The RTX 3070 Ti has been out for more than a month, but thanks to the GPU shortage we haven’t been able to take a look at very many third-party options. Gigabyte has come to our rescue with the RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G, a triple-fan take on Nvidia’s latest graphics card. It promises cooler temps and, more importantly, a price that matches the $599 MSRP of the Founders Edition. Let’s take a closer look and see if it’s worth picking up over the competition.
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The Eagle OC 8G plays it safe. With its simple, triple-fan design and basic grey, rectangular shroud, it’s not going to win any awards for groundbreaking design, and isn’t intended to. Gigabyte’s Eagle line-up is less about flash and more about improving on the reference model without driving the price up. You do get some flair, however, with some angled cuts on the shroud, blue rings on the fans, and a bit of glossy plastic covering the Eagle branding.
Once installed, you’ll find that there’s even a bit of RGB. A blue slash angles its way along the side behind the Gigabyte logo. According to the product page, this should be customizable with the company’s RGB Fusion 2.0 app, but I couldn’t get the software to recognize the card, so it stayed blue. That’s probably for the best because it ties together the blue and grey color scheme which carries through to the back of the card.
Around the back, you’ll find a nice metal backplate to help dissipate heat. It’s not light on branding but I stopped noticing once it was installed in my case. A backplate is a small touch, but I’m happy to see it nonetheless. On the right side, a sizable vent has been cut to allow air passthrough to further keep temperatures down.
Like the Founders series from Nvidia, the Eagle uses a shortened PCB and longer heatsink to draw heat further from the GPU. The third fan is positioned directly over the rear vent, allowing air to blow across its fins and out the back. When the case fans are oriented properly, the warm air hits the path of airflow crossing the CPU and is whisked out of the case. Even though it has an extra fan compared to the Founders Edition, Gigabyte did a good job of keeping size in check coming in at just over 11 inches (or half an inch longer than the FE). It is thicker and takes up 2.5-slots, so you’ll want to bear that in mind if you have an add-in card directly below it.
These elements are all part of the Windforce 3X cooling system we first saw on the RTX 3080 Eagle 10G. Apart from just being triple-fan, Gigabyte has enhanced their function with 3D texturing to guide airflow with reduced acoustics. The fans spin in opposing directions to increase air pressure and reduce turbulence. The heatsink has also been shaped to maximize direct contact with the heat generating components.
With the exception of a small factory overclock, the Eagle 8G is identical to the reference RTX 3070 Ti. That means 6144 CUDA cores and 8GB of GDDR6X memory, the same ultra-fast variety found on the RTX 3080 and higher Nvidia GPUs. Running on a 256-bit bus, that gives the Eagle a memory clock of 19GHz and total bandwidth of 608GB/s. The core clock has received a modest boost to 1800MHz, a 30MHz overclock over reference. This isn’t the kind of overclock that will create a meaningful, or usually even perceptible, difference in games but, paired with the thermal performance, points toward the possibility of additional overclocking headroom.
The result of this design is a card that runs cooler and quieter than the original but whose out-of-the-box performance is nearly identical in games. At peak, my sample hit 77C in an open case and usually hovered between 74-75C. That’s a five degree improvement from what I recorded with the Founder’s Edition in identical circumstances. The card also ran quieter and could barely be heard at these temperatures. Perhaps thanks to this headroom, the card also managed to clock higher and peaked at 1965MHz during testing while usually holding steady closer to 1890MHz. Interestingly, this is a higher peak (the FE topped out at 1950MHz) but a lower average speed by the same 30MHz as the overclock. The factory overclock, then, was a bit of a wash on my sample and plays out exactly as you would expect in frame rates. Still, with its thermal and acoustic performance, this is a card that begs to be overclocked.
Around the back of the card, you’ll find your array of video outputs. Gigabyte does change things up compared to the Founders Edition, delivering two DisplayPort 1.4 ports and two HDMI 2.1s. The total resolution supported is 7680x4320 (or 8K).
As an Nvidia 30-series GPU, you can also look forward to the unique benefits that architecture brings to the table. The three-core Ampere processing system – composed of a shader core for traditional rasterization, a tensor core for AI functions, and an RT core for ray tracing – allows the GPU to segment game rendering into distinct parts for improved features and performance.
DLSS is core among these, intelligently upscaling games using temporal anti-aliasing with motion vector data to render near-native results at much higher frame rates than would otherwise be possible. This feature opens the door to ray-traced gaming at playable frame rates, even at demanding resolutions. Nvidia has a sizable lead on AMD with the integration of its upscaling tech in major games and shows no signs of slowing with recent additions to Red Dead Redemption 2 and Doom Eternal.
Streamers, esports players, and Netflix lovers all have something to look forward to here. For streaming, the card supports the latest version of Nvidia’s high-efficiency video encoder. The Nvidia Broadcast suite also leverages the Ampere architecture and opens the door to neat features like virtual background removal for a digital greenscreen and AI noise removal and voice tracking. First-person shooter fans can enable Nvidia Reflex and Nvidia Boost in supported games to reduce input lag. For video streaming, the card supports AV1 decoding to enjoy the latest and greatest from Netflix and other major streaming platforms.
Test system: Z390 Asus ROG Maximus XI Extreme Motherboard, Intel Core i9-9900K CPU (stock), Corsair H115i PRO RGB 280mm AIO CPU Cooler, 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4-3200, 1TB Samsung EVO Plus NVMe SSD, Corsair HX1200 1200-watt power supply.
With background out of the way, it’s time to dig into performance. To assess the Eagle OC 8G, I put it through our gamut of real-world and synthetic tests to see how it stacks up against the competition. Unless otherwise noted, all games were tested at ultra settings.
Beginning with synthetic tests, the Eagle OC 8G offered extremely similar results to the stock RTX 3070 Ti. In 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra and Unigine Heaven, it improved performance by 1%. It fell short of the MSI RTX 3070 Ti Suprim X by 3% in each test; however, bear in mind that the Suprim is priced $100-150 over MSRP when it can even be found. Compared to the RTX 3080, the Eagle was 12% slower in 3DMark and 12% slower in Heaven. Against the RTX 3070 Founders Edition, it performed 7% faster.
Turning to ray tracing synthetics, the story is much the same. In 3DMark Port Royal, the difference is less than 1% between the Eagle and Founders Edition. Compared to the RTX 3080, it was 23% slower in Port Royal, 21% slower in Boundary, and 27% slower in 3DMark’s Ray Tracing test. Against the RTX 3070, it was 7% faster, 8% faster, and 5% faster respectively.
Let’s see how it performed in games.
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In our first selection of tests, the RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G performs right alongside the Founders Edition. It edges it out slightly, but the frame rates are typically so close that you would have a difficult time noticing. At 4K and 1080p, the card performed 1% faster, and at 1440p, it averaged less than one percent difference. The comparison to the RTX 3080, then, will also be nearly identical but for context it is 15% slower at 1080p, 18% slower at 1440p, and 19% slower at 4K. Pitted against the RTX 3070, it was 3% faster at 1080p and 1440p, and 4% faster at 4K.
Turning to our expanded round of 4K testing, the results are just about as you would expect. The Eagle is 1% faster than the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition and 19% slower than the RTX 3080. Compared against the RTX 3070 FE, the Eagle was 10% faster.
While it would have been nice to see the Eagle punch up, performing on par with the FE is acceptable given that this is one of the few cards that isn’t being drastically marked up in price. If you can find it in stock and have your heart set on an RTX 3070 Ti, this isn’t a bad one to buy at MSRP.
That said, we can’t recommend purchasing any RTX 3070 Ti. The performance uplift compared to the RTX 3070 Founders Edition is just too small. For another $100, the RTX 3080 offers a much more substantial improvement. Conversely, for $100 less the original RTX 3070 performs relatively close. Either card feels like a much better value for the money.
The Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G retails for $599.99. Though it is out of stock as of this writing, it is available through Newegg and B&H Photo.
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Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G – Design and Features
The Eagle OC 8G plays it safe. With its simple, triple-fan design and basic grey, rectangular shroud, it’s not going to win any awards for groundbreaking design, and isn’t intended to. Gigabyte’s Eagle line-up is less about flash and more about improving on the reference model without driving the price up. You do get some flair, however, with some angled cuts on the shroud, blue rings on the fans, and a bit of glossy plastic covering the Eagle branding.
Once installed, you’ll find that there’s even a bit of RGB. A blue slash angles its way along the side behind the Gigabyte logo. According to the product page, this should be customizable with the company’s RGB Fusion 2.0 app, but I couldn’t get the software to recognize the card, so it stayed blue. That’s probably for the best because it ties together the blue and grey color scheme which carries through to the back of the card.
Around the back, you’ll find a nice metal backplate to help dissipate heat. It’s not light on branding but I stopped noticing once it was installed in my case. A backplate is a small touch, but I’m happy to see it nonetheless. On the right side, a sizable vent has been cut to allow air passthrough to further keep temperatures down.
Like the Founders series from Nvidia, the Eagle uses a shortened PCB and longer heatsink to draw heat further from the GPU. The third fan is positioned directly over the rear vent, allowing air to blow across its fins and out the back. When the case fans are oriented properly, the warm air hits the path of airflow crossing the CPU and is whisked out of the case. Even though it has an extra fan compared to the Founders Edition, Gigabyte did a good job of keeping size in check coming in at just over 11 inches (or half an inch longer than the FE). It is thicker and takes up 2.5-slots, so you’ll want to bear that in mind if you have an add-in card directly below it.
These elements are all part of the Windforce 3X cooling system we first saw on the RTX 3080 Eagle 10G. Apart from just being triple-fan, Gigabyte has enhanced their function with 3D texturing to guide airflow with reduced acoustics. The fans spin in opposing directions to increase air pressure and reduce turbulence. The heatsink has also been shaped to maximize direct contact with the heat generating components.
With the exception of a small factory overclock, the Eagle 8G is identical to the reference RTX 3070 Ti. That means 6144 CUDA cores and 8GB of GDDR6X memory, the same ultra-fast variety found on the RTX 3080 and higher Nvidia GPUs. Running on a 256-bit bus, that gives the Eagle a memory clock of 19GHz and total bandwidth of 608GB/s. The core clock has received a modest boost to 1800MHz, a 30MHz overclock over reference. This isn’t the kind of overclock that will create a meaningful, or usually even perceptible, difference in games but, paired with the thermal performance, points toward the possibility of additional overclocking headroom.
The result of this design is a card that runs cooler and quieter than the original but whose out-of-the-box performance is nearly identical in games. At peak, my sample hit 77C in an open case and usually hovered between 74-75C. That’s a five degree improvement from what I recorded with the Founder’s Edition in identical circumstances. The card also ran quieter and could barely be heard at these temperatures. Perhaps thanks to this headroom, the card also managed to clock higher and peaked at 1965MHz during testing while usually holding steady closer to 1890MHz. Interestingly, this is a higher peak (the FE topped out at 1950MHz) but a lower average speed by the same 30MHz as the overclock. The factory overclock, then, was a bit of a wash on my sample and plays out exactly as you would expect in frame rates. Still, with its thermal and acoustic performance, this is a card that begs to be overclocked.
Around the back of the card, you’ll find your array of video outputs. Gigabyte does change things up compared to the Founders Edition, delivering two DisplayPort 1.4 ports and two HDMI 2.1s. The total resolution supported is 7680x4320 (or 8K).
As an Nvidia 30-series GPU, you can also look forward to the unique benefits that architecture brings to the table. The three-core Ampere processing system – composed of a shader core for traditional rasterization, a tensor core for AI functions, and an RT core for ray tracing – allows the GPU to segment game rendering into distinct parts for improved features and performance.
DLSS is core among these, intelligently upscaling games using temporal anti-aliasing with motion vector data to render near-native results at much higher frame rates than would otherwise be possible. This feature opens the door to ray-traced gaming at playable frame rates, even at demanding resolutions. Nvidia has a sizable lead on AMD with the integration of its upscaling tech in major games and shows no signs of slowing with recent additions to Red Dead Redemption 2 and Doom Eternal.
Streamers, esports players, and Netflix lovers all have something to look forward to here. For streaming, the card supports the latest version of Nvidia’s high-efficiency video encoder. The Nvidia Broadcast suite also leverages the Ampere architecture and opens the door to neat features like virtual background removal for a digital greenscreen and AI noise removal and voice tracking. First-person shooter fans can enable Nvidia Reflex and Nvidia Boost in supported games to reduce input lag. For video streaming, the card supports AV1 decoding to enjoy the latest and greatest from Netflix and other major streaming platforms.
Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G – Performance
Test system: Z390 Asus ROG Maximus XI Extreme Motherboard, Intel Core i9-9900K CPU (stock), Corsair H115i PRO RGB 280mm AIO CPU Cooler, 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4-3200, 1TB Samsung EVO Plus NVMe SSD, Corsair HX1200 1200-watt power supply.
With background out of the way, it’s time to dig into performance. To assess the Eagle OC 8G, I put it through our gamut of real-world and synthetic tests to see how it stacks up against the competition. Unless otherwise noted, all games were tested at ultra settings.
Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G – Benchmarks
Beginning with synthetic tests, the Eagle OC 8G offered extremely similar results to the stock RTX 3070 Ti. In 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra and Unigine Heaven, it improved performance by 1%. It fell short of the MSI RTX 3070 Ti Suprim X by 3% in each test; however, bear in mind that the Suprim is priced $100-150 over MSRP when it can even be found. Compared to the RTX 3080, the Eagle was 12% slower in 3DMark and 12% slower in Heaven. Against the RTX 3070 Founders Edition, it performed 7% faster.
Turning to ray tracing synthetics, the story is much the same. In 3DMark Port Royal, the difference is less than 1% between the Eagle and Founders Edition. Compared to the RTX 3080, it was 23% slower in Port Royal, 21% slower in Boundary, and 27% slower in 3DMark’s Ray Tracing test. Against the RTX 3070, it was 7% faster, 8% faster, and 5% faster respectively.
Let’s see how it performed in games.
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In our first selection of tests, the RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G performs right alongside the Founders Edition. It edges it out slightly, but the frame rates are typically so close that you would have a difficult time noticing. At 4K and 1080p, the card performed 1% faster, and at 1440p, it averaged less than one percent difference. The comparison to the RTX 3080, then, will also be nearly identical but for context it is 15% slower at 1080p, 18% slower at 1440p, and 19% slower at 4K. Pitted against the RTX 3070, it was 3% faster at 1080p and 1440p, and 4% faster at 4K.
Turning to our expanded round of 4K testing, the results are just about as you would expect. The Eagle is 1% faster than the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition and 19% slower than the RTX 3080. Compared against the RTX 3070 FE, the Eagle was 10% faster.
While it would have been nice to see the Eagle punch up, performing on par with the FE is acceptable given that this is one of the few cards that isn’t being drastically marked up in price. If you can find it in stock and have your heart set on an RTX 3070 Ti, this isn’t a bad one to buy at MSRP.
That said, we can’t recommend purchasing any RTX 3070 Ti. The performance uplift compared to the RTX 3070 Founders Edition is just too small. For another $100, the RTX 3080 offers a much more substantial improvement. Conversely, for $100 less the original RTX 3070 performs relatively close. Either card feels like a much better value for the money.
Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G – Purchasing Guide
The Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G retails for $599.99. Though it is out of stock as of this writing, it is available through Newegg and B&H Photo.
Continue reading...