Introduction
NVIDIA released their GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 not long ago, featuring the company's new Pascal architecture, a brand-new 16 nanometer production process, and GDDR5X memory. In our launch-day review, we were truly impressed by how well NVIDIA claimed the performance throne with the 1080, but also the GTX 1070 managed to impress with its high-end performance at an attractive sub-$400 price-point. The reference-design card, however, is sold at a $70 premium over the GTX 1070 Founders Edition sitting at $449.
The GeForce GTX 1070 uses the same Pascal GP104 graphics processor as the GTX 1080, with just 1920 enabled shaders instead of 2560, which also affects the number of texture units that are down to 120 from 160. With 64, the number of ROPs is the same, and so is the memory capacity at 8 GB. However, today's review subject, like all GTX 1070 variants, uses GDDR5 memory, unlike the GTX 1080 that comes with GDDR5X. GDDR5X offers twice the bandwidth at the same operating frequency, so NVIDIA is running the GeForce GTX 1070's memory at a frequency of 2 GHz in order to make up for that.
In this review, we're taking a look at the EVGA GTX 1070 SuperClocked, which comes with EVGA's new ACX 3.0 dual-slot, dual-fan thermal solution. Out of the box, the card is clocked at 1595 MHz baseclock; memory remained at the NVIDIA default of 2002 MHz.
The EVGA GTX 1070 SC is currently available online for $439.
GeForce GTX 1070 Market Segment Analysis | GeForce GTX 970 | Radeon R9 290X | Radeon R9 390X | GeForce GTX 780 Ti | GeForce GTX 980 | Radeon R9 Fury | Radeon R9 Fury X | GeForce GTX 980 Ti | GeForce GTX Titan X | GeForce GTX 1070 | EVGA GTX 1070 SC | GeForce GTX 1080 |
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Shader Units | 1664 | 2816 | 2816 | 2880 | 2048 | 3584 | 4096 | 2816 | 3072 | 1920 | 1920 | 2560 |
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ROPs | 56 | 64 | 64 | 48 | 64 | 64 | 64 | 96 | 96 | 64 | 64 | 64 |
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Graphics Processor | GM204 | Hawaii | Hawaii | GK110 | GM204 | Fiji | Fiji | GM200 | GM200 | GP104 | GP104 | GP104 |
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Transistors | 5200M | 6200M | 6200M | 7100M | 5200M | 8900M | 8900M | 8000M | 8000M | 7200M | 7200M | 7200M |
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Memory Size | 4 GB | 4 GB | 8 GB | 3 GB | 4 GB | 4 GB | 4 GB | 6 GB | 12 GB | 8 GB | 8 GB | 8 GB |
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Memory Bus Width | 256 bit | 512 bit | 512 bit | 384 bit | 256 bit | 4096 bit | 4096 bit | 384 bit | 384 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit |
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Core Clock | 1051 MHz+ | 1000 MHz | 1050 MHz | 876 MHz+ | 1126 MHz+ | 1000 MHz | 1050 MHz | 1000 MHz+ | 1000 MHz+ | 1506 MHz+ | 1595 MHz+ | 1607 MHz+ |
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Memory Clock | 1750 MHz | 1250 MHz | 1500 MHz | 1750 MHz | 1750 MHz | 500 MHz | 500 MHz | 1750 MHz | 1750 MHz | 2002 MHz | 2002 MHz | 1251 MHz |
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Price | $265 | $270 | $310 | $390 | $360 | $530 | $600 | $440 | $1150 | $379 / $449 | $439 | $599 / $699 |
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Packaging
Contents
You will receive:
- Graphics card
- Documentation + EVGA poster
- EVGA case badge
- EVGA stickers
- PCIe power cable
The Card
EVGA's new ACX 3.0 cooler looks mighty good, with large metal surfaces for highlights and black plastic bits to keep cost down. On the back is a high-quality metal backplate with the EVGA logo. Dimensions of the card are 27.0 x 11.5 cm.
Installation requires two slots in your system.
Display connectivity options include a DVI port, an HDMI port, and three DisplayPorts. Unlike previous NVIDIA cards, the DVI port no longer includes the analog signal, so you'll have to use an active adapter. NVIDIA also updated DisplayPort to be 1.2 certified and 1.3/1.4 ready, which enables support for 4K at 120 Hz and 5K @ 60 Hz, or 8K @ 60 Hz with two cables.
The GPU also comes with an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 2.0b compatible, which supports HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies. The GPU video encoding unit has been updated to support HEVC at 10-bit and 12-bit.
NVIDIA made some changes to SLI. Two-way SLI is now the only officially supported configuration for gaming. Three-way or Quad SLI can no longer be enabled in games; however, both do work in a few benchmarks. Also, for 4K at 60 Hz and above, NVIDIA recommends a new high-bandwidth SLI bridge called "SLI HB," which occupies both SLI fingers. The old bridges will work fine at lower resolutions.
Pictured above are the front and back, showing the disassembled board. High-res versions are also available (
front,
back).