Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Graphics Card Roundup

Introduction & Overview

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080 is the company's gaming flagship right now (check out our Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Graphics Card Roundup for in-depth analysis of the top models). But its GeForce GTX 1070 is undoubtedly a better value play. After all, the GP104-powered card outperforms the old GeForce GTX 980 Ti for hundreds of dollars less.

There's a lot of variation out there, though. You'll find 1070s selling anywhere from under $400 (£300) to over $500 (£400), and it's amazing to see what Nvidia's add-in board partners have done with this platform. To help you size up the current field, our team continues testing GeForce GTX 1070 cards. For now, we have four different models to compare. And we go deep. Really, each page of this piece could be its own complete review. We focus on the manufacturing quality and technical features of each card, along with power consumption, clock rates, cooling, and acoustics.

The gaming performance of every factory-overclocked board within a given chip class is usually pretty similar to begin with. But that's more true now than ever. This is a result of features like GPU Boost 3.0, which allows manufacturers to safely extract as much headroom as possible from a processor. Very little is left on the table, even if you have access to extreme overclocking hardware.

We will continue to update this roundup as new test samples become available. Some are already in the lab; others are en route (and there's at least one model we need to bring over from Tom's Hardware DE still).


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The cards are presented in alphabetical order, and their order has nothing to do with performance in our roundup or a preference for individual products.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition

Reasons to buy

+
Build quality
+
Easily removable backplate
+
Design (cooler exhausts waste heat)

Reasons to avoid

-
Noise
-
Price
-
Temperature

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition

Asus ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070

Reasons to buy

+
Performance
+
Quiet
+
Well-balanced cooling solution
+
Efficient
+
Display outputs ideal for VR

Reasons to avoid

-
Price

Asus ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming

Reasons to buy

+
Performance
+
Lower price than many competitors
+
Solid component choice
+
Direct cooling on VRMs and chokes

Reasons to avoid

-
Too few heat pipes hold back card's thermal potential
-
Noise
-
Cheaper-feeling cooler

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming

Gigabyte GTX 1070 Mini ITX OC

Reasons to buy

+
Form factor
+
Price
+
Cooling

Reasons to avoid

-
Lower clocks
-
Four display outputs (vs. five)

Gigabyte GTX 1070 Mini ITX OC

MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G

Reasons to buy

+
Performance
+
Quiet
+
Beefy cooling solution

Reasons to avoid

-
Price

MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G

Palit GTX 1070 GameRock Premium Edition

Reasons to buy

+
Very large cooler
+
Aggressive clock rates

Reasons to avoid

-
No availability in U.S.
-
Hysteresis problems

Palit GTX 1070 GameRock Premium Edition


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  • adamovera
    Archived comments are found here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3283067/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-graphics-card-roundup.html
    Reply
  • TheRev MasterOne
    Asus ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 and Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming pics are switched ! Did I win something? a job?
    Reply
  • eglass
    Disagree entirely about the 1070 being good value. It's the worst value in the 10-series lineup. $400 for a 1070 is objectively a bad value when $500 gets you into a 1080.
    Reply
  • adamovera
    19761809 said:
    Asus ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 and Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming pics are switched ! Did I win something? a job?
    The filenames of the images are actually swapped as well, weird - fixed now, thanks!
    Reply
  • barryv88
    Are you guys serious!?? You recommend a 1070 card that costs $530 which isn't even available in the U.S? That sorta cash gets you a much quicker GTX 1080! The controversy on this site is just non stop. If your BEST CPU's list wasn't enough already...
    Reply
  • bloodroses
    I wonder how the Gigabyte 1070 mini compares to the other mini cards like the Zotac and MSI unit?
    Reply
  • adamovera
    19761907 said:
    Are you guys serious!?? You recommend a 1070 card that costs $530 which isn't even available in the U.S? That sorta cash gets you a much quicker GTX 1080! The controversy on this site is just non stop. If your BEST CPU's list wasn't enough already...
    This is a roundup of all the 1070's we've tested. The graphics card roundups originate with our German bureau and are re-posted in the UK, so they'll sometimes include EU-only products - I'm guessing they're appropriately priced to the competition in their intended markets.

    The Palit received the lowest level award - the Asus, the MSI, and one of the Gigabyte boards are better options.
    Reply
  • JackNaylorPE
    19761822 said:
    Disagree entirely about the 1070 being good value. It's the worst value in the 10-series lineup. $400 for a 1070 is objectively a bad value when $500 gets you into a 1080.

    The 1080 , like it's predcessors (780 and 980) has consistently been the red headed stepchild of the nVidia lineup. So much so that nVidia even intentionally nerfed the performance of the x70 series because its performance was so close to the x80.

    The 1080 has dropped in price because, sitting as it does between the 1080 Ti and the 1070... it doesn't exactly stand out. When the 780 Ti came out, the price of the $780 dropped $160 overnight, so much so that I immediately bought two of them and the two sets of game coupons knocked $360 off my XMas shoping list. At a net $650, it was a good buy.

    Using the 1070 FE as a reference and the relative performance data published by techpowerup for example.....Used MSI Gaming model since it is one model line where TPU reviewed all 3 cards

    The $404 MSI 1070 Gaming X is 104.2% as fast as the 1070 FE
    The $550 MSI 1080 Gaming X is 128.2% as fast as the 1070 FE
    The $740 MSI 1080 Ti Gaming X is 169.5% as fast as the 1070 FE

    So the cost per dollar for comparable quality designs is:

    MSI 1070 Gaming X = 104.2 / $404 = 0.258
    MSI 1080 Gaming X = 128.2 / $550 = 0.233
    MSI 1080 Ti Gaming X = 169.5 / $740 = 0.229

    Even at $500 .. the 1080 only comes in 2nd place at 0.256, so no, the better value argument doesn't hold, even assuming we were getting an equal quality card.

    Looked at other comparable as a means of comparison and they are for the most par equal or higher ....

    Strix at $420, $550 and $780
    AMP at $435, $534 and $750

    Now with any technology, eeking those last bits of performance out anything always comes at a increased cost. You more of a cost premium going from Gold to Platinum rating on a PSU than you do from Bronze to Silver of even Gold. It's simply another example of Law of Diminishing Returns. So we should expect to pay more per each performance gain with each incremental increase and that hold here. You'd expect that for each increase in performance the % increase in price per dollar would get bigger. But the x80 is quite an aberration.

    We get a whopping 10.7 drop of 0.025 from the 1070 to the 1080
    We get a rather teeny 1.7 drop of 0.004 from the 1080 to the 1080 Ti

    Therefore, logically.... you are paying a 10.7% cost penalty for the increased performance to move up to from the 1070 to 1080 ... whereas the cost penalty for the increased performance to move up to from the 1080 to 1080 Ti is only 1.7% This is why eacxh time the Ti has been introduced, 1080 sales have tanked.

    Another way t look at it...

    1070 => 1080 = 23% performance increase for $146 ROI = 15.8%
    1080 => 1080 Ti = 32% performance increase for $190 ROI = 16.8 %

    It's not a matter **if** you can get **a** 1080 at $500., it's whether you can get the one you want. How is it that the $550 models have more sales than the less expensive ones ? Some folks don't care about noise, some folks don't OC, some folks hope they will be able to get the full performance available to us **if** someone ever comes out with a BIOS editor. And yes, there will cards that are heavily discounted for any number of reasons ... low factory clock, noise or heat concerns , some have taken some hits from bad reviews or are discounted simply because sales are poor .... but if a card is selling well below the average price it is because it's not as well made or just isn't selling for real or imagined issues. (example being EVGA SC / FTW ACX designs are now fixed but but EVGA still has a black eye from the earlier cooler problems and if buying EVGA, peeps want iCX. Finally, the 1080 bears the burden of being compared with the 780 and 980 whicc again got lost between the higher / lower cards.

    Given the above ROI numbers, I am surprised that all the 1080s have not dropped below $500. But to my eyes, the `080 only starts to make sense when the cost is below $520 and **the ones I'd buy** just aren't there yet

    Reply
  • Adroid
    Yea I refuse to buy a 1070 because they are overpriced, period. I almost bought a 1080 but judging from the performance difference it simply wasn't worth it, either. There is not much a 1080 will do that a 1070 won't. What I mean is - a 1060 will run 1080p fine. With that in mind, a 1080 gives very marginal benefit at 2k, and neither one will run 4k smoothly - so what's the point.

    If the 1080 was a 350$ card, I might have bit, but as it stands now I'll be waiting for the 1080ti to drop a bit, which can run most games in 2k over 120fps - and justifying an upgrade from a GTX 700 series card. I'm not going to pay over $400 for a card that won't smoke my GTX 770... I can play all games on moderate settings now, so I want ultra settings at 2k that make use of a 144hz monitor - or bust.
    Reply
  • tyr8338
    I`m using gigabyte 2 fan 1070 for over a year now and it`s really good, it`s good overclocker and is running at 1974 mhz overclock 24/7 and 8600 on ram, probably it would be able to go even higher but it`s fine for me :) It`s quiet but at around 50% fan speed it produces some strange vibration sound sometimes, it dosn`t bother me all that much tbh but it can be a little annoying.
    Reply