Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB Review: Vega In The Crosshairs

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A Closer Look At Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE

Nvidia's Founders Edition card sports a familiar industrial design. It satisfyingly well-built: the shroud doesn't just look like metal, it's actually made of aluminum.

Specifications

Exterior

The cooler's injection-molded aluminum cover is painted silver and black, similar to GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080. This does make its matte surfaces susceptible to scratches.

A metal fan shroud helps convey this card's exceptional build quality, but it also adds a lot of weight: the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE exceeds 1kg. It's very similar to GeForce GTX 1080 FE, though. The new card is just under 10g lighter.

A two-part backplate hides this card's PCB. But it's an esthetic add-on that doesn't improve thermal performance in any way. If you need space for a second card in SLI, or simply want better ventilation, remove both sections without fear of negative consequences.

The centered GeForce GTX logo, which lights up in green, dominates the top of Nvidia's 1070 Ti Founders Edition. One eight-pin auxiliary power connector is tucked into the metal frame.

This design is very mechanical, with lots of angles. All of those facets may not be to everyone's tastes. But they certainly make a statement.

Peeking into the end gives you a glimpse of the cooling fins and retention frame. That gap doubles as an air intake.

As with Nvidia's other Founders Edition cards, you get access to five display outputs through the I/O bracket, four of which can be used simultaneously in multi-monitor configurations. There's a dual-link DVI-D port, an HDMI 2.0 interface, and three DisplayPort 1.4-capable connectors. The remaining space back there is cut up into openings for exhausting hot air.

Say Hello To GeForce GTX 1080's Thermal Solution

GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE gets a significant upgrade from Nvidia's 1070 FE card in the form of a vapor chamber cooler, the same one found on GeForce GTX 1080 FE. The compact module is fastened to the PCB right next to the GPU package using four screws.

We now have 51 individual components on the table in front of us, and if you remove the cooler completely, you end up with 12 more.

The radial fan sucks air in from your chassis, blows it through the cooling fins, and exhausts it from the I/O bracket. Nvidia's retention frame serves double duty, adding rigidity to the board and cooling the VRM/memory modules.

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Thermal Solution
Type of CoolerAir Cooling, Direct Heat Exhaust (DHE)
Heat SinkLarge Hybrid Vapor Chamber
Cooling FinsAluminum, Horizontal Orientation, Tight Grouping
Heat PipesNone
VRM CoolingVia Cooling Frame
RAM CoolingVia Cooling Frame
FanRadial Fan
BackplateAluminum, Painted BlackNo Cooling Function

Power Supply & Components

Nvidia borrows from its GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition parts bin for the 1070 Ti's PCB. Although GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE employs five power phases, an empty emplacement indicates room for one more.

The 5+1-phase design is enabled by uPI Semiconductor's uP9511 eight-phase buck controller. It cannot address the voltage converter phases directly, so TI 53603A solid gate drivers are used to control the ON Semiconductor 4C85Ns. These are durable dual N-channel MOSFETs with sufficient reserves in the DC/DC voltage converter category.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
GPU Power Supply
PWM ControlleruP9511uPI SemiconductorEight-Phase PWM Controller

Gate Driver53603Texas InstrumentsOne per Phase

VRM4C85NON SemiconductorPower MOSFETDual N-ChannelHigh- and Low-Side

CoilsEncapsulated Ferrite Choke

Memory & Memory Power SupplyModulesMT51J256M32HF-80MicronGDDR5, 8 Gb/s8 Gigabit (32x 256Mb)Eight Modules

PWM Controller1 PhaseSingle Buck ConverterGeneric

VRM4C85NON SemiconductorPower MOSFETDual N-ChannelHigh- and Low-Side

CoilsEncapsulated Ferrite Choke33nH

Other ComponentsMonitoringINA3221Monitoring ChipCurrents, Voltages

BIOSWinbond 25Q40Kynix SemiconductorEEPROMBIOS

Shunts & Filter1x Coil (Smoothing) & Shunt behind PCIe Connector (12V Input Voltage)

Other FeaturesSpecial Features- 1x Eight-Pin Auxiliary Power Connector- Filter Choke at Entry


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Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.