ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1070 OC Graphics Card Review

John Williamson / 8 years ago

Final Thoughts

Price

At the time of writing, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1070 OC can be acquired for £459.98 from Novatech in the UK. Evidently, this is one of the most expensive GTX 1070 models which makes you question the product’s value proposition. For example, the Inno3D GTX 1070 HerculeZ Twin X2 costs a mere £379.99 although this isn’t really a fair comparison due to significantly lower factory overclock. The real competition stems from the Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1070 which consistently outperforms the ASUS card while costing much less. In fact, the current retail price for this version is £406.98.

As a result, I’m perplexed by the strange pricing and cannot understand why the Palit card doesn’t have a major premium attached to it. I mention this because it features a better boost clock than the MSI Gaming X GTX 1070, Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1070 and the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1070 OC. Perhaps the hefty 2.5 slot construction isn’t as alluring as other cards sporting a more manageable profile. Honestly, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1070 OC is a premium product but it’s struggling to justify the extra cost over other variants of the GTX 1070.

Overview

Even though the GTX 1070 is comprehensively beaten by its bigger brother, the performance remains impressive and consistently challenges the GTX 980Ti. Of course, NVIDIA originally launched the Pascal architecture and set an attractive price point for GTX 1070 which never came to fruition. It appears AIB partners didn’t follow the recommended pricing strategy and that’s to be expected given the higher factory overclocks and more effective cooling solutions. I’m still baffled by the notion that the Founders Editions are meant to cost more than custom models. Sadly, this confusion along with the lack of stock has made the buying process really frustrating for the end-user. Unlike the GTX 1080’s spellbinding price point, the GTX 1070 is reasonably affordable although many consumers will strongly dislike the price hike compared to the GTX 970.

Putting my own qualms about the current pricing strategy aside, the GTX 1070 is a wonderful product and ASUS’ version exudes such a premium feel. More specifically, the PCB’s brilliant layout consists of a 6+1 phase power design and concrete alloy chokes. Not only that, the capacitors have 2.5 times longer lifespan than traditional capacitors and the POSCAP positioned at the back of the GPU enhances overclocking headroom. On another note, the DrMOS decreases temperatures by 20%.

ASUS’ cooling solution is a thing is beauty and revolves around 5 ridiculously thick heat-pipes, a dense aluminium fin array and three patented Wing-Blade fans. These fans offer a magnificent noise to performance ratio without impacting on thermal efficiency. Throughout the testing procedure, the graphics card remained extremely quiet under load and it was difficult to detect any volume increases. This is due to the fans working independently and employing a gentle curve. Of course, the fans switch off in idle usage scenarios which contribute to a silent desktop experience. Overall, the graphics card’s noise levels are surprisingly low for a triple fan configuration.

On another note, the GPU doesn’t get very warm when stressed and easily defeated a wide range of competing products in this department. From a visuals standpoint, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1070 OC is a masterpiece and I adore the sophisticated matte black shroud and distinctive cut-outs for the Aura lighting system. Furthermore, the backplate is stunning and comes into its own once the ROG logo cycles through a wide range of rich, vibrant colours. The product’s aesthetic is based on a neutral theme but the lighting effects allow the end-user to enjoy a more ostentatious appearance.

The graphics card outputs laudable frame-rates in a wide range of demanding titles and should be suitable for resolutions up to 3440×1440. While it’s possible to pair the graphics card with a 4K display, it requires some concessions in the options menu. When using a 1920×1080 or 2560×1440 panel, the average frame-rate is usually above 60. The only exception to this rule is Ashes of the Singularity which poses a huge problem even for high-end GPUs. Unfortunately, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1070 OC cannot outperform the Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1070 and falls behind in every single test. The difference isn’t substantial enough to create a different user-experience but it’s something to take into consideration. If you can overlook the slight performance difference and prefer the ASUS’ two-slot design, then it might be the better option.

In terms of overclocking, the graphics card struggles to go beyond the OC mode’s 1860MHz boost and I could only increase this number to 1878MHz with the maximum voltage. Thankfully, the memory overclocked really well and peaked at 8488MHz. To be perfectly clear, Pascal doesn’t have much overclocking headroom so it can be an irritating process if you have high expectations. Prior to the overclock, the boost clock didn’t reach 2000MHz. However, the manual overclock brought the average boost clock reading to 2021.7MHz. Once the overclock was applied, the performance was superb and made the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1070 defeat its closest rival for the very first time. Also, when you consider the Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1070 has almost no overclocking ability, both of the cards are evenly matched. However, you will need to overclock the ASUS model to narrow the gap.

Pros

Astounding build quality
Beautiful aesthetic
Bundled with 1-year XSplit License
Dual HDMI is great for VR
Excellent memory overclocking
Gorgeous RGB illumination
Highly efficient
Premium 6+1 power delivery
Superb overclocked performance
Three-year warranty
Unbelievably quiet
Wonderful temperatures

Cons

Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1070 performs better and costs less

“The ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1070 is engineered to a phenomenal standard and performs admirably due to the impressive factory overclock. Additionally, it’s ridiculously quiet, really efficient and looks absolutely stunning.”

Editors-Choice