Asus's new triple-fan 4070 Ti Super is, somehow, SFF-Ready — Asus Prime unveils new OC AD102 GPU

Asus revealed some new additions to its GPU lineup: the Asus Prime 4070 Ti Super series. The pair of new GPUs can come with or without factory overclock, and are notably being marketed on their SFF-Ready compatibility — keeping the 4070 Ti Super cooled with a triple-fan, 2.5 slot cooler. The RTX 4070 Ti Super competes with the best graphics cards, regardless of the size of its cooler.

Based on the view we have of the GPU's capacitors, the new Prime GPUs seem to be using AD102 silicon — in contrast to the AD103 silicon the 4070 Ti Super originally launched with. This isn't the first AD102 4070 Ti Super we've seen — MSI beat Asus to the punch with its Ventus 3X Black OC, announced in June. The photos below show the difference between the AD102 die, with its 2x2 capacitor layout, and the AD103's 1x2. 

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The AD102 die, first used in the 4080 Super and 4090, seems to have just slightly more power draw than the AD103 in the 4070 Ti Super — as we saw when MSI released its 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X Black OC with the AD102. Moving to AD102 and consolidating dies once again suggests the end of Ada Lovelace silicon as Blackwell RTX 50-series cards loom on the horizon.

The sole difference between the two Prime models is the factory overclock available in the OC Edition. The OC Edition comes with a base clock of 2625 MHz and can overclock up to 2655 MHz, compared to the standard model's 2610 MHz / 2640 MHz base and overclocked states. The higher clock speeds can be reached manually with Asus's GPU Tweak 3 software.

The Prime 4070 Ti Super models feature heavy branding displaying their SFF-Ready compatibility, which makes lots of sense: the Prime models of the 4070 Ti Super likely came about as a lower-cost alternative to Asus's expensive ProArt compact GPUs. Nvidia's "SFF-Ready Enthusiast" badge indicates a GPU that fits within Nvidia's specs for high-end, compact cards. To qualify, a card must be an RTX 4070 or higher, and be no larger than 304mm x 151mm x 50mm. 2.5 slots is the deepest limit for such cards — a margin the Prime models snugly squeeze against.

Measuring in at 300mm x 120mm x 50mm, Asus's Prime 4070 Ti Super will barely fit the tight clearances of SFF-Ready approved cases. The SFF-Ready badge does feel a bit silly paired with a triple-fan GPU. While ultra-space-efficient standbys like the Fractal Design Terra are included in Nvidia's list of cases, so is the Thermaltake The Tower 100, a 31 liter chassis that is almost twice as spacious as the most compact micro-ATX case.

Mini-ITX and small-form-factor cases and builds have been ballooning in size, thanks to Nvidia's ever-larger graphics cards — and market tendencies toward tall and skinny or otherwise not-that-small small cases. And another 300mm, 2.5 slot card alongside Nvidia's 30+ other "SFF" cards of the same size doesn't exactly help buyers find truly compact graphics cards, as Nvidia branding declared the badge would. SFF-buyers should continue to be wary of the SFF-Ready badge and make sure to double-check case/GPU before buying.

The Asus Prime 4070 Ti Super 16GB and Asus Prime 4070 Ti Super 16GB OC Edition have no price or release date listed as of this writing, but we expect to see them hit online shelves soon, and we're still hoping Nvidia's RTX 50-series will drop sometime before the end of 2024.