Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition Review

Game Testing & Performance

Ashes of the Singularity

Planet by planet, a war is raging across the galaxy. The technological singularity has given humanity the power to expand further than they ever have before. Now, they compete with each other and their sentient artificial intelligence adversaries for control of newfound worlds.

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition does a great job in Ashes of the Singularity but falls in between the 2080 Super and 2080Ti at 4K.

 

Far Cry 5

Anything can happen. Everything will.

Welcome to Hope County, Montana, land of the free and the brave, but also home to a fanatical doomsday cult—known as The Project at Eden’s Gate—that is threatening the community’s freedom. Stand up to the cult’s leaders, Joseph Seed, and the Heralds, as you spark the fires of resistance that will liberate the besieged community.

We see slightly more linear scaling out of the 3070 than we did with the 3080 and 3090 cards, it doesn’t hit the CPU quite as hard, but 1080p still demands a good CPU to keep up with its high frame rate. Nvidia’s RTX 3070 Founders Edition stays just a touch ahead of the 2080Ti.

 

Far Cry New Dawn
Face off against the Highwaymen and their leaders, the Twins as you fight to survive in a post-apocalyptic frontier. Form unexpected alliances, build a deadly arsenal of makeshift weapons using the remnants of the old world.

New Dawn shows a similar pattern with great performance up through 4K, and the 3070 FE holding a slight edge over the 2080Ti.

 

Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Experience Lara Croft’s defining moment as she becomes the Tomb Raider. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara must master a deadly jungle, overcome terrifying tombs, and persevere through her darkest hour. As she races to save the world from a Maya apocalypse, Lara will ultimately be forged into the Tomb Raider she is destined to be.

Here yet again we find the 3070 Founders Edition holding a slight lead over the 2080Ti and maintains average 4K frame rates above 60 fps BEFORE you even turn on DLSS.

 

Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus is an epic, story-driven first-person shooter from 4A Games that blends deadly combat and stealth with exploration and survival horror in one of the most immersive game worlds ever created.

Metro Exodus runs really well fully maxed out at 1440p with RTX off and RTX+DLSS providing close to 60 FPS. 4K users may want to knock the eye candy down just a touch, with DLSS being important for those who want to use Ray Tracing.

 

Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
Originally created by legendary game designer Sid Meier, Civilization is a turn-based strategy game in which you attempt to build an empire to stand the test of time. Become Ruler of the World by establishing and leading a civilization from the Stone Age to the Information Age. Wage war, conduct diplomacy, advance your culture, and go head-to-head with history’s greatest leaders as you attempt to build the greatest civilization the world has ever known.

Civilization VI offers new ways to engage with your world: cities now physically expand across the map, active research in technology and culture unlocks new potential, and competing leaders will pursue their own agendas based on their historical traits as you race for one of five ways to achieve victory in the game.

Here yet again we see the RTX 3070 FE go toe to toe with the 2080Ti and come up pretty much in a draw.

 

Quake II RTX

Quake II RTX is a cutting-edge, ray-traced reimagining of id software’s old school classic, by NVIDIA’s Lightspeed Studios. Global lighting effects, including realistic reflections, refraction, shadows, ambient occlusion, and global illumination are a result of the path-traced simulation of light.

Quake 2 RTX at 4K comes in at 23 FPS, identical to the RTX 2080Ti.

 

 

Minecraft with RTX (Beta)

Minecraft with RTX brings fully path-traced rendering, physically-based materials, and NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 to Minecraft, delivering bleeding-edge visual fidelity and realism that can be experienced on all GeForce RTX GPUs.

At 4K with maximum chunk render distance, Minecraft RTX looks incredible and plays well on the 3070 Founders Edition with DLSS upscaling enabled. Raw Ray Tracing is faster than an RTX 2070 but less than an RTX 2080Ti. Once you add on DLSS, it flies ahead of both.