There have been a fair number of cards on offer in the 30-series range, from a slew of brands, but few stack up as well as the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition. Offering one of the most intimidating looks you can get with a new GPU, great thermals, and an overall impressive set of benchmarks, few cards can compete with what Asus is throwing down. Though it will be a costly endeavour, if you can find an ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition on store shelves, it makes a fantastic addition to any gaming rig.
Asus has thrown everything into this 1440P gaming monster. We ran all our tests with the 12th Gen Intel range, and it delivers with even the most demanding games (looking at you Cyberpunk 2077). With the power of the 30-series architecture, and an Overclock mode that pushes the card to 1905MHz, the ASUS ROG Strix is the card to look out for, delivering power and performance in a stylish package. Featuring HDCP Support, two HDMI 2.1 ports, and three Native DisplayPort 1.4a, you should have all you need no matter your monitor or cable configuration.
The 3070 is a major upgrade over the 2070 range, not counting all the features Asus has thrown into this card. The 3070 is a noticeable upgrade looking at the CUDA cores on offer, pushing things from the 2304 on the GeForce RTX 2070 to the ridiculous 5888 CUDA cores on the GeForce RTX 3070. NVIDIA has opted to use the same 8 GB of GDDR6 RAM for the GeForce RTX 3070 as the GeForce RTX 2070, running at 7Gbps on a 256-bit memory bus with 448 GB/sec of memory bandwidth.
Now that we have all the basics out of the way, it is time to take a look at the card, and Asus has gone out of their way to deliver a fantastic looking GPU with the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition. The three-fan design ensures there is plenty of cooling for when you are pushing visuals to their limit, while never sounding too loud in the process. The RGB lighting is subtle but a great addition, giving a hint of light on the case while never overpowering the look you may already have present.
The ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition features a dual 8-pin power connector and will take up a fair amount of space in your case. This is all used well, giving the card room to breathe and delivering great benchmarks while keeping things cool and quiet as it pushes as many polygons as you can throw at it. It also features a handy Performance Mode and Quiet Mode to change the profile of the card. Granted, this can all be controlled through the software, but the hardware switch is a great touch, something I wish more cards featured.
For the benchmarks, CGMagazine used an all-new build, featuring a Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Pro mainboard, 32GB DDR5 Corsair Vengeance 4800 RAM, Seagate FireCuda 530 1TB, an MSI MPG A850GF PSU, and an Intel 12th Gen i9-12900K. All gaming benchmarks are done on this test build, with the only thing changing being the GPU.
3D Mark Firestrike Benchmark
Starting things off, we wanted to dive into the synthetic benchmarks, running though test builds with the usual range of 3D Mark benchmarks. While these tests are not perfect, and only paint part of the picture, it is a great starting point and a good way to see how the card compares and what the potential of this GPU is against the competition from both AMD and other offerings from Nvidia.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla – 1080P/1440P/4K
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla since its release has stood as the mainstay for our range of benchmarks. It delivers some stunning visuals, can scale well to a large range of setups and resolutions, and has some great new features that push both AMD and Nvidia GPU cards to really see what they can manage.
Across the board, the performance seen with the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition was better than we expected. This is a card that manages to deliver in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, from 1080P all the way up to 4K.
Metro Exodus – 1080P/1440P/4K
4A Games have a fantastic offering for benchmarking. It not only looks amazing and uses the latest and greatest features such as DLSS and RTX, but it also pushes the GPU giving us a sense of how every card we throw at it will fare in real world testing. Exploring the wasteland of Eastern Europe has never looked so stunning or pushed systems quite so hard.
The ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition managed impressive benchmarks throughout our testing with Metro Exodus and stayed well above 60 FPS in all our tests. Considering the sheer level of visual fidelity on offer, I was very impressed overall. Granted, it is a bit behind other cards in the 30-Series range, but that is expected.
Cyberpunk 2077 – 1080P/1440P/4K
I love the look of Cyberpunk 2077 on the PC. While CD Projekt’s title is still a long way from being a polished experience, it is great to push a system, and results in some staggering visuals that put a GPU to the test.
Cyberpunk 2077 managed to be a great benchmark here, giving the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition room to breathe and show off what it could do. With scores often well over 100FPS, I have to tip my hat to Asus and AMD here, showing how well this upper-middle range card can deliver when given the chance.
Red Dead Redemption 2 – 1080P/1440P/4K
The final game we put the cards through is the western masterpiece from RockStar, Red Dead Redemption 2. The game puts any card through its paces, while scaling well even to less powerful offerings. While it may not be the most demanding option on our list, it still is a great way to see how a system compares.
With Red Dead Redemption 2, we saw a solid showing of well over 100 FPS in 1080P, and it only dropped a bit when we pushed things into 1440 and 4K. Again, while not the top of the heap, taking into consideration the overclock potential on this card, it delivers a lot of bang for your buck when you want to jump into some of the latest games.
Thermals and Power
Asus has managed to deliver a card that keeps itself cool, even when it is pushed to its limits. In our testing, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition was kept at around 65C, with it dropping to 57C when overclocked. It seems those fans and overall thermal design delivered, making it well worth the physical space the card uses.
On the power front, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition did not surprise overall. It managed a stable 365 Watts of power, with it only topping at 385 when overclocking things. While not the most power friendly card on the market, for the performance we are seeing, this is very in line with what we expected, especially when overclocking.
Sitting as one of the best-looking cards in the 30-Series range, and delivering blazing performance, the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition is a solid upgrade for everyone looking to bring their gaming experience up to the next level. It stands as an amazing 1440P GPU, and one that looks stunning in any rig. If you can find one at retail, the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition is the card to buy and stands as a massive upgrade for anyone coming from the 10-Series or lower, and a reasonable upgrade from the GeForce 2070.
