Our Verdict
79%
A bit overpriced, but this mid-range GPU offers the best balance of shader and ray-tracing performance for 2,560 x 1,440 gaming.
In a magical fantasy world where you can easily pick up the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition at its standard retail price of $599 / £529, this gaming GPU would already be asking a lot from mid-range gamers. We’re so used to outlandish eBay pricing, we sometimes forget that $600 is more than most people pay for a graphics card.
In the current climate, though, you’re realistically looking at paying at least $620 / £620 for a partner card. On the plus side, the RTX 3070 Ti looks set to give you ray tracing in games at 1440p, at least with DLSS enabled, while not demanding the extreme sums of money as Nvidia’s top-end GPUs.
At Custom PC, we’ve been reviewing the latest gaming GPUs since 2003, and we run a number of grueling benchmarks in order to gauge performance. Our game tests include measuring the frame rate in Cyberpunk 2077 and Metro Exodus, with and without ray tracing, and we also test with Doom Eternal and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. For more information, please read our How we test page.
If we look at the Nvidia store pricing, the RTX 3070 Ti only costs $100 / £60 more than the RTX 3070, which seems about right for its small bump in spec. Unlike the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, which adds 1536 CUDA cores to the GeForce RTX 3080 spec, the 3070 Ti only adds 256 CUDA cores to the RTX 3070’s 5888, giving you 6144 of them.
The RTX 3070 Ti basically has a fully enabled GA104 GPU, with all of its 48 streaming multiprocessors (SMs) intact, giving you 48 corresponding RT cores. Comparatively, the vanilla GeForce RTX 3070 has two SMs disabled. It’s not a huge difference when it comes to core spec. The only other differences are clock speeds, with the 3070 Ti having a 1770 MHz boost clock, compared to 1725 MHz on the 3070.
The 3070 Ti also has faster memory, with its GDDR6X memory running at 1188 MHz (19 GHz effective), while the 3070’s memory runs at 1750 MHz, but because it’s only GDDR6, this gives it an effective frequency of 14 GHz. The end result is a decent step up in memory bandwidth on the Ti model, topping out at 608 GB/s compared to 448GB/s on the standard RTX 3070.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti performance
As you would imagine from the spec, the RTX 3070 Ti is a bit quicker than the standard RTX 3070, but not by a huge amount. Our game tests include measuring the frame rate in Cyberpunk 2077 and Metro Exodus, with and without ray tracing, and we also test with Doom Eternal and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti Metro Exodus frame rate
At this card’s target resolution of 2,560 x 1,440, the 3070 Ti adds 6fps to the 3070’s average frame rate in Metro Exodus at Ultra settings, but it’s still 15fps off the RTX 3080 with its GA102 GPU. Its 85fps average frame rate in this game is a great result, being a good 12fps ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT.
Enabling High ray tracing in Metro Exodus also showed the 3070 Ti in a good light (ho ho!), with its average frame rate of 68fps at 2,560 x 1,440 being 21fps ahead of the Radeon RX 6700 XT – add DLSS and this goes up to 76fps with a 44fps 99th percentile result.
Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti Cyberpunk 2077 frame rate
The RTX 3070 Ti also confidently beats the Radeon RX 6700 XT’s frame rate by 12fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at 2,560 x 1,440 using Ultra settings, with a decent 99th percentile result of 49fps.
Where the RTX 3070 Ti really rinses the Radeon RX 6700 XT, however, is when you enable ray tracing. The Radeon can’t even play Cyberpunk 2077 at 1,920 x 1,080 with Medium ray tracing, dropping right down to 25fps, but the 3070 Ti comfortably averages 57fps with a 49fps 99th percentile frame rate at these settings. If you enable DLSS, it will even average 68fps with a 55fps 99th percentile frame rate at 2,560 x 1,440 – a great result.
Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti Doom Eternal frame rate
The 3070 Ti also excelled in Doom Eternal, clocking up a superb average frame rate of 300fps at 2,560 x 1,440, with a 192fps 99th percentile result – easily fast enough to run high-speed titles in sync with a 144 Hz monitor. The 3070 Ti can also comfortably play this game at 4K, with its 159fps average beating the Radeon RX 6700 XT by 30fps.
Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti Assassin’s Creed Valhalla frame rate
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti lags behind the Radeon RX 6700 XT in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, but not by a huge amount – the AMD GPU’s frame rate is generally only around 3fps in front of the Nvidia card, and the latter even beats it at 4K. This game also responds well to enabling Resizable BAR if your motherboard supports it, adding another 5-6fps to the 3070 Ti’s frame rate at 2,560 x 1,440, giving you a fantastic average frame rate of 73fps.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti power draw
There’s one downside to having a fully enabled GA104 chip running at 1770 MHz, and that’s the power draw. Our test system drew 465W from the mains with the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti installed – that’s a good 98W more than with the Radeon RX 6700 XT fitted, and 69W more than with the RTX 3070. Ideally you’ll want to pair this GPU with at least a 650W PSU.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti pros and cons
Pros
- Confidently outperforms Radeon RX 6700 XT
- Ray tracing at 2,560 x 1,440 with DLSS
- Resizable BAR support
Cons
- Not much quicker than RTX 3070
- Price is still on the high side
- Comparatively high power draw
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti specs
The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti specs list is:
| Stream processors / CUDA cores: | 6144 |
| RT cores: | 48 (2nd-gen) |
| Tensor cores: | 192 (3rd-gen) |
| Base clock | 1575 MHz |
| Max boost clock: | 1770 MHz |
| Memory: | 8 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory clock: | 1188 MHz (19 GHz effective) |
| Memory bandwidth: | 608 GB/s |
| Memory interface: | 256-bit |
| Card interface: | 16x PCIe 4 |
| Power connectors: | 1 x 12-pin / 2 x 8-pin |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti price
The price of the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti isn’t cheap, and partner cards cost even more than the Founders Edition, but it does open up the world of ray tracing at 2,560 x 1,440.
Price: Expect to pay $620 USD / £620 GBP
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti review conclusion
While the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti isn’t much quicker than the standard RTX 3070, it justifies its small extra price premium, and it generally carves out a very comfortable lead over the Radeon RX 6700 XT – it isn’t even far behind the AMD chip in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which is an AMD stronghold.
If you’re prepared to pay around $600 for a GPU then the RTX 3070 Ti is significantly quicker than the Radeon RX 6700 XT in almost every test, while avoiding the seriously hefty premiums of RTX 80-series GPUs. For more gaming GPU options at a variety of prices, check out our best graphics card guide.