In one of my grand fantasies, a world where video cards actually cost as much as their retail prices, NVIDIA's RTX 3070 was an absolute steal. When we reviewed that GPU in October, the Founder's Edition was supposed to cost $499 and be just as fast as NVIDIA's previous flagship, the $999 RTX 2080 Ti. In reality, though, the global chip shortage and a proliferation of scalpers drove the cost of the 3070 up to $1,500 on eBay. On the rare occasion you could find it in stores, it typically sold for around $800.
Gallery: NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti | 8 Photos
Gallery: NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti | 8 Photos
So really, who knows how much NVIDIA's new mid-range GPU, the RTX 3070 Ti, is actually going to sell for. The company says its retail price is $599, though, so that's what we'll run with for now. The real question: Is it really worth a $100 price increase over the 3070, especially when the far more capable RTX 3080 is listed at $699? Yes and no.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti
Pros
- Much faster than the 2070 Super
- Better memory performance than the 3070
- Decent ray tracing support
Cons
- Just $100 less than the faster 3080
- Runs hotter than the 3070
- Fans run often
Under the hood, the RTX 3070 Ti sports 6,144 NVIDIA CUDA cores, compared to 5,888 on the 3070 and 2,560 on the RTX 2070 Super. (That latter card is effectively what the 3070 Ti is replacing.) The new GPU also features slightly faster base and boost clock speeds than the RTX 3070, but it's such a small jump you'd barely notice it. The 3070 Ti also comes with 8GB of DDR6X RAM, instead of just DDR6, which lifts memory bandwidth to 608 GB/s from 448 GB/s. Thanks to those additional CUDA cores, the 3070 Ti uses 290W of power instead of 220W. Consequently, it now requires at least a 750W power supply, a 100-watt jump from the 3070.
Card | RTX 3070 | RTX 3070 Ti | RTX 3080 | RTX 3080 Ti |
|---|---|---|---|---|
SM count | 46 | 48 | 68 | 80 |
CUDA cores | 5,888 | 6,144 | 8,704 | 10,240 |
RT cores | 46 | 48 | 68 | 80 |
Tensor cores | 184 | 192 | 272 | 320 |
Boost clock | 1,750MHz | 1,770MHz | 1,710MHz | 1,665MHz |
Memory | 8GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6X | 10GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X |
Memory bandwidth | 448 GB/s | 608 GB/s | 760 GB/s | 912 GB/s |
TDP | 220W | 290W | 320W | 350W |
Price | $499 | $599 | $699 | $1,199 |
Given the minimal spec bump over the 3070, I didn't expect a huge performance jump from the Ti model. The benchmarks just proved my hunch: The 3070 Ti hit 6,842 points in 3DMark's TimeSpy Extreme test, compared to 6,226 on the previous card. Similarly, I saw close to a 10 percent improvement in the Port Royal raytracing benchmark. That's nice to see, but it's not enough to make 3070 owners regret their purchase. Unfortunately, I didn't have a RTX 2070 Super to compare on my current rig — which is powered by a Ryzen 5800X and 32GB of DDR4 RAM — but it scored 4,474 in TimeSpy Extreme with my last system. NVIDIA claims the 3070 Ti should deliver up to 50 percent faster speeds than the 2070 Super.
None | 3DMark TimeSpy Extreme | Destiny 2 | Hitman 3 | Port Royal (ray tracing) |
NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti | 6,842 | 145-155fps | 155fps | 8,745/49fps |
NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti | 8,683 | 175-195fps | 170fps | 12,948/59.95fps |
NVIDIA RTX 3080 | 8,009 | 150-165fps | 161fps | 11,623/53.81fps |
NVIDIA RTX 3070 | 6,226 | 140-150fps | 151fps | 8,032/37fps |
AMD Radeon RX 6800 | 6,742 | 80-100fps | 185fps | 7669/35.51fps |
All benchmarks run in 1440p at the highest graphical settings on a PC powered by a Ryzen 7 5800X and 32GB of RAM.
The 3070 Ti cemented itself as an excellent 1440p GPU during my testing, but again, it was only slightly better than the 3070. I hit 145 to 155fps in Destiny 2 with maxed out graphics settings, compared to 140 to 150fps on the 3070. And with Control, my current stress test for most GPUs, I reached up to 75fps while playing in 1440p natively with high graphics settings (but no ray tracing) on the 3070 Ti. The 3070, meanwhile, struggled to get past 60fps.
