GeForce GTX 1070 Video Card Review

Intro

The GeForce GTX 1070 is the top-average video card from NVIDIA. With 1,920 processing cores and 8 GiB of GDDR5 video RAM, the GeForce GTX 1070 is a value version of the GeForce GTX 1080. Let’s test it!
The most recent generation of NVIDIA video cards, based Pascal architecture, was launched in May 2016. At first, were launched the GeForce GTX 1080 and the GTX 1070. Later, they launched the GeForce GTX 1060 6 GiB (which we already tested), the TITAN X (the most high-end of the series), the GTX 1060 3 GiB, and finally the entry models GeForce GTX 1050 e GTX 1050 Ti, also already reviewed at Hardware Secrets.
The GeForce GTX 1070 is based on the GP104 chip, manufactured under 16 nm technology. This is the same chip used on the GTX 1080, with the difference that on the GTX 1080 all the 2,560 cores are enabled, while on the GTX 1070 there are only 1,920 enabled cores.
This chip works with GDDR5 memory running at 8.0 GHz (on the GTX 1070) or with GDDR5X running at 10 GHz (on the GTX 1080), with 256-bit bus in both the cards. The TDP on the GTX 1070 is 150 W.
We tested the GeForce GTX 1070 “Founders Edition”, which is the reference model offered by NVIDIA itself. Video card manufacturers like ASUS, Gigabyte, Zotac, Galax, EVGA, etc, can offer custom models. Curiously, the “Founders Edition” is more expensive than the custom models (USD 499 vs. USD 399 MSRP), even if the technical specs are, in theory, the same: 1,506 MHz clock base, 1,683 MHz turbo clock and 8 GiB of GDDR5 VRAM at 8 GHz with 256 bits bus, presenting a bandwidth of 256 GiB/s. Some custom models can, however, bring higher clocks (and prices).
Just like its less expensive sisters, the GeForce GTX 1070 supports SMP (Simultaneous Multi-Projection) technology, which is useful for Virtual Reality applications, and the Ansel technology, which allows to capture an in-game high-resolution picture with any camera position and even 360 degrees.
The GeForce GTX 1070 supports SLI technology, that combines the processing power of two or more identical video cards.
Figure 1 shows the GeForce GTX 1070 FE video card.

Figure 1: the GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition

As the GeForce GTX 1070 can be found starting from USD 380, its direct competitor from AMD is the Radeon Fury X. Unfortunately, we have not this card in the lab to make a direct comparison.
So, we decided to benchmark the GeForce GTX 1070 against the GeForce GTX 1080, the GeForce GTX 1060, the Radeon R9 390, and the GeForce GTX 970. So, we can have an idea of the performance of the GTX 1070 against the upper and lower cards from the same series, and also against the model it is replacing. Keep in mind, however, that the cards included in this comparison are not direct competitors to the GTX 1070.
In the table below, we compare the main specs from the video cards we included in this review. Prices were researched at Newegg.com for this article.

Now let’s take a closer look to the tested video card.