequency Validation vs. Temperature
07:57 - 3070 vs. 3080 & 3090 Boost Frequency
09:09 - GPU Noise-Normalized Thermals
10:38 - Memory Noise-Normalized Thermals
11:25 - Hot MOSFETs in Auto VBIOS Thermals
12:24 - Auto VBIOS GPU Thermals
13:11 - Weak Point: Fan Hysteresis on RTX 3070 FE
14:20 - Noise-RPM Response on RTX 3070 FE Cooler
15:13 - Game Benchmarks & Cards That Aren't on Charts
15:43 - Red Dead Redemption 2 (1080p, 1440p, 4K)
18:14 - DirectX 12 vs. Vulkan Performance (RDR2)
18:56 - Rainbow Six Siege (3070 vs. 1070, 2070, 5700 XT, etc.)
20:10 - Frametime Plot - RTX 3070 vs 3080 in Rainbow Six
22:33 - Three Kingdoms GPU Benchmarks (4K, 1440p, 1080p)
24:06 - Horizon Zero Dawn (4K, 1440p)
25:19 - Shadow of the Tomb Raider (4K, 1440p)
25:47 - Microsoft Flight Sim 2020, GTA V, Strange Brigade
26:37 - Quake II RTX Path Traced Benchmarks (4K, 1440p, 1080p)
27:11 - Control RTX Benchmarks (& DLSS2) - 4K, 1440p
27:45 - Minecraft RTX - 4K, 1440p
28:08 - Power Consumption & Overclocking Power
28:58 - Power Efficiency vs. RTX 3080
29:37 - Conclusions of RTX 3070 Founders Edition

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Editorial, Testing: Steve Burke
Additional Testing: Patrick Lathan, Mike Gaglione
Video: Keegan Gallick, Andrew Coleman

[GamersNexus]

Sorry, there's an error in the specs section: We based it off of initial information from announcement, but the final spec is actually 14Gbps memory and 448GB/s memory bandwidth. That doesn't change any benchmark data. Our apologies for the error - should have checked the final specs to see if they had changed.

[..]

The 1080 Ti: the first 4K-ready card.
The 2080 Ti: the first 4K-ready card.
The 3070/3080: the first 4K-ready card.

[ryanstavnezer]

The RTX 3070 coming to a scalper near you

[smittyholden]

Linus, Paul, jay: here's some performance and fps benchmarks

Steve: here's every piece of info possible as well as a shit ton of graphs

[gremlicious]

teardown countdown begins. I like the look of this cooler a lot more but there’s a lot of plastic impeding airflow from the looks of the brief shot we got at the start of the video. The straight-through cooling at the back should be of benefit though

[KiltedCritic]

Is it compatible with the AMD bicycle?

[PHNTMHIVE]

“Quick babe wake up GN posted about the 3070”

[MasterOfInfinity]

As soon as you'll finish reading this comment, the card will be out of stock. Sorry.

[XLIIVideos]

It warms my soul to see Nvidia sent their entire stock of 3070's to YT reviewers :D

[scannerbarkly]

To be honest I have zero interest in watching this video for the actual card, as the launch will just be another shitshow of incompetence. Watching this strictly to support GN, you guys are doing god's work.

[CPowell]

16:05 - These gaming charts are always valuable. Sitting on a GTX 1070 currently and really taking a hard look at the 3070/3080 since I was planning on building a new system this holiday season. Really will be interesting if Big Navi can be disruptive.

[SkavenUK]

Steve: Just hitting the market
Market: Where?
Scalpers with bots: LELELELELLELELELELELELELELE

[JhanSolo]

New gpu's releases
Me: spends entire day at work watching reviews/teardowns.

[foobarbazbaa]

Can't wait to be able to buy one of these for Christmas 2021

[nhooks]

2:50 Missed everything you said for about 10 seconds while watching the dust settle...

[LastSecBloomer]

So, it's 2080Ti for half the price, a lot smaller, with lower power draw and improved DLSS...it's ok by me.

[MidweekLicense]

Was really happy and fortunate I was able to buy the 3070 founders edition today, it was a much needed upgrade since I’m nowhere as knowledgeable compared to my friends with computers and had been using my first pc they put together back in 2014 using a Gtx 760. I recently put together my new pc about 3 weeks ago hoping to get the 3070 on the 15th which would’ve been a nice birthday present but glad I was able to purchase one today. Love your video and I can’t wait to get mine on Nov 5th!

[edh]

A lil Blender with optix render time would be much appreciated.

[jordyd]

Thank you for finaly mentioning the (legendary) 970GTX!
No other tests even mention this card anymore, while it still has a market share according to steam.
The 3.5 gig is seriously lacking going over 1080p though. I suppose the time has come to open my wallet again.

[SirNickyT]

In the first few minutes Steve said "This is fine" almost as many times as Intel said 4700u.