Conclusion
Conclusion
The force is strong with the SC Gaming edition as it offer really nice aesthetics and runs totally silent whilst keeping that GPU nicely chilled at the 70 Degrees C marker. Though the GeForce GTX 1060 will be interesting to see in relation to perf/price, we do admit that the price performance ratio of the GTX 1070 so much better then what the GTX 1080 offers at its sales price. At face value things seem right though the GPU might have been castrated a notch, the GeForce GTX 1070 overall offers simply really good performance. These cards (especially the factory tweaked ones) are battling (and winning from) the GTX 980 Ti and Titan X cards out there. The combo of the GPU with GDDR5 memory at 8 Gbps still offers plenty of horsepower. The Pascal GP104 architecture is interesting, as in aside from a few changes in the pipeline, it looks VERY similar to Maxwell. Make no mistake there have been changes, but it shares a very similar structure. So the biggest benefit for Nvidia was 16 nm, as it allows them to drive their products to incredible clock frequencies whilst they can use less voltage, and that results in power consumption way under the 200 Watt marker. Though not that exquisite GDDR5X memory, the 1070 uses GDDR5 graphics memory, still it's effectively running at a nice data-rate of 8 Gbps which brings in a very nice memory performance boost compared to the last gen products, in fact it tweaks rather easily over 9 Gbps as well. That fact armed with new color compression technologies effectively boosts the memory bandwidth a notch upwards compared to the GeForce GTX 970 and 980. These cards are faster compared to a GTX 980 and roughly as fast as a 980 Ti. Next to that I have got to say, 8 GB 256-bit GDDR5 graphics memory also feels like an excellent and well-balanced amount of graphics memory anno 2016. Would you ever use 8 GB of memory? Well, not anytime soon. The largest number we ever measured as like 5 or 6 GB. But hey, who knows with titles like The Division / GTA5 and technologies like Ultra HD and / or DSR versus performance and VRAM what you find valid, or not. High up there in the enthusiast space there certainly is a market for cards like these. That makes these 8 GB models relevant for gaming.
Aesthetics
EVGA revamped the design a bit for the new SC Gaming series, the more sturdy looking ACX 3.0 cooler looks great and comes with a suble LED array. The board itself has a black PCB and obviously cool dibs is that back-plate, with openings at some areas for venting, we would have liked to see a few more vents on that backplate though. I remain skeptical about backplates, they potentially can trap heat and thus warm up the PCB. But the flip-side is that they do look better and can protect your PCB and components from damage. Consumer demand is always decisive, and you guys clearly like graphics cards with backplates. Both the front IO plate and backplate are dark matte black which certainly gives the card that premium feel. All that combined with a 5 phase PCB again in matte black, and the end result is a truly lovely looking product.
Cooling & Noise Levels
The reference design (founder editions) of all GTX 1070/1080 are set at an offset threshold of 80 degrees C. Once the GPU gets warmer the card will clock down / lower its voltage etc to try and keep the card cooler, that's throttling and it part of the design. EVGA however throws in a cooler that manages trong cooling performance. It is a good one and actually so good that up-to a degree or 60 on the GPU, this card remains passive and thus inaudible. That however is similar to most of not all board partners. Once the fans kick in, you can expect to hover at the 70 Degrees C marker, with seriously demanding games you'll be just above that value. Please do note that you will need proper ventilation inside your chassis to achieve that number. So EVGA shaved off a roughly 10 Degrees C over reference. Thermal images do show a very hot VRM area, though the components are in direct contact with a heat-plate there is measurable and leaking heat in the directly surrounding areas bit remains confined to that VRM area - but temps do rise over 95 Degrees C there which I find to be too high of a temperature. Noise wise, we can’t complain about cooling whatsoever as it is very silent. Expect sound pressure values in the 38 dBA range at max under load and warm circumstances. That's measured 75 CM away from the PC. This means you can barely hear the card while using it. Once overclocked with added voltage we always do recommend a little more fan RPM, this does increase noise a tiny bit, but it's nothing dramatic by any standard. Overall this is a very sound and solid cooling solution. We did not hear or notice any coil whine with this SKU.
Power Consumption
Any GP104 Pascal GPU and thus GP104 based graphics card is rated as having a 160~180 Watt TDP under full stress, our measurements back that up albeit a notch higher due to the faster clocks and thus voltage usage. We noticed that the 1070 did consume a bit more power due to its tweaks and design, it was just over 180 Watts under full stress. That's still very OK though. Here again keep in mind we measure peak power consumption, the average power consumption is a good notch lower depending on GPU utilization. Also, if you plan to overclock the CPU/memory and/or GPU with added voltage, please do purchase a power supply with enough reserve. People often underestimate it, but if you tweak all three aforementioned variables, you can easily add 200 Watts to your peak power consumption budget as increasing voltages and clocks increases your power consumption.
Gaming performance
If you plan to upgrade my biggest advice to you is this, you'll need to look at your monitor first and foremost. A GeForce GTX 1070 would be perfect for Wide Quad HD Gaming at 2560x1440. It has plenty power and has the graphics memory to deal with games for years to come, even with the best quality settings and some niche AA levels. Price performance wise one should also take SLI into deliberation. We'll test it at one point but two GeForce GTX 1070 cards setup in SLI might be a true sweet-spot for Ultra HD gamers or the ones that like to go a little dirteeh with DSR and of course the latest gaming titles. Performance wise, really there's not one game that won't run seriously good at the very best image quality settings at 2560x1440. And sure, the cool factor remains you get the advantages of an 8 GB framebuffer. As such we feel the card is rather future proof. We mentioned SLI already, but starting with Pascal the primary focus for Nvidia in terms of multi-GPU setups is that they will support 2-way SLI, but really that's it and all. For those of you that want to run 3 and 4-way configuration, it's going to be difficult but remains possible as the game needs to support and you will need to obtain a driver key from the Nvidia website. Do not expect Nvidia to enhance drivers for it, they'll just open up the floodgate and have you deal with the rest. Some of you might be disappointed about this news. Me personally, I am fine with the choice to focus on proper 2-way SLI opposed to all the arbitrary configurations that less then 0.01% of the end-users uses.
Concluding
Aside from the VRM area running a bit hot we have very little to moan about today's tested test-subject. All 1070 cards will be close to each other on performance aside from some anomalies here and there. Nvidia's limiters kick in harsh and hard, normalizing performance with a variance of a few frames per second here and there. That thesis remains more or less the same with tweaking. The 1070 remains to be a sweet product though, as the GeForce GTX 1080 is the card we all want but cannot afford. That makes the the GeForce GTX 1070 the next best thing, and it a terrific card really. In fact, it offers more than plenty for any PC gamer out there that plays his or her games up-to the WQHD domain and 2560x1440 ('ish). The 1070 is a nice upgrade if you come from the GeForce GTX 960/970 range. Seen from GTX 980 and higher, not so much of course. Added benefits over a founders edition card are the better looks, the better cooling, and a much more silent product. The EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0 comes overclocked roughly 88 MHz over reference, that remains a relatively mild tweak. But still you'll notice games boosting in the 1.9 GHz range, and that's pretty sweet under the 3-year warranty. Tweaking (and I'll keep repeating this) wise I say that Nvidia overstepped their boundaries by implementing way too many limiters. The new offset overclocking/tweaking also creates more complexity opposed to simple and old-fashion overclocking. We're not a fan of that at all as it normalizes everything. Basically Nvidia is in control of what your maximum overclock is with a few exceptions here and there. So yes, all cards from any vendor are going to hover in the 2.0~2.1 GHz range max with an exception here and there. I'll state that again, ALL cards from any manufacturer. So really, you need to focus at the extras like design, cooling, price, LED system, warranties and after-sales. For you, my man, the product needs to tick the right boxes. We like the EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0 very much, to me the card simply looks cool, feels like a quality product and remains silent whilst offering nice enough cooling temperatures. I'm not sure if I'd spend the extra cash for the SC model as again, all these cards tweak roughly the same. So perhaps the regular ACX 3.0 might be a better and slightly more affordable choice, then again if you hate to tweak yourself an SC model could make more sense. And that's the paradox here :)
The EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC Gaming ACX 3.0 is selling at a price of $439.99 however in Europe starts at roughly € 539,- The prices in the EU are steep alright. If you feel that is a the right amount of money for you to spend, then hey .. it's a quality super-fast product with a proper design and heaps of memory. You will absolutely not regret your purchase. Highly recommended.
- H
Recommended Downloads
- Sign up to receive a notice when we publish a new article
- Or go back to Guru3D's front page
