Review and Testing of the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GAMING OC Graphics Card

Written by mxshow2000 on 17 January 2024. Posted in Test Video Cards

In the upcoming article, we will dive into the world of high-tech, testing one of the most exciting offerings on the graphics card market - the 4070 Super graphics card, courtesy of ARTLINE. This review is intended for those who seek to understand the latest innovations in the field of graphics processing and want to evaluate the potential of this model in modern gaming and professional applications.

ARTLINE, known for its wide range of computer hardware, introduces the 4070 Super graphics card as part of its extensive catalog of over 5,000 computer models - from basic workstations to high-end custom PCs . The article will highlight the detailed architecture of the 4070 Super, its key characteristics, including performance, energy efficiency and cooling system.

We'll also look at how the latest technologies included in the 4070 Super meet the needs of today's gamers and professionals, as well as how they compare to current graphics card market trends. At ARTLINE you can buy a gaming video card for every taste from RTX 3050 to RTX 4090.

This review promises to be not only informative, but also extremely useful for those who are considering purchasing a 4070 Super and want to be as conscious as possible when choosing their next graphics accelerator.

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS

This subsection of our review highlights the main aspects of the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GAMING OC, such as appearance and hardware configuration.

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS

GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GAMING OC is now available in standard SUPER GAMING packaging. This model is an improved version of previous graphics cards from GIGABYTE and is built on the new NVIDIA RTX 4070 SUPER GPU.

GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GAMING OC has high core and memory frequencies, as well as an efficient cooling system. It also boasts additional features such as RGB lighting and customizable performance settings via dedicated software.

The GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GAMING OC video card comes with a power adapter designed for easy connection to the video card and connecting two 8-pin power connectors to one 12-pin connector on the video card itself.

This video card occupies 2.5 PCI-E slots in the system unit, which may require free space in the case, especially next to the PCI-E slot to which it connects, and affect the ability to install other expansion cards in adjacent slots. However, this slot size provides a more efficient cooling system, increasing the performance and stability of the video card.

On the side of the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GAMING OC there is a 12-pin power connector.

The BIOS switch for selecting the operating mode (between quiet and OC) is located on the back of the board.

The video card is also equipped with four video outputs, including one HDMI and three DisplayPorts, which provides the ability to connect a variety of monitors and devices.

In addition, GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GAMING OC is equipped with a metal plate on the back side, which enhances the rigidity of the video card and protects it from bending during use. A cutout in the metal plate provides better airflow through the radiators, which helps reduce the operating temperature of the video card.

ARCHITECTURE

4060s

The GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is based on the AD104 GPU and features 7,168 CUDA Cores, delivering 36 FP32 Shader-TFLOPS of rendering power for traditional rasterized graphics, 224 4th Gen Tensor Cores offering 568 sparsity-aware AI TOPS for AI processing and DLSS technology, 56 third-generation Ada RT cores capable of 82 RT-TFLOPS to support next-generation ray-traced graphics, 12 GB GDDR6X memory and 48 MB L2 cache. Like all GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs, the RTX 4070 SUPER is full of Ada innovations including Shader Execution Reordering (SER), new RT cores, and DLSS 3.5, while offering the best combination of performance and power efficiency.

The GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER powers the latest games and is at the center of modern AI-enabled PCs. PC gamers demand the best visual quality, and Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) Super Resolution, Frame Generation and Ray Reconstruction technologies, powered by NVIDIA AI, combine with ray tracing to deliver stunning worlds in games like Alan Wake 2, Diablo IV , Pax Dei and Horizon Forbidden West. With DLSS, seven out of eight pixels can be generated by hardware-accelerated AI, increasing full ray tracing performance by up to 4 times with better image quality. The GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is an amazing upgrade. The RTX 4070 SUPER supports over 500 RTX-enabled games and apps already available and will prepare users for the wave of generative AI applications coming to PC. The GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is designed to meet these needs. Technological innovations of the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture include:

New Streaming Multiprocessors (SM) - New SMs provide up to 2x performance and power efficiency.
4th Generation Tensor Cores and Optical Flow - Enable and accelerate transformational AI technologies, including new NVIDIA DLSS 3 frame augmentation technology.
3rd Generation RT Cores - Up to 2x ray tracing performance, creating incredibly detailed virtual worlds like never before.
Innovative Ada Memory Subsystem - Ada provides a significant increase in L2 cache, delivering better performance, reduced memory traffic, and improved power efficiency.
Shader Execution Ordering (SER) - SER improves ray tracing operations by up to 2x.

Features of the NVIDIA Ada architecture include a new shader execution engine (Shader Execution Reordering (SER), new RT cores and an improved version of DLSS, making the RTX 4070 an excellent solution for games at any graphics level.

The GeForce RTX 4070 GPU is ideal for content creation and delivers extreme gaming performance. The RTX experience is accelerated in top content creation applications, along with NVIDIA Studio drivers designed for maximum stability. In addition, exclusive tools are available that leverage the power of RTX to accelerate creative processes using artificial intelligence.

NVIDIA Ada Streaming Multiprocessor

The RTX GPU has three main processors: a programmable shader that was introduced almost 20 years ago, RT cores for accelerating ray and triangle intersections, and an artificial intelligence processing pipeline called Tensor Cores.

The Ada architecture improves all three RTX processors:

Programmable Shader: 29 Shader-TFLOPS, compared to 22 TFLOPS on the RTX 3070 Ti. SM Ada includes new Shader Execution Reordering (SER) technology, which redistributes tasks on the fly, doubling the speed of ray tracing shaders. SER is as significant an innovation for GPUs as out-of-order execution has become for CPUs.
4th Generation Tensor Cores: New Tensor Cores in Ada include the NVIDIA Hopper FP8 Transformer engine, which delivers over 466 tensor terraflops with sparsity in the RTX 4070 for AI workloads. This is double the 174 tensor terraflops of the RTX 3070 Ti. Compared to FP16, FP8 reduces storage requirements and doubles AI performance.
3rd Generation RT Cores: New Opacity Micromap Engine speeds up alpha-tested geometry ray tracing by 2x, and new Micro-Mesh Engine allows additional geometry to be created on the fly, allowing for increased geometric complexity without the expense of building and storing BVH . Ray-triangle intersection performance on Ada reaches 67 RT-TFLOPS, compared to 42 RT-TFLOPS on the RTX 3070 Ti.

4th Generation Tensor Cores

Tensor cores are high-performance computing cores specialized in matrix multiplication and accumulation that are used in artificial intelligence and high-performance computing applications. Tensor cores provide breakthrough performance for matrix computations, which are critical for training and inference of deep learning neural networks. Example output applications include NVIDIA DLSS 2.1 technology for gamers, which introduced a new 9x upscaling mode with 1440p internal rendering and upscaling to 8K resolution. In addition, many creative applications have begun to use artificial intelligence features to speed up the work of artists. NVIDIA Broadcast also offers tools for noise removal, virtual backgrounds, and other capabilities for video broadcasting and video conferencing.

The fourth-generation Tensor Cores of the Ada architecture build on the capabilities of previous Ampere GPUs, which supported many new data types and introduced sparsity that doubles the throughput of Tensor Cores compared to Turing Tensor Cores. The fourth generation Ada Tensor Cores support the new FP8 data format, which was first introduced in the NVIDIA Hopper GPU architecture. Compared with FP16, FP8 data format reduces data storage requirements and doubles AI performance. With the new FP8 format and sparsity feature, the GeForce RTX 4070 delivers 466 terraflops of performance for AI inference workloads.

3rd generation RT cores

The third generation of RT cores in the Ada architecture are specialized hardware units for accelerating BVH traversal and performing ray and triangle intersection calculations, which are critical to accelerating ray tracing.

RT cores free up the resources of programmable SM shader cores, allowing them to perform other pixel, vertex, and computation tasks. Ada's RT cores enable ray and triangle intersection testing acceleration up to 2x faster than Ampere GPUs, allowing developers to add more detail to their virtual worlds. The Ada architecture also features the Opacity Micromap Engine, which speeds up ray tracing of alpha-tested geometries by a factor of 2, and the Micro-Mesh Engine, which generates micro-meshes on the fly to generate additional geometry, allowing for increased geometric complexity without the cost of BVH creation and storage.

AV1 video encoding

The GeForce RTX 4070 offers hardware support for video encoding using the AV1 codec. AV1 provides improved image quality at the same bitrates as H.265/H.264, which is a big advantage for game streaming. When using AV1, users can achieve the same image quality with lower bitrates, resulting in smaller file sizes and faster loading videos. Ada's AV1 encoder is 40% more efficient than Ampere's H.264 encoder.

So, with advanced technologies and Ada architecture, GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GAMING OC is an excellent choice for content creation professionals and gamers who demand high performance and visual quality. With support for the latest technologies such as ray tracing, DLSS and AV1, the RTX 4070 delivers superior visual quality and performance in today's and tomorrow's games and applications.

WindForce TECHNOLOGIES

The WindForce cooling system is a true technological masterpiece, combining a number of innovative solutions to provide the highest efficiency in heat dissipation. The sleek design of the system features three powerful 100mm fans with unique blades that rotate alternately to create optimal air movement and minimize noise.

The sharply angled edge of the fan blades creates a triangular airflow, harmoniously directed through the elegant 3D stripe on the surface of the fan. This provides soft and smooth air movement, reducing vibration and noise.

The use of graphene nanolubricant in fan sliding bearings makes it possible to increase the service life by 2.1 times, bringing it closer to the service life of a double ball bearing. Thanks to this, the WindForce cooling system is highly reliable and quiet in operation.

The system is based on a steam chamber in direct contact with the GPU. Together with seven integral copper heatpipes, it quickly and efficiently transfers heat from the GPU and VRAM to the heatsink, ensuring the ideal temperature for stable operation of components.

Seasoned with a sophisticated visual design, the WindForce cooling system is equipped with the legendary RGB Fusion three-ring lighting. With its help, you can create a unique atmosphere around your computer by selecting the most vibrant and mesmerizing lighting effects or synchronizing them with other devices via Gigabyte Control Center.

As a result, the WindForce cooling system is the perfect combination of technical innovation, efficiency and sleek design, becoming an integral part of a powerful and stylish gaming PC.

HEATING AND POWER CONSUMPTION

Energy efficiency testing of the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GAMING OC video card was carried out in an assembly that included an Intel Core i9 14900K processor and an Asus Z790Pro WIFI motherboard, mounted in a closed DeepCool CH510 WH case.

As a result of tests performed using the FurMark program, the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GAMING OC video card showed excellent thermal efficiency and energy efficiency. At full load, the device reached a maximum temperature of 58 degrees Celsius, while its power consumption was 220 watts.

TEST PART

Test configuration
Test benches	Asus Z790Pro WIFI 32 GB DDR5 7200@7800 CL30 KingstonFURY Renegade Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD Case DeepCool CH510 WH
Multimedia equipment	Monitor Philips 326M6VJRMB/00 Power supply TUF Gaming 1000W Gold
Software configuration
operating system	Windows 10 21H2/ Windows 11(Alder Lake)
Graphics driver	Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 546.52 WHQL
Monitoring programs	MSI Afterburner

GAMES

All games were taken at the discretion of the editors, from the point of view of why this new product could be purchased now. We haven’t taken synthetics seriously for a long time; we’re only interested in games:

Hogwarts Legacy