The start of a new year means updating our graphics with the latest drivers and adding new games to our test protocol. As you can imagine, this takes time, and the graphics will continue to expand over the coming weeks, with older-generation cards being added as we go along. Today, we’re going to focus on the new RTX 4070 SUPER in TUF Gaming OC version from ASUS, announced last week for the launch of CES 2024. Other “SUPER” models will be arriving in the course of January, and we’ll of course be there to test the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER and the RTX 4080 SUPER.
This new card, even if it’s more accurate to call it a “refresh”, will take its place in our test table in 1440p definition. NVIDIA will also be keeping the RTX 4070 model even with the arrival of this RTX 4070 SUPER, but it’s the RTX 4070 Ti that will see its production run come to an end. It’s at the price level that there will be a change. The RTX 4070 SUPER Founders Edition has an MSRP of $599 (659 euros), the former price of the RTX 4070 Founders Edition, which now costs $549. So there are sure to be some bargains to be had in the weeks ahead. The price of this ASUS TUF RTX 4070 SUPER in OC version is announced by ASUS at 844.99 euros.
On Monday we received a second partner card, the GIGABYTE RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC, which we’ll be testing as soon as possible. Thanks to ASUSÂ for providing us with a sample of this ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER 12 GB OC.
[nextpage title=”The ASUS TUF RTX 4070 SUPER OC:”]
Architecture:
As a reminder, the cards in the “TUF Gaming” series are more affordable than those in the “ROG” range, particularly with the “STRIX” models. Personally, it’s a range that we’ve come to appreciate more and more, and one that, outwardly, plays on sobriety, as you’re about to discover. Visually, ASUS has retained a design similar to the previous TUF Gaming series boards.
This RTX 4070 features 7168 CUDA cores, 20% more than the RTX 4070, and a TSMC 4 nm manufacturing process with a 220 watt TGP. In terms of memory, it features 12 GB of 192-bit GDDR6X memory, which translates into a bandwidth of 504 GB/s.
The bundle of this ASUS TUF :
As you can see from the photos below, the box for our copy of the TUF Gaming RX 7700 XT OC follows the usual color code of ASUS models. The model number is at the bottom right of the box on a red background, as befits AMD. The packaging is imposing, but less voluminous than that of the ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7700 XT OC Edition.
On the rear, ASUS highlights the PCB design, the cooling system and its GPU Tweak III overclocking software, which we’ll come back to later this week. The opening is on the side, where we find our graphics card perfectly protected in a block of foam. The bundle includes a quick installation guide and a vertical support to place in your case to hold your graphics card horizontally. It can also be used as a Phillips screwdriver.
This is a “custom” card, i.e. with a PCB and cooling system specific to AMD’s partner brand, in this case ASUS.
Cooling :
The TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition boasts a cooling system consisting of three 92 mm fans. The design of this TUF model is visually very pleasing and features a few touches of RGB backlighting. The gray color of the aluminum casing will match any motherboard and any case. It’s simple and effective, just the way we like it.
Axial-tech fans run on double ball bearings, increasing the volume of air passing through the radiator. The result is higher temperatures and reduced noise pollution. The two side fans turn counter-clockwise. The aim is to minimize turbulence and maximize air dispersion through the radiator.
These fans have 11 blades and will remain at rest when the board is not in use, and vice versa. They become active again when the temperature requires it. As you can see, the hot air escapes through the top edge of the board, through the bracket and also through the aluminum backplate cut out at the end. In fact, the PCB is much shorter than the heat sink. The radiator ends at the PCB’s two power connectors.
As previously mentioned, the rear of the board is protected by an imposing grey backplate. Its role is to prevent the PCB from twisting, but it also plays a role in heat dissipation, with the presence of pads between it and the PCB. We’ll be able to judge the temperature of the latter during our tests. In terms of thickness, our sample occupies 3 slots.
The board also features a dual BIOS: Pmode (performance) and Qmode (quiet). By default, Pmode is selected, and in our opinion, this is the best choice, even if the differences between the two BIOS are virtually non-existent.
Connectors :
The board is powered by 16-pin mini-connectors (12 4). As mentioned above, NVIDIA’s bundle includes an adapter allowing two 8-pin connectors to be plugged in, for those who don’t have a compatible power supply.
Finally, the board’s video outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.1 port. See you in the coming weeks for a review of NVIDIA’s RTX 4070 SUPER Founders Edition. As for pricing, ASUS has announced an MSRP of 844.99 euros in Europe, more on that in the conclusion.
@cornerjack_occ Déballage, installation de cette nouvelle ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition. Le test sur overclocking.com ? #cartegraphique #dlss3 #dlss #raytracing #gpu #nvidia #nvidiageforce #asus #asustufgaming #asustuf #super #rtx4070super @NVIDIA GeForce @ASUS @ASUS France @ASUS Deutschland @ROG France
[nextpage title=”Specifications and PCB:”]
Technical specifications :
In terms of frequency, the base frequency is announced at 1980 MHz, while the Boost peaks at 2565 MHz. This is an ” overclocked ” model, with a higher Boost frequency than the Founders Edition’s 2475 MHz. The 12 GB of G-DDR6X memory run at 1313 MHz (504 GB/s) on a 192-bit bus. Since this is NVIDIA’s reference board, the frequencies are also reference frequencies. This means we can compare them with our partners’ cards to see if they benefit from factory overclocking.
Let’s go to GPU-Z to check that the information read is correct. The GPU frequency is 1980 MHz, and the Boost frequency is 2565 MHz. Don’t forget that the latter will be higher in benchmarks, depending on the quality of your chip and determined by GPU Boost 4.0. Memory has a frequency of 1313 MHz.
Let’s unpack the PCB:
As we hinted, we haven’t disassembled our RTX 4070 SUPER yet. The procedure is fairly lengthy, and the timing of the test publication didn’t allow us to do it in good conditions, especially with the updating of all our graphics and the testing of partner cards.
[nextpage title=”The test configuration: “]
As we said in the introduction, we’re (once again) busy updating all our graphics using the latest drivers from NVIDIA, AMD and, of course, INTEL. We’ve also taken the opportunity to slightly modify our test configuration and add new games to our protocol. So here we go again, with a new series of tests and graphics on this slightly modified configuration:
- Motherboard: ROG Maximus Z690 APEX
- Processor: Intel Alder Lake i9-12900K
- Memory : 32 GB Corsair Vengeance 7200 CL38 DDR5
- Graphics card: ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition
- Cooling system: ROG Ryujin II 360
- SSD: Western Digital Black SN750 2 TB EKWB radiator
- Power supply: Corsair AX1600i adapter 12VHPWR 600W
- Operating system: Windows 11 64-bit (23H2)
For this test, we used a high-end configuration featuring an i9-12900K processor and DDR5. The use of a 144 Hz 4K display is also a sine qua non. For our tests, we’re using the ROG PG27UQ.
Our test protocol :
All cards are tested at stock frequencies and without any optimization. For the various benchmarks, whether synthetics or games, we’ll opt for 1080p, 1440p and 2160p resolutions, depending on the card’s performance. Here, with this model, we’ll be using 1440p definitions for rasterization and ray tracing , as we feel this is the most appropriate.
Some cards may straddle the line between two definitions. That’s why we’ve also added the Intel A770 ARC 16GB and the NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti 8GB/16 GB to the 1440p definition, even if this will remain very complicated for the Intel model. Our current reference card in definition is the NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti 12GB. For a long time, we hesitated to choose a card with more memory, but in the end, the RTX 3070 Ti 12GB still delivers 1440p definition without difficulty.
As you can see, we’re now running Windows 11 and have activated the “ReSize BAR” in the BIOS, which can be seen in GPU-Z. As a reminder, our tests are still underway on the previous generation, and other cards will be added to the various definitions. Now that you know everything about our test configuration, it’s time to get started!
[nextpage title=”Synthetic and application benchmarks: “]
Our first series of tests will be dedicated to synthetic benchmarks. These are often used for overclocking competitions, but are also very interesting for comparing different GPUs. We’ll be focusing on benchmarks from the 3DMark series. Our scores may sometimes appear slightly lower, but that’s because we’re testing them with a native definition of 2160p on our ROG PG27UQ screen. If we change our screen definition to 1080p for the 3DMark tests, the GPU score is better.
As we said in the introduction, we’re busy re-screening all our graphics cards, and our table should be complete again for the release of the other SUPER models. In the meantime, you can find our latest chart with our graphics card panel here.
We’ll be testing the following benchmarks:
- Fire Strike (1080p)
- Fire Strike Ultra (2160p)
- Time Spy (1440p)
- Time Spy Extreme (2160p)
- 3DMark Speed Way
- 3DMark Port Royal
3DMark Fire Strike and Fire Strike Ultra :
Let’s start with 3DMark Fire Strike, one of today’s most widely used benchmarks. It consists of two graphics tests, a CPU test and a fourth test that combines GPU and CPU. Don’t forget to deactivate the demo, which makes no contribution to the final score and prolongs the benchmark’s duration (unnecessarily). The version used for these tests is, of course, the latest available.
This is our first benchmark with the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition, and the least we can say is that it’s right where we expected it to be, behind the RTX 4070 Ti and ahead of the RTX 4070. We can already see that it’s much closer to the “Ti” model, with a score of 41453 points.
Under Fire Strike Ultra, the results are identical, but let’s not forget that the Fire Strike series of benchmarks is well in favor of AMD cards.
3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme:
The second test is 3DMark Time Spy. Although this one is performed in 1440p, its main feature is that it uses DirectX 12. It consists of two graphics tests and a CPU test. As with Fire Strike, don’t forget to disable the demo. These first two benchmarks are provided by UL Benchmark.
The performance obtained in Time Spy is often representative of what we’ll get in games. Here, our sample of the day scores 20938 points, putting us ahead of the RTX 4070. This represents an increase of 2949 points, or 16.3%. We’ll see if we can achieve the same differences in rasterization and 1440p definition.
Under 3DMark Time Spy Extreme, we achieved a good score of 9910 points, representing a 16% performance gain over NVIDIA’s RTX 4070. On the other hand, it lags behind the RTX 4070 Ti by 831 points.
3DMark Speed Way :
Ulbenchmark’s latest benchmark, and it’s nice to be able to say we’re going to benchmark this Speed Way. It uses DirectX 12 and defaults to 1440p. We haven’t modified anything, so we’re using the original benchmark.
Here, too, our ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition scores 5252 points and is therefore still in second place. In this benchmark, NVIDIA cards fare best.
3DMark Port Royal :
Here’s a benchmark we left out last year, but which you may have wanted to see again in our tests. It’s still widely used, especially in the overclocking community. So we’ve decided to add it to our tests.
There were no surprises in this latest benchmark in the 3DMark series, with a score of 13189 points and second place in our graph. Next month sees the arrival of a new benchmark, Steel Nomad, which we will of course be adding to our tests.
Blender” application test:
We’re planning to add a few new application benchmarks, starting today with Blender version 4.0. Don’t hesitate to leave us a comment to let us know which benchmarks you’d like to see in this section.
We’ve used the three tests of Blender version 4.0.0, which in the end produce virtually identical graphics. The performance of our RTX 4070 SUPER is almost identical to that of the RTX 4070 Ti, and far superior to that of the RTX 4070. Don’t hesitate to recommend any application tests you’d like to see included in our tests.
[nextpage title=”Gaming performance 1440p rasterized: “]
We’ve decided to select eight games, as they seem to us to be sufficiently representative. We opted for DirectX12 and Vulkan, with the following games:
- Borderlands 3
- Red Dead Redemption II
- Far Cry 6
- Watch Dogs: Legion
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
- Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage
- Forspoken
We’ve chosen to use the built-in benchmarks for these games.
Why do you ask? Quite simply to enable you to compare your results with ours if you also own a copy of one of these games. It’s a thought-provoking approach that will enable you to compare your results with ours.
As we mentioned on page 4 of this article, we have activated the Resizable Bar in the BIOS, which is now supported by all (recent) GPUs. Finally, we’ve opted for 1440p definition only, which is what you’d expect from this ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition.
Borderlands 3:
Let’s start with Borderlands. The graphics options are set to “Brutal“. It’s worth noting that Borderlands 3 is quite greedy, and that this choice of settings has quite a strong impact on FPS. It’s a game that’s often praised in announcements of new graphics cards, and precisely in this Brutal mode.
Performance here is excellent, with our ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition exceeding 120 FPS at 1440p. In fact, it just manages to edge out AMD’s RX 7800 XT.
Red Dead Redemption 2:
Second and by no means least, the sublime Red Dead Redemption II. The advantage of this opus is the possibility of testing the integrated Vulkan benchmark. We opt for the “ultra” graphics options.
Secondly, and by no means least, RDR2 offers the possibility of testing the integrated Vulkan benchmark. Performance is once again identical to what we’ve already encountered, with our RTX 4070 SUPER neck and neck with the RX 7800 XT. As for the RTX 4070, it lags behind by almost 12%.
Far Cry 6:
Far Cry 6 supports DXR and SFR from AMD. You’ll find it on the next page. For our benchmarks, we opted for “ultra” graphics quality.
Even though our report on this game showed an advantage for the RX 6000 cards, our RTX 4070 SUPER once again performed perfectly, just a few FPS behind the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER version.
Watch Dogs Legion:
Let’s move on to Watch Dogs Legion, which will also be used for our Ray Tracing tests. For our benchmarks, we have opted for a graphics quality of “very high“. Even though this game is not very recent, it’s quite interesting, since it requires a lot of memory.
The situation remains the same, with a second-place finish as our sample of the day is placed between the RTX 4070 Ti and the RX 7800 XT. Even though we’re still in the early stages of our tests, this trend seems to be confirmed.
Cyberpunk 2077:
Here’s a game we’ve been wanting to add for a while, and now we have, with an integrated benchmark. We’ll also be using this game for our Ray Tracing tests. For our benchmarks, we’ve opted for “ultra” graphics quality.
At 1440p, we obtained an average of 91 FPS, which means we still have room to push a few graphics options if we want to be even more greedy, bearing in mind that DLSS 3 and frame generation await us on the next page.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora:
One of the three new games we’ve just included in our rasterization tests. It’s a recent game from 2023 that tends to put a strain on our graphics cards. For our benchmarks, we’ve opted for “ultra” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, as it supports FSR3.
The graphics speak for themselves. Our graphics cards are suffering, and few of them manage to break the symbolic 60 FPS barrier. In fact, there are only two, including our ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition.
Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3:
We couldn’t do without adding Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3 to our graphics card tests. For our benchmarks, we have opted for “extreme” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, since it supports frame generation.
A little surprise, since Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3 seems to give pride of place to AMD cards. Although our ranking has changed slightly, the order of our RTX 4000s is identical to what we’ve seen so far.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage:
With a fairly recent integrated benchmark, we decided to add Assassin’s Creed Mirage to our tests.
The findings are still the same, although here our RTX 4070 SUPER outdistanced the RX 7800 XT more significantly.
Forspoken:
This is the last game we’re adding, as it will also be used on the next page, with the presence of FSR 3. It’s also a fairly recent game, and one that also puts a strain on our graphics cards.
We’re not going to change a thing in this latest test, with our RTX 4070 SUPER nearly 15% ahead of the 4070 and 9% behind the RTX 4070 Ti. Let’s see how our 9 games average out in rasterization.
Game average :
For the gaming average, the RTX 3070 Ti is still our reference card in 1440p definition. Other cards score either higher or lower, depending on their performance against this model.
These are excellent results for the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition, which is right where we expected it to be in 1440p definition in rasterization, i.e. without enabling ray tracing or DLSS/FSR in our games. This is what we’ll be assessing on the next page. If we weigh up prices at this point in the article, the reference RTX 4070 SUPER will be sold at 659 euros, which represents an excellent choice, even if the reference RX 7800 XT is priced at 555 euros. It will be interesting to see how each of these cards performs with the technologies offered by NVIDIA and AMD.
[nextpage title=”Ray tracing and DLSS/FSR 1440p performance:”]
Let’s take a look at the eight games we’ve selected that support ray tracing, DLSS, AMD’s FSR and Intel’s XeSS technology. As we’ve already reminded you, while DLSS remains the property of NVIDIA, FSR and XeSS can be used with any card from AMD, Intel or even NVIDIA. We’ve chosen to remove Watch Dogs: Legion as it’s the only game that supports only one technology, DLSS.
The eight DirectX 12 games we’ll be testing with ray tracing, if available, as well as DLSS, FSR or XeSS are :
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider (RT – DLSS – XeSS)
- Far Cry 6 (DXR – FSR)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (RT – DLSS 3 – FSR – XeSS)
- Hitman 3 (RT – DLSS 3 – XeSS – FSR)
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (DLSS – XeSS – FSR 3)
- Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3 (DLSS 3 – XeSS – FSR)
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage (DLSS – Xess – FSR)
- Forspoken (DLSS – XeSS – FSR 3)
No change for this new series of games, as we’re staying with 1440p definition. Depending on the card, we’ll be using either DLSS for NVIDIA or FSR or XeSS for AMD and Intel models. If FSR is not available in a game, then we’ll give our AMD card the benefit of XeSS technology.
DLSS 3: watch out for our results!
As you know, NVIDIA unveiled DLSS 3 with the arrival of the RTX 4000 graphics cards, and in particular with the launch of the RTX 4090 version. So why the warning? Because NVIDIA now offers DLSS 3 support on many games, but this is only supported by RTX 4000s. To put it simply, if we test a game that benefits from DLSS 3, our RTX 4060 Ti will take advantage of it, but an RTX 30xx will make do with DLSS 2, resulting in even greater discrepancies, especially thanks to frame generation. We currently have three games that support DLSS 3, and we’ll be increasing this number over the coming weeks.
But AMD has also reacted by offering its FSR 3, also combined with frame generation technology, which significantly increases the number of FPS. But now it’s time for the graphics, which will speak volumes in terms of performance.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider:
First, which we’re adding to this comparison and which supports Ray Tracing and DLSS 2.0. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game (medium – high – ultra) and the four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance).
For our benchmarks, we opted for “very high” graphics quality, “ultra” Ray Tracing and “balanced” DLSS.
With Ray Tracing set to ultra, an average of 139 FPS is achieved. The performance achieved with DLSS 2 in this game is much better than that achieved with FSR 1.
Far Cry 6:
Far Cry 6 supports DXR and AMD’s FSR, but not DLSS.
For our benchmarks, we opted for Ultra graphics quality, activated both DRX options and FSR in “balanced” mode.
In Far Cry 6, FSR is the only choice available to boost FPS after activating Ray Tracing. All our cards can benefit from it, regardless of manufacturer. Our RTX 4070 SUPER benefits slightly, but in the end it’s the lower-ranked cards that benefit from this FPS boost.
Cyberpunk 2077:
Cyberpunk 2077 features DLSS and FSR activation in its settings. Note that this was the first game to enable DLSS3 for RTX 40xx graphics cards, as well as frame generation. For our benchmarks, we opted for “ultra” graphics quality, “ultra” Ray Tracing and “balanced” DLSS/FSR.
This is one of our most demanding games, where our cards have great difficulty keeping up. Here, an average of 44.9 FPS is achieved. While the RTX 4070 SUPER fares better with ray tracing, the addition of the new DLSS 3 and frame generation boosts FPS numbers by an astonishing amount.
Hitman 3:
Hitman 3 now supports DLSS, FSR and XeSS technology. Depending on the model of card tested, we opt for one of these three technologies.
For our benchmarks, we opted for “high” graphics quality, “enabled” Ray Tracing and “balanced” DLSS/Xess.
We find ourselves in a familiar situation with our RTX 4070 SUPER in second place. Hitman 3, which also benefits from DLSS 3 and frame generation, achieves an FPS gain of almost 133%.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora:
One of the three new games we’ve just included in our rasterization tests. It’s a recent game from 2023 that tends to put a strain on our graphics cards. For our benchmarks, we’ve opted for “ultra” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, as it supports FSR 3. The idea is to balance games that benefit from DLSS 3 and FSR 3.
There’s no ray tracing here, so we’ve taken the rasterization performance and activated the technologies that enable FPS gains. DLSS 2 does the job perfectly, but we can also see that AMD’s FSR 3 could start to rival DLSS 3.
Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3:
We couldn’t do without adding Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3 to our graphics card tests. For our benchmarks, we have opted for “extreme” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, since it supports frame generation.
As with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, there’s no ray tracing here, so we’ll activate each manufacturer’s own technology. And in this little game, NVIDIA comes out on top with DLSS 3 combined with frame generation. With over 200 FPS, we’re perfectly at ease.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage:
With a fairly recent integrated benchmark, we decided to add Assassin’s Creed Mirage to our tests.
Here, even if our RTX 4070 SUPER retains the advantage in rasterization and also when DLSS 2 is activated, AMD cards are not to be outdone.
Forspoken:
This is the last game we’re adding, as it will also be used on the next page, with the presence of FSR 3. It’s also a fairly recent game, and it, too, puts a strain on our graphics cards.
It’s FSR 3 and frame generation that are the most brutal here. Now, that’s nothing to disturb our RTX 4070 SUPER, which goes from 80 to 123 FPS with DLSS.
What about ray tracing with the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition?
Out of the 8 games we tested, our ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition performed perfectly. When ray tracing is enabled, it doesn’t have to worry at all, since DLSS is always present behind it. In fact, NVIDIA dominated the exchanges, thanks in particular to the arrival of DLSS 3 and frame generation, but now AMD is fighting back. The reds also came out in force with FRS 3 and frame generation, which also brought an increase in FPS. But it’s NVIDIA that still has the upper hand, as the number of games supported is far greater on the green side. FRS 3 is doing very well, but previous revisions are struggling against DLSS 2, for example. DLSS therefore remains the most interesting technology when available.
[nextpage title=”Temperature and consumption: “]
Temperature :
To record temperatures, we opted for the Superposition stress test in Extreme mode. We opted for three 5-minute runs with 10-minute intervals between each test. We took advantage of this benchmark to record the graphics card’s power consumption for the table above.
To find out the Idle temperature, after completing the three stress test loops, we let the card rest for 20 minutes before taking the temperature reading. Bear in mind that most boards benefit from “0 dBa” technology, so the fans cut out below a certain temperature, often between 50 and 55°C. It therefore takes longer to dissipate heat after a period of stress testing or gaming. A card that does not benefit from this technology will be noisier than others at rest. A quick reminder: our temperature readings are taken in Open-Air. In a closed case, the cards will inevitably be warmer.
Not surprisingly, temperatures are higher than on the RX 7800 XT, but the heatsink on our sample of the day is thinner. The card is perfectly silent and temperatures remain perfectly contained.
Power consumption (full configuration) :
We use a wattmeter to measure power consumption at the output of our power supply. Our modular power supply is a CORSAIR AX1600i. The result is the average total power consumption of our configuration. Only the graphics card changes between each reading. So it’s easy to calculate the difference between each graphics card.
But the good news is that we should (finally) be properly equipped to isolate power consumption solely from the graphics card, as we have pre-ordered the BENCHLAB from Elmorlabs.
Power consumption is unsurprisingly higher than that of the RTX 4070, rising from 284 to 333 watts for our complete configuration. Based on a similar architecture, this 16.5% increase in power consumption almost matches the performance increase we noted.
[nextpage title=”Overclocking: “]
Overclocking via GPU Tweak III:
No doubt this will be very limited by NVIDIA in order to avoid reaching the performance of the RTX 4070 Ti, even if it will disappear from production. Direction to the latest version of ASUS’ GPU Tweak III software. This is overclocking software designed by ASUS, but which will prove compatible with other GPU brands. The software is really well designed, but you’ll need to go through the advanced mode to access all the settings.
To test our overclocking, we’re going to concentrate first on the Time Spy benchmark. We’re off! We leave the fans in AUTO mode, raise the power limit to the maximum, i.e. 115%, and off we go! Initially, we only push the GPU frequency in 50 MHz steps until the benchmark stops running. Once the GPU frequency is stable, we move on to increasing the memory frequency.
By default, at stock frequencies, our ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition achieves an overall score of 21292 points and 21582 points for the GPU score. The boost frequency reaches a maximum of 2835 MHz MHz, with the GPU temperature rising to 60.8°C.
In the end, we were able to push the boost frequency to 2970 MHz and the memory to 1450 MHz. This enabled me to achieve some excellent scores, which enabled me to pick up even more points. The overall score rose to 22318 points and the GPU score to 22889 points (6.8%). Temperature remains contained at 61.8°C. This overclocking allows us to rasterize from 126 to 134 FPS on Call Of Duty Modern Warefare III and from 89.8 to 94.9 FPS on Cyberpunk 2077.
[nextpage title=”The last word:”]
The price?
Let’s get straight to the point, since we’ve received MSRP prices from ASUS. As a reminder, NVIDIA sells its Founders Edition models at an MSRP of €659 and ASUS informs us of an MSRP of €844.99 for this ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition model. Unfortunately, this is far too expensive for the NVIDIA model. The difference of almost €185 is hard to justify. We suspected that the partner cards would be higher than the MSRP price of €659, but we never imagined such a difference.
ASUS has a DUAL model in its range, which will be priced at €719.99. As we pointed out in yesterday’s review, we’ll have to look at the price difference for an identical model between an RTX 4070 SUPER and an RX 7800 XT.
Performance?
Rasterization to 1440p definition gives our RTX 4070 a narrow lead over the RX 7800 XT. This means it can take back the crown of the best-performing card in QHD. Compared with the Founders Edition model we tested yesterday, the difference in performance is insignificant, despite the fact that we’re using a factory-pre-overclocked model. We’ll come back to this in our next article, but the new RTX 4070 Ti SUPER and its 16 GB, seems to have plenty of power to titillate 2160p definition.
What about the price difference between an RTX 4070 SUPER and an RX 7800 XT on a similar model, i.e. in the TUF Gaming version, for example? Without looking for the best price, LDLC lists the ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7800 XT OC Edition at €639, i.e. €200 less than the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition.
With this price difference, it’s very difficult for us to recommend NVIDIA’s model over AMD’s for an ASUS card. Even if NVIDIA can count on DLSS version 3 combined with frame generation and a number of games compatible with this technology, it’s very difficult to recommend the card at this price.
The card?
As we hinted in our presentation of the card, we’re becoming increasingly attached to this TUF Gaming series. It boasts a rudely efficient cooling system, a sober design and a perfect finish. We were also inclined to see it benefit from a lower price than the STRIX models. What we don’t understand is ASUS’ pricing policy. There’s nothing wrong with the card itself, but it’s the excessive price tag that does it a disservice.
What’s next?
As you know, NVIDIA isn’t stopping there, and will be launching the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER on January 24, and the RTX 4080 SUPER on January 31. We can already tell you that we’re looking forward to the “Ti SUPER” version, which, behind its long name, could well be the most interesting model in the SUPER range. In the meantime, we’ll be back tomorrow to test our RTX 4070 SUPER partners, with a model from ASUS and Gigabyte.
ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition
As you can imagine, it’s hard for us to come to a conclusion about this ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition model. On the one hand, the card performs well and features a quiet, efficient cooling system, but on the other hand, it’s hard for us not to bear in mind the price announced by ASUS. We hope to see things change in the coming weeks and see this price drop significantly. The RTX 4070 SUPER chip gets the job done, the cooling system performs well, but the price remains the only concern with this model. Many thanks to ASUS France for making this copy of the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER OC Edition available.