We recently received an ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition 12GB from Nvidia and we have been testing it for the past ten days by using 19 PC games plus hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks. This time, there will be no production nor distribution of Founder Edition models for its RTX 4070 Ti GPU (AD104) by Nvidia, and AIBs will be the only ones assembling and distributing custom models of this Ada Lovelace GPU. Although these GPUs arrive with multiple new features, including DLSS 3, this review will focus mainly on testing raw performance, not upscaling.

Our Plan

Nvidia touted the RTX 4070 Ti as a card delivering an outstanding efficient performance that can be up to 3x faster than the RTX 3090 Ti in specific games which offers a tremendous upgrade for GTX 1080 Ti or RTX 2080 users. Although for this review, we have not been able to use those same Pascal, Turing, and Ampere GPUs, we have been able to compare our RTX 4070 Ti versus an RTX 3080 (Ampere micro-architecture, 2nd RTX generation) and RTX 2080 Ti (Turing micro-architecture, 1st RTX generation).

We think comparing the RTX 4070 Ti’s performance against two iconic cards from Nvidia’s previous two RTX generations of GPUs may be worth it for Turing or Ampere users considering an upgrade to Ada Lovelace.

The RTX 4070 Ti features 7680 CUDA Cores, 40 Shader TFLOPS, 93 RT-TFLOPS, 641 Tensor FLOPS, and 12GB of GDDR6X memory, so we will see how it performs and compare with raster games and ray-tracing/DLSS games. We will focus on RTX 4070 Ti raw performance as well as consider whether the new RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC Edition at $850 delivers a good value as an upgrade from the RTX 3080 that launched at $700 MSRP two years ago and from the RTX 2080 Ti which launched at $1000 MSRP four years ago.

Features & Specifications

Key Features from ASUS

• Dedicated 3rd generation ray tracing cores (60)
• Dedicated 4th generation Tensor cores (240)
• NVIDIA DLSS 3 support
• Game Ready and Nvidia Studio drivers
• Nvidia GeForce Experience
• Nvidia Broadcast
• Nvidia G-Sync
• Nvidia GPU Boost
• PCI Express Gen 4
• Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate support
• Support for Vulkan RT APIs, Vulkan 1.3, and OpenGL 4.6
• HDCP 2.3 support
• DisplayPort 1.4a support: up to 4K at 240Hz or 8K at 60Hz with DSC, HDR
• HDMI 2.1a support: up to 4K 240Hz or 8K 60Hz with DSC, Gaming VRR, HDR

Specifications

Nvidia’s MSRP price for RTX 4070 Ti GPUs is $799, and ASUS’s price for the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC Edition is $849.99. This is approximately $50 over Nvidia’s MSRP price for a quality well-cooled tri-fan custom model with a factory GPU overclock of 120 MHz over the Nvidia reference 2610MHz boost clock.

According to GPU-Z, the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC has the same default GPU clock of 2310MHz and boost GPU clock of 2730MHz – 120MHz higher than the reference – using both VBIOS modes, so the only difference between VBIOS modes is the fan curve.

We will show GPU-Z data and test the card using the Performance VBIOS mode only, as the factory overclock doesn’t change between VBIOS modes, and the card is silent under full-load when in Performance Mode, so it is not worth having higher GPU temperatures with slightly worse performance.

Below is the advanced general information on the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC reported by the GPU-Z tool.

As you can see from the GPU-Z screenshots above, you can even increase both power and temperature limits to some degree, so there is still some room for GPU overclocking, but not very high or extreme, at least without taking other risky modding procedures.

The Test Bed

We benchmark with CapFrameX and FrameView tools on a recent install of Windows 11 Pro Edition 22H2, at 2560×1440 and 3840×2160, using an Intel Core i9-12900K with stock clocks and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz memory on an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard. All games and benchmarks are the latest versions, and we use the latest GeForce Game-Ready 527.62 press drivers for games and hybrid and non-synthetic tests. The games tested, display driver, settings, and hardware are identical except for the GPUs we compare.

Let’s see the unboxing and take a closer look at this graphics card.

A Closer Look at the ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition 12GB

Packaging

The box cover highlights the graphics card image, adding the TUF GAMING logo, the GeForce RTX GPU name, and references to AURA SYNC, OC Edition, 12GB of GDDR6X memory, and DLSS3, ray tracing, Reflex, and Studio.

The back of the case touts the strengths of this model in terms of cooling, durability, aesthetics, and ASUS software. It also includes a list of key features like its dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores, PCI-E Gen 4, Display Port 1.4a, HDMI 2.1a, and HDCP 2.3, and support for DirectX 12 Ultimate, DLSS 3, and G-Sync.

However, on the back of the box, there is no mention of the minimum system requirements. Only a QR code that leads to a table of recommended PSUs is added. The minimum system requirements are only shown on one lateral side of the cover and only mention the need for a 1*16-pin supplementary power connector.

Accessories

We open the box and note there are parts for a card stand. The card stand is height adjustable, and its thinner upper part can also be separated and become a small screwdriver for card disassembling purposes. Also, the card stand has a rubber band at one end, and the support base has a magnet to fix the card stand inside the chassis.

ASUS includes a PCIe Gen5 power cable adapter to two PCI-E 8-pin cables to connect the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC to most PSUs. While the power connector adapter requires two Molex wires from the PSU to operate, newer PSUs may offer the new PCIe Gen5 single cable connector instead of massive double cabling. They also include a Velcro cable management strap with TUF GAMING branding.

Above, you can see the card stand fully assembled. Some may not feel the need to use the card stand, given how relatively heavy the 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC is. However, for safety and given the little volume it occupies inside the case, we think it is a worthwhile addition.

Also, you will find a small detachable black cardboard box, which includes the quick start guide, the warranty card, the certificate of reliability, the graphics card holder manual, an ASUS promotional detachable cardboard holder for your mobile phone, and a collectible card advertising this model.

The Card

The RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC is a large tri-fan and three-slot graphics card with sober aesthetics and solid and quality design.

Turning it over, we see a sturdy metal backplate featuring the TUF and GeForce RTX logos and branding.

Heat pipes and heatsink fins cover the entire PCB, and there is a switch to choose between the Performance and Quiet VBIOS modes. We didn’t bother using the Quiet VBIOS mode as the card is silent anyway, and the factory overclock is the same, but it is good to have in case a flash procedure fails.

The IO panel connectors are 3 DisplayPorts and 2 HDMI connections.

Below is the other card end.

Plugged in & Inside the case

The RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC looks beautiful inside a case. We liked that only the TUF logo has RGB lighting to match our RGB-lite gaming rig.

The specifications look promising, and the card, itself, looks solid and quality.

Next is our testing configuration, methodology, and more.

Test Configuration

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition 12GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F4 VBIOS, stock clocks
• EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti BLACK EDITION GAMING 11GB, stock clocks
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 527.62 press drivers; ‘Prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR (disabled with RTX 2080 Ti due to the lack of full support).
• ‘V-Sync application controlled’ in the control panel; V-Sync off in-game.
• We note and specify the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings in the performance summary charts.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v22H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS & Game Mode are enabled, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install GIGABYTE or ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 19 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• FrameView, the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall drivers using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• We use the corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing frametimes and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We use FrameView for capturing purposes only when DLSS 3 is enabled for maximum reliability.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting three usable runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • Aggregate excluding outliers:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/Avg FPS > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • Avg FPS > 3% when evaluating raw performance.

Benchmark Suite: 19 Games, 6 Hybrid & 3 Non-Synthetic Tests

PC Games

DX11 Games

• Days Gone (DX11)
• God of War (DX11)
• Total War: Warhammer III (DX11)

DX12 Games

• A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12)
• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 v.1.61 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Spider-Man: Remastered (DX12)
• The Callisto Protocol (DX12)
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt v.4.00 (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.6.0)
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (VK)

Synthetic Tests

• AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks
• Blender 3.4.0 benchmark
• Geekbench 5
• Sandra 2021 GPGPU Benchmarks

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test
• Fire Strike Extreme
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Port Royal
• Time Spy
• Time Spy Extreme

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU
• GPUScore: Relic of Life
• UNIGINE Superposition

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

Noise, Temperatures, and Power Consumption

Unfortunately, we did not have time to check out the overclocking potential, but temperatures were slightly higher than the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER. So BTR plans to follow this review up with a VR review – conducted by Mark Poppin, BTR’s PC VR specialist – and an overclocking and creative and pro apps performance analysis – done by the author of the current article.

The RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC is quiet, and its fans never spin up, even under a heavy or full load, to be irritating or noticeable. It is as silent as the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER. This model also supports a 0RPM fan mode on idle or light load conditions.

This card is factory clocked 120MHz higher than the reference version at 2610MHz using both BIOS modes. According to its specifications, the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC boost can clock up to 2730MHz out of the box. From our testing, we generally see it boosting even higher and typically settling in 2820MHz with peaks above 2850MHz under full or heavy load conditions.

Below is our thermal and approximate power consumption analysis on idle (Windows desktop, no user interactions) and full-load (UNIGINE Superposition Stress Test, 2160p resolution, highest settings, 10 minutes).

Idle conditions

On idle conditions, we see a maximum GPU clock of 210MHz, a Memory Clock of 50.6MHz max, a GPU temperature of 23 Celsius degrees (room temp at 19 Celsius degrees) max, an average board power draw of approximately 9.0W, average power consumption of 3%, and a maximum GPU voltage of 0.88V.

Full-load conditions

Under full-load conditions, the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC peaked at a maximum clock of 2880MHz, but after some minutes running the Superposition stress test, it slowed down progressively, step by step, and stabilized at 2820MHz when GPU temp stays in the mid-60s C. Also, the maximum memory clock was 1312.7MHz, the GPU peaked at 65.50 Celsius degrees max (room temp at 21 Celsius degrees), the approximate board power draw was 272.8W max, a maximum power consumption peak of 95.7%, and the GPU voltage reached a maximum of 1.10V.

Finally, the reported PerfCap reason (performance limited by different factors) during our full-load GPU stress test was either the intended VBIOS power or reliability limits.

So taking into account all the above, we consider that our ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition sample works great and as intended in terms of frequencies, noise level, temperature, and power consumption. Overall the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC is quiet, well-cooled, and power efficient.

Let’s head to the performance charts to compare the graphics performance of the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC with two other graphics cards; an RTX 3080, based on the Ampere architecture, and an RTX 2080 Ti, based on the Turing architecture.

Gaming Performance Charts

DirectX 11 Game Performance Charts

Days Gone (DX11)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

God of War (DX11)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Total War: Warhammer III (DX11)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

DirectX 12 Game Performance Charts

A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12) v.1.61

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

F1 22 (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Far Cry 6 (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Hitman 3 (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

The Callisto Protocol (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Vulkan Game Performance Charts

Doom Eternal (Vulkan)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Wolfenstein: Youngblood (Vulkan)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

DirectX Raytracing Game Performance Charts

Cyberpunk 2077 (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

F1 22 (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Far Cry 6 (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Forza Horizon 5 (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Hitman 3 (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

The Callisto Protocol (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Vulkan Raytracing Game Performance Charts

Doom Eternal (Vulkan Ray Pipeline)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Quake II RTX v.1.6.0 (Vulkan Ray Query)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Wolfenstein: Youngblood (RTX)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Main Performance Gaming Summary Charts

Here are the summary charts of 19 games, six hybrid, and three non-synthetic tests. We note and specify the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings on the performance summary charts below. The benches were run at 2560×1440 and at 3840×2160.

We compare three graphics cards and list them listed in order starting with the TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC (yellow text), the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER, and the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK. All results, except for 3D Mark Fire Strike, Time Spy, and Port Royal hybrid tests, show average framerates, and higher is better. Minimum framerates are next to the averages in italics and a slightly smaller font. Minimum framerates are expressed by the 1% percentile FPS (P1), and higher is better.

Here are the hybrid and non-synthetic benchmark results.

DLSS Benchmarks

In this section, we compare the performance in some games with Quality DLSS on and off, and also compare performance with Quality DLSS 2 with our RTX 3080 and 2080 Ti cards versus Quality DLSS 3 (DLSS 2 + Frame Generation) using our RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC to check if the massive performance improvements advertised by Nvidia are real.

No DLSS vs. Quality DLSS 2

Looking at the chart above, we see substantial performance improvements in all tested games using Quality DLSS 2 with our three cards compared to not using DLSS.

At 2160p and using Quality DLSS, the 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC is the only card of our three we compare to exceed the 30FPS barrier in Cyberpunk 2077 (DXR), to reach the 60FPS one in Hitman 3 (DXR), and to exceed 60FPS avg in Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DXR).

No DLSS vs. Quality DLSS 2 & 3

Nvidia talks about 2x and up to 2.4x performance improvements when using DLSS 3 in games supported by the RTX 4070 Ti. In our case, we saw that their promo ads are consistent with reality.

We see an impressive +159% (2.6X) performance improvement between having DLSS 3 on and off in The Witcher 3 (DXR) v4.0, another +107% (2.1X) in F1 22 (DXR), +72% (1.7X) in Spider-Man: Remastered (DXR), and +91% (1.9X) in A Plague Tale: Requiem.

The previous results using DLSS 3 show us the notable advantage and performance leap in the most demanding and current ray-traced games, which comes from having an Ada Lovelace graphics card, especially in the case of the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC.

Considering the image quality results from a 2160p native resolution, we saw that overall, Quality DLSS 3 looks just as good as Quality DLSS 2 in all games we tested, with only some minor artifacts visible in certain situations. From a 1440p native resolution, we see similar results, except The Witcher 3 v.4.0, as the game with DLSS 3 enabled showed a blurrier image than Quality DLSS 2 in this scenario.

Averaged Framerates & Relative GPU Performance

Averaged Game Framerates

We averaged the aggregated FPS avg of all games and testing scenarios, and we represented the total game average FPS for each tested graphics card by the following chart:

On average, the TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti is approximately 17% faster than the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and 66% faster than the EVGA RTX 2080 BLACK. So, although the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC offers a substantial performance improvement in games over the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK baseline performance, the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC delivers a far less impressive step up over the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER.

RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC Relative Performance

Considering the calculated total game average FPS and the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC as 100% performance, we can situate relatively the two other cards we compare. So, based on our total game average FPS of each card, the relative GPU performance of the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER is approximately 86% (14% less performance than the RTX 4070 Ti, on average), and the relative GPU performance of the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK is 60% (40% less performance than the RTX 4070 Ti, on average).

Let’s see our final thoughts and verdict on the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC.

Final Thoughts & Verdict

This has been an enjoyable exploration comparing the new ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition with the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK. The TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti is a quality card with a sober aesthetic, minimal RGB lighting, an excellent cooling system, and room for moderate additional overclocking.

The RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC performed solidly above the RTX 3080 and well above the RTX 2080 Ti. While the TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC is not a notable upgrade for existing RTX 3080 users, it certainly is for RTX 2080 Ti users and any Turing users considering upgrading their gaming rig. However, at $849.99 and for users coming from an RTX 3080, the TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC is still a reasonably priced option to consider as a decent GPU refresh, especially if you want to enjoy significant performance improvements in DX12 and ray-traced games and the massive performance gains that DLSS 3 brings to gamers.

The TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition especially shines at 1440p resolution delivering high to very-high framerates in every recent game and 3D API scenario we tested, and also has the power to play most games over 60FPS at 2160p, where until now, a 3080 fell short of delivering a smooth 60 FPS experience in the most demanding games.

All in all, the ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition is a decent refresh in terms of performance for RTX 3080 owners who want to upgrade to the latest architecture to maximize its graphics power for a reasonable price or even a big step up at a good price for Turing users who also like to enjoy the ray tracing and Nvidia DLSS enhancements of the new Ada-Lovelace micro-architecture.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka RodroG) is the current BTR lead reviewer and an enthusiast gamer. He is especially interested in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

A mechanical keyboard is a key component for any gaming system, and we gladly accepted a ROG Strix Scope RX mechanical keyboard from ASUS for review. We have been using it daily for over a month. It is good to see an optical RGB mechanical gaming keyboard that leaves nothing to envy others despite the wide variety of keyboards on the market. The ROG Strix Scope RX is a $129.99 high-end premium mechanical keyboard that stands out for its solid build quality, high degree of RGB customizations, and optical keyswitches for comfortable and fast response.

RGB is not a critical feature, but many enthusiast gamers like the style that the lighting adds, especially at night. The ROG Strix Scope RX capabilities will allow its color scheme or glow to perfectly match your preferences and the style of the rest of your RGB devices.

The ROG Strix Scope RX offers ROG RX (red) optical mechanical switches, N-Key rollover anti-ghosting function, per-key RGB lighting, 8 multimedia keys, a stealth hotkey, and an enlarged “Ctrl” key for FPS enthusiast gamers.

Here are the ROG Strix Scope RX keyboard features from the ASUS ROG web site:

FEATURES

• ROG RX Optical Mechanical Switches for consistent, wobble-free keystrokes, and a 100-million-keystroke lifespan.
• Per-key RGB LEDs with central lighting for all-round illumination, backlit ROG logo, and customizable light effects.
• Alloy top cover and IP56 water and dust resistance to ensure a long lifespan.
• USB 2.0 full-function port for device charging and external storage.
• FPS-ready extended “Ctrl” key for ‘Crouch’ and other commands.
• Stealth key to hide all apps and mute audio for instant privacy.
• Quick-toggle switch to swift between function and media key input.

In addition, it allows on-the-fly macro recording, storage of up to five profiles on the onboard memory, and adjust settings via Armoury Crate software.

Let’s take a closer look at the ASUS ROG Strix Scope RX optical RGB mechanical gaming keyboard.

Unboxing ROG Strix Scope RX Mechanical Keyboard

The ROG Strix Scope RX mechanical keyboard comes in a cool box that advertises Aura Sync, ROG RX (Red) optical mechanical switches for linear and swift response, QWERTY distribution, and water and dust resistance with IP56 dust certification.

The other side of the box shows the keyboard’s features, specifications, OS support, the location of the main multimedia and function hotkeys, and a brief description of the ROG RX (red) key switch.

When we open the box, we see the keyboard inside a porous-appearing synthetic cover for protection.

The box contains the RGB optical mechanical keyboard with its non-removable cable, a paper copy of the manual, the warranty card, and two plastic stickers with the ASUS’s Republic Of Gamers (ROG) logo.

Here is the non-removable thick cable with its 2 USB plugs: one for the keyboard itself and the other one for the USB 2.0 passthrough.

Turning the keyboard, we see its cable tucked inside and its feet system: 4 flat rubber feet and two flip-out foot stands with an 8-degree tilt angle and rubber tips. We also see a patterned design with a massive ROG Eye logo.

Above you can see the keyboard tilt when using the 8-degree foot stand.

We also see here what the ROG Strix Scope RX looks like when using its flat rubber feet.

In the photo above you can see the USB 2.0 port.

Next, let’s see what the ROG Strix Scope RX looks like lit up once it is connected to our PC for the first time.

As you can see in the photo above, the ROG Strix Scope RX offers an RGB keyboard backlight. It’s highly configurable both manually and through the i-Rocks’ software, allowing per-key RGB lighting as well.

Impressions: Testing the ROG Strix Scope RX Mechanical Keyboard

Setup

Installing the ROG Strix Scope RX is very easy. Basically, it’s plug-and-play. Turn on your PC and connect the two USB plugs into two available USB ports on your system. The OS will automatically detect the keyboard and you can use it after detection even without installing its additional software. This is because, except for the selection of some additional lighting effects, all its functionalities can be controlled manually via its hotkeys and special key combinations.

This plug-and-play experience is always very interesting and valuable for enthusiast gamers who want to enjoy the full functionality of their device without the need to install applications or run them in the background.

Lighting & Multimedia

One of the main strengths of any quality RGB gaming keyboard is undoubtedly its quick configuration and customization through hotkeys. The ROG Strix Scope RX is not an exception in this regard. Our experience of using it confirms this, since, with the help of its complete quick start guide and its “Fn” and “Right-Alt” keys, we can use the main lighting functions this keyboard offers us.

Although it isn’t useful to reproduce the entire long list of hotkeys and their effects here (well detailed in the Quick Installation Guide), it seems useful to briefly describe and comment on our experience with the hotkeys of some key functions. The following picture shows you the location and distribution of the special stealth key and the main media and function keys of the ROG Strix Scope RX:

For example, we like to quickly toggle between system function and media control for the F5-F12 keys through an easy key combo (“Fn”+”Ins”). Another important feature that is also easily accessible via hotkeys is the quick switch of both color profiles and lighting effects using the key combo “Fn”+”1-6” (profile switch) and “Fn”+”Right” or “Left” (light effect switch), respectively.

The hotkeys that allow on-the-fly macro recording and color customization deserve special mention. For the macro recording process, you can start and end recording your own macro via two easy hotkeys (“Fn”+”Right-Alt” or “Fn”+”Right-Alt”, respectively), and for customizing the color, you can increase independently the RGB color level (10 levels) using the key combo “Fn”+”Delete”, “Fn”+”End”, or “Fn”+”Down” for the red, green and blue color, respectively.

Finally, you can easily and quickly minimize all active windows and mute your system, or maximize all minimized windows and unmute the system, by pressing the “F12” key (Stealth key) when media functions are active.

Typing & Gaming

In this section, we describe our personal experience and the “feel” of using the ASUS ROG Strix Scope RX in both typing and gaming scenarios.

First of all, the feeling that the ROG Strix Scope RX produces when typing is very good overall. Its ROG RX (red) optical mechanical keyswitches offer excellent response and precision when typing. This gives us a consistent and smooth feeling of fluidity without interruptions when writing long texts, for example. Red keyswitches are known to bring a quiet keystroke, and the ROG Strix Scope RX isn’t an exception. This will be appreciated by users who prefer the “linear” keystroke of the red switches for smooth, consistent, and noiseless typing. We consider that the noise level of the ROG Strix Scope RX’s optical mechanical switches when typing is low and with minimal tactile feedback. You can hear it in action from here (source, ASUS).

The ROG Strix Scope RX performs great while gaming. It offers an excellent feel in terms of fast latency and precision, offering noiseless, fast, and accurate responsiveness when playing all types of PC games. Special mention concerns its consistent and swift keystroke bringing high precision when playing highly competitive games like multiplayer FPS games. ASUS states that the ROG Strix Scope RX response time is 1 ms, and we confirm its low input lag by our own testing. We consider the ROG Strix Scope RX an excellent mechanical KB for gaming purposes, especially for FPS gamers and silent keystroke lovers.

Perhaps its only weak point is the non-standard layout. Its “Ctrl” key is larger than usual, which is certainly very useful for gamers but it isn’t for keyboard enthusiasts who want flexibility in keycap customization.

ASUS Armoury Crate Software

Brief Overview

The ASUS Armoury Crate Software is the all-in-one tool for any ASUS gaming device, and in this case, for the ROG Strix Scope RX keyboard. It includes ASUS Aura Sync functionalities and allows basic to advance customization of nearly every ROG Strix Scope RX feature.

Using the Armoury Crate software suite, you can customize all the possible color and lighting effects of the ASUS ROG Strix Scope RX. It allows changing the colors, brightness, glow speed, or disabling the RGB lighting entirely. Besides, the Armoury Crate software brings you the possibility of managing and setting up all your keyboard macros, customizing each key individually, or creating your own advanced RGB lighting effects, all according to your personal preferences.

Finally, the software includes a useful tab for updating the firmware of your ROG Strix Scope RX keyboard.

Conclusion

The ASUS ROG Strix Scope RX is a quality premium mechanical gaming keyboard for competitive FPS gamers. Despite its non-standard layout and non-standard red key switches, it is an excellent gaming keyboard that feels very good while gaming and typing, with a high degree of RGB customization and a fast, smooth, consistent, and noiseless keystroke.

ROG Strix Scope RX Mechanical Keyboard Pros

• Cool design and solid construction.
• High level of RGB lighting customization both via hotkeys or through the proprietary all-in-one ASUS Armoury Crate software suite, including per-key RGB customization.
• Super-fast response and low input lag.
• Precise, smooth, consistent, and noiseless when typing and gaming.

ROG Strix Scope RX Mechanical Keyboard Cons

• Non-standard layout and mechanical switches.

The Verdict: Highly Recommended

• The ASUS ROG Strix Scope RX is an excellent premium optical gaming keyboard with a super-fast response and smooth, consistent, and noiseless feeling while typing and for gaming.
• The ASUS ROG Strix Scope RX optical mechanical keyboard allows a high level of RGB customization via hotkeys or software, supporting per-key RGB customization.

Let’s Play!

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Rodrigo González (aka “RodroG”) is an enthusiast gamer and tech reviewer interested especially in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

We received a ROG Wireless Chakram mouse from ASUS in September, and by sheer coincidence we received a ROG Core Chakram wired mouse from NVIDIA a few weeks ago as part of their Reflex Analyzer kit which pairs the Core mouse with a 360Hz ASUS ROG display to measure PC components’ latency. We have been using the wireless Chakram for more than 2 months and it is our first high-end premium mouse since we used a Razer Mamba about 10 years ago that we did not particularly like.
We have not been a competitive player since our arcade days of the early 1980s, and we don’t usually give a lot of attention to our choice of mouse. Normally we choose a Logitech mouse because it “fits” our hand well, and we use a G1. So we present this review to give our impressions of these premium customizable RGB mice. The ROG Chakram Wireless has a MSRP of $159.99 which can now be found on Amazon for $129.99, and it sports everything including dual-wireless, RGB, and even a joystick. The only differences are that the ROG Chakram Core only connects via a wired USB connection, it lacks a single RGB strip, and it can now be purchased for $102.64 (MSRP $109.99).

The Chakram is a throwing weapon from India. One of its other purposes is also to protect a warrior’s head from sword or melee attacks. It is circular with a sharpened outer edge and a diameter of about 5 to 12 inches. It has been made popular by ‘Xena Warrior Princess’. The ASUS ROG Chakram mouse is referred to as a ‘weapon for gamers’ and it is also features a multipurpose design to make right-handed gamers more competitive – left-handed gamers need not apply.

Here are the Chakram ROG Wireless mouse features and specifications as presented by ASUS:

• RGB wireless gaming mouse with Qi charging
• Tri-mode connectivity includes dual-wireless 2.4GHz and
  Bluetooth(BLE), plus wired USB
• Industry-leading 16000 dpi, 400 ips optical sensor, plus
  1000 Hz polling rate support in 2.4GHz and wired mode
• Programmable, removable joystick allows personalized
  settings and superior in-game control
• Fast charge for 15 minutes by wire for up to 12 hours of
  gameplay, or use Qi technology for wireless charging
• Screw-less magnetic buttons and cover, ROG exclusive
  push-fit switch socket design and customizable badge for
  effortless DIY
• Pivoted button mechanism offers rapid response and
  accurate performance with a clean, tactile feel
• DPI On- The-Scroll manipulation for effortless accuracy
  adjustments

Mouse latency isn’t mentioned in the above ASUS specs, but NVIDIA’s reviewers guide gives the per click latency of the wired ROG Chakram Core as 0.6ms, and our own observations using the Reflex Latency Analyzer place it at 1-2ms. This is outstanding and better than most premium mice.

The features and specifications look great, but how do they handle while playing games? Besides playing fast-paced first person shooters (FPS), we were particularly interested in the built-in joystick feature and used it to play Elite Dangerous and Star Wars: Squadrons since they benefit from using one. Of course, mouse reviews are highly subjective and your own experience may vary. But read on for our experiences with these two mice over the past two months.

First, the unboxing.

Unboxing & Functionality

The ASUS ROG Chakram Wireless Mouse

The ROG Chakram Wireless mouse comes in a small box that advertises dual wireless connectivity, AURA Sync for RGB, and Qi wireless charging.

The back of the box, below, goes into much more detail boasting a quick 15 minute wired charge that will last for 12 hours.

The features of the ROG Chakram Wireless mouse are on the box. It features a 16000 dpi optical sensor with a 1000Hz polling rate, extra Omron switches rated to last for 50 million clicks, and even a travel pouch (below, right).

Here is the basic equipment and the user guide above.

The Teflon mouse feet are well aligned and they offer a nearly frictionless experience on a variety of surfaces.

Both Chakram mice feature a joystick that can also be key-mapped or removed entirely. Let’s look at the wired Chakram Core mouse next.

The ASUS ROG Chakram Core Wired Mouse

The ROG Chakram Core mouse is almost identical to the Wireless mouse with the same push-fit socket design, but with an adjustable weighting system not found in the Wireless mouse.

Although the Core Chakram lacks wireless, it also offers most of the same features, the same Alps wheel and Omron switches, and it shares identical specifications when both mice are wired.

The instructions are just as clearly written, simple, and easy to follow. But if you want the details, visit the ASUS ROG site to download drivers, the manual, the FAQ, and a link to the Armoury Crate software for either mouse’s complete flexibility. It also offers a link for instructions to set up the joystick and controls with Steam.

Common to Both Mice & Differences

Both mice are nearly identical except that one is wireless and the other must be connected by its attached USB 2.0 cable.

The wireless mouse can use either Bluetooth for devices that support it or 2.4GHz by using a USB adapter that plugs into the PC. Pairing only takes a few seconds. In addition, although both mice support customizable RGB with logos and mouse wheels that light up, the wireless mouse has an extra RGB lighting strip on its front that the Core mouse lacks, and it adds a nice touch for those who like RGB. One thing we are not particularly happy with is the rather dark translucent plastic used over the logo – it makes the logo somewhat muted and blurry – but that is a minor nitpick.

Both mice show off their RGB lighting in a darkened room best. The lighting can be customized or synchronized using ASUS ROG’s Armoury software or AURA Sync as discussed in the software section.

Both mice come with replaceable switches which add to their longevity, but only the Wireless Chakram comes with a 2.4GHz wireless adapter that plugs into a USB port on your PC – the Core mouse has the same internal bracket, but of course, it is empty.

Each mouse comes with two joysticks. One has a longer stem and acts more like a joystick, while the shorter one acts as a disk as seen below.

The joystick can be used as analog to simulate a sim joystick, or it can be used digitally to map four programmable directions in an FPS or for any other application. In analog mode, we found it rather difficult to get used to as our thumb did not work naturally with it. However, for Elite Dangerous or Star Wars: Squadrons players who eschew a flight stick, HOTAS, or a traditional joystick and who become proficient with it, it can add some value to either game.

There is even an opportunity to uniquely personalize your mouse by removing the ASUS logo and creating your own custom logo on a provided translucent white blank.

The mice can be easily taken apart, and they either snap back together and/or use strong magnets to hold themselves together. Customizability is a keyword that describes either ASUS ROG Chakram mouse. The plastic appears to be breakable if stepped on, but it is probably tough enough for normal use.

Both mice are beautiful, they fit my hand perfectly and grip well, and I like being able to rest my thumb on the flair instead of dragging it on the mouse surface. However, what about playing games with these mice – and what about the joystick? Before we cover that part of the review, let’s look at the software that ASUS provides.

The Software

The ROG Armoury software allows for customization of either mouse. By clicking on Device, we were able to customize the mice and were able to even sync them and their color patterns. Both mice have similar options although some are specific to each mouse.

The buttons can be individually customized and even the joystick can be mapped.

All of the performance options can be changed to suit the style of each gamer.

Scenario profiles and macros can be individually customized to suit each gamer’s style and preference.

Apps may be individually linked to games.

There is also an option to map either mouse as a gamepad for Steam games.

Color and lighting offer a high degree of customization and personalization and the logo, mouse wheel, and the front lighting (for the wireless Chakram) can be individually addressed.

Updating the Chakram firmware takes just a click, and it is easy to check for updates.

The Armoury software is robust and full-featured, and there is an almost unlimited amount of options for personalization and customization that will suit most gamers. The lighting software is excellent, and if you have other ASUS hardware, it is easy to sync your Chakram to your other devices using AURA Sync.

Let’s head for our game playing experiences and the conclusion.

The Chakram Mice in Action & the Conclusion

Both of these Chakram mice have a premium feel to them, and they each worked equally well with our super-fast monitors – the ASUS ROG 1080P 360Hz display as well as the Samsung 1440P Odyssey G7 240Hz display. Will I be a competitive gamer again because of these mice? No. But these mice have definitely improved my game and accuracy, especially in defeating the Borderlands 3 ‘Bounty of Blood’ DLC final bosses that I previously had trouble with, and with excellent results playing the new Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.If you are a competitive gamer who also likes a low-latency, good-looking, premium, and responsive RGB wireless mouse with a ton of features and customization options, the Chakram Wireless mouse may be for you. If you are more traditional and only want a wired mouse with low latency and the same premium features, then Core may be a perfect choice. But if you want to take your mouse with you wherever you go, the wireless Chakram may provide the best options. There is no perceptible latency difference between wired and the 2.4GHz wireless mode that we could discern, although we would not recommend using Bluetooth except for casual games. Both mice are ultra-responsive and may make the difference between winning and losing for a competitive or eSports gamer.

We are not impressed with the analog joystick. To be fair, we did not spend a lot of time practicing with it for Star Wars: Squadrons or for Elite Dangerous. We found that using the joystick with our thumb was somewhat awkward. But if someone is willing to spend the time to make its use automatic, it may take the place of a dedicated joystick, and its shorter length option may be useful for those who prefer using it as a disk. Instead, we recently purchased a Gladiator NXT HOTAS and CH Pro throttle for hundreds of dollars. At the very least, the Chakram joystick digital option gives 4 extra keys for remapping which may prove very useful for many games and applications.

The MSRP of $159.99 puts the Wireless Chakram at the very top of the price range for premium mice, but the current pricing of $129.99 makes it more affordable. The Qi charging is a great feature for those who don’t want to plug in the Wireless Chakram, and the extremely long battery life is appreciated for those who don’t use it. We went days before recharging it, and ASUS suggests it will work for 48 hours with RGB on with a single full charge in about 1 hour and 20 minutes. And $102.64 seems reasonable for a wired mouse that is just as fully featured since it only lacks a single RBG strip but compensates by having an adjustable weighting system.

With up to 16,000 DPI, 400 IPS, 40g physical acceleration, low per click latency, and up to a 1,000 Hz polling rate, both Chakrams are premium mice in every regard. And if you have a charging mousepad, there’s no reason you should ever have to manually charge the Chakram Wireless mouse. It even comes with a zip-up carrying case to protect it from damage while on the go. The only minor flaws that we can find for both mice are that there aren’t a lot of buttons to customize, the plastic cover is a bit too dark to display the logo properly, they are pricey, and only for right-handed gamers.

We give each of these mice a big thumbs-up and they share BTR’s “Editor’s Choice Award”.

Next up, we are working on a top secret VR review that will post next week. We are hoping to add Star Wars: Squadrons, Into the Radius, and Assetto Corsa Competizione to our VR benching suite by then.

Happy Gaming!

Our friends at ASUS have an important announcement regarding the new GeForce RTX 30 series. We hope to be able to bring you a timely review of these highly anticipated upcoming video cards.

Fremont, CA (September 1, 2020) — ASUS today announced three new NVIDIA® GeForce RTX GPUs, including ROG Strix and ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090, GeForce RTX 3080, ROG Strix and ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 3070 models. These new GPUs bring buffed-up cooling, PCBs, and power design to complement the new NVIDIA Ampere architecture. From competitive action to high-res immersion, this lineup delivers the latest and greatest in 3D gaming performance.

The new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs, the 2nd generation of RTX, features new RT Cores, Tensor Cores and streaming multiprocessors, bringing stunning visuals, amazingly fast frame rates, and AI acceleration to games and creative applications. Powered by the NVIDIA Ampere architecture, which delivers increases of up to 1.9 times performance-per-watt over the previous generation, the RTX 30 Series effortlessly powers graphics experiences at all resolutions, even up to 8K at the top end. The GeForce RTX 3090, 3080 and 3070 represent the greatest GPU generational leap in the history of NVIDIA.

Take Flight

From top to bottom, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 30 Series has received a host of improvements to deliver the next wave of innovation in thermal design and accommodate the impressive NVIDIA Ampere architecture.

A new shroud with metal accents encompasses a trio of Axial-tech fans that have been tuned to fulfill specialist roles. The central fan leverages a full-height barrier ring and 13 fan blades that provide boosted static pressure to drive air through the heatsink fins and onto the GPU heat spreader. The two fans on the flanks feature 11 blades and half-height barrier rings to allow for more lateral dispersion and to provide better airflow through the cooling array. Turbulence between fans is reduced thanks to a reversal of the center fan’s rotational direction.

A larger heatsink that fills most of the card’s 2.9-slot footprint was designed to leverage the increased airflow. To get heat up off the die and into the heatsink array, the surface of the heat spreader is polished with MaxContact technology, which improves smoothness at the microscopic level. The extra flatness allows for better contact with the die for enhanced thermal transfer.

Improvements are not limited to the cooling array — top-shelf capacitors, chokes and power stages effortlessly deliver hundreds of watts at a millisecond’s notice. Dubbed Super Alloy Power II, these components are soldered to the PCB using the ASUS-exclusive Auto-Extreme automated manufacturing process, ensuring smooth joints each card meets our rigorous specifications.

Also included are FanConnect II headers that allow PWM fans to be tuned based on CPU and GPU temperatures, providing extra intake or exhaust for demanding 3D tasks and compute workloads. Builders looking for a quick and simple way to adjust the card’s default behavior can flick an onboard Dual Bios switch to choose between “performance” and “quiet” profiles without software. Another ease-of-use feature is an onboard voltage-sensing circuit that monitors PSU rail voltage. The circuit is fast enough to catch any transients that result in the rail voltage dropping too low. If that happens, a red LED will light up to indicate a power supply issue, making it easier to debug the source of crashes during gameplay.

The front side of the GPU has also been buffed up. An addressable RGB element can be customized with Armoury Crate software, and the Strix’s reinforced metal frame adds a literal layer of durability.

Flipping the card around reveals a metal backplate with a wide vent. The vent allows hot air to escape towards chassis exhaust fans instead of being recycled back into the GPU cooler. Beneath the GPU, a bracket provides consistent mounting pressure between die and heat spreader. Stainless steel is used for the I/O bracket to protect ports and provide a more secure mount.

The sum of all the design improvements found on the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs results in a massive leap forward in thermal design. Paired with the outstanding performance of NVIDIA Ampere architecture, gamers now have access to fresh experiences, from insane frame rates in competitive titles, to smooth high-res gameplay in immersive AAA games.

TUF Gaming: Built TUF

The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 30 series has been stripped down and built back up to provide more robust power and cooling. A new all-metal shroud houses three powerful axial-tech fans that utilize durable dual ball fan bearings. Fan rotation has been optimized for reduced turbulence, and a stop mode brings all three fans to a halt at low temps. Beneath, independent heatsinks for the GPU and memory keep thermals under tight control.

In-line with the TUF Gaming legacy, components are selected based on their durability and performance. In addition to top-shelf chokes and MOSFETs, capacitors that meet military-grade certification make the TUF stand tall amongst the competition. The Auto-Extreme automated manufacturing process ensures components are placed and attached accurately. And, to ensure flawless performance when it counts, the cards are subjected to a grueling 144-hour validation trial.

Most of the rear is swathed in a protective metal backplate that prominently features a wide vent. The vent allows hot air to escape towards chassis exhaust fans instead of being recycled back into the GPU cooler. Beneath the GPU, a bracket provides consistent mounting pressure between the die and heat spreader. Stainless steel is used for the I/O bracket to protect ports and provide a more secure mount. A conveniently placed Dual Bios switch allows customization of the card’s default performance profile without software.
For a builder looking for a new “old faithful,” this card has their back.

ASUS Dual: 2X Fans. 2X Fun

Delivering the latest NVIDIA Ampere architecture experience in its purest form, the ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 3070 melds performance and simplicity like no other. Leveraging advanced cooling technologies derived from flagship graphics cards, the Dual opts for substance over style, the perfect choice for a well-balanced build.

A clean shroud matches the aesthetic of workstations and decked out gaming rigs alike. Two tried-and-true Axial-tech fans provide ample airflow and the fans come to a halt automatically at low temperatures.

Auto-Extreme Technology reduces thermal strain on components and avoids the use of harsh cleaning chemicals, resulting in less environmental impact, and lower manufacturing power consumption. An aluminum backplate and stainless steel I/O bracket help protect the PCB from unwanted flex.

For gamers, content creators and enthusiasts who want a robust plug-and-play experience, the ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 3070 is ready.

SPECIFICATIONS

AVAILABILITY

The ROG Strix, TUF Gaming and Dual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards will be available starting from September 2020 in North America.

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Happy Gaming!

AMD surprised us with a new vBIOS for the ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC less than 18 hours before it launched on Tuesday morning. The vBIOS flash brought increased performance at the expense of higher power draw and lower overclocking headroom. Although entry-level RX 5600 XTs can be purchased for $279 which is also the price of a GTX 1660 Ti, the TUF Gaming X3 RX 5600 XT is a premium card that lists for $309 putting it into direct competition with the $299 RTX 2060 Founders Edition (FE).

We present the updated performance results of the RX 5600 XT with the new vBIOS using 50 games against the RX 2060 Founders Edition, the EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC and EVGA GTX 1660 Super XC and also versus the Red Devil RX Vega 56. Let’s check out the test configuration before we see the updated performance results.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-8700K (HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on to 4.8GHz for all cores; Coffee Lake DX11 CPU graphics).
• EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard (Intel Z370 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA
• T-FORCE 16GB DDR4 (2x8GB, dual channel at 3866 MHz), supplied by Team Group
• TUF Gaming X3 ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC 6GB, at factory settings, on loan from ASUS/AMD
• EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC 6GB, at XC clocks, on loan from EVGA
• ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC 6GB at ASUS EVO factory settings, on loan from EVGA
• EVGA GTX 1660 XC 6GB at EVGA XC factory settings, on loan from EVGA
• EVGA GTX 1060 SC 6GB, factory SC clocks, on loan from EVGA
• RTX 2060 Founders edition, at FE clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• Sapphire RX 5500 XT Pulse OC 4GB on loan from Sapphire
• PowerColor Red Devil RX 5500 XT 8GB on loan from PowerColor
• PowerColor Red Devil RX 590 8GB on loan from PowerColor
• Red Devil RX 570 4GB, at Red Devil factory overclocked settings, on loan from PowerColor
• 2 x 480GB Team Group SSDs – one for AMD, and one for NVIDIA
• 1.92TB San Disk enterprise class SSD
• 2TB Micron 1100 enterprise class SSD
• T-FORCE 500GB Vulkan SSD, supplied by Team Group
• EVGA 1000G 1000W Gold power supply unit
• Cooler Master 240mm CPU water cooler
• EVGA Nu Audio PCIe soundcard, supplied by EVGA
• Edifier R1320T Active speakers
• EVGA DG-77, mid-tower case supplied by EVGA
• Monoprice Crystal Pro 4K

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 441.87 used for all NVIDIA. See NVIDIA Control Panel image below.
• AMD Adrenalin Software 20.1.3 used for the RX 5600 XT. 20.1.2 is used for the RX Vega 56. See the AMD Control Panel image below.
• VSync is forced off.
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied
• Gaming results show average frame rates in bold including minimum frame rates shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font where higher is better. Games benched with OCAT show average framerates but the minimums are expressed by the 99th percentile frametime in ms where lower numbers are better.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 10 64-bit Home edition. DX11 titles are run under DX11 render paths. DX12 titles are generally run under the DX12 render path unless performance is lower than with DX11; and Borderlands 3, Total War Warhammer II, and Hitman 2 are tested on DX11 and on DX12. Seven games use the Vulkan API.
• Latest DirectX
• All 50 games are patched to their latest versions at time of posting.
• The Adrenalin 2020 control panel is used to set Radeon options
• The NVIDIA control panel is used for GeForce settings
• OCAT, latest version
• Fraps, latest version
• Afterburner, latest non-beta version

50 PC Game benchmark suite & 3 synthetic tests

Synthetic

• Firestrike – Basic & Extreme
• Time Spy DX12
• Superposition

DX11 Games

• Grand Theft Auto V
• The Witcher 3
• Fallout 4
• Rainbow Six Siege
• Overwatch
• For Honor
• Mass Effect: Andromeda
• ARK: Survival Evolved
• Prey
• Project CARS 2
• Total Wars: Warhammer II
• Star Wars Battlefront II
• Middle Earth: Shadow of War
• Star Wars: Battlefront II
• Monster Hunter: World
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance
• Final Fantasy XV
• Far Cry 5
• Conan Exiles
• Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
• Hitman 2
• Just Cause 4
• Resident Evil 2
• Anthem
• FarCry New Dawn
• Devil May Cry 5
• Borderlands 3
• Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint
• The Outer Worlds
• Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
• Mech Warrior 5: Mercenaries

DX12 Games

• • Ashes of the Singularity Escalation
  • Civilization VI
  • Sniper Elite 4
  • Forza 7
  • Total War: Warhammer II
  • Warhammer: Vermintide 2
  • Shadow of the Tomb Raider
  • Hitman 2
  • Battlefield V
  • Metro Exodus
  • Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
  • Anno 1800
  • F1 2019
  • Control
  • Gears 5
  • Borderlands 3

• Call of Duty Modern Warfare

Vulkan Games

• DOOM
• Strange Brigade
• World War Z
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood
• Star Control Origins
• Red Dead Redemption 2

AMD Adrenalin Control Center Settings

All AMD settings are set so as to be apples-to-apples when compared to NVIDIA’s control panel settings – all optimizations are off, Vsync is forced off, Texture filtering is set to High, and Tessellation uses application settings.

We pick the above Custom Global Performance settings for our benchmarking which has to be precise and repeatable especially because we benchmark driver performance changes, so Surface Format and other optimizations are disabled. As shown above, Anisotropic Filtering is disabled by default but we always use 16X for all game benchmarks.

Adrenalin Software Edition 20.1.3

Adrenalin Software Edition 20.1.3 are the public launch drivers supporting the RX 5600 XT. Go here to start the download.

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings that match AMD’s settings.

We did not adjust any card’s Power and Temperature limits since it does not benefit low-power cards.

Performance Summary Charts & Conclusion

Here are the ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC new vBIOS performance results after the flash in column one compared with the original vBIOS performance results in column two.

The highest game settings are used and they are listed on the charts. Most gaming results show average framerates in bold text, and higher is better. Minimum framerates are next to the averages in italics and in a slightly smaller font. The games benched with OCAT show average framerates but the .1 minimums are expressed by frametimes in ms where lower numbers are better.

As we noted in Tuesday’s original review, the flash sets the new clocks approximately 8% up over the old vBIOS which translates anywhere from about 2% to 5% more performance – and in some cases, even more. The new vBIOS brings a significant performance improvement.

The Bigger Picture

The ASUS GTX 1660 Super performance results are given in column one, the EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC results are in column two and the ASUS RX 5600 XT performance numbers are in the center third column in yellow text. The fourth column shows the RTX 2060 Founders Edition performance results followed by the Red Devil RX Vega 56 numbers in the last column.

After the new vBIOS flash, the ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC pulls even further away from the GTX 1660 Ti winning most of the benchmarks. However, the moment the GTX 1660 Super was released at $229, it made the $279 Ti completely redundant and seem overpriced as the extra 1-4% performance is usually not worth $50 to budget conscious gamers. In the case of the vanilla RX 5600 XT, its $279 price is justified by solidly beating both the GTX 1660 Super and the Ti. The issue is that the ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC is priced $10 above the RTX 2060 Founders Edition.

The RTX 2060 wins approximately 30 of BTR’s 50 game benchmark suite although the RX 5600 XT wins half of the DX12 games. The last generation RX Vega 56 as represented by the Red Devil does pretty well and is a consideration depending on price and availability although it uses more power than the other cards it competes with here. It is still a worthy competitor to the RTX 2060 although the GeForce is faster overall.

Conclusion

Although each partner AIB pricing for each video card is ultimately determined by the card manufacturer, AMD effectively dictates the final price range of the card by how much they charge for their GPUs and what standards the supporting board components must meet. It appears that AMD’s strategy for Navi is to encourage higher pricing versus its competition.

This shift in strategy may relate to perception and brand. It could be that AMD wants to be seen as on an equal or higher footing than NVIDIA and are pricing their Navi cards to match certain NVIDIA cards that are perceived as high-priced. The GTX 1660 Ti never justified its minor performance uptick by being priced $50 over the the GTX 1660 Super, and it is further squeezed out by the now $20 cheaper RTX 2060. The RTX 2060 at $299 is faster and less expensive than some premium RX 5600 XTs.

Ultimately the market sets pricing, and currently at $309.99, the ASUS TUF Gaming RX 5600 XT is a solid well-built excellent Ultra 1080P performer that is just priced a bit too optimistically. We are still waiting on the arrival of a PowerColor RX 5600 XT that may have been delayed by the Chinese New Year. In the meantime, we have a very interesting T-FORCE liquid-cooled M.2 SSD review to bring you.

Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Gaming!!

BTR received a TUF Gaming X3 ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC 8GB ($279) review sample from AMD last week, and we have benchmarked it using 50 games versus its main competitor, the GTX 1660 Ti ($279). In addition, we benchmark the GTX 1660 Super 6GB ($229), the RX Vega 56 8GB ($265), the RTX 2060 ($299), and six other cards. Although the RX 5600 XT 6GB is designed for Ultra 1080P, BTR’s 50 game benchmarks were also run at Ultra 2560×1440 to push it beyond its limits.

We got a surprise yesterday morning – AMD released a new performance vBIOS for the RX 5600 XT. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to retest all 50 games so we flashed the card’s BIOS and rebenched ten games to get an idea of how much additional performance improvement this update brings. We also tested the power draw and the overclocking headroom before and after the vBIOS update.

Final Update 01/24/20 9:30 AM PT: A new-vBIOS ASUS TUF Gaming X3 RX 5600 XT review has updated all 50 game benchmarks and the conclusion. It also focuses on the RX 5600 XT’s new performance versus the GTX 1660 Ti and Super as well as against the RTX 2060 and RX Vega 56.

UPDATED 01/22/20 9:30 AM: A full day after posting we just now got another surprise from AMD that the ASUS TUF Gaming X3 RX 5600 XT is priced at $309.99 (MSRP) which is $30 above AMD’s entry-level pricing of $279.99. Newegg has it on pre-order for $319.99 with availability scheduled for tomorrow.

Arriving on 7nm, the RX 5700 series signaled AMD’s return to competitiveness in July, and its new RDNA architecture is also the largest change since GCN. Starting with the RX 5500/XT, AMD has replaced the Polaris RX 500 series and is now aiming at the Ultra 1080P gaming market with the RX 5600 XT to go directly against NVIDIA’s GTX 1660 Ti.

The RX 5500 XT launches today starting at $279 only as AMD partner cards with multiple levels of overclock and different features. We also have a PowerColor RX 5600 XT review sample on the way and will have a new review up in a day or two.

In advance of the RX 5500/5600 XT’s launch, AMD has released the Adrenalin 2020 Edition which brings at least 20 new and updated features. It provides gamers with one-click presets to easily optimize software and system settings for custom gaming.

The new AMD Game Center gives gamers the option to launch games from one location regardless of platform. Settings can be adjusted for each individual game to track gaming and performance stats without ever leaving the game. In addition, a new integrated web browser enables users to browse online for game information. Here are some of the highlights of the Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition:

• Radeon Boost – Delivers an average performance boost up to 23% during fast-paced gaming by dynamically reducing image resolution in areas where it matters least to image quality while increasing framerates, fluidity, and bolstering responsiveness.
  AMD Link – Features an updated interface, and the AMD Link mobile application now allows gamers to stream to mobile devices with high-quality PC gameplay on phones or tablets from anywhere with a high speed Internet connection.
  Integer Display Scaling – Scales on-screen images from one pixel to four or more to give classic games a retro pixel-art look with scaling options for high resolution displays without performance penalty.
  DirectML Media Filters – Visual noise reduction and upscaling filters utilize machine learning to clean up photo and video files to deliver better quality than traditional de-noise and upscale filters.
  Radeon Image Sharpening and Radeon Anti-Lag – Radeon Image Sharpening3 adds support for DirectX11 in addition to DX9, DX12, and Vulkan games. This feature now allows users to select the degree of sharpness. Radeon Anti-Lag4 adds support for DX9 titles on older 5000 series graphics cards.

The TUF Gaming X3 ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC 6GB

Although there is no AMD reference design for the RX 5600 XT, the specifications are detailed in their chart.

The RX 5600 XT is a similar GPU to the RX 5700 but with lower core clocks and with much less memory bandwidth. With the original vBIOS, the reference RX 5600 XT’s base clock is above 1130MHz boosting to a average game Game Clock of 1375MHz and a Boost Clock up to 1560MHz. The TUF 3 RX 5600 XT EVO OC offers a faster Boost Clock (OC Mode) up to 1640MHz and a Game Clock up to 1620MHz. Of course, the actual individual game and boost clock results will vary from card to card.

After the vBIOS flash, the ASUS TUF 3 RX 5600 XT 6GB EVO OC is now factory overclocked with an up to 1660MHz Game Clock/~1770MHz Boost clock using the OC Mode, and a 1615MHz Game clock with a ~1750 Boost clock using Gaming Mode. With Silent Mode, it also has an onboard controller that brings fans to a stop when the GPU core temperature is below 55 C, letting gamers play light games with no fan noise. As the temperatures rise past a predetermined threshold, the fans automatically restart. All of these modes may be accessed by using the ASUS Tweak II utility and further manual overclocking is also available.

Here are the specifications in ASUS’ chart.

Specifications

The specifications look good and the card looks awesome, so let’s unbox it and look more closely at it before we benchmark it.

Unboxing the ASUS RX 5600 XT Tuf Gaming EVO OC

The ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC comes in an large box that advertise its features including OC (overclock). It is an overclocked 6GB RX 5600 XT built on 7nm using AMD’s latest RDNA architecture and it features 4.0 PCIe support, the latest AMD Radeon Adrenalin Software, Fidelity FX and FreeSync 2 HDR across HDMI.

The features are detailed on the back of the box. Axial tech fans are designed for the latest generation of higher end ASUS graphics cards and feature a small hub with longer blades plus a barrier ring to increase downward air pressure and IP5X dust resistance for a long life. ASUS software is also featured with GPU Tweak II as well as XSplit Gamecaster and Quantumcloud for streamers.

Opening the box we see a quick start guide and a thank-you linking the owner to ASUS support.

Here are the minimum system requirements which include a 450W power supply and an 8-pin power cable.The ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC is a good-looking 2.7 slot tri-fan card. The card is gray and there is no blue as some pictures may indicate.

Turning it over, we see a solid metal backplate that protects the PCB against flexing and prevents damaging the traces.The card uses a single 8-pin PCIe connector and requires a minimum 450W PSU. Looking at the ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC from its edges we see the heatpipes that use DirectCU II which brings copper heatpipes into direct contact with the die for better cooling, and the large heatsinks that extend for much of the length of the PCB.Here is one end.

On the other end, the connectors consist of three DisplayPorts and a HDMI connector.

ASUS Auto-Extreme Technology and Testing

ASUS graphics cards are produced using Auto-Extreme Technology, an automated manufacturing process that allows all of the soldering to be completed in a single pass to reduce thermal strain on components while avoiding the use of harsh cleaning chemicals. Here is their video.

ASUS’ 144 hour validation program puts their cards through a series of tests. Each card must meet rigorous performance and reliability standards before it ships. Performance and stress tests are run and these trials include a 144 hour stability test with a series of 3DMark benchmarking runs to ensure the card performs well at its limits.

The card looks great. But before we explore overclocking and then performance testing, let’s take a closer look at our test configuration.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-8700K (HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on to 4.8GHz for all cores; Coffee Lake DX11 CPU graphics).
• EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard (Intel Z370 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA
• T-FORCE 16GB DDR4 (2x8GB, dual channel at 3866 MHz), supplied by Team Group
• TUF Gaming X3 ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC 6GB, at factory settings, on loan from ASUS/AMD
• EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC 6GB, at XC clocks, on loan from EVGA
• EVGA GTX 1660 SUPER XC 6GB at EVGA factory settings, on loan from EVGA
• EVGA GTX 1660 XC 6GB at EVGA XC factory settings, on loan from EVGA
• EVGA GTX 1060 SC 6GB, factory SC clocks, on loan from EVGA
• RTX 2060 Founders edition, at FE clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• Sapphire RX 5500 XT Pulse OC 4GB on loan from Sapphire
• PowerColor Red Devil RX 5500 XT 8GB on loan from PowerColor
• PowerColor Red Devil RX 590 8GB on loan from PowerColor
• Red Devil RX 570 4GB, at Red Devil factory overclocked settings, on loan from PowerColor
• 2 x 480GB Team Group SSDs – one for AMD, and one for NVIDIA
• 1.92TB San Disk enterprise class SSD
• 2TB Micron 1100 enterprise class SSD
• T-FORCE 500GB Vulkan SSD, supplied by Team Group
• EVGA 1000G 1000W Gold power supply unit
• Cooler Master 240mm CPU water cooler
• EVGA Nu Audio PCIe soundcard, supplied by EVGA
• Edifier R1320T Active speakers
• EVGA DG-77, mid-tower case supplied by EVGA
• Monoprice Crystal Pro 4K

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 441.87 used for all NVIDIA cards except 441.41 used for the GTX 1660 and 436.48 drivers used for the GTX 1060 SC. Game Ready 441.41 drivers are used for the GTX 1660. See NVIDIA Control Panel image below.
• AMD Adrenalin Software 20.1.1 RC5 (press drivers/20.1.3 public drivers) used for the RX 5600 XT. 20.1.2 is used for the RX Vega 56 and 19.12.2 is used for the RX 5500 XTs and the Red Devils RX 590 and RX 570. See the AMD Control Panel image below.
• VSync is forced off.
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied
• Gaming results show average frame rates in bold including minimum frame rates shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font where higher is better. Games benched with OCAT show average framerates but the minimums are expressed by the 99th percentile frametime in ms where lower numbers are better.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 10 64-bit Home edition. DX11 titles are run under DX11 render paths. DX12 titles are generally run under the DX12 render path unless performance is lower than with DX11; and Borderlands 3, Total War Warhammer II, and Hitman 2 are tested on DX11 and on DX12. Seven games use the Vulkan API.
• Latest DirectX
• All 50 games are patched to their latest versions at time of posting.
• The Adrenalin 2020 control panel is used to set Radeon options
• The NVIDIA control panel is used for GeForce settings
• OCAT, latest version
• Fraps, latest version
• Afterburner, latest non-beta version
• Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark

50 PC Game benchmark suite & 3 synthetic tests

Synthetic

• Firestrike – Basic & Extreme
• Time Spy DX12
• Superposition

DX11 Games

• Grand Theft Auto V
• The Witcher 3
• Fallout 4
• Rainbow Six Siege
• Overwatch
• For Honor
• Mass Effect: Andromeda
• ARK: Survival Evolved
• Prey
• Project CARS 2
• Total Wars: Warhammer II
• Star Wars Battlefront II
• Middle Earth: Shadow of War
• Star Wars: Battlefront II
• Monster Hunter: World
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance
• Final Fantasy XV
• Far Cry 5
• Conan Exiles
• Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
• Hitman 2
• Just Cause 4
• Resident Evil 2
• Anthem
• FarCry New Dawn
• Devil May Cry 5
• Borderlands 3
• Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint
• The Outer Worlds
• Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
• Mech Warrior 5: Mercenaries

DX12 Games

• Ashes of the Singularity Escalation
• Civilization VI
• Sniper Elite 4
• Forza 7
• Total War: Warhammer II
• Warhammer: Vermintide 2
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Hitman 2
• Battlefield V
• Metro Exodus
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Anno 1800
• F1 2019
• Control
• Gears 5
• Borderlands 3
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare

Vulkan Games

• DOOM
• Strange Brigade
• World War Z
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood
• Star Control Origins
• Red Dead Redemption 2

AMD Adrenalin Control Center Settings

All AMD settings are set so as to be apples-to-apples when compared to NVIDIA’s control panel settings – all optimizations are off, Vsync is forced off, Texture filtering is set to High, and Tessellation uses application settings.

We pick the above Custom Global Performance settings for our benchmarking which has to be precise and repeatable especially because we benchmark driver performance changes, so Surface Format and other optimizations are disabled. As shown above, Anisotropic Filtering is disabled by default but we always use 16X for all game benchmarks.

Adrenalin Software Edition 20.1.3

Adrenalin Software Edition 20.1.3 will be available today as the public launch drivers supporting the RX 5600 XT. Go here to start the download. The vBIOS update tool will be found on ASUS website.

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings that match AMD’s settings.

We did not adjust any card’s Power and Temperature limits since it does not benefit low-power cards. Let’s check out overclocking, temperatures, and noise next.

Overclocking, temperatures & noise

The ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC is a low-power and quiet card even when overclocked. The card stayed cool and below 63C even when overclocked to its maximum and its three fans never became intrusive. We could not hear the card’s fans over the other fans of our PC even when it ramps up, unlike with the Red Devil RX 590.

The ASUS Tweak II utility has Gaming mode with a Boost clock that is 45MHz lower than the OC mode. We could not hear any differences so we benchmarked in OC mode. In addition, the User1 mode allows for manual overclocking with a myriad of options including the built-in OC Scanner for automatic overclocks.

The vBIOS update yesterday brought extra performance by increasing the power to the GPU and raising the Boost clocks but also decreasing the available manual overclocking headroom.

The vBIOS update

Above are the stock clocks with the old vBIOS running Heaven 4.0 under a full graphics load. The clock speed hangs around 1600MHz and uses about 103W of power and the GPU runs cool around 60 C.

Originally, before the vBIOS flash, we reached a manual 10% overclock with a maximum clock boost to around 1770MHz and a memory offset to 1860MHz. Temperatures are still cool at under 60C with the ASUS X3 fans ramping up to under 1800 rpm. It seems that there would be more performance and overclocking potential if the GPU Tuning control allowed for higher frequencies.

After the vBIOS flash, we see the stock clock speeds move up from 1599MHz to 1727MHz while the power consumption rose from 103W to 117W yet the fan speed stayed under 1350 rpm.

After the vBIOS flash, we saw the same ultimate overclock as before with a slightly higher power consumption of 122W, but now there is only 2% overclocking headroom instead of 10%. We hit the same memory cap of 1860MHz even by using the ASUS TWEAK II Utility. With the new vBIOS flash, AMD has decided to lower the headroom and give everyone a faster default chip which looks to us to give up to ~8% faster clocks with approximately 2-5% or even a bit more free performance over the original vBIOS. The first units that begin selling today will have the original vBIOS and their owners will have to go to ASUS’ website to download the tool to flash it if they wish.

Unfortunately, we only had a very short time to test overclocking and we hope to revisit it in a follow-up review to see what kind of further manual overclocking is possible. Of course, this updated vBIOS “free” performance comes with higher power usage and the need for faster spinning fans although they are still very quiet and they never became intrusive.

Let’s check the ASUS RX 5600 XT EVO OC’s performance compared with eight other competing cards using 50 games, and then head for our conclusion.

This overclocking showdown is the follow-up to the ASUS Dual GTX 1660 SUPER EVO review where we are now focusing on its maximum overclocked performance versus the maximum overclocked EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC. The GTX 1660 SUPER was recently released at the same $229 with significantly more performance than the original vanilla GTX 1660. We found the new GTX 1660 SUPER performs within about 3% of the nearly fifty dollars more expensive Ti but we want to see if manually overclocking each card changes anything.

The ASUS Dual GTX 1660 SUPER EVO Overclocking

We reached a final stable overclock close to 2100MHz by adding +165MHz to the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC core’s offset. The GDDR6 is also highly overclockable as we were able to add +850MHz. Full overclocking details are here.

The EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC Overclocking

We added 175MHz to the core to boost the EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC’s clocks above 2050MHz. We also added 800MHz to the GDDR6 memory overclock and the full details of our overclocking experience is here.

Let’s check the performance results of 46 games with our games at factory-clocked and overclocked speeds using the EVGA GTX 1660 SUPER DUAL EVO OC and the ASUS GTX 1660 TI XC.

Testing Platform

We test 46 games and 3 synthetic benchmarks at 2560×1440 and at 1920×1080. Our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 10 64-bit Home Edition v1903, and we are using an i7-8700K which turbos all 6 cores to 4.8GHz, an EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard, and 16GB of XTREEM DDR4 at 3866MHz. The games, settings, and hardware are identical except for the cards being compared.

Before we run our benchmarks, let’s check out the full test configuration.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-8700K (HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on to 4.8GHz for all cores; Coffee Lake DX11 CPU graphics).
• EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard (Intel Z370 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA
• T-FORCE 16GB DDR4 (2x8GB, dual channel at 3866 MHz), supplied by Team Group
• ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC, on loan from ASUS
• EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC Gaming 6GB, stock GTX 1660 Ti clocks, on loan from EVGA
• 2 x 480GB Team Group SSDs – one for AMD, and one for NVIDIA
• 1.92TB San Disk enterprise class SSD
• 2TB Micron 1100 enterprise class SSD
• 500GB Vulkan SSD, supplied by Team Group
• Seasonic 850W Gold Focus power supply unit
• EVGA CLC 280mm CPU water cooler, supplied by EVGA
• EVGA Nu Audio PCIe soundcard, supplied by EVGA
• Edifier R1320T Active speakers
• EVGA DG-77, mid-tower case supplied by EVGA
• LG 43″ HDR 4K TV
• Monoprice Crystal Pro 4K

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 440.77 drivers used for the EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC. . Press launch drivers 441.77 are used for the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC. See NVIDIA Control Panel image below.
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied
• Gaming results show average frame rates in bold including minimum frame rates shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font where higher is better. Games benched with OCAT show average framerates but the minimums are expressed by the 99th percentile frametime in ms where lower numbers are better.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 10 64-bit Home edition. DX11 titles are run under DX11 render paths. DX12 titles are generally run under the DX12 render path unless performance is lower than with DX11, and Borderlands 3, Total War Warhammer II and Hitman 2 are tested on DX11 and on DX12. Four games use the Vulkan API.
• Latest DirectX
• All 46 games are patched to their latest versions at time of posting.
• WattMan used to set Radeon cooling and power options.
• Afterburner used for GeForce settings and primarily for overclocking
• ASUS GPU Tweak II
• OCAT, latest version
• Fraps, latest version
• FrameView, latest beta
• Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark

46 PC Game benchmark suite & 3 synthetic tests

Synthetic

• Firestrike – Basic & Extreme
• Time Spy DX12
• Superposition

DX11 Games

• Grand Theft Auto V
• The Witcher 3
• Fallout 4
• Rainbow Six Siege
• Overwatch
• For Honor
• Mass Effect: Andromeda
• ARK: Survival Evolved
• Project CARS 2
• Total Wars: Warhammer II
• Middle Earth: Shadow of War
• Star Wars: Battlefront II
• Monster Hunter: World
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance
• Final Fantasy XV
• Far Cry 5
• Conan Exiles
• Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
• Hitman 2
• Just Cause 4
• Resident Evil 2
• Anthem
• FarCry New Dawn
• Devil May Cry 5
• Borderlands 3
• Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint
• The Outer Worlds

DX12 Games

• Civilization VI
• Sniper Elite 4
• Forza 7
• Total War: Warhammer II
• Total War: Vermintide 2
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Hitman 2
• Battlefield V
• Metro Exodus
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Anno 1800
• F1 2019
• Control
• Gears 5
• Borderlands 3
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare

Vulkan Games

• DOOM
• Strange Brigade
• World War Z
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings that match AMD’s settings.

We used the latest beta of Afterburner to set both GeForce’s highest Power and Temperature targets. By setting the Power Limits and Temperature limits to maximum, they do not throttle, but they can reach and maintain their individual maximum clocks.

Let’s head to the performance results of our overclocking showdown.

Performance summary charts

Here are the performance results of 46 games and 3 synthetic tests comparing the factory clocked EVGA and overclocked GTX 1660 Ti versus the ASUS stock and overclocked RTX 16600 SUPER. The highest settings are always chosen and the settings are listed on the charts. The benches were run at 1920×1080 and at 2560×1440.

Gaming results show average framerates in bold text, and higher is better. Minimum framerates are next to the averages in italics and in a slightly smaller font. Games benched with OCAT results are given as frametimes in ms where lower numbers are better.

The EVGA factory-clocked GTX 1660 Ti XC is in the first column and its overclocked results are in the second column compared with the overclocked ASUS GTX 1660 SUPER Dual EVO OC in the third column, followed by the SUPER’s factory-clocked results in the fourth column. Performance “wins” between the overclocked cards are given in yellow text and in gold text for the factory clocked results. Ties are expressed by having both sets of results given in colored text.

We see that both cards each gain performance from overclocking and at first glance the GTX 1660 Ti wins most of them. However, looking more closely, most of the results are usually up to a couple of percentage points apart and there is almost no noticeable practical performance difference between the cards playing most games.

Let’s check out our conclusion.

Conclusion

This has been quite an interesting exploration for us in evaluating the factory and manually overclocked ASUS GTX 1660 SUPER versus the factory-clocked and manually overclocked EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC. The GTX 1660 SUPER overall is very slightly slower than the GTX 1660 Ti at factory settings, and it even manages to close the performance gap a little bit when each card is overclocked manually to its limits.

A gamer looking for the best value in the $230-$280 range should probably pick a GTX 1660 SUPER over a Ti. Both cards overclock equally well on their cores and memory from our samples as they remain in an almost identical performance class. NVIDIA has almost made the GTX 1660 Ti redundant by releasing the less expensive GTX 1660 SUPER. It’s very good news for gamers but a bit confusing without doing some research. To answer our original question regarding value between the two cards, the GTX 1660 Ti is generally not worth its current price premium over the GTX 1660 SUPER.

We are going to next look at these same two cards by measuring their VR performance using a Vive Pro with FCAT-VR early next week. After that, we will explore VR performance headroom using a RTX 2080 Super and a RTX 2080 Ti.

Stay tuned. In the meantime, if you have any comments or questions, feel free to post them in the comments section below.

Happy Gaming!

The GTX 1660 SUPER is the eighth GeForce GPU based on NVIDIA’s Turing architecture. Just as with the GTX 1660 Ti, there is no Founders Edition so it is represented in this review by the factory overclocked ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC which launches for sale today at $229.99.

The three Turing 1660s are successors to the Pascal GTX 1060 and they are not equipped with RT nor Tensor cores which allows the GTX 1660 SUPER to launch starting at $229. The GTX 1660 SUPER is currently aimed at the RX 590 which can now be found below $200 with a single game bundle although most overclocked models are priced higher. The Red Devil RX 590 is a premium overclocked card that launched just under a year ago and is currently out of stock at Amazon and Newegg except for open box models priced just below $220, so this is still a fair comparison.

The GTX 1660 SUPER is NVIDIA’s very latest mainstream non-RTX Turing card and it will be available globally today starting at $229 and up for factory-overclocked cards. Performance-wise it will fit in-between the $229 GTX 1660 and the $279 GTX 1660 Ti. The GTX 1660 SUPER has launched at the same price as the vanilla GTX 1660 which will now see a price drop. Clearly NVIDIA is not positioning the new SUPER GTX 1660 against AMD’s current line-up, but is anticipating the upcoming RX 5500 XT and RX 5500. In fact, NVIDIA has announced that the GTX 1650 SUPER will launch on November 22 but has not yet set its pricing.

With the release of the GTX 1660 SUPER, NVIDIA has included enhanced tools for image sharpening and scaling in the Control Panel, as well as integrating support for ReShade filters into the GeForce Experience. They have also improved and added an Ultra Low Latency Mode and even more G-SYNC compatible displays. We are covering this separately in a news post about the new 441.08 drivers.

Like the GTX 1060, the GTX 1660, the GTX 1660 Super, and the 1660 Ti each have 6GB of vRAM. We will highlight the GTX 1660 SUPER’s differences between these cards and we will focus on its performance. We will also benchmark it versus the $220 Red Devil RX 590 with an expanded 46-game benching suite which now includes The Outer Worlds, Borderlands 2, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to see how capable it is at Ultra settings at 1920×1080 and at 2560×1440. We especially want to see how the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC compares with the last generation Pascal EVGA GTX 1060 SC since NVIDIA claims that the GTX 1660 SUPER is up to 1.5X faster than the GTX 1060.

The GTX 1660, the GTX 1660 SUPER, and the GTX 1660 Ti are all based on the Turing TU116 GPU without tensor nor RT cores so they are less complex and less expensive than the RTX 2060. The GeForce GTX 1660s all feature the Turing core which allow them to exceed Pascal performance in games that use more complex shaders. TU116 includes support for Concurrent Floating Point and Integer Operations, a Unified Cache Architecture with a larger L1 cache, and Adaptive Shading.

The TDP of GTX 1660, SUPER and Ti are each only around 125 watts which make them an easy upgrade from a GTX 970 or GTX 960 as long as the PSU has an 8-pin power connector. Here is NVIDIA’s chart for comparison.

Here are the GTX 1660 SUPER’s specifications featuring 1408 CUDA cores, 88 Texture units, and 48 ROPs. Its base clock is 1530MHz but it will typically boost above 1785MHz. It is equipped with very fast 14Gbps vRAM at 7000MHz on a 192-bit interface.

The GTX 1660 Ti features 1536 CUDA Cores and a minimum GPU Boost clock of 1770 MHz as shown by NVIDIA’s chart below.

The GTX 1660 and the GTX 1660 SUPER each have 1408 CUDA cores, cut down from the GTX 1660 Ti’s 1536. While the GTX 1660 Ti uses 6GB of GDDR6, the GTX 1660 uses slower 6GB of GDDR5 memory with a 192-bit memory bus, for a combined memory bandwidth of 192GB/sec which is down considerably from the Ti’s 288.1GB/s and the SUPER’s 336GB/s. Base and Boost clocks are 1530MHz and 1785MHz, respectively which are just a notch up above the Ti’s clocks. The biggest difference between the vanilla GTX 1660 and the GTX 1660 SUPER is the SUPER’s much faster memory and thus much higher memory bandwidth.

Here are the GTX 1660 specifications from NVIDIA’s charts.

There are five ASUS GTX 1660 SUPER cards, and the card we are testing is in the middle of their stack. The ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC is factory overclocked with a 30MHz offset over the stock core using the Gaming BIOS and 60MHz using the OC BIOS. It also has a Silent BIOS with an advanced onboard controller that brings fans to a stop when the GPU core temperature is below 55 C, letting gamers play undemanding games in relative silence. As the temperatures rise past a predetermined threshold, the fans automatically restart. All of these BIOSes may be accessed by using the ASUS Tweak II utility and further manual overclocking is also available.

The ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC specifications are as below.

BTR received a DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC review sample on an extended loan from ASUS last Tuesday, and we have put it through its paces. We tested all five of our cards with recent drivers on a clean installation of Windows 10 64-bit Home edition, using a Core i7-8700K with all six cores overclocked to 4.8 GHz, and 16GB of T-FORCE 3866MHz DDR4.

First, let’s unbox the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC.

Unboxing t he ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC

The ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC comes in an large box that advertise its features.

The features are detailed on the back of the box. Axial tech fans are designed for the latest generation of higher end ASUS graphics cards and feature a small hub with longer blades plus a barrier ring to increase downward air pressure and IP5X dust resistance for a long life. ASUS software is also featured with GPU Tweak II as well as XSplit Gamecaster and Quantumcloud for streamers.

Opening the box we see a quick start guide and a thank-you linking the owner to ASUS support.

Here are the minimum system requirements which include a 450W power supply and an 8-pin cable.The ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC is a good-looking 2.7 slot dual-fan card.

Turning it over, we see a solid metal backplate that protects the PCB against flexing and prevents damaging the traces.Looking at the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC from its edges we see the dual heatpipes that use DirectCU II which brings copper heatpipes into direct contact with the die for better cooling, and the large heatsink that extends for much of the length of the PCB.Here is one end.

On the other end, the connectors consist of a DisplayPort, a HDMI connector, and a DVI connector.

ASUS Auto-Extreme Technology and Testing

ASUS graphics cards are produced using Auto-Extreme Technology, an automated manufacturing process that allows all soldering to be completed in a single pass to reduce thermal strain on components while avoiding the use of harsh cleaning chemicals. Here is their video.

ASUS’ validation program puts their cards through a series of tests. Each card must meet rigorous performance and
reliability standards before it ships. Performance and stress tests are run and reliability trials include a 144 hour stability test and a series of 3DMark benchmarking runs to ensure the card performs well at their limits.

The card looks great. But before we explore overclocking and then performance testing, let’s take a closer look at our test configuration.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-8700K (HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on to 4.8GHz for all cores; Coffee Lake DX11 CPU graphics).
• EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard (Intel Z370 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA
• T-FORCE 16GB DDR4 (2x8GB, dual channel at 3866 MHz), supplied by Team Group
• ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC, on loan from ASUS
• EVGA GTX 1660 XC Gaming 6GB, stock GTX 1660 Ti clocks, on loan from EVGA
• EVGA GTX 1660 Ti Black 6GB, at factory clocks, on loan from EVGA
• EVGA GTX 1060 SC 6GB, factory SC clocks, on loan from EVGA
• Red Devil RX 590 8GB, at factory overclocked settings, on loan from PowerColor
• 2 x 480GB Team Group SSDs – one for AMD, and one for NVIDIA
• 1.92TB San Disk enterprise class SSD
• 2TB Micron 1100 enterprise class SSD
• 500GB Vulkan SSD, supplied by Team Group
• Seasonic 850W Gold Focus power supply unit
• EVGA CLC 280mm CPU water cooler, supplied by EVGA
• EVGA Nu Audio PCIe soundcard, supplied by EVGA
• Edifier R1320T Active speakers
• EVGA DG-77, mid-tower case supplied by EVGA
• LG 43″ HDR 4K TV
• Monoprice Crystal Pro 4K

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 436.48 drivers used for the GTX 1060 SC. Game Ready 440.77 drivers are used for the GTX 1660 and the GTX 1660 Ti. Press launch drivers 441.77 are used for the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC. See NVIDIA Control Panel image below.
• AMD Adrenalin Software 19.10.2 is used for the Red Devil RX 590. See the AMD Control Panel image below.
• VSync is forced off.
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied
• Gaming results show average frame rates in bold including minimum frame rates shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font where higher is better. Games benched with OCAT show average framerates but the minimums are expressed by the 99th percentile frametime in ms where lower numbers are better.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 10 64-bit Home edition. DX11 titles are run under DX11 render paths. DX12 titles are generally run under the DX12 render path unless performance is lower than with DX11, and Borderlands 3, Total War Warhammer II and Hitman 2 are tested on DX11 and on DX12. Four games use the Vulkan API.
• Latest DirectX
• All 46 games are patched to their latest versions at time of posting.
• WattMan used to set Radeon cooling and power options.
• Afterburner used for GeForce settings and primarily for overclocking the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC
• ASUS GPU Tweak II
• OCAT, latest version
• Fraps, latest version
• FrameView, latest beta
• Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark

46 PC Game benchmark suite & 3 synthetic tests

Synthetic

• Firestrike – Basic & Extreme
• Time Spy DX12
• Superposition

DX11 Games

• Grand Theft Auto V
• The Witcher 3
• Fallout 4
• Rainbow Six Siege
• Overwatch
• For Honor
• Mass Effect: Andromeda
• ARK: Survival Evolved
• Project CARS 2
• Total Wars: Warhammer II
• Middle Earth: Shadow of War
• Star Wars: Battlefront II
• Monster Hunter: World
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance
• Final Fantasy XV
• Far Cry 5
• Conan Exiles
• Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
• Hitman 2
• Just Cause 4
• Resident Evil 2
• Anthem
• FarCry New Dawn
• Devil May Cry 5
• Borderlands 3
• Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint
• The Outer Worlds

DX12 Games

• Civilization VI
• Sniper Elite 4
• Forza 7
• Total War: Warhammer II
• Total War: Vermintide 2
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Hitman 2
• Battlefield V
• Metro Exodus
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Anno 1800
• F1 2019
• Control
• Gears 5
• Borderlands 3
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare

Vulkan Games

• DOOM
• Strange Brigade
• World War Z
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood

AMD Adrenalin Control Center Settings

All AMD settings are set so as to be apples-to-apples when compared to NVIDIA’s control panel settings – all optimizations are off, Vsync is forced off, Texture filtering is set to High, and Tessellation uses application settings.

We use Wattman to set the RX 590’s power, temperature, and fan settings to their maximums.

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings that match AMD’s settings.

We used the latest beta of Afterburner to set all GeForces’ highest Power and Temperature targets and for our primary overclock of the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC.

By setting the Power Limits and Temperature limits to maximum for each card, they do not throttle, but they can each reach and maintain their individual maximum clocks more easily and it benefits the RX 590 as much as it does the GeForce cards. There is almost no performance differences between using these and stock clocks although it gives more consistent benchmark results.

Let’s check out overclocking, temperatures, and noise next.

Overclocking, temperatures & noise

The ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC is a low-power and quiet card even when overclocked. We could not hear the card over the fans of our PC even when it ramps up, unlike with the Red Devil RX 590. We will spend much more time manually overclocking and testing performance in our follow-up overclocking showdown versus the GTX 1660 Ti.

The ASUS Tweak II utility has three basic profiles – (1) Silent mode with a boost of 1800MHz; (2) Gaming mode with a boost of 1830MHz; and (3) OC Mode with a boost of 1860MHz. In addition, the User1 mode allows for manual overclocking with a myriad of options including the built-in OC Scanner for automatic overclocks.

Here is Heaven 4.0 running at stock clocks which allowed the Boost to stay locked at 1935MHz which is well above NVIDIA’s typical boost of 1785MHz for a reference clocked GTX 1660 SUPER.

Since we have a lot more experience using Afterburner, we reached a final stable overclock of 2100MHz by adding +165MHz to the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC core’s offset. The vRAM is also highly overclockable as we were able to add +850MHz to the memory clocks to reach 7850MHz resulting in a nice performance boost.

As you can see, the card stayed cool and below 73C even when overclocked to its maximum and the dual fans never became intrusive.

Let’s check the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC’s performance compared with four other cards using 46 games, and then head for our conclusion.

Performance Summary Charts

Here are the summary charts of 46 games and 3 synthetic tests. The highest settings are always chosen and the settings are listed on the chart. The benches were run at 1920×1080 and at 2560×1440. Five cards are featured and benchmarked.

Most results show average framerates and higher is better. Minimum framerates are next to the averages in italics and in a slightly smaller font. The games benched with OCAT show average framerates but the minimums are expressed by the 99th percentile frametime in ms where lower numbers are better.

The Main Performance Charts

This set of charts show our five main competing cards’ performance from fastest to slowest. The stock-clocked EVGA GTX 1660 Ti Black is in the first column with the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC in the second column in gold text. The factory overclocked EVGA GTX 1660 XC is in the third column and the Red Devil RX 590 is in the fourth. Finally, the GTX 1060’s performance is in the last column

All four of the competing tested cards are in a similar class, but the GTX 1660 SUPER wins almost all of the games against the RX 590. Out of 45 games, the Red Devil RX 590 only wins in 2.5 games against the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC. The RX 590 mostly wins against the GTX 1060 but it trades blows with the GTX 1660 with the Radeon losing more games than it wins. Interestingly the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC performs just below the EVGA GTX 1660 Ti Black – generally below 5%.

Although the ASUS GTX 1660 SUPER is a mildly factory-overclocked card and the EVGA GTX 1660 Ti is a stock card, it may be difficult to justify the extra fifty dollars that the Ti commands when both cards are tested at their stock factory settings. However, it will be very interesting to see if the Ti can pull away from the SUPER when both are overclocked to the max, and our follow up review later this week will cover this.

The older generation EVGA GTX 1060 SC offers significantly less performance than the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC, and it seems to support NVIDIA’s claim that the GTX 1660 SUPER is up to 1.5X faster, especially in modern games with complex shaders. The Red Devil RX 590 is beaten even more solidly now by a $229 card and AMD needs to bring out the RX 5500 XT and/or drop the price on the RX 590.

We tested Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on our GeForce cards with ray traced shadows on versus off, and it is interesting to see that ray traced shadows are marginally playable on both the GTX 1660 Ti and SUPER each averaging around 50 FPS although the minimums are too low for ultra settings even at 1920×1080. If a player really wants to play with ray traced shadows on, then it is best to upgrade to a RTX 2060 (or higher) that uses dedicated cores for ray tracing. The RTX 2060 can evidently play above 60 FPS/highest settings/1080p with ray tracing enabled and we will performance test Call of Duty: Modern Warfare next week with the RTX cards.

This has been an unbelievably hectic and short yet enjoyable exploration evaluating the new Turing GTX 1660 SUPER as represented by the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC. It performed very well compared with the nearly $50 more expensive EVGA GTX 1660 Ti Black.

Although NVIDIA has bet their gaming future on introducing RTX features including DLSS and ray tracing, their strategy appears to be to use these features for their more powerful cards beginning with the RTX 2060. The GTX 1660 was reasonably priced at $229 which is $20 less than the launch price of the GTX 1060 at $249, but the more powerful GTX 1660 SUPER has also launched at $229 making it far more attractive now. The GTX 1660 SUPER is a decent performance upgrade from a GTX 1060 and it would be a great upgrade for a GTX 960 or GTX 970 owner as can be seen in BTR’s GTX 1660 review.

Conclusion

We are impressed with this 125W single 8-pin PCIe cabled mainstream Turing GTX 1660 SUPER that has solid performance at ultra 1920×1080. The ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC is priced at a very reasonable $229 – the same price as the vanilla GTX 1660 that it outperforms, and it is significantly faster than the $220 Red Devil RX 590. For a gamer looking for best bang-for-buck 1080P performance, the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC is a very good deal as it has a factory overclock with great cooling, a nice metal backplate, looks great in any PC, and it is backed by ASUS’ 3-year warranty.

The ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC is quiet, well-built, solid, good-looking, and it overclocks very well. In our case, we overclocked our review sample to 2100MHz plus a +850MHz offset to its memory. Our follow-up review featuring the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC versus the EVGA GTX 1660 Ti Black manual overclocking showdown will be posted by this weekend.

Pros

• The ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC is a fast Ultra/1080P mainstream card that is even suitable for High/1440P. It performs much better than the similarly-priced premium Red Devil RX 590, and at $229 it launches at the same price as the slower vanilla GTX 1660.
• The ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC performs within less than 5% of the almost $50 more expensive EVGA GTX 1660 Ti Black
• Overclocking headroom is very good.
• The ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC is quiet and efficient using only 125W and a single 8-pin connector. The card stays cool and quiet even when overclocked to the max.
• 0db Silent Mode for light silent gaming as well as two other presets offer flexibility to any gamer plus full manual control over overclocking.
• Although it is factory overclocked with a solid backplate and accent lighting, there is no price premium over an entry-level GTX 1660 SUPER.
• GPU Tweak II offers great monitoring and overclocking features.
• ASUS offers a 3 year warranty.

Cons

• None

The Verdict

If you are buying a fast mainstream 1080P video card right now, the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC is a great choice at $229. The GTX 1660 SUPER is faster than any factory overclocked premium RX 590, and it is priced the same as the slower GTX 1660 which will get a price drop. Amazingly, the ASUS card performs within less than 5% of a GTX 1660 Ti but it is priced about $50 less.

We would like to award the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC BabelTechReviews’ Good Value Award for what is essentially the best value in its class.

The ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC brings a well-priced mainstream addition to the GeForce Turing GTX family. A gamer can be assured of immersive gaming by picking this card for Ultra/1080P or perhaps even for entry-level VR or High/1440P gaming. If you currently game on an older generation video card such as a GTX 960, GTX 970, or even a GTX 1060, you will do yourself a favor by upgrading to a GTX 1660 SUPER.

Stay tuned, there is a lot more coming from us at BTR. We will shortly pit the EVGA GTX 1660 Ti Black versus the ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC in an overclocking showdown by this weekend. We also expect to post a VR review featuring the Vive Pro that explores performance headroom, and then we will explore VR using the new GTX 1660 SUPER.

Tell us what you think in the comments below or on BTR’s forum.

Happy Gaming!

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With strong research and development capability, TEAMGROUP has acquired the certifications of TUF Gaming Alliance and ROG Certified respectively. T-FORCE gaming memory is strictly tested by ASUS. With Asus motherboard, users can have the entire top gaming hardware at once to fully enjoy an extreme gaming and entertainment experience.

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Happy Gaming!

The GTX 980 that is now used for Nvidia’s high end notebook platform uses the same 256-bit, 2048 core, 7Gbps memory as the GPU used in generally large desktop video cards with a similar 165W TDP. The only differences are in the “binning” – only GTX 980 chips with the best power characteristics are chosen and are validated for notebooks that have to meet Nvidia’s specifications for this new platform. And these are not special “limited edition” GTX 980s as there are a half-dozen high-end notebook models being launched by Nvidia’s partners, including by MSI, ASUS, Aorus, and Clevo.

Nvidia is aiming for notebook overclocking of both the unlocked CPU and the unlocked GPU including adjustable fan profiles which are mostly unheard of now. This means that premium components must be used by Nvidia’s notebook partners to match the characteristics of the desktop GTX 980. The power delivery has to be top notch.

7 Gbps Memory Clock
4-8 Phase Power Supplies
Unlocked GPUs
Unlocked Mobile CPUs
Engineered For Overclocking
Fan Control

Most notebooks using the mobile part, the GTX 980m, use 3-phase power while the desktop GTX 980 chosen for notebooks uses much more heavy duty 4-8 phase power supplies.

Using 4-8 phase power supplies, means that there is about 50% more peak power available to the specially selected GTX 980 over the mobile variety. It also means that the new notebook GTX 980 is about 35% faster than the GTX 980m!

Notebooks built for VR

Nvidia claims that their new GTX 980 notebook platform is the first one built specifically for VR. VR using the Oculus Rift requires about 3.75 times more processing power than for regular 1080P gaming at 60 frames per second. A GTX 980m isn’t powerful enough as the minimum video card for the Oculus Rift is the (desktop) GTX 970. In fact, Nvidia has demonstrated the new notebook GTX 980 running 3-screen Surround!

So finally, notebook gamers no longer have to compromise. We now have a new class of overclocking-friendly notebooks that match desktop performance. If you want GTX 980 performance, you just need to pick the form factor that is right for you – notebook or desktop.

Happy Gaming!

When the GTX 970 launched at $329, the GTX 760 officially dropped to $219, and Nvidia put strong pricing pressure on the competing AMD lineup as well as on their own newly EoL’d video cards last year. In response, AMD dropped the pricing on their own cards and gave away game bundles so that today the R9 280 and the R9 285 (with a rebate) can each be had for very close to $200, with the 280X as the formerly $500 rebadged HD 7970 GE, now sitting close to $250.

And now Nvidia does it again with a faster, more efficient, and less expensive card than the GTX 760 – the GTX 960 for $199.99. It is a hard launch with many partner versions including overclocked versions for about $209, such as the ASUS STRIX GTX 960 OC DirectCU II Edition that we are reviewing today. It will be interesting to see what AMD will do in the short term since they evidently do not have a new line-up ready as a response.

What makes Maxwell especially impressive is that the Kepler GK106 GTX 660 came out over 2 years ago for $250 on a 256-bit bus, and now we have its faster and cheaper GM206 replacement on a smaller 128-bit bus and on the same 28nm process, but showing over 1.5 times the performance! That means that the GTX 960 is almost as fast as GTX 660 SLI, especially when it is overclocked. Surprisingly, the GTX 960 is only rated for 125W TDP using only one PCIe connector, making it the most efficient architecture that Nvidia has ever created! We plan to test it at the ASUS factory clocks, and then further overclocked as far as it will go on stock fan profile and fan settings. Originally we had planned to test GTX 960 stock clock performance but neither ASUS nor EVGA overclocking utilities will allow us to set a sufficiently large negative offset to compensate for ASUS’ approximately 12% factory overclock.

ABT was invited along with the media to Nvidia’s Press Event in Monterey, California, last September for two intensive days of everything Maxwell-related. Make sure to check out the GTX 980/970 launch article as this evaluation will be a simple recap of Maxwell architecture and a feature summary focusing on the ASUS GTX 960 OC. As usual at BTR, special emphasis is given to performance, and we have completely updated our platform (to Devil’s Canyon) and our benchmark suite (to 28 games, including 7 new since October).

BTR specializes in bringing our readers the largest and most comprehensive benching suite anywhere, so our focus will be on the GTX 960’s frame rates in 28 modern PC games. We will compare the GTX 960 at the ASUS factory overclock, and our own overclocked GTX 960 results to the GTX 980, the GTX 970, the GTX 760, and to the GTX 660 as well as to the R9 280X – a much faster and more expensive competitor – to see where the new Maxwell card sits in relation to performance of these other cards. Pictured are the current cards that we have benchmarked for this evaluation.

We use Intel’s Devil’s Canyon Haswell platform so as to not bottleneck our graphics – Core i7 4790K at 4.0GHz (with all cores Turbo synched to 4.4GHz), 2x8GB of Kingston “Beast” 2133MHz DRAM, on an ASUS Z97-E motherboard. Our resolutions for testing are primarily at Nvidia’s target of 1920×1080, and also at 2560×1600 which is way beyond what the GTX 960 was intended for, but it will show the card’s performance under extreme stress. First, let’s recap what’s new in Maxwell as well as unbox and summarize the features of the ASUS STRIX GTX 960 OC.

Key Features of the Maxwell GTX 960

The GeForce GTX 980, 970 and GTX 960 GPUs support all-new graphics features currently available only to Maxwell GPUs. Nvidia’s Voxel Global Illumination (VXGI) technology allows the new GPUs to render fully dynamic global illumination at playable frame rates bringing more realism and immersion to gamers. It is not real-time ray tracing yet, but it is a good step in that direction.

PC games can also perform and look better with new anti-aliasing modes like Multi-Frame sampled Anti-Aliasing (MFAA). MFAA combines multiple AA sample positions to produce a result that looks like higher quality anti-aliasing but with better performance. It appears to produce an image that looks similar to 4xMSAA at the performance cost of roughly 2xMSAA. For now, MFAA is only available to the GTX 980, GTX 970 and the GTX 960 on Nvidia’s desktop GPUs.

New GeForce Maxwell GPUs also support Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) which is similar to driver-based SuperSampling which brings the crisp detail of 4K resolution to 1920×1080 displays. It looks great, but without a FCAT capture, cannot be shown here with Fraps.

These Maxwell GPUs retain and improve on features like ShadowPlay, which now support recording at resolutions up to 4K at 60 fps. And with the new G-SYNC displays, gamers no longer have to put up with tearing or stutter as part of the current common gaming experience.

Key Points of the Maxwell GM206 GTX 960

First, take a look at the block diagram:

Maxwell GPUs feature a new SM design that’s been tailored to improve efficiency that is partitioned into four distinct 32-CUDA core processing blocks (128 CUDA cores total per SM), each with its own dedicated resources for scheduling and instruction buffering.

To improve the efficiency of the GPU’s onboard caches, each of GM206’s SMM units features its own dedicated 96KB shared memory, while the L1/texture caching functions are combined into a 24KB pool of memory per pair of processing blocks (48KB per SMM). The last generation Kepler GPUs had a smaller 64KB shared memory function that was also used as L1 cache.

As a result of these changes, each GM206 CUDA core is able to deliver about 1.4 times more performance per core compared to a GK106 Kepler CUDA core and two times the performance per watt. We will be able to directly compare the performance of the ASUS GTX 960 OC with the performance of the EVGA GTX 660 SC at stock clocks in this evaluation.

New video engine

Like the GeForce GTX 980, the GeForce GTX 960 has a new display engine capable of supporting resolutions up to 5K with up to four simultaneous displays (including support for up to four 4K MST displays). GeForce GTX 960 also supports HDMI 2.0.

The GTX 960 Maxwell also ships with a NVENC encoder that adds support for H.265 encoding. H.265 compression offers bandwidth savings versus H.264 at the same quality . Maxwell’s video encoder is supposed to improve H.264 video encode throughput by 2.5x over Kepler, including for ShadowPlay.

Because of its low power operation, some GeForce GTX 960 users may wish to use it for their home theater PCs, and one new addition that has been added to GM206 is support for H.265 (HEVC) encoding and decoding. GTX 980’s NVENC video engine offers native support for H.265 encode only, no decode, while GTX 960’s GM206 also adds native support for HDCP 2.2 content protection over HDMI.

How does the ASUS GTX 960 OC compare with its rival, AMD’s R9 280 series?

This evaluation attempts to also analyze and compare GTX 960 and R9 280X performance and we will announce a performance winner.

We expect that the 280X will be generally faster since it is priced significantly higher. We will also look at the details to see what the new Nvidia Maxwell GTX 960 GPU brings to the table.

Before we do performance testing, let’s take a look at the GTX 960 and recap its Maxwell DX12 architecture and features.

Specifications

The GeForce GTX 960 ships with 1024 CUDA Cores and 8 SM units. The memory subsystem of the GeForce GTX 960 consists of two 64-bit memory controllers (128-bit) with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

The base clock speed of the GeForce GTX 960 is 1126MHz. The typical Boost Clock speed is 1178MHz. The Boost Clock speed is based on an average GeForce GTX 960 card running a wide variety of games and applications. Note that the actual Boost clock will vary from game-to-game depending on conditions. GeForce GTX 960’s memory speed is 7010MHz data rate although the effective memory speed is 9300MHz.

The GeForce GTX 960 reference board measures 9.5” in length. Display outputs include one dual-link DVI, one HDMI and three DisplayPort connectors. One 6-pin PCIe power connector is required for operation.

Here are the specifications for the GTX 960:

Now we look at the ASUS STRIX GTX 960 OC DirectCU II specifications. Note that the higher clocks are on not only the core, but the memory clocks are set to 7200MHz, up 190MHz over the 7010MHz of the reference GTX 960. Increasing the memory clocks makes a noticeable performance difference for this card and we were able to achieve 8000MHz! Here are the ASUS GTX 960 OC features:

We couldn’t wait to test this card out!

GM206 Memory Subsystem

GM206 has a 128-bit memory interface with 7Gbps GDDR5 memory. In addition, GM204 has made significant enhancements to the memory compression implementation making it about one third more efficient than Kepler..

To reduce DRAM bandwidth demands, Nvidia GPUs make use of lossless compression techniques as data is written to memory. The bandwidth savings from this compression can be realized multiple times.

The effectiveness of Color Compression depends on which pixel ordering is chosen for the delta color calculation. Maxwell uses Nvidia’s third generation of delta color compression to improve effectiveness by offering more calculation choices.

The Maxwell GPU is able to reduce the number of bytes that have to be fetched from memory per frame by about 25% fewer bytes per frame compared with Kepler.

When combined with a G-SYNC display, the GeForce GTX 960 can deliver a gaming experience without screen tearing that currently plagues gaming when VSYNC is disabled. G-SYNC also eliminates a lot of the display stutter and reduces input lag.

IQ

Maxwell GPUs offer several new features for more flexible sampling which enable further advancements in Anti-Aliasing. Maxwell GPUs support multi-pixel programmable sampling for rasterization with extra opportunities for more flexible AA techniques in both deferred and conventional forward rendering.

ROMs that were formerly used to store standard sample positions have been replaced with RAMs. The RAMs may be programmed with the standard patterns, but now the driver or application may also load the RAMs with custom positions which may vary from frame to frame or within a frame.

In a 16×16 grid per pixel, there are 256 different locations to choose from for each sample. This sample randomization can reduce the quantization artifacts that occur with regular forms of AA.

Best of all, these freely specified sampling positions may be used in the development of effective new AA algorithms such as MFAA.

MFAA

Nvidia engineers have done just that so the sample patterns can be used per pixel either spatially in a single frame or interleaved across multiple frames in time. MFAA is a new AA mode which gives the same quality as 4x MSAA but with only the performance costs of 2x MSAA, or the same image quality as 8xMSAA with the performance costs of 4xMSAA. MFAA is based on a Temporal Synthesis Filter with coverage samples per frame and per pixel.

The filter’s performance hit is low. According to Nvidia, the typical performance advantage over MSAA is 10 to 30%.

MFAA is only available exclusively for Maxwell based GPUs on Nvidia GeForce GTX 980, 970 and GTX 960 graphics cards. Jagged edges, and especially shimmering in motion, are quite noticeable. For example, texture crawling in Assassin’s Creed Unity is obvious with no AA enabled. MSAA reduces the prominence of jagged edges, but does so at a substantial performance cost.

Nvidia’s engineers developed MFAA to reduce this performance cost while delivering comparable image quality to MSAA by varying in interleaved fashion the sample patterns used per pixel, both spatially in a single frame, and interleaved across multiple frames over time.

Previous-generation GPUs include fixed sample patterns for anti-aliasing that are stored in Read Only Memory. If a gamer selects 2x or 4x MSAA, fixed sample patterns are used. With Maxwell, Nvidia has introduced programmable sample positions for rasterization that are stored on Random Access Memory, thus creating opportunities for new AA techniques.

To enable MFAA, just go to Nvidia’s control panel. There have been some significant improvements made in the latest WHQL driver for the GTX 960’s launch that we shall explore in a follow-up article devoted to IQ and we will focus on MFAA.

Nvidia recommends that MFAA not be combined with other forms of post processing AA such as FXAA or TXAA. And MFAA requires at least 2xMSAA to function.

And although MFAA cannot be imaged perfectly in a Fraps screenshot – the Temporal Filter is applied after the Fraps capture – we can illustrate the differences using ShadowPlay which can capture the differences between the AA settings accurately, including MFAA. Here is our YouTube video which illustrates the varying AA levels in Assassin’s Creed Unity including TXAA and MFAA. Pay particular attention to the wagon wheel on the right.

TXAA

TXAA is a cinematic-style anti-aliasing technique designed specifically to reduce temporal aliasing (crawling and flickering in motion). TXAA is a mix of hardware AA, custom CG film style AA resolve, and a temporal filter. To filter any given pixel on the screen, TXAA uses a contribution of samples both inside and outside of the pixel in conjunction with samples from prior frames. The trade-off is blur, which for some is intolerable and for others, cinematic. This editor much prefers the mild blur of TXAA to the texture crawling and flickering while in motion without.

he performance hit of TXAA will vary from game to game and is directly correlated to the performance hit of MSAA. In Unity, TXAA takes less of a performance hit than 4xMSAA. Screen shots look better with MSAA, but playing the game with the camera in motion or even a video capture may show the advantages of TXAA if you don’t mind the blur.

NVIDIA HBAO+

To advance Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) tech, Nvidia’s HBAO+ looks better than the original HBAO algorithm, especially on scenes with thin objects such as grass and leaves. It is now fast enough to be used by top GPUs.

Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows (PCCS)

Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows (PCSS) is a technique designed to simulate the natural softening of shadows that occurs over increasing distance from the occluding object. PCSS provides three notable improvements over hard shadow projections: shadow edges become progressively softer the further they are from the shadow caster, high-quality filtering reduces the prominence of aliasing, and the use of a shadow buffer allows PCSS to handle overlapping character shadows without creating “double-darkened” portions.

Dynamic Super Resolution
Many PC gamers have used downsampling, where the GPU renders the game at a resolution higher than the screen can display, and then scales the image down to its native resolution on output to the user’s display. This has the advantage of making the final image usually “crisper” although downsampling usually requires work and the creation of profiles for gamers to set up custom displays with the graphics driver control panel, and then adjust the display settings. While downsampling can provide a significant improvement in IQ, artifacts are sometimes observed on textures and with post processing effects.

To eliminate the artifacting and to simplify implementing downsampling, Nvidia has developed a method called Dynamic Super Resolution. Dynamic Super Resolution works just like traditional downsampling, but it has a simple on/off user control, and it uses a 13-tap Gaussian filter to eliminate the aliasing artifacts caused by the simple box filter that downsampling uses..

Dynamic Super Resolution can be found in the Nvidia control panel, as well as in the GeForce Experience.

GameWorks

GameWorks encompasses Nvidia’s entire library of tools freely available to game developers of every platform. The latest developments were covered by ABT at Nvidia’s GTC 2014 (GPU Technology Conference) and include a unified Physics solver.

Relatively new is Nvidia’s Turf Effects which simulates and renders large grass areas with full geometric representation and support for physical interaction. It’s also scalable to work with powerful and not-so-powerful PCs.

Maxwell brings a lot to the table and the GTX 960 is no exception. Let’s unbox the ASUS STRIX GTX 960 OC DirectCU II

Unboxing the ASUS STRIX GTX 960

A good-looking card like the GTX 960 needs to arrive in a box that emphasizes that it is special. ASUS has this down in spades. We see Direct CU II, 20% cooler and Silent Gaming are emphasized together with its overclockability.

The features are described on the back.

Here you can see the ASUS GTX 960 OC recommended system requirements and more features on the end panels.

And here is the ASUS GTX 960 unboxed with the Speed Setup which includes a Driver CS and DVI to VGA connector. There is a STRIX decal also included. Twin fans in black with red accents look great. There is some hefty cooling under the fan shroud which allows the fans to go completely silent even during gaming if the temperatures are right . It is a short card that will probably fit easily into many HTPC cases where a larger competitor like the R9 280 cannot go.

Another look at the heatpipes.

Here are the connectors:

Only one 6-pin PCIe cable is required for operation. The R9 280/285/280X require at least two 6-pin PCIe connectors and our VisionTek 280X requires a 6-pin plus 8-pin connector.

No longer is is the bare PCB exposed. The backplate not only looks great, it helps with the cooling, especially of the vRAM.

The ASUS STRIX GTX 960 OC Direct CU II is a great looking card!

SLI

The GTX 960 is set up for SLI. We hope to cover SLI performance of the GTX 960 in an upcoming article. Unfortunately, it appears that 2GB of VRAM is standard although there was some small hope given at Nvidia’s Web meeting for possible future 4GB GTX 960s variants if the partners request it.

The specifications look extraordinary with solid improvements over the Kepler-based GTX 660, and even over the GTX 760. Let’s check out performance after we look at our test configuration as well as overclocking on the next page.

Test Configuration – Hardware

Test Configuration – Hardware

• ASUS Z97-E motherboard (Intel Z97 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x)
• Intel Core i7-4790K (reference 4.0GHz, HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on to 4.4GHz; DX11 CPU graphics), supplied by Intel.
• Kingston 16 GB HyperX Beast DDR3 RAM (2×8 GB, dual-channel at 2133MHz, supplied by Kingston)
• GeForce GTX 980, 4GB reference clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• GeForce GTX 970 EXOC, 4GB and clocked down to reference clocks, supplied by GALAX
• ASUS STRIX GTX 960 OC Direct CU II, 2GB at ASUS factory overclocked and further overclocked, supplied by ASUS/Nvidia under NDA
• EVGA GTX 660 SOC, downclocked to reference clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• VisionTek R9 280X, reference clocks, supplied by VisionTek

• Two 2TB Toshiba 7200 rpm HDDs
• Thermaltake ToughPower 775W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake
• Cooler Master Seidon240 CPU watercooler, supplied by Cooler Master
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• Genius SP-D150 speakers, supplied by Genius
• Thermaltake Overseer RX-I full tower case, supplied by Thermaltake
• ASUS 12X Blu-ray writer
• HP LP3065 2560×1600 30″ LCD display

Test Configuration – Software

• Nvidia GeForce 347.09 WHQL drivers for GTX 980 and GeForce 347.25 WHQL launch drivers for the other GeForce Cards tested. High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display.
  Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• Radeon “Omega” Catalyst 14-12 drivers used for the VisionTek R9 280X. Surface format optimizations, off; Application decide, VSYNC forced off, High Quality, and Tessellation App decide.
• Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions.
• VSync is off in the control panel.
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
• All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 7 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths; DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.
• ASUS GPU Tweak Utility
• EVGA PrecisionX 16

The 28 PC Game benchmarks & 2 synthetic benchmark tests

• Synthetic
  • Firestrike – Extreme
  • Heaven 4.0
  DX9
  • The Witcher 2
  • Borderlands 2
  DX10
  • Crysis
  DX11
  • STALKER, Call of Pripyat
  • Max Payne 3
  • the Secret World
  • Sleeping Dogs
  • Hitman: Absolution
  • Far Cry 3
  • Tomb Raider: 2013
  • Crysis 3
  • BioShock: Infinite
  • Metro: Last Light Redux 2014 edition
  • Battlefield 4
  • Splinter Cell: Blacklist
  • ArmA 3
  • Total War: Rome II
  • Batman: Arkham Origins
  • Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
  • Thief
  • Sniper Elite 3
  • Watch_Dogs
  • GRID: Autosport
  • Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor
  • Alien Isolation
  • Assassin’s Creed Unity
  • Civilization Beyond Earth
  • Far Cry 4
  • Dragon’s Age: Inquisition
  • The Crew

Before we get to the GTX 960 performance charts, let’s look at overclocking, power draw and temperatures.

Overclocking, Power Draw & Temperatures

Thanks in part to Maxwell’s power efficiency, the GeForce GTX 960 evidently has a lot of headroom for overclocking. The base clock frequency is 1126MHz, with a boost clock of 1178MHz. In Nvidia’s internal testing, GeForce GTX 960 engineering sample boards regularly hit 1450MHz or more without any temperature target, fan speed or voltage modifications.

Additionally, since the GeForce GTX 960 runs cool, some of Nvidia’s board partners including ASUS will allow the card to run silently with the GPU’s cooling fan completely shut off under certain gaming workloads. We have noticed 8 rpm during gaming although we never actually observed zero rpm.

Overclocking, Power Draw, Noise and Temperatures

Overclocking the GTX 960 is just as easy as overclocking Maxwell or Kepler with the same features. We were able to overclock further, adding +85MHz offset to the already overclocked ASUS GTX 960 core with complete stability, even though we did not adjust the voltage nor our fan profile. Temperatures were cool. Even in a warm room they *never* exceeded 60C and the video card’s twin fans were never heard over the case and CPU cooling fans.

With our particular sample of the ASUS GTX 960 OC, the base clock was 1317MHz and it would regularly boost to 1405MHz and stay there. That is +171MHz over reference clocks. The ASUS memory clocks are also set higher at 7200MHz, up 190MHz over the reference memory clocks. We used the excellent ASUS GPU Tweak Utility to set our overclocks.

Adding +85MHz to the core brought the peak boost up to 1495MHz and it stabilized there as the temperature never exceeded 60C. Overclocking the memory to 8000MHz(!) brought performance increases but no temperature rise and the fans never had to ramp up. Adding +100MHz to the core brought the peak boost up to 1505MHz but the overclock was unstable so we settled on a 85MHz offset together with memory at 8000MHz as our final stable overclock used in our testing

Let’s head to our performance charts.

Performance summary charts & graphs

Here are the summary charts for 28 games and 3 synthetic tests. The highest settings are always chosen and it is DX11 when there is a choice; DX10 is picked above DX9, and the settings are ultra or maxed. Specific settings are listed on the Main Performance chart. The benches are run at 1920×1200 and 2560×1600 with separate charts devoted to overclocking as well as comparing certain cards easily against each other

All results, except for Futuremark, show average framerates and higher is always better. In-game settings are fully maxed out and they are identically high or ultra across all platforms. We see some very impressive results with the ASUS GTX 960 OC for its suggested price of $209.

Main Overall Summary chart

The Big Picture

In the first column of the main performance summary chart, the GTX 660 is tested, but only at 1920×1080. It is followed by the GTX 760 and then the ASUS GTX 960 OC at ASUS clocks in the third column. Column four gives the VisionTek R9 280X results at its stock clocks, and next to it is our user-overclocked GTX 960 (+85MHz core/+800MHz memory offset) followed by the stock GTX 970 and finally by the reference GTX 980 results.

The ASUS GTX 960 OC vs. R9 280X

There is a lot of information to digest so let’s look at 4 variables, focusing on our maxed out ASUS GTX 960 in column four and comparing it directly with the 280X in column three. Wins are in Bold, or if there is a tie, it is bolded also but only between the overclocked GTX 960 and the 280X. The stock GTX 760 and the ASUS factory clocked GTX 960 are in columns one and two for comparison also although their results are not bolded.

The overclocked $209 GTX 960 does very well against the $250 280X with quite a few wins for a less expensive card. However, it is an absolute blowout where the GTX 660 is left in the dust by the GTX 960. Even the GTX 760 is outclassed by the GTX 960 at ASUS clocks.

Since the 280X (HD 7970 GE) is about ten percent faster than the R9 280 (HD 7950), we can expect that the R9 280 will trade blows with the ASUS GTX 960 OC and that the R9 285 may be slightly faster but will still be a direct competitor to the ASUS GTX 960 OC.

Let’s head for our conclusion.

Conclusion

This has been quite an enjoyable, if far too short, week-long exploration for us in evaluating our new ASUS GTX 960 OC Direct CU II. It did very well performance-wise comparing it to the the GTX 760 where it brings higher performance for a lower $209 launch price than the GTX 760’s $219 recent recommended pricing. It also slots well above the GTX 660 which launched for $249, bringing about 1.5 times the performance.

We are totally impressed with the cool-running Maxwell GM206 chip in the form of the ASUS GTX 960 OC Direct CU II that has such outstanding overclockability and a good price. It slots right above the GTX 760, replacing it, and far above the GTX 660, and it offers more advantages than just price.

With the arrival of the GeForce GTX 960, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX lineup consists of the following GPUs:

• GeForce GTX TITAN Z
• GeForce GTX 980
• GeForce GTX 970
• GeForce GTX 960
• GeForce GTX 750 Ti
• GeForce GTX 750

We see good overclockability with quietness at stock voltage and fan profile from the ASUS OC design GTX 960. The GTX 960 is a better value overall than the GTX 760 even if you are looking at performance and probable price drops on the older and less energy-efficient cards.

Pros

• Price – for $200 the GTX 960 is an upper-midrange card that is designed for 1080 DX11 and DX12 gaming. It is cheaper than the GTX 760 although it has more performance and new features. It also runs away from the GTX 660. For just $9 more, the ASUS GTX 960 OC Direct CU II provides so much more than the reference designs including overclocking from the factory and a near silent card.
• TDP and power draw is excellent at 125W. Performance per watt is almost two times the GTX 660 which debuted just over two years ago in the same slot at $250. Unlike the R9 280 series which needs a minimum of two six-pin PCIe connectors, the ASUS GTX 960 OC only needs one which still allows for good overclocking.
• Overclockability is excellent – GPU Boost works as advertised. The ASUS GPU Tweak Utility is great and one of the best overclocking tools that we have encountered to date.
• The ASUS Direct CU II Twin fan design as cooling is quiet and efficient; the card and case stay cool even well-overclocked on a hot day.
• GameWorks brings new features to gaming including realistic grass.
• New MFAA allows for high performance without jaggies for Maxwell GPUs.
• DSR allows 4K crispness to come to 1080p
• New ShadowPlay allows live streaming uploads to 60fps for 4K resolutions
• G-SYNC displays reduce and eliminate stuttering while retaining the advantages of minimizing tearing.
• The ASUS STRIX GTX 960 OC DirectCU II is a near silent video card with great ASUS features, support and warranty – all for only $9 more than a reference design. Highly Recommended!

Cons

• None for the ASUS card. Our only wish is that there will be 4GB versions available later, especially for SLI configurations.

The Verdict:

• If you are buying a $200 video card right now and looking for the highest performance along with a cool and quiet card, the ASUS GTX 960 OC DirectCU II is a great value at $209 and an awesome bang-for-buck gaming video card. It overclocks well beyond ASUS factory overclock and remains cool and quiet. When a great value is offered like this, it can only receive BTR’s (Highly) Recommended Award!

We do not know what the future will bring, but the GTX 960 brings an excellent performer to the GeForce Maxwell family. With great features like GameWorks and the GeForce Experience, you can be assured of immersive gaming by picking this card for 1080P or even higher resolutions.

If you currently game on an older generation video card like a GTX 660, you will do yourself a big favor by upgrading. The move to an ASUS GTX 960 will give you better visuals on the DX11 and DX12 pathways and you are no doubt thinking of SLI if you want to get even more gaming performance on a budget. We look forward to a future BTR evaluation featuring GTX 960 SLI versus the GTX 970 and the GTX 980.

Of course, AMD offers their own set of features including Eyefinity, GCN 2.0, and Mantle. However, we expect that they will be forced to drop pricing on the reference and stock-clocked R9 280/285s and continue to offer aggressive game bundles. There is also talk of the possibility of a successor to the R9 285 and to the R9 200 series which would have to make up a lot of ground to be competitive with Maxwell and the GTX 960, and we understand they will not be available for several months.

Stay tuned, there is a lot coming from us at BTR Next up is a GALAX GTX 970 EXOC evaluation that will be published on Monday.