ASUS RTX 5070 TUF OC Review
Conclusion
Conclusion
It’s been frustrating for all of us. People looking to buy a new graphics card are met with empty shelves. If you do manage to hit the jackpot and find a place with stock, the price is miles above the listed MSRP. For us we’ve been reviewing cards based on the belief, in good faith, that the price we’ve been told will be the actual one on the street. Now where are we?
Looking at the ASUS RTX 5070 TUF OC – and we hasten to add this just happens to be the model we have in stock, these comments aren’t directed at ASUS specifically but the Nvidia market in general – it’s nearly impossible to draw any conclusions. We used to be able to sit here and tell you how good the product itself was, and then how good it fit into the market segment assigned to it. For example, the Intel Core i9-14900KS is absolutely incredible, but total overkill for 90% of the population for whom the Core i5-14600K is more than enough and the Core i7-14700K sits in the price/performance sweet spot. With this card, and all recent Nvidia launches, we’ve no idea how much money it will actually cost, and if any are available.
The ASUS RTX 5070 TUF OC Itself
So let’s look at the ASUS RTX 5070 TUF OC in a vacuum. The bits of it ASUS can control, the cooler and robust build quality, are exceptional. The TUF range has never threatened to be as aesthetically gaudy as the ROG line-up, but the simplicity of form and function are always attractive to us. We like aesthetics as much as the next person, but in hardware terms if there are only two options we’d always take fast and boring over slow and pretty. Obviously we’d like fast and pretty, but that’s the ROG range and the price tag for those is well known. The TUF setup is all performance, but with good enough elements in the other departments. All the bits within ASUS control get a big tick.
Hey Nvidia…
The performance of the RTX 5070 is more opaque. There isn’t a RTX 5090 or 5080 Ti card, so why was the 5070 Ti available? Especially when this feels more like a RTX 5060 in performance terms. There is a big gap between this and the Ti version. Usually you can see FPS gaps in percentage terms, and either the Ti doesn’t fit, or this doesn’t. We know that as you get cheaper you lose performance, but the drop off from the RTX 5070 Ti to this card is significant. That’s okay if the price gap is similarly huge. Not everyone can afford high end cards. But we already know the RTX 5070 Ti isn’t remotely on the streets for the claimed price, so we’ve no idea at all if this is going to be relatively expensive or a comparative bargain.
Not a Scooby. If we assume you’re going to struggle to find one and when you do it’ll be expensive – AKA all the Blackwell cards up to now – then we’d rather struggle to find and get price-gouged for the better card. The Ti for example. At least the post-purchase performance will be pleasant. Heck if you’re that desperate for a new GPU then there must be some RTX 4070s for an affordable entry cost and actually in stock.
Again, we’re not casting aspersions on the ASUS TUF. They have, as always, produced a card that performs as good as it can, and is kept frosty and quiet in use. They can do no more. If this hits shelves at an MSRP justified by the performance, the TUF would be an excellent choice. Nvidia though, really need to get their house in order.
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