ASUS Strix RTX 4070 Ti Review

ASUS Strix RTX 4070 Ti Review

Conclusion

When we first saw some pre-release photos of the ASUS Strix RTX 4070 Ti it looked like they’d continued to do what they had with the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 cards. Namely, use the same cooler.

Indeed superficially the Strix RTX 4070 Ti is the same design, with the same backplate and side RGB. However, where it differs is the size and the amount of the PCB that’s covered in the heatsink. As you saw back on page two of this review the RTX 4070 Ti is smaller, and where the heatsink on the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 cards filled every space, this new card has significant gaps beneath that shroud. Thankfully, as we saw on the previous page, the cooling ability isn’t remotely affected by this. The RTX 4070 Ti is perfect if you are tired of cards running north of 80°C.

The RTX 4070 Ti dispenses with much of the things we’ve expected from the early part of a new Nvidia release. For a start it’s a Ti card at launch, which is already a strange state of affairs. Secondly it’s priced much closer to what you’d expect an x080 card to be. Part of that is the global financial crisis and part the natural inflation of life. But the other thing it breaks, spoiler alert, is the performance metric. This is a card that costs what the RTX 3080 did at launch, but performs like a RTX 3090 or even the 3090 Ti.

What probably amazes us the most is how close to the RTX 3090 Ti they are. When that card first appeared we didn’t imagine that it would so quickly be bested by the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090, let alone that the next card down in the range would equally match the flagship of the preceding generation. Normally you skip a gen before a card equalises to the flagship of the one before, but such has been the upgrade to the Tensor and RT cores on the Ada Lovelace architecture, and so good is DLSS 3, that the RTX 4070 Ti manages to make everyone who splashed out on the flagship model in the Ampere range will be left feeling a little sick. Only a little of course because if you could afford one when they launched, money is less of a problem than the rest of us. And it’s not like the RTX 3090 Ti has stopped being brilliant. It’s just now anyone who only dreamt of one but had RTX 3080 money can enjoy that level of performance thanks to the RTX 4070 Ti.

Whilst the model numbers and pricing might be somewhat confounding expectations, the Strix being so much more expensive (£1049) than the other models we have reviewed today makes awards a very difficult task. Yes you can get the same performance for less, but thats often the case. If you want one of the better looking and most definitely built cards to serve you well for years then we think that searching out a well priced one of these could slide into your all Asus build lovely. ROG Tax is what it is, you either want one bad enough or you sit on Facebook and moan about it. That said. We did hope it would have cost £949 /facepalm.

ASUS Strix RTX 4070 Ti Review  

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