Asus RTX 3070s Emerge: Strix, TUF, and Dual Graphics Cards Detailed

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TUF and Strix 3070s are just as big as 3080 models

With only four weeks left before the RTX 3070 launch, Asus has begun rolling out full specifications for three of it's new RTX 3070 graphics cards, the 3070 Strix, TUF, and Dual series. The RTX 3070 TUF and Strix are very similar in design compared to Asus' RTX 3080 counterparts. They both feature triple-fan cooler designs with very large heatsinks. In fact, both the Strix and the TUF have the same dimensions as the RTX 3080 models. Pair that with the RTX 3070's 220W TDP, and you've got a recipe for ultra-cool temperatures and quiet noise levels.

The TUF maintains its rugged looks with a blacked-out shroud and backplate but mixes in a little bit of RGB at the card's edge. The tire-track aesthetics remain, similar to RTX 3080 models, but it remains to be seen whether people actually enjoy this design choice.

The Strix model features a balance of silver and greyish-black on the shroud itself and adds RGB illumination to the three fans. The side of the cooler has an RGB illuminated grill-like aesthetic, but the "GeForce RTX" logo to the top looks a bit out of place. The only noticeable difference between the 3070 and 3080 models is the power connectors, with the RTX 3070 "only" featuring two eight-pins instead of three.

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(Image credit: ASUS)

The Dual RTX 3070 is Asus' budget offering, with a more humble dual-fan cooler and conservative aesthetics. The card is still beautiful with a black shroud and a hint of white layered in its design. The cooler is quite large, measuring just beyond two PCIe slots thick. Fortunately, the cooler also has good breathing room – you can clearly see the aluminum heatsink from all sides of the graphics card.

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(Image credit: ASUS)

These will be our first Ampere GPUs with dual-fan aftermarket cooling solutions, and given that the RTX 3070 has a 100W lower TDP than the RTX 3080, it makes sense to start building them again. Especially for people who need a more compact graphics card for smaller enclosures.

The RTX 3070 will launch on October 29th, so get your wallets ready if you want one soon. Hopefully, the delayed launch will give day one buyers enough volume to purchase an RTX 3070 before they go out of stock.

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Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Olivier_00
    Why it's all MLCC and it's not the case for the 3080 or 3090 ?
    Reply
  • TechyInAZ
    Olivier_00 said:
    Why it's all MLCC and it's not the case for the 3080 or 3090 ?

    I assume because it is only 220W which is below the TDP of the 2080 Ti. The RTX 3070's power consumption is no where near that of the 3080.
    Reply
  • russell_john
    Olivier_00 said:
    Why it's all MLCC and it's not the case for the 3080 or 3090 ?
    The 3080 TUF, both models, are all MLCC ..... It's kind of irrelevant now anyway because the problem was never with the capacitors, it was with the drivers and how they manipulated the boost clocks, basically the clock boost had overshoot causing it to spike the clock speed when a load was suddenly taken away

    The RX 5700 XT basically had the same sort of problem causing the same basic problem the difference here was Nvidia fixed the problem with the drivers in a few days rather than a few months ..... AMD actually lost market share in the desktop AIB market after the RX 5700 line came out, a full 9 points because they flubbed the launch of the RX 5700 line and the lower tier models fizzled. People were buying RTX 2060 Supers even though they didn't perform quite as well for the same cost just because they worked
    Reply
  • russell_john
    I think these 3 fan versions of the 3070s are going to be really good overclockers compared to the 3080 and 3090 because they won't have to be power limited so much
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    russell_john said:
    I think these 3 fan versions of the 3070s are going to be really good overclockers compared to the 3080 and 3090 because they won't have to be power limited so much
    Unless the 3070 is already relying on higher average boost clocks than a 3080 to achieve its performance to begin with. The 3070 is only about two-thirds of a 3080 as far as its graphics cores are concerned, but it's promising around three-quarters of the performance. I doubt the cards will leave much overclocking headroom on the table.
    Reply