Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1070 Graphics Card Review

Noise, Power Consumption and Temperatures

Noise

The graphics card features a 0dB idle mode which disables the fans whenever the temperatures stay under a certain threshold. According to the testing, this seems to be 50C. Honestly, the fans have a tendency to switch on and off quite often and I’m presuming this is down to a weird BIOS issue. Rest assured, I updated GPU to the latest version but this didn’t alter the fans’ behaviour. I wouldn’t be overly concerned because the fans rotate at low RPM values once the thermals stay between 50-55C.

Under load, the noise output increases exponentially and it’s quite common for the fans to spin over 2100RPM. This becomes irksome if you’re accustomed to other graphics cards with a more gentle fan curve. Hopefully, this is resolved in a BIOS tweak.

Power Consumption

The Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1070 is highly-efficient and consumes less than 270-watts when paired with a powerful X99 rig. This is an amazing feat when you consider the calibre of graphics performance on offer.

Temperatures

While the graphics card’s noise output is disappointing, the cooling system fares much better and can maintain a very respectable average load temperature of 66C. Granted, it’s not the best on record, but it’s cooler than the Palit GameRock Premium GTX 1070 which relies on a mammoth 3-slot design. The ability to defeat a number of larger cards without adopting a huge profile is a wonderful achievement.