ASUS ROG GeForce RTX 2070 STRIX review - Introduction

ASUS ROG GeForce RTX 2070 STRIX OC review
One of the very best RTX 2070'es available? 

We reviewed the value proposition GeForce RTX 2070 from ASUS already, but now it's time to step it up a notch with the better developed Republic Of Gamers STRIX OC model. Aside from a few minor aesthetic tweaks ASUS has fallen back to its traditional design triple fan cooler. It cools great, it can be silent and most of all, it's factory tweak out of the box quite well. This card is definitely one to check out. What's interesting is that ASUS applied a dual BIOS, one setting offers a performance mode where the card still isn't noisy but offers great cooling, the other is a silent mode that indeed is silent, whilst offering the same performance yet with slightly higher temperatures.

• Auto Extreme Technology delivers premium quality and reliability with aerospace-grade Super Alloy Power II components.
• Max-Contact Technology delivers 2X more GPU to heatsink contact for increased cooling efficiency.
• Axial-Tech Fans increases airflow through the heatsink and boasts IP5X dust-resistance.
• AURA Sync RGB lighting is capable of six lighting effects and millions of colors to allow you to express your style.
• GPU Tweak II makes monitoring performance and streaming easier than ever, featuring Game Booster and XSplit Gamecaster, all via an intuitive interface.

The 3rd RTX card also comes with the Turing architecture of the new GPUs, offering a fundamental change in the graphics card arena as next to your normal shading engine, NVIDIA has added RT (Raytracing) cores, as well as Tensor (AI), cores onto the new GPUs, and these are active. Is Turing is the start of the next 20 years of gaming graphics? Well, that all depends on the actual adoption rate in the software houses, they guys and girls that develop games and a dozen or so RTX games are in development and a dozen or so announced titles will make use of deep learning DLSS running utilizing the Tensor cores. For the new RTX series, it's mostly about Raytracing though. So welcome to a long row of RTX reviews. We start off with the reference cards and will follow with the AIB cards as for whatever reason NVIDIA figured it to be an okay thing for them to launch everything at once. First a quick recap of what's tested in this article, a bit of architecture and then we'll dive into real-world testing of course. NVIDIA last month announced the 499 USD GeForce RTX 2070. This 185 Watt car will have 2304 shader procs. It has a 1410 MHz base clock and a 1710 MHz boost clock for the standard founder version. The AIB cards are allowed to be clocked at 1620 MHz on that boost frequency. The card has 8GB of the now familiar GDDR6 memory running a 256-bit wide bus (448 GB/s), the price is 499 USD and 599 for the founders' version. That means the cheapest of cheap AIB card will sit at the 500 USD marker, realistically though we expect them all to sit on the 550~600 USD ranges. 

For the launch reviews, NVIDIA pretty much had the board partners send the most affordable SKUs, the 499 USD parts. In this review, however, we look at a more premium offering, the ASUS ROG GeForce RTX 2070 STRIX OC. The graphics card comes with a max-contact cooler. This round ASUS applied a serious factory tweak. You know, the reference clocks (for AIBs) being a 1620 MHz Boost, this card offers a Boost clock of 1815 MHz, and that pretty sweet. The memory clock runs reference at 14 Gbps. The cooler is dual-slot triple-fan design. The card comes fitted with two power headers one 8-pin, the other 6-pin header. The card offers two HDMI ports and two DisplayPort outputs and the new Virtual link (USB) connector. This Turing 106 GPU empowered product keeps that factory tweaked GPU at under 60 Degrees C marker (in BIOS performance mode) depending on game load. Though the GDDR6 memory has been not been tweaked, the new Micron ICs are a stock 14 GHz (effective clock-rate) but can be bumped upward towards 15 to 16 GHz with the flick of your fingers. Have a quick peek below and then dive into the full review.