Final Thoughts
It seems with the RTX 30 series it seems NVIDIA is stepping up performance and bringing prices down, which of course is great for the consumer. I think the RTX 3070 will eventually become the “standard” card for most gamers and here is why…
First is performance. This is the perfect 1440p card. In our six game tests it performed well over 60 FPS at 1440p and in most cases by quite a lot. With 1440p displays becoming the norm for many gamers having a card that can easily push over 60 FPS in games is a plus. For those who are gaming in 4K this card is very capable, but you might have to turn the settings down in some games. The card would also make a very good high frame rate 1080p card for 144 Hz gaming displays. NVIDIA did claim this card was faster than the RTX 2080 Ti, we directly tested it against an ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti and it was slightly slower, but you have to remember that card is factory-overclocked. Almost every review I’ve seen has the RTX 3070 Founders beating the RTX 2080 Ti Founders. So even if the performance is around the same that is quite the accomplishment, especially considering the RTX 2080 Ti was $1200 not that long ago.
That brings us to price, the RTX 3070 is only $499! Again you are getting the performance of a card that launched at, and still was $1200 not that long ago. NVIDIA making these cards more affordable is such a good thing for gamers. Gaming PC builds are going to be more affordable and this card and its awesome performance are going to get in the hands of more people.
Now there is a caveat to that. Since we are reviewing this card after launch we have a better idea of availability and you can’t find this card anywhere. It is sold out on Newegg, Amazon, Best Buy, etc. I know people who got their order in for a RTX 3070, but won’t be getting delivery of the card till at least January. This is a real bummer to those who might have been thinking about building a new PC for the holidays or asking for parts for Christmas.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this review this is the first time that I’ve had to chance to really handle and use a Founders Edition card from NVIDIA. I have to say I am really impressed! The card itself is absolutely beautiful and you can see that NVIDIA has made the Founders Edition a premium product, not just a plain-jane card with stock settings. The new 30-series design with its sleek lines and curves really works and will look awesome inside of your case. If you always passed on Founders Edition cards you might want to rethink that.
Now there is one thing I don’t like about the Founders Edition card and it is the placement of the 12-pin power connector. While I definitely appreciate a smaller connector that can provide more power than the standard PCIe power connectors it is placed right in the center of the card. Using the adapter or any cable will come right out from the center of the card and just look odd. It was however nice that NVIDIA does include the adapter with every Founders Edition card.
With the 30-series we are getting more RT and Tensor cores as well. This means you’ll have support for real-time raytracing and technologies like DLSS. While enabling RTX still does take a pretty considerable performance hit, if your title supports both RTX and DLSS that performance hit is pretty much erased. That means you can enjoy those awesome ray-traced reflections with little to no performance hit.
For those thinking about upgrading the from the previous generation, the RTX 3070 is about 30% faster than the RTX 2070 Super and about 40% faster than the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT.
At the end of the day I think that the RTX 3070 is the card of this generation to get. The performance is absolutely amazing and the price of $499 can’t be beat! Overall ThinkComputers gives the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition Graphics Card a 9 out of 10 score and our Recommended Award!
Pros:
– Performance close or better than the RTX 2080 Ti
– Founders Edition has a sleek and quality design
– Price
– Perfect 1440p card and can handle 4K as well
– Smaller compact card
– Fans stop when idle
Cons:
– Availability
– Placement of the 12-pin power connector
