Gigabyte RTX 4070 Windforce 12G OC Review

Conclusion

If you’ve come here straight from our review of the Nvidia Founders Edition RTX 4070 then you’ll already know the target audience for the latest addition to the Ada Lovelace range. If so, skip a paragraph whilst we bring everyone else up to speed.

The RTX 4070 sits somewhat in the middle of the Nvidia range of graphics cards. We’ve seen a lot of lower-end cards (everything being relative) that are designed for the gamers who stick with 1080P. We’ve also seen a tremendous number of cards at the very high end who are aimed at either those gamers who want to run at 4K all the time, or run at 1440P for the next five years without needing to turn down any settings. The RTX 4070, on the other hand, is specifically aimed at those who game in the sweet spot between visual fidelity and the affordable necessary to make the most of that resolution, 2560×1440. That isn’t to say, as you’ve seen from the preceding 20-odd pages, that the RTX 4070 can’t do 4K, it can just fine, busting over the 60FPS average frame rate even in a title such as Cyberpunk with everything turned on. Hitting this at a sub-£600 price point makes the RTX 4070 a very attractive proposition.

As for the Gigabyte RTX 4070 Windforce 12G OC specifically, it already surprised us by coming with their excellent triple-fan Windforce cooler in all its thin shroud, beefy heatsink glory, and added that to a mild factory overclock, and yet turns up at MSRP. If you’ve, like us, spent the last two or three years gnashing your teeth at the ludicrous cost of a new graphics card, assuming you could find one to buy in the first place, then you’ll appreciate that Gigabyte saw the opportunity to make a big statement and took it. A non-reference card for the same price as the Nvidia model. Hugely impressive stuff.

Performance is very much on a par with the Nvidia Founders Edition model, although if there is an extra frame or two to be gained then the Gigabyte card is the one that comes out on the sunny side of that comparison. It might only have an average boost clock of 50 MHz above the Nvidia model, but that’s still enough to just squeeze ahead. It might be a single degree warmer than the Nvidia card, but given that it’s still significantly below the 60°C mark, let alone the 80 or so we normally see, that’s something we’ll gladly accept for the opportunity to squeeze some extra speed out of the card.

We think that the 8pin PCIE able is definitely worthy of a recomendation here too. If youre just looking to buy a new GPU and not have to upgrade your psu or buy special cables and – like us – think all the bundled adapters look hidious then the Windforce model we have here today is absolutely perfect for you. Simple fit and forget upgrade to your existing system. 

If you’re in the market for a card that might eschew some of the fancy trick RGB lighting of more expensive models, but still gives you all the performance and excellent cooling you could hope to find at a price that is extremely attractive then the Gigabyte RTX 4070 Windforce 12G OC is more than worthy of a place on your shortlist, and wins our OC3D Approved Award.

   

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