GIGABYTE GTX 1070 G1 Gaming Review

The GIGABYTE GTX 1070 G1 Gaming is a non reference factory overclocked graphics card. At its heart lies the GP104 GPU, featuring 1920 CUDA cores and a 1620 MHz core clock – a 114 MHz boost over the reference figures.

As far as feature set goes, the GTX 1070 G1 Gaming from GIGABYTE has triple 90mm 0dB compliant fans, aiding the Windforce 3 cooler which is equipped with dual copper heatpipes. Under those lies the non reference PCB housing the 6+2 power phase configuration of the card. Design wise, we are looking at a gaming oriented card – with RGB lighting, and agressive shroud design as the highlights. Learn more HERE.

MODEL	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 1080	GIGABYTE GTX1070 G1 GAMING
SHADER UNITS	1280	1920	2560	1920
ROPs	48	64	64	64
GPU	GP106	GP104	GP104	GP104
TRANSISTOR COUNT	4400M	7200M	7200M	7200M
MEMORY CAPACITY	6 GB	8 GB	8 GB	8 GB
MEMORY TYPE	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5X	GDDR5
MEMORY BUS WIDTH	192 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit
CORE CLOCK	1506 MHz+	1506 MHz+	1607 MHz+	1620 MHz+
MEMORY CLOCK	2002 MHz	2002 MHz	1251 MHz	2002 MHz
MSRP	$240	$360	$580	$446/ ₱22370

PACKAGING AND BUNDLED ACCESSORIES:

The  GTX 1070 G1 Gaming comes in a standard issued GIGABYTE packaging featuring all the bells and whistles of the card inside. The card is cradled snugly with a separate compartment for the accessories.

The card comes with barely anything. And by barely, we mean a quick installation guide and a software DVD. No novelties here so that’s a minus on my book.

THE GIGABYTE GTX 1070 G1 GAMING:

The card isn’t exactly gargantuan, featuring a dual slot design that houses triple 90mm fans. Length of the card is at 11 inches, and girth is at 4.4 inches. The shroud is made out of plastic material, with tangerine lines making up for the contrast.

The back features a simple yet edgy slate of brushed aluminum plate in black. It does look nice – providing a good balance over the gamer-esque shroud design.

According to GIGABYTE, the recommended PSU for this card is 500W. With the PCI-E power plus the 8-pin PEG connector, we are looking at 225W of maximum theoretical power draw. Looking at this side of the card also allows us see the GIGABYTE logo and the fan stop label. Both are RGB lighting compliant.

The card features triple fans, a dense array of heatsinks and a number of heatpipes to keep the GPU, its VRAM, and VRM cool. GIGABYTE calls this the WindForce 3X solution. The fans are also 0dB compliant.

This card comes with 3 x DisplayPort 1.4, an HDMI 2.0b port, and a single DL-DVI port for the display output.

THE GIGABYTE  XTREME Engine:

GIGABYTE supplied this card with the XTREME Engine utility. It is basically your go to solution to configure this card’s lighting and performance. You can use presets made by GIGABYTE, or have your own preferences manually opted in.

Since you’re limited to 2 lighting areas within the GTX 1070 G1 Gaming, the lighting options are hindered.

THE TEST SYSTEM AND BENCHMARKS:

Our test system is based on a Intel Core i5 6600K gaming system, which should be in-line with the latest mainstream gaming components. The operating system used is a 64-bit Windows 10 Pro Edition with power options set to high performance. Third party background applications are disabled unless they are absolutely required.

NOTE: We updated the BIOS of the card to the latest 86.04.50.00.7A version. We never noticed any problem with the card’s memory prior to this update.

TEST SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR	Intel Core i5 6600K
MOTHERBOARD	ASUS Z170-A
CPU COOLER	Cryorig C1 Top Flow
MEMORY KIT	Crucial Ballistix Tactical @ 2666MHz 4x4GB Kit
GRAPHICS CARD	GIGABTE GTX 1070 G1 GAMING 8GB
INTERNAL STORAGE	Crucial MX200 250GB
POWER SUPPLY	CORSAIR RM850X 850W
DISPLAY	27″ DELL U2715H + LG 43UF680T 4K UHD TV
OPERATING SYSTEM	Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

The games and benchmark tools should include 720p, 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p results if necessary to the hardware being tested. They are outlined below for your reference.

• 3DMARK 2013 – Firestrike Presets.
• Luxmark – OpenCL benchmark.
• Aida64 Extreme Edition – GPGPU benchmark.
• Overwatch – Settings are set to Ultra with a Render Scale set to 100%.
• Battlefield 4 – Settings are set to Ultra.
• Starcraft 2 – Settings are set to Extreme.
• DOTA 2 – Settings are manually set to maximum with DirectX 10 only mode and FPS cap disabled.
• DIRT: Rally – Settings are set to Ultra.
• Project CARS – Settings are manually set to maximum with anisotropic filtering at x16.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Settings are set to Ultra with V-SYNC turned off.
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Settings are set to Ultra with Nvidia HairWorks turned off.

FRAMES PER SECOND 101:

FPS is the general unit of which we measure a graphics card’s performance. Since higher FPS means that there are more frames rendered each second – the higher value, the smoother the gameplay should be. Check out the difference of 30 and 60 FPS on this LINK.

FPS values are recorded by FRAPS in-game using a linear route or gameplay for consistency. The results includes the Average FPS and 1% Minimum FPS. The 1% Minimum FPS represents the negative spikes or drops in-game sufficient enough for a gamer to notice. If the game doesn’t support FRAPS, we will use the in-game benchmark tool available.

TEMPERATURE POWER AND NOISE:

The graphics card thermal figures are taken during a 15 minute idle, and a 15 minute load via AIDA64 Extreme Edition’s GPU Stress Test. The ambient temperature is checked at 27°C (±1°C), with values extracted via HWiNFO and GPU-Z.

The total system power consumption are taken during a 15 minute idle, and a 15 minute load via AIDA64 Extreme Edition’s GPU Stress Test. The measurements are taken by a watt-meter.

The graphics card noise levels are taken during a 15 minute idle, and a 15 minute load via AIDA64 Extreme Edition’s GPU Stress Test. The ambient sound level is 34dBA (±1dBA), with measurements taken by a sound level meter situated exactly 12 inches away from the card.

Edit: Actual graphics card noise level is at 35.7 dBA at idle.

SYNTHETIC OPENCL AND GPGPU PERFORMANCE:

3DMark 2013 is a suite of benchmarks catered for the gamers and enthusiasts. The total system scores from each presets will be used.

LuxMark is a OpenCL cross-platform benchmark tool and has become, over past years, one of the most used OpenCL benchmarks.

The Aida64 Extreme Edition GPGPU Benchmark is designed to measure GPGPU computing performance via different workloads. Every benchmark methods are designed to work on up to 16 GPUs, including AMD, Intel and nVIDIA GPUs, in any combination.

GAMING PERFORMANCE:

Overwatch is Blizzard Entertainment’s critically acclaimed First Person Shooter, running on a custom game engine utilizing the DirectX 11 API. Settings are set to Ultra with a Render Scale set to 100%.

Battlefield 4 is Electronic Art’s popular First Person Shooter, running on the Frostbite 3 game engine developed by DICE utilizing the DirectX 11 and the Mantle API. Settings are set to Ultra.

Starcraft 2 is Blizzard Entertainment’s critically acclaimed RTS game, running on the HAVOC game engine utilizing the DirectX 9 API. Settings are set to Extreme.

DOTA 2 is VALVE’s popular F2P MOBA game, running on the Source game engine utilizing the multi-API support. Settings are set to maximum with DirectX 10 only mode and FPS cap disabled.

DIRT: Rally is CODEMASTER’s take on the rally racing game genre. It utilizes the EGO game engine with support for the DirectX 11 API. Settings are set to Ultra.

Project CARS is Slightly Mad Studios’ latest simulation racing game, running on the Madness game engine utilizing DirectX 11 support. Settings are set to maximum.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is Bethesda’s critically acclaimed Action Adventure RPG. Skyrim utilizes the Creation Engine with DirectX 10 support. Settings are set to Ultra with V-SYNC turned off.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is CDProjekt RED’s award winning Action Adventure RPG. The Witcher 3 utilizes the REDengine 3 with DirectX 11 support. Settings are set to Ultra.

WRAPPING IT UP:

The GTX 1070 G1 Gaming 8GB is a proper higher end graphics card from GIGABYTE, featuring the bells and whistles of the GP104 GPU. That said, performance is just proper for a factory overclocked GTX 1070, able to throw in figures just below the GTX 1080 Founders Edition on most games tested.

This card shines the most at higher resolutions and if you have yet to experience gaming at 1440P, then this card is a good option to start with. As for cooling, thermals, and noise, this card is properly built to withstand heavy gaming sessions based on the results we got. Overall build quality is also great. You’d get a card that looks and feels like it’ll stand the test of time.

Feature wise, you’ll get an RGB functionality – but we felt like implementation could be better. There are only two areas, and those are hardly pleasing locations at all for the lighting. It’s a good thing that you can turn them off, or have them function as a visual representation of the card’s status.

Now pricing is set at 22, 370 PHP. It’s not that high of an SRP and we felt like it’s a good spot for this card’s caliber. If you are looking for a rock solid graphics card that could easily conform with today’s requirements, then this card is highly recommended for you.

EXCELLENT GAMING PERFORMANCE GOOD DISPLAY OPTIONS GREAT BUILD QUALITY & DESIGN SILENT CARD – 0DB COMPLIANT GREAT COOLING SOLUTION

RGB LIGHTING COULD BE BETTER BUNDLE COULD BE BETTER