We have posted a total of four GeForce RTX 3070 Ti reviews today: MSI RTX 3070 Ti Suprim X, NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition, Palit RTX 3070 Ti GameRock OC, and Zotac RTX 3070 Ti AMP Holo.

Just last week, NVIDIA launched their GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, and today, we have the RTX 3070 Ti reviews. Both cards were announced earlier this month at Computex. With the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, NVIDIA is pushing their Ampere x70 lineup forward to better compete with AMD's Radeon RX 6700 XT and RX 6800 non-XT. To achieve their goal, NVIDIA is using the same GA104 GPU as on the RTX 3070, but with all its 6,144 cores enabled. The GeForce RTX 3070 non-Ti has 5,888 cores active, a 4% difference, which by itself isn't big enough to justify a new SKU. That's why NVIDIA switched the memory chips from GDDR6 to GDDR6X, which improves memory bandwidth by 35%.

Memory size on the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti has remained at 8 GB, probably because the only other feasible option is 16 GB, which would have increased cost significantly without major performance improvements. The underlying reason is that the VRAM capacity is tied to the memory bus width on the card. In theory, a 12 GB 192-bit design like the RTX 3060 is possible, but the performance loss from the narrower memory bus would more than negate any gains from the larger memory buffer. On the other hand, AMD is offering 16 GB VRAM on the Radeon RX 6800, so NVIDIA achieving parity would have certainly had a psychological effect. Personally, I'm not a fan of going all out on VRAM size, none of our benchmarks show any noteworthy performance issues arising from 8 GB VRAM capacity. Actually, it seems likely DirectStorage, a technology that was first pioneered on the new consoles, will reduce VRAM pressure by optimizing the disk to GPU memory path.

Palit's GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GameRock OC is the company's flagship RTX 3070 Ti that comes with a large overclock out of the box. Rated boost frequency is set to 1845 MHz, which is the third-highest available on the market. Only the Gigabyte AORUS Master (1875 MHz) and MSI Suprim X (1860 MHz) are higher. Rated clocks aren't everything, however. We've also tested the MSI Suprim X today, and it is consistently slower than the Palit GameRock; while only by 1%, it's clearly not faster. Turns out MSI picked a much lower power limit of 310 W instead of the 330 W from Palit, which results in better real-life performance with the Palit card because the higher power limit gives the card more headroom to boost. The Palit RTX 3070 Ti GameRock OC is the fastest RTX 3070 Ti we've reviewed today.

Averaged over our 22-game-strong test suite at 1440p resolution, the Palit GameRock is 3% faster than the Founders Edition, and 8% ahead of the RTX 3070 non-Ti. I have to say I expected a bigger improvement from the RTX 3070 Ti, especially considering the investment by NVIDIA: full GA104 GPU, GDDR6X, new PCBs, and completely new cooler design for the FE. Compared to the Radeon RX 6800, the gap shrinks to only 4%; at 4K, the Palit GameRock can match the Radeon RX 6800 non-XT. The GeForce RTX 3080 is 12% faster than the Palit card, and the newly released RTX 3080 Ti is 22% faster. Last generation's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti flagship is 11% behind the RTX 3070 Ti, and the difference to the RTX 2070 Super is 30%.

With those performance numbers, the RTX 3070 Ti is the perfect choice for the huge 1440p gamer crowd, but the card also has enough muscle to drive many titles at 4K 60 FPS, especially if you are willing to dial down settings a little bit. The RTX 3070 Ti is also a great choice for 1080p Full HD if you want to drive a high-refresh-rate monitor with 120 or 144 Hz. For just 1080p at 60 Hz, it's overkill unless next-generation titles go overboard with their hardware requirements, which is highly unlikely. Raytracing performance of the RTX 3070 Ti is better than the Radeon RX 6800 because NVIDIA executes more raytracing functions in hardware and is on their second-generation of the technology. Differences vary between titles, though. The new consoles are built using AMD RDNA2 technology, so going forward, game developers may invest more resources into optimizing RT for AMD's architecture, or they simply dial down the RT effects to reduce the performance hit, which is what happened recently with Resident Evil 7.

Palit's new GameRock cooler was introduced with their GeForce 30 Ampere cards. It's huge, among the biggest we've ever seen. The "icebox" pattern on the cooler shroud looks amazing, especially when lit up by RGB effects. I'm reminded of the G.SKILL Trident Royal memory modules, which are probably the perfect match visually. Due to the short PCB, power connector placement is a bit awkward, in the middle of the card, just like on the FE, which makes clean cable routing more difficult. Cooling performance is very good, too; we measured 68°C under load, which is impressive considering the NVIDIA Founders Edition runs at 82°C. Unfortunately, noise levels are a tad bit high, only equal to the NVIDIA FE. Given the powerful cooler, I had hoped for a better balance between noise and temperatures. Palit's GameRock does come with a dual BIOS, which lets you activate a "Silent" BIOS easily. While noise levels do go down a bit, to 38 dBA, the difference is minimal. Much better would have been allowing higher temperatures, like 80°C, but with MUCH lower noise levels—isn't that what a "Silent" BIOS is all about? With Ampere, NVIDIA introduced idle fan stop on their Founders Edition, which makes fan stop a mandatory capability for custom designs, too. In idle, during desktop work, internet browsing, and light gaming, the card will turn off its fans completely for the perfect noise-free experience.

In my RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition review, I talked a lot about the increased power consumption of RTX 3070 Ti, and the reasons. The bottom line is that the RTX 3070 Ti is not nearly as energy efficient as the RTX 3070 non-Ti, and can't match AMD's Radeons either. Usually, you'd expect factory overclocked custom designs to lose some additional energy efficiency due to higher clock speeds and possible voltage increases. This isn't the case with the Palit GameRock. The card offers 3% higher performance and only consumes 1.3% more power, resulting in slightly better energy efficiency than the NVIDIA Founders Edition. Congrats to Palit for making smart improvements on their card which don't cost any efficiency—other cards tested today don't do so well here.

NVIDIA has announced a $600 price point for the RTX 3070 Ti, which is $100 higher than the RTX 3070. Palit hasn't provided any pricing, so we're left guessing. No doubt, the cooler is much better than the one on the Founders Edition, the factory overclock achieves performance that matches the RX 6800, and you get additional features, like Dual BIOS and RGB lighting. I'd probably be willing to spend another $50 for that, maybe slightly more. In the current market, MSRPs are irrelevant—any responsible reviewer must take into account the craziness happening out there: The RTX 3060 sells for $900, RTX 3070 for $1300, RX 6700 XT for $1000, and RX 6800 for $1400. That's why I think a more realistic price for the Palit RTX 3070 Ti GameRock is around $1350. Hopefully, the low-hash-rate (LHR) mining limiter works out on the RTX 3070 Ti, so gamers can get their hands on these cards. It also puts a new kind of value proposition on the RTX 3070 Ti: If neither the RTX 3070 nor RX 6800 are in stock and the RTX 3070 Ti is available, I'm sure many gamers will happily swallow the higher power consumption pill of the RTX 3070 Ti.

I can recommend the card if power, heat, and noise are only secondary to you, and you can find the RTX 3070 Ti at a reasonable price, whatever that may be in your estimation. Strong alternatives are the RTX 3070 non-Ti, Radeon RX 6800, and RX 6700 XT.