News Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Review: More Bandwidth, More Power, More Money

[Admin]

The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is what happens when you take the full GA104 chip and add GDDR6X memory. The added bandwidth boosts performance over the existing RTX 3070 by 9–11%. It's a reasonable upgrade but still represents the diminishing returns of moving up the product stack. Too bad it's likely to sell out.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Review: More Bandwidth, More Power, More Money : Read more

 

[cknobman]

This card, IMO, is underwhelming.
Besides not having a very big bump in performance I think the biggest bummer is no more VRAM.

For the price having "sufficient" RAM for games today is sad because its sure as heck not promising for future games.

This card gulps power too.

 

[Phaaze88]

Hopefully, everyone gets it: It's a money grab from Nvidia, along with the 3080Ti. They're a business, not a charity.
The MSRP means nothing except for those that acquire these at those prices. [Yes, some people have been able to do this, just not most.]
If the 3050(Ti) ever comes around, it is not going to be cheap: Sub 200USD at the MSRP? That would be a surprise...

 

[CodgerFace]

Good review, bad 'value' product. Thanks, Jarred 👍

 

[King_V]

Just over 30% higher power consumption for a 7-ish% gain in performance?

Even if it were normal times, that seems pretty atrocious.

 

[usiname]

How the f this is 6-7% faster with 7% more resterization performance and almost 40% faster memory?

 

[-Fran-]

So... nVidia is telling us they went through the effort of wasting GDDR6X memory modules in this thing instead of slapping them on more 3080s and also skipping on making more 3070/3060ti's?

Ah, right. Money grabbing. Of course. Why make the sensible choice here of trying to make more 3070's or 3060ti's instead when you can just spit and squeeze your fanbois even more.

Well, you know what they say: "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me".

Cheers!

 

[ingtar33]

20% more money
6% more performance

THG - JUST BUY IT

 

[logainofhades]

Definitely a cash grab move. People are willing to pay the Nvidia tax, and they know it.

 

[Oli Baba]

"Let's hope supply and prices improve by the time fall blows in. "

A higher supply will NOT help at all. This isn't a normal hardware market - demand is virtually limitless.

Miners will invest in more and more cards as long as it yields profits. The GPU prices we are seeing are nothing but the threshold up to which a profit can be made off a card. If crypto values rise, GPUs will be even more expensive... if crypto values drop, GPUs will become less expensive.

Gamers can only buy GPUs at or above the value attributed by the mining economics. And no realistic amount of supply will change that as long as the crypto boom exists.

 

[littlechipsbigchips]

For the first time in my life I lost interest in reading a new GPU review lolz

Almost everyone I know switched to Gaming notebooks ... there is no point paying for any Desktop gaming PC today and waiting for stocks and 3x the price.

 

[Sleepy_Hollowed]

This card, IMO, is underwhelming.
Besides not having a very big bump in performance I think the biggest bummer is no more VRAM.

For the price having "sufficient" RAM for games today is sad because its sure as heck not promising for future games.

This card gulps power too.

It is but not exactly for all those reasons, though I agree with you on the RAM.

This card is great for anyone that wants to play at 1080P at high FPS but that's about it, and it does so by consuming a lot of power and being quite expensive. Provided you don't need the physics performance for particles and reflections, an AMD card that's way cheaper and more efficient would make do for that case and have more RAM as well.

It doesn't help that nvidia cards are way harder to find even still than AMD cards, it's sort of pointless, even if the AMD cards are at 2 or 3 times their MSRP, at least you can buy them if you do need one.

 

[peachpuff]

I think nvidia wishes they could go back in time and price the 3080 higher so they could milk more money from the 3070ti. I mean only $100 more than the 3070? The 3080ti is $500 more than the 3080...

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

"Let's hope supply and prices improve by the time fall blows in. "

A higher supply will NOT help at all. This isn't a normal hardware market - demand is virtually limitless.

Miners will invest in more and more cards as long as it yields profits. The GPU prices we are seeing are nothing but the threshold up to which a profit can be made off a card. If crypto values rise, GPUs will be even more expensive... if crypto values drop, GPUs will become less expensive.

Gamers can only buy GPUs at or above the value attributed by the mining economics. And no realistic amount of supply will change that as long as the crypto boom exists.

Mining profitability has already dropped, thanks to increasing difficulty and lower prices. But there’s still a lot of demand from gamers. So, more supply will indeed bring down prices, so long as mining profits don’t go back up.

 

[San Pedro]

I wonder if Nvidia is even going to bother making 3070s and 3080s anymore if they have the ability to put most of their silicon to the Ti models.

Also, $600 for an 8gb card in 2021, lol. Nvidia really hamstringing the long term effectiveness of the cards. I'm pretty worried about my card for that very reason (3080) kind of feels like when I got a 2gb 770, or if someone got a 3gb 1060. They were fine for the time, but were really left behind much sooner than the same cards with more VRAM.

 

[watzupken]

How the f this is 6-7% faster with 7% more resterization performance and almost 40% faster memory?

This proves the GPU is not that memory bandwidth starved. Which makes me wonder if Nvidia is aware of the lame performance gain and high power consumption, they could have used just "vanilla" GDDR6 with a faster speed, i.e. 16 or 18 Gbps. What sorts of madness have gotten over them? Making too much money from miners have drove them out of their mind. This in my opinion, if fully enabled for mining, will benefit miners, and clearly not gamers. So perhaps Nvidia chose this specs to satisfy miners not gamers. While it is supposed to be a LHR version, there is always a backdoor to sell to miners with a non LHR version if the price is right.

 

[watzupken]

I wonder if Nvidia is even going to bother making 3070s and 3080s anymore if they have the ability to put most of their silicon to the Ti models.

Also, $600 for an 8gb card in 2021, lol. Nvidia really hamstringing the long term effectiveness of the cards. I'm pretty worried about my card for that very reason (3080) kind of feels like when I got a 2gb 770, or if someone got a 3gb 1060. They were fine for the time, but were really left behind much sooner than the same cards with more VRAM.

Prior to the release of both the RTX 3070 Ti and 3080 Ti, the supply of RTX 3070 and 3080 cards are almost non-existent, at least for the past 2 to 3 months. You get random Newegg Shuffle where there are overwhelming people trying to get one, but not sure how many cards there are. I reckon in the single digits. After the release of both RTX 3080 Ti, I've not seen a healthy supply of it even though it is supposedly mining nerfed. A check online at OEMs like Dell and Lenovo, you either can't find systems with RTX 3070/ 3080 or the waiting time is very long. So if OEMs are not able to get it along with gamers, where did the supply go to? It can't be that there is hardly any RTX 3070/ 3080 coming out of Samsung even though there is a "shortage". Then Nvidia announced record GPU sales. I suppose 90% went from their/ AIB partners' backdoor to the miners. LHR working to gamers' advantage? On the surface, it seems to be the case. But think a little harder, and I would say no. Big companies like this always say some nice thing to their usual customer like they actually care, but in reality will always veer towards where they can make the most money.

 

[spongiemaster]

"Let's hope supply and prices improve by the time fall blows in. "

A higher supply will NOT help at all. This isn't a normal hardware market - demand is virtually limitless.

Miners will invest in more and more cards as long as it yields profits. The GPU prices we are seeing are nothing but the threshold up to which a profit can be made off a card. If crypto values rise, GPUs will be even more expensive... if crypto values drop, GPUs will become less expensive.

Gamers can only buy GPUs at or above the value attributed by the mining economics. And no realistic amount of supply will change that as long as the crypto boom exists.

Exactly. Someone who gets it.

If you're not going to mine with your GPU during down time, the current market doesn't make financial sense for purely gaming use and no amount of whining and mudslinging at GPU makers is going to change that.

 

[spongiemaster]

I wonder if Nvidia is even going to bother making 3070s and 3080s anymore if they have the ability to put most of their silicon to the Ti models.

Also, $600 for an 8gb card in 2021, lol. Nvidia really hamstringing the long term effectiveness of the cards. I'm pretty worried about my card for that very reason (3080) kind of feels like when I got a 2gb 770, or if someone got a 3gb 1060. They were fine for the time, but were really left behind much sooner than the same cards with more VRAM.

Probably not. Remember the Ti's are using a new silicon revision. They make keep producing the old revision for their mining line, but it wouldn't make much sense to produce so many different chips for gaming.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Probably not. Remember the Ti's are using a new silicon revision. They make keep producing the old revision for their mining line, but it wouldn't make much sense to produce so many different chips for gaming.

The official word is that the 3070 and 3080 will remain in production. The new GPUs are just coming from binned chips that were planned from the beginning to exist, so the 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti don't inherently reduce the number of other cards being produced. Of course the 3080 Ti chips could have been down-binned and sold as 3080, and 3070 Ti could have been sold as 3070 — at lower prices — but it's not like Nvidia decided to create these new parts on the spur of the moment.

And as we reported elsewhere, actual sales of GPUs have gone up in the past quarter. So, sales are up, average prices are up, and profits are way up. Meanwhile, mining profits are dropping, so hopefully that combined with increased supply will result in lower prices. But we're months away from that happening, at best.

 

[CodgerFace]

And as we reported elsewhere

Have you heard any official word (from any of the big three) on if the Cost of Goods for each unit has gone up due to upstream constraints and increased prices on parts/materials? I'm assuming it had to, right?
Thanks

 

[spongiemaster]

The official word is that the 3070 and 3080 will remain in production. The new GPUs are just coming from binned chips that were planned from the beginning to exist, so the 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti don't inherently reduce the number of other cards being produced. Of course the 3080 Ti chips could have been down-binned and sold as 3080, and 3070 Ti could have been sold as 3070 — at lower prices — but it's not like Nvidia decided to create these new parts on the spur of the moment.

Are the 3080 and 3070 going to (or already have) switched to the LHR revision, or is there no LHR revision of the silicon? Then the Ti's would be binned. We will have to see where prices for these cards stabilize and if the LHR models end up closer to MSRP than the unlimited versions. If the hash rate limiter brings the 2nd hand market for the 3070Ti in line or lower than the unlimited 3070 ($1200+ right now), then from a gamer's perspective, what's the point of the 3070?

 

[artk2219]

Just over 30% higher power consumption for a 7-ish% gain in performance?

Even if it were normal times, that seems pretty atrocious.

Thats because it is :-/, that power draw reminds me of Vega honestly. Vega was actually a pretty efficient architecture at lower speeds, but when it started chasing the crown it became a power hog, you could downclock a Vega 64 5% and save 30% in power. There is a reason that all of AMD's most recent APU's are still vega based though.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Have you heard any official word (from any of the big three) on if the Cost of Goods for each unit has gone up due to upstream constraints and increased prices on parts/materials? I'm assuming it had to, right?
Thanks

I don't know that we have anything on the record, but yeah, general sentiment is that it has become more expensive in the face of various shortages to produce a lot of tech products. Again, we hope with the vaccines and other things in place that the shortages of components and substrates and such will become less of a factor and that eventually supply will increase and prices will drop. But I suspect it will be a lot like when the cost of crude oil goes up 10% and suddenly gas prices jump 50%, and then when the price goes back down a month later it still takes 4-6 months for the prices of gas to go down. I do not have a lot of 'faith' in the various businesses involved in creating a lot of these products (GPUs, SSDs, RAM, HDDs, etc.) to self-regulate very well.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Are the 3080 and 3070 going to (or already have) switched to the LHR revision, or is there no LHR revision of the silicon? Then the Ti's would be binned. We will have to see where prices for these cards stabilize and if the LHR models end up closer to MSRP than the unlimited versions. If the hash rate limiter brings the 2nd hand market for the 3070Ti in line or lower than the unlimited 3070 ($1200+ right now), then from a gamer's perspective, what's the point of the 3070?

Yes, and while we don't have absolute certainty on the timeline for this, the non-LHR 3080 and 3070 are being phased out and they'll be replaced by the LHR versions. I asked an Nvidia rep about this and was told that this is definitely happening, presumably sooner than later. (Not like there's any unsold inventory of non-LHR parts in the pipeline.) I believe the LHR stuff is all in the firmware or whatever, not in the actual GPU silicon itself, but that may be incorrect. I sort of wonder if the non-LHR variants of 3080/3090 cards are going to shoot up in pricing on eBay now.