A week ago Nvidia released the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and feedback from reviewers was most entirely negative. At that place wasn't a lot to like as Nvidia is charging 80% of the cost for an RTX 3090, but only gave gamers one-half as much memory and a much smaller FE graphics card. Put differently, the Ti is an RTX 3080 with 2GB more VRAM for a 71% increase in toll. The extra cores amounted to a 10% heave on average, and then a negligible performance uplift. Should we also mention the fact that y'all can't really buy it anywhere?

For gamers, the RTX 3080 Ti is a flop, but for Nvidia information technology allows them to cash in big fourth dimension on silicon that wasn't good enough to exist binned for utilize equally an RTX 3090, extending their turn a profit margins. So that'due south the story of the RTX 3080 Ti, but what about the RTX 3070 Ti?

The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti comes in at half the price, which is quite incredible and merely goes to bear witness how ridiculous the 3080 Ti's pricing is. The 50% reduction in price sees a 40% drop in core count, 14% fewer ROPs, 33% less memory bandwidth and capacity. The new Ti is based on the same GA104 silicon as the RTX 3070.

With an MSRP of $600, the RTX 3070 Ti slots in between the 3070 and 3080. That means it'south twenty% more expensive than the 3070, at least at MSRP, and for that y'all're getting just 4% more cores with no increase in ROPs. That's a minuscule upgrade to the core, just thankfully Nvidia has tweaked the memory, opting to upgrade the GDDR6 memory with GDDR6X at the same 8GB capacity.

The upgrade to xix Gbps memory from 14 Gbps means that the 256-bit wide retentiveness bus now has a theoretical meridian bandwidth of 608 GB/s up from 448 GB/south, a 36% increment.

While we're looking at a piddly 4% increase in cores, the 3070 Ti does improve retention bandwidth by 36%. How much this will amend performance overall will likely vary from game to game, then that might help make the testing a bit more interesting.

With that said, let's become over a few of the benchmarks using the Founders Edition card. All benchmark results are based on AMD and Nvidia GPUs running at the official specifications, so no mill overclocking. In total nosotros tested 12 games at 1440p and 4K using our Ryzen 9 5950X examination organisation, which has been configured with 32GB of dual-rank, dual-channel DDR4-3200 CL14 retentivity.

Benchmarks

First up we've got Assassin'due south Creed Valhalla. This AMD sponsored title heavily favors Radeon GPUs and for some reason Nvidia has been unable to optimize their hardware for this game. As a result the 3070 Ti is 18% slower than the 6800 and 28% slower than the 6800 XT, which is a massive functioning difference.

When compared to the RTX 3070, it's 11% faster, which is to exist expected given the specifications.

Nvidia's 2xFP32 design does work better at 4K and as a effect the 3070 Ti is now fifteen% slower than the 6800 and 22% slower than the 6800 XT. Yet big margins, but smaller than what was seen at 1440p. Unfortunately the additional memory bandwidth didn't help the 3070 Ti at 4K as it was just vii% faster than the 3070. Single-digit gains aren't impressive for a xx% increase in MSRP.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is sponsored by Nvidia, though I consider this to exist a neutral championship, at least for rasterization performance which is what we're looking at here. The RTX 3070 Ti matched the RX 6800 with 130 fps on average at 1440p, making information technology xiv% slower than the 6800 XT, which isn't bad given it'southward 8% cheaper, though it does only feature half the VRAM.

When compared to the 3070, we're looking at single digit gains. This fourth dimension the 3070 Ti was nine% faster. The 4K margins look similar: the 3070 Ti matched the RX 6800, and it was 12% slower than the 6800 XT. When compared to the original RTX 3070 it was 11% faster, which is the biggest margin nosotros've seen and so far, certainly non amazing and not nearly enough to justify the xx% increase in MSRP.

Watch Dogs: Legion is another Nvidia sponsored title that supports ray tracing and DLSS, but it works well on both AMD and Nvidia hardware. The RTX 3070 Ti is seen trailing the RX 6800 past a 5% margin, making it a whopping 20% slower than the 6800 XT. Nosotros're too looking at a tiny 4% boost over the 3070.

Moving up to 4K sees the 3070 Ti match the RX 6800, though it was barely whatsoever faster than the standard 3070.

There are probably much cheaper GPUs you could utilize for playing competitive titles, but if yous want ~300 fps using the maximum visual quality settings, the 3070 Ti will suffice as it delivered RX 6800-like operation, making it just 13% slower than the 6800 XT, but also 6% faster than the 3070.

The 4K frame rates are a lot less ridiculous every bit the 3070 Ti was good for 152 fps on average, placing it ahead of the RX 6800 past a small 4% margin.

Next upward we have Horizon Zero Dawn and once once again the 3070 Ti is slower than the RX 6800, this time falling behind by 6% margin and that meant information technology was 16% slower than the 6800 XT. Not a terrible consequence, only it was just 7% faster than the 3070, then you have to wonder what the point is.

At 4K we practise see the 3070 Ti shell the original 3070 by a 10% margin, but that hardly offsets the 20% increase in cost.

Testing with Doom Eternal reveals similar margins between the 3070 Ti and RX 6800, though the cheaper Radeon GPU was all the same four% faster and the 6800 XT was 15% faster.

Now at 4K we see something interesting. It's worth noting that at 4K, using the ultra nightmare quality settings, Doom Eternal calls for 9GB of VRAM and that's not allocation but actual memory usage. Equally such, GPUs with 8GB or less VRAM struggle more at 4K relative to models with more than memory. At 1440p the game only calls for 7 GB of VRAM.

For example, the RTX 3080 is 27% faster than the 3070 at 1440p, just at 4K that margin more than doubles to 59%. The 3070 Ti has the aforementioned memory capacity as the 3070, merely bandwidth has been increased by 36% and that really helps hither. At 1440p the 3070 Ti was 11% faster than the 3070, but at 4K it'south 18% faster.

Moving on to the Death Stranding testing, we find some especially disappointing results for the RTX 3070 Ti. Here it was 13% slower than the RX 6800 and 20% slower than the 6800 XT. But most disappointing of all was the margin to the 3070, hither it was only 4% faster.

That margin does increase at 4K, but even hither the 3070 Ti was merely 7% faster than the 3070 and that meant it was notwithstanding 11% slower than the RX 6800 and nineteen% slower than the 6800 XT.

In Cyberpunk 2077 the 3070 Ti isn't overly impressive, 73 fps on boilerplate meant it was but 7% faster than the original 3070, and 8% slower than the RX 6800.

Then at 4K we're looking at but 37 fps on boilerplate using the loftier preset, not ultra. That's a 9% boost over the 3070 and 5% slower than the RX 6800 or 16% slower than the 6800 XT.

Borderlands 3 is AMD sponsored though like Shadow of the Tomb Raider I consider it to be a neutral title for testing. The results have the RTX 3070 Ti performing 9% slower than the RX 6800 and 23% slower than the 6800 XT. That said, the results are interesting as the 3070 Ti was 17% faster than the 3070 and that'due south a much larger performance deviation than we've seen in pretty much every other title tested then far.

A similarly large margin was seen at 4K, where the 3070 Ti was 18% faster than the original 3070, rendering 52 fps on average, plenty to match the RX 6800.

Hitman 2 provides us with fairly typical results with what we've seen thus far. The 3070 Ti was just 4% faster than the 3070 at 1440p and that meant it was 7% slower than the RX 6800 and 17% slower than the 6800 XT. The 4K results are more of the same: the 3070 Ti was 6% faster than the 3070, 7% slower than the RX 6800 and eighteen% slower than the 6800 XT.

Resident Evil 3 is even so another championship where the 3070 Ti loses out to the Radeon contest. Although information technology was 12% faster than the 3070, information technology'south 9% slower than the cheaper RX 6800 and 17% slower than the 6800 XT. Figures meliorate a footling at 4K only not enough to overcome the Radeons.

F1 2022 makes us finish on a weak note for the RTX 3070 Ti. Nvidia'due south new $600 GPU is merely 3% faster than the $500 version, and and then it was xi% slower than the RX 6800 and nineteen% slower than the 6800 XT. Even at 4K the 3070 Ti receives a dusting, losing to the RX 6800 by an eleven% margin and the 6800 XT past a 21% margin.

Boilerplate Performance

Hither's a summary of all the previous results with no surprises to exist found. At 1440p, the RTX 3070 Ti is on average 8% slower than the RX 6800, and 18% slower than the 6800 XT, while beating the original RTX 3070 by 8%.

At least at 4K the 3070 Ti is able to pull out a double-digit margin over the 3070, if only simply, beating information technology by 11% on average. Overall it remains ~5% slower than the RX 6800 and 16% slower than the 6800 XT.

Power Consumption

When information technology comes to ability consumption, the RTX 3070 Ti consumes significantly more power than the RX 6800, increasing total system usage by 20%, and that's a significant increment when factoring in entire system usage.

GPU Recap, What We Learned

That's our look at the new GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, and now information technology'south time to make sense of it. But before we practice, here'due south a quick Ampere vs. RDNA2 recap of how we've called it so far...

In a mostly no-sense battle for gamers, between the GeForce RTX 3090 and Radeon RX 6900 XT, we picked the RTX 3090 as the clear winner hither as it'due south a no-compromise solution offer more than VRAM and better performance at 4K. If you have money for the best and desire the best, the 3090 is at least that, the 6900 XT is a compromise and at $1000 makes less sense than the 3090 at $1500.

Next, nosotros have the boxing betwixt the RTX 3080 and RX 6800 XT. And over again nosotros went with the Nvidia GPU when making our 30 game criterion analysis. The GeForce GPU offers a similar level of performance at 1440p with marginally better 4K results, but the bargain billow for AMD is the lack of DLSS-like applied science, weaker encoding support, and young ray tracing.

Picking betwixt the RTX 3070 and RX 6800 has been more difficult. The RX 6800 benefits from a significant increase in VRAM, doubling what the 3070 offers to 16 GB, that'due south nice and should see the Radeon GPU age far better. But the lack of DLSS (with FSR coming but in unknown form subsequently this month), Nvidia's better encoder and ray tracing support, it's a close call, assuming both were readily available around the MSRP.

Then we had the Radeon 6700 XT vs. GeForce RTX 3070 battle, and for that 1 we went with Nvidia. The 6700 XT just wasn't priced competitively enough.

As for the new GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, how does information technology slot into all of this? At $600, it's priced to compete with either the RX 6800 or RX 6800 XT. Even so it'south slightly more than expensive and 8% slower than the RX 6800, and and so 8% cheaper but 18% slower than the 6800 XT. And so again, we have the DLSS and encoder factors, but to simplify this, let's simply remove AMD offerings from the equation and focus on Nvidia'southward own products...

The simple math is this: the RTX 3070 Ti costs twenty% more than than the 3070 and is on average viii% faster. It does nothing to strengthen Nvidia's position against AMD. In that location's no extra VRAM, and gamers become a small performance increase to justify the extra $100 over the RTX 3070. For Nvidia, information technology well-nigh gives them the opportunity to sell college quality silicon at a college toll for those willing to pay for information technology already.

And that's about it. The RTX 3070 Ti is a much better release than the RTX 3080 Ti and yet information technology's still kind of pointless if y'all won't be able to buy any for $600. And with that, we're going to end this review and get back to testing some older GeForce GPUs like the GTX 1060 and 1070 to see how they're property up in 2022 and if they're viable options on the second hand market.

Shopping Shortcuts:
  • GeForce RTX 3060 Ti on Amazon
  • GeForce RTX 3070 on Amazon
  • GeForce RTX 3080 on Amazon
  • Radeon RX 6800 on Amazon
  • Ryzen ix 5950X on Amazon
  • Ryzen 9 5900X on Amazon
  • Ryzen 5 5600X on Amazon