GALAX GeForce RTX 2070 Super WTF review (Page 25)

GALAX GeForce RTX 2070 Super WTF review

Graphics cards 1049 Page 25 of 25 Published 2019-11-08 13:34 by Hilbert Hagedoorn

Conclusion

Final words and verdict

To the GALAX and beyond, and yes that is a euphemism for the galaxy style backplate of the card on the backside. GALAX needs to be a bit more careful with all the logos though, GALAX is visually present at the top side, each fan has a Galax sticker so that's a little much. Overall it is a solid design with nice dark looks. That said, it performed slightly worse than expected whilst having a higher boosting clock frequency. That means the power allowance is slightly limited and closer to the reference product. So that all saying Turbo clock frequency is a thing of the past as leading performance indicator, really you need to look at how much power may a card use, and that will determine performance moreover. Then again, slide the power limiter up a notch, and boom, there's that extra performance. Overall the card is only 2% faster compared to the reference performance. When tweaked you can get closer to that 10% range, a value that is pretty much the same for any RTX as NVIDIA these days defines the max power design and thus controls the throttles. The GeForce RTX 2070 Super, on its end, offers a nice increase in perf over the non-Super model thanks to the added 256 shader processors resulting in 2560 of them for which NVIDIA needed the TU104. Here, however, the memory stays at 8GB and thus the ROP count remains the same as well as many other variables. However, the new clock frequencies do give it an advantage over, say, even a GTX 1080 Ti and closer to the RTX 2080, which is an interesting performance level.

Aesthetics

The card has an overall dark look, and that sits well in any PC really. Four zones including the backplate have separated and configurable RGB going on, and yes it works well for this card. The backplate galaxy is very funny, even innovative and creative. However, I am not sure how many people will actually like it, as it can be rather busy on the eyes. Overall though, once RGB kiocks in, it's just a really nice card to see, but looks are always personal, of course. So in the end, on looks, you certainly get that premium feel of detailed aesthetics and quality.

Cooling & Noise Levels

The card tops out at roughly 65 Degrees C while gaming and that is just really good. Not bad at all eh?, the acoustics I'd rate as silent, you can, however, hear a bit of airflow hitting the aluminum fins. One thing we need to mention, we've did not hear noticeable coil whine. Any graphics card at a high-enough FPS can make some coil-whine, here however it was really apparent. If you are bothered by that, this card might not be for you.

Overclocking

Anything and everything is regulated by NVIDIA these days. Speaking, in general, you can expect another 5 to 10% of extra perf out of both cards when you bump up the graphics memory and GPU a bit. That it is, however, paired with an increased board power limiter and, as such, that will cost a bit more energy. Both traditional overclocking, as well as the OC Scanner functions, bring us close to that value. In retrospect though, you have to remember, that the 'older' RTX models could also be tweaked to 15.5 to 16 Gbps on that GDDR6 memory. Our +100 MHz on the base clock resulted in the product Boosting in the 2000~2050 MHz range.

Concluding

Yeah, I like the WTF edition, even it was for its abbreviation alone :) The base design is good, however, and I have to mention this, you need to see this card when it is powered on, the RGB is really cool + you get a ton of animation options of course. Overall the RTX 2070 Super from GALAX offers decent acoustic levels. The performance is only a small notch above reference, but that is the reality with most RTX cards from NVIDIA and any board partner these days due to TDP and power limitations, remember to move that slider on the power limiter a notch and you'll see your perf go up. Cooler wise we cannot complain, yes it is not 'as silent' as some competitors, but it certainly is silent enough. The sub-65 Degrees C load values are cool as well. The out of the box tweaked perf seems a bit shy however tweaking wise the card did not disappoint though with an 8% to 10% advantage over reference. The 2070 Super is plenty fast for any gaming up-to Ultra HD based on shading performance. With Raytracing enabled you'll be in the 1080p or 1440p range. The card is TU104 based, and that means it is fitted with an NVlink slot, yep you could pair up two of these and go for SLI. However, given its track history, multi-GPU is dying. Combined with proper cooling and a decent factory tweak we'll happily out a recommended award. It is an interesting and very well all-round performing graphics card.