
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition offers performance close to the RTX 3070 Ti, with a slight trade-off in efficiency and gaming performance. It handles 1080p gaming smoothly but demonstrates only average results at 4K.
Launched with a $499 USD MSRP, it is currently priced around $700 USD from partner manufacturers across various online retailers. While it remains a strong contender for mid-range gaming, the 8GDDR6 VRAM could limit its capabilities in more demanding future titles. For those considering an upgrade, the newer 40-series cards may offer better value in terms of price-to-performance.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
THE GOOD
- Performance
Performed very similarly to the RTX 3070 Ti across all gaming and synthetic tests.
THE BAD
- Memory
Limited to 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, affecting 4K gameplay performance.
THE REST
- Overall
Adequate for most current games but may struggle with newer titles at higher settings.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition utilizes 8nm technology and is built on NVIDIA's Ampere architecture. The card is based on the GA104 graphics processor, which has 17,400 million transistors within a 392 mm² die. It features 96 Render Output Units (ROPs), 184 texture mapping units, 5888 shading units, and 46 ray tracing cores. With a typical board power of 220W, the card tested by Labs is manufactured by NVIDIA, and has a dual-slot, dual-fan design that fits in most computer cases. It has the standard RTX 30-series 3 x DisplayPort v1.4 output, and 1 x HDMI v2.1 ports.
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Front of the box.
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Front of the card.
The RTX 3070 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate and NVIDIA's GeForce Experience and G-SYNC features. As well as NVIDIA's full suite of DLSS 3 and ray tracing technologies.
It features NVIDIA's 7th Generation Encode, and 5th Generation Decode, with full support for H264 Encode/Decode, H265/HEVC Encode/Decode, but only AV1 Decode.
The RTX 3070 fits snugly in the middle of the 30-series performance spectrum. Although it is outperformed by the RTX 3070 Ti (as expected), the difference is minimal, with the 3070 delivering near-equal results in most gaming tests.
We will periodically retest graphics cards with updated drivers. We continuously monitor and update our results for accuracy. Stay tuned for the latest test results and insights on this product and others as we aim to provide up-to-date information on a consistent basis.
We actively address test bench variance in our evaluation process. Our methodology involved validation and calibration procedures to ensure consistency and reliability across all tests. The verified testbed variance for benchmarks in this product page is +/- 0.25%.
By monitoring and controlling variables such as hardware configurations, ambient temperatures, and system settings, we minimize potential sources of variance that could affect our results. This detailed approach enables us to deliver the most objective and accurate assessment.