Introduction
Founded in April 1993, Nvidia Corporation is an American technology company based in Santa Clara, California. It designs graphics processing units (GPUs) for the gaming and professional markets, as well as system on a chip units (SOCs) for the mobile computing and automotive market.
Official product link:
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/10series/geforce-gtx-1070
Packaging and accessories
The GTX 1070 FE model comes packaged in a box with reduces size, it uses a two-tone design characteristic of Nvidia, green and black. On the front side, there is an artistic image of the cooling system used in the case of Reference graphics cards. On the left, there is the name and model of the graphics card while in the upper left corner, the Nvidia name and logo are placed.
Specifications
Name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB
Model: GTX 1070
Graphics Processor: GP104
Transistors: 7200M
Shader Units: 1920
Interface: PCI Express x16 3.0
Memory Size: 8GB
Memory Type: GDDR5
Memory Interface: 256 bit
Memory Clock Speed (MHz): 2002 MHz
Core Clock Speed: 1506 MHz+
DVI Connectors: 1
HDMI Connectors: 1
Display Port: 3 (version 1.2) Max Resolution: 7680×4320@60Hz
DirectX Version Support: 12.1
OpenGL Version Support: 4.5
Multi-GPU Technology: SLI
Dimension: 266.7 x 111.15 mm
Power consumption (W): 150
Recommended PSU (W): 500 W
Power Connectors: 1x 8-Pin
Visual inspection
In the case of reference graphics cards, or recently called Founder’s Edition from the Pascal generation, the cooling system has been redesigned. In comparison with previous generations, the cooling system features an angular surface similar in design with the surface of a diamond.
The cooling system is a unidirectional Blower style; the air is pushed through the inside of the cooler and is exhausted from the back of the graphics card.
On the side there is the GeForce name, it is illuminated by a gree LED controlled through the LED Visualizer software.
The back side of the graphics card is covered by a matte black backplate. The plate itself is engraved while in the middle there are both the GeForce name and the Nvidia logo.
Power delivery on the GTX 1070 8GB FE model is done through one 8-Pin PCI-Express power connector, it is positioned on the right corner of the graphics card.
The SLI connector is positioned in the opposite side of the power connectors.
On the rear of the graphic card we find the following ports:
– 1x Dual-link DVI-D
– 1x HDMI 2.0
– 3x DisplayPort 1.4
Testing
The following system was used to test the graphics card:
– Processor: Intel i5 4690K @ 3.9 GHz
– Motherboard: MSI Z97 Gaming 9 ACK
– RAM: 8GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical
– SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB
– HDD: Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB
– PSU: Antec Edge 550W Gold
– Case: Phanteks Enthoo Luxe White
– OS: Windows 10 64-bit
To test the graphics card, the WHQL 384.76 driver was used, being the latest Nvidia driver available at the time of writing the review.
All the games used to test the graphics cards are set to their highest quality settings with the resolution 1920 x 1080. Both the games and benchmarks used were run three times.
The software used to measure the temperature and frames per second (FPS) are the following:
– AIDA64 Extreme V5.92.4300 (Jun 20, 2017)
– GPU-Z.2.1.0
– MSI Afterburner 4.2.0
In the case of the GTX 1070 8GB FE model, it achieved a maximum overclock of 1656 Base Clock and 2377 Memory.
The overclocking has been done using the default fan settings. In addition, we must keep in mind the fact that each graphic card overclocks differently, thus the results obtained in the review can differ.
The test results are as follows:
Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0
Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0 Score
Grand Theft Auto V
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Temp. Performance
The Idle tests consists of the system left at the Desktop for 30 minutes, the power consumption is measured during the test.
Full Load: Represents the power consumption of the graphics card while playing a modern video game, in this case the benchmark of Tomb Raider 2013 with the following settings: 1920 x 1080, Ultra Preset, TressFX OFF, 4xAA.
Peak: Represents the power consumption of the graphics card during a synthetic benchmark, in this case FurMark 1.15.1.
The noise level was measured at three different distances from the fans (10cm, 20cm, 30cm.) the noise was measured with a margin of error of ± 5 db.
Idle
Full Load
Final thoughts
The Nvidia GTX 1070 takes further the concept started by the GTX 970, and that is a graphics card that addresses consumers, and that is not in the same price range as high end products. The performance of the GTX 1070 FE is excellent and the overclocking is easy, the graphics card has reached 1656MHz at the core and 2377MHz on memory. The performance of the graphics card without overclocking exceeds the reference model of the GTX 980 Ti and it is approximately 60% better than the GTX 970.
The GTX 1070 FE, besides improving performance, adds an improvement in terms of efficiency, using a 8-pin PCI-E connector and featuring a TDP of only 150W.
The plate is silent until the fan reaches 70% of its maximum speed, then the generated sound exceeds 42db.
In conclusion, the GTX 1070 is the next choice for GTX 970 owners who want a Pascal graphics card. In contrast to the GTX 970, the GTX 1070 memory can no longer be considered a limitation, with the graphics card being equipped with 8GB of DDR5 memory.
The advantage of the FE model and the Blower cooling system is that the hot air is exhausted through the back of the graphics card, thus being suited for small form factor systems or those who do not benefit from direct airflow.
