Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC Graphics Card Review – Justified Premium

Nvidia is off to a good start of the year with raving reviews of its RTX 4070 SUPER GPU thanks to a good blend between performance and price, displacing the RTX 4070 and last year’s RTX 3090 in a much more power-efficient package. Today, the embargo for OC models of the RTX 4070 SUPER finally lifts and we have the Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC to see how higher clock speeds translates to higher framerates.

Nvidia RTX 40 SERIES SPECS

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER

The Nvidia RTX 4070 SUPER has the same $599 launch price as its non-SUPER counterpart, meaning that we’re getting an upgrade in terms of specs and of course, performance. The RTX 4070 SUPER gets a 20% increase in CUDA, RT, and Tensor core count resulting in 10% higher TGP from 200W on the RTX 4070 to 220W on the RTX 4070 SUPER. Nvidia also managed to increase the boost clock, albeit minimal to 2480 MHz from 2470 MHz but considering the higher core count, it’s still a welcomed improvement.

Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC – Unboxing and Overview

Our recently reviewed RTX 4070 SUPER GPUs had darker shade packaging to distinguish the new SUPER cars from non-super ones. Gigabyte, on the other hand, decided not to implement it on their packaging. So, a consumer should look clearly at the box label and see the SUPER name printed if they want a SUPER series card.

The Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC uses the latest Windforce Cooling System featuring three 90mm fans. The Gaming OC shroud has an all-black design except for the Gigabyte text on the fans, making it easy to pair for those aiming for a themed PC build.

Contrasting the all-black design is a gray finish on the full-length backplate of the Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPEr Gaming OC. There’s a cutout where the PCB ends that’s slightly bigger than the 90mm fan to allow for a nonobstructed airflow.

The side of the graphics card shows where the gray and the black meet which rounds up the design. The side of the RTX 4070 SUPER gaming OC isn’t fully covered exposing the heatsink fins as well as the 8 composite copper heat pipes.

The Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC has a BIOS selector switch next to the 12VHPWR connector. It’s nice to see the BIOS switch for a mid-tier GPU as the feature is usually exclusive to each brand’s flagship variants. The switch is set to “OC” out-of-the-box and is what we will be testing in this review.

The 12VHPWR connector has an LED indicator light on the PCB to indicate any power supply abnormality. The light is turned off when the cable is connected properly and there’s no problem with the PSU power. The LED will turn on if the cable is disconnected and the LED will BLINK if there’s any abnormality in power – whether it be a loose connector or if there’s something at fault with your PSU. This a feature that’s usually exclusive to flagship models such as the MASTER so it’s nice to see it implemented in non-Aorus branded GPUs.

The Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC sports your standard port configuration which is one HDMI 2.1a port and three Display Port 1.4a ports.

The Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC is by far our largest RTX 4070 SUPER GPU measuring 300mm x 130mm 57.6mm. It’s a 2.5-slot card so you may have to check for your chassis’ clearance, especially those rocking an SFF rig.

Not only the Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC is our first SUPER OC card but it’s also the first one to sport RGB lighting. The Gigabyte logo on the side and the three 90mm fans support Gigabyte’s RGB Halo lighting which can be customized via the Gigabyte Control Center software. By default, the fan lighting’s brightness and intensity will scale with the fan speed.

Benchmark Setup and Test Methodology

Gadget Pilipinas’ testing philosophy is to provide detail-oriented results as accurately as possible so that our readers can replicate our tests given that these conditions are met. Different benchmarking apps and sequences are used depending on the component or device being tested.

We use CapFrameX 1.7.2 Beta as our primary FPS capture and analysis tool for all our gaming benchmarks. The latest build version of Windows 11 Pro and WHQL-certified drivers are used for our benchmarks. Readings such as temperatures and power draws are recorded using HWINFO64, and other relevant software for cross-checking.

For more information read our Benchmark Methodology article.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Founders Edition Synthetic and Productivity Benchmarks

3DMark Firestrike and TimeSpy

3DMark is the go-to benchmark for gamers because of the ability to share and compare results online. We test GPUs both in DX11 Firestike and DX12 Timespy to get a gauge of the performance.

Blender

Blender is a widely used, free, open-source 3D creation suite. It supports the whole 3D pipeline process from modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, and even motion tracking. Blender has become a standard for CPU benchmarks with the BMW27 and Classroom Scene most used. This prompted the company to release Blender Open Data Benchmark in 2018, a benchmark-specific version allowing users to run a preset benchmark and share the results online like 3DMark.

VRAY 5

V-Ray Benchmark is a stand-alone version of V-Ray developed by Chaos Group. It is designed to test the CPU and GPU by rendering sample scenes at a fixed amount of time. V-Ray is a plug-in mostly utilized by 3D computer graphics software applications mainly for industrial design, product design, architecture, film, and video game production. V-Ray is not limited to 64-threads as it supports multi and mega-threading. 

GeekBench 6.2.2

Geekbench is a multi-platform benchmark used to gauge CPU performance and compare them across Windows, Mac, and Mobile. Geekbench 6 is the latest version and test are done in both OpenCL and Vulkan to gauge a CPU’s compute performance.

CINEBENCH 2024

Maxon’s Cinebench benchmark is one of the most iconic benchmark applications used by reviewers and enthusiasts. The latest Cinebench 2024 now supports GPU rendering benchmarks which is why added Cinebench 2024 in our GPU benchmark suite.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Founders Edition Benchmarks

RETURNAL

Returnal is one of the most technologically advanced game since the launch of Cyberpunk 2077. Released last April 2021 on PS5 and February 2023 on PC, it uses Unreal Engine 4 and supports multiple technologies such as Ray Tracing, DLSS, VSR, and FSR.

COUNTERSTRIKE 2

CounterStrike 2 or CS2 is a the successor to the now retired CSGO and now uses the Source 2 Engine – the same engine used on DOTA 2. CS2 is a great FPS game to test out CPU performance. Our benchmark process uses a the replay function of the game.

DOTA 2

Dota 2 is a good repesentation among F2P titles especially MOBAs and RTS as it lands on the demanding side of the spectrum. Its gameplay and quality of life updates are far more frequent than most F2P titles thanks to its vast popularity. Our benchmark sequence is based on a replay of OG vs. Gaimin Gladiators in the ESL ONE Berlin Major Finals Game 4 from the team fight that happened from 23:00 to 24:00. 

SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales was developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony is one of the most popular PC port titles last 2022. It’s one of the few modern game titles that support upscaling technologies FSR, DLSS, and XeSS making it a great title to use for benchmarks.

F1 23

F1 23 is the official video game of the 2023 Formula One and Formula 2 championships developed by Codemasters. F1 2023 is the sixteenth installment in the franchise and uses the Ego Engine 4.0. F1 233 is a good representation of racing games thanks to its realistic graphics and fairly demanding spec requirements as well as support for Ray Tracing and the latest upscaling technologies such as DLSS, XeSS, and FSR.

ASSASSIN’S CREED: MIRAGE

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the latest Assassin’s Creed game from Ubisoft making it the thirteenth major installment in the franchise. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 game engine and is the very first AC game to support the latest upscaling technology such as XeSS, FSR, and DLSS.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is arguably the most hyped game of 2020. Developed by CD Projekt Red, the dystopian open-world, action-adventure RPG sports is one of the most demanding titles to date. Cyberpunk 2077 also supports three Ray Tracing settings as well as DLSS which makes the game a great tool to measure Ray tracing performance for both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards.

CALL OF DUTY MODERN WARFARE

The latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise is a sequel to the much-loved Modern Warfare game that launched in 2019. Call of Duty Modern Warfare II is one of the most demanding titles to date, pushing the latest hardware from Intel, AMD, and Nvidia. CODMW2 is one of the few games that comes with the DLSS feature without Ray Tracing.

Far Cry 6

FarCry 6 is an FPS game published by Ubisoft and uses the Dunia engine. It heavily relies on and takes advantage of DirectX 12 to render a realistic environment that makes it taxing to both the CPU and GPU. It’s also the first game of the franchise to support Ray Tracing.

Rainbow Six Siege

Rainbow Six Seige is one of the few popular AAA games that’s still popular in 2021 due to its competitive gameplay mechanics. R6S uses the AnvilNext game engine, which the game’s publisher, Ubisoft, developed. As of writing, Rainbow Six Siege is currently the most popular Tom Clancy title beating out Wildlands, Breakpoint, and even Division 2.

Shadow of The Tomb Raider

Shadow of The Tomb Raider or SOTR is the latest installment of the Lara Croft Tomb Raider franchise. Developed by Square Enix, SOTR uses the Foundation engine and is further enhanced by Eidos Montreal. SOTR is also one of the first games to come out with Ray Tracing and DLSS support.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus is the third Metro game trilogy based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novels. The game is a first-person shooter with survival horror and stealth elements. The post-apocalyptic game uses 4A Engine by 4A games. Released last 2019, Metro Exodus remains to be one of the most graphically pleasing and demanding games that’s popular to date.

HORIZON ZERO DAWN

Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the most popular console-port RPG developed by Guerilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Horizon Zero Dawn is a multi-award-winning action RPG, and its popularity resulted in an exclusive Complete Edition game bundle on Steam.

Nvidia RTX 4070 FE Temperatures and Power Draw

A larger footprint isn’t just for show as the Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC is our coolest GPU in our 2024 test suite with only a 28.3°C idle temp. Moving to peak temperatures, we only recorded a peak temp of 65.5°C under load even beating the lower-powered RTX 4060 Ti FE.

A peak power draw was recorded at 220.531 showing nothing out othe ordinary and well within Nvidia’s 220W TGP spec.

Performance Summary Conclusion

The Gigabyte RTX 4070 Gaming SUPER performs what you would expect an OC card to be – beating reference slash MSRP cards in terms of performance and cooling. On the performance side, it’s quite daunting to see that it doesn’t top the average framerates among our RTX 4070 SUPER stack but it does make up for having higher 1% lows resulting in a much more stable gameplay experience. Its large form factor definitely makes up for the cooling capacity it brings to the table as it only peaked at a mere 65.5°C in our testing.

What seals the deal for the Gigabyte RTX 4070 Gaming SUPER is its feature set namely the power indicator, BIOS switch, and robust build quality as these features are more commonly found on flagship GPU tiers. You’re essentially getting an AORUS GPU without the fancy branding and gamer aesthetic. That said, these features come at a price, specifically at Php 43,780. The Php 2,190 premium over the MSRP goes to the extra cooling through a larger heatsink and one more extra fan which improves performance with a sprinkle of the aforementioned premium features.

All in all, the Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC justifies its premium price tag by not only having a higher clock speed over MSRP but also in performance, cooling, build quality, and feature set. At a mere Php 2,190 premium, you’re getting a well-rounded upgrade that’s simply irresistible if you have the budget to spare. So, if you’re looking for an RTX 4070 Super that checks the trifecta of performance, cooling, and price without “gaming brand tax” then the Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC is our recommended GPU.

Grant Soriano

Website

Grant is a Financial Management graduate from UST. His passion for gadgets and tech crossed him over in the industry where he could apply his knowledge as an enthusiast and in-depth analytic skills as a Finance Major. His passion allows him to earn at the same time help Gadget Pilipinas' readers in making smart, value-based decisions and purchases with his reviews and guides.