Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti review: In between, above or next to it?

Anyone who thinks that Nvidia has already brought all feasible GPUs based on the Pascal architecture is of course hugely mistaken. Despite a fairly extensive selection of GeForce GTX 10 cards, the company is also the... In direct competition, the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti must of course compete primarily with the Radeon RX Vega 56. In addition, we are also 100% sure that the players also want to know how the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is against the faster ...

Unboxing, dimensions and connections

Nvidia also talks about a "Founders Edition" in the GeForce GTX 170 Ti, instead of the previously used and perhaps now too banal-sounding word "reference design". From a purely visual lynot, the design always follows the zeitgeist, while the design in the DHE cooling concept (Direct Heat Exhaust) has not changed for years. The card is haptically fine, because the cover not only looks metallic, it is also thanks to aluminum casting. But more on that.

We will also discuss the exact board and cooling design separately later. The most important features are first summarized in a table:

Overview of installation dimensions, features and connections
Installation length:	27.0 cm (slot aperture to end cover)
Installation height:	10.5 cm (upper edge slot to top card)
Depth:	3.8 cm (2-slot) 0.5 cm baking plate
Weight:	1020 grams
Backplate:	Yes, without passive cooling function
Cooling:	Air cooling, DHE system, radial fan
Connections Slot blend:	3x DisplayPort 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0 1x Dual-Link DVI-I
Other shots:	2x SLI Connector
Power supply:	1x 8-pin PCI-Express

Exterior views

The radiator cover made of aluminium injection moulding is, as with the two sisters GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080, painted in two colours in silver metallic and black. Especially the silver-matt surfaces are therefore quite scratch-sensitive as a result.

The metal cover provides a cool, high-quality impression, but also results in a relatively high weight of more than one kilogram. Both cards – GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE and GTX 1080 FE – have almost the same weight, only the GeForce GTX 1070 FE is just under 10 grams lighter.

The back of the board is also covered by a two-piece backplate, which is pure optics but does not provide any amount for cooling. If the space becomes too narrow with the SLI or if you prefer a slightly better ventilation of the back of the board, both parts of the backplate can be unscrewed without hesitation.

The top of the card is embossed with the green GeForce GTX lettering, the 8-pin PCIe power supply connector sits at the end of the card. The very edgy and jagged design is certainly a matter of taste, but definitely stands out.

As with the GeForce GTX 1070 FE, the end of the card shows the slats of the air inlet and the mounting frame, which offers a total of three screw threads to relieve the card with suitable brackets in the housing.

The slot aperture adorns a total of five outputs, a maximum of four of which can be operated together in multi-monitor setups. In addition to the dual-link DVI-D (no analog signal looped through!), there is an HDMI 2.0 output and three DisplayPort 1.4 ports on the back. The rest of the slot aperture is equipped with lots of openings for the air outlet.

Cooling system and backplate

Unfortunately, the two-piece backplate does not have an active cooling function, but only serves the better optics.

In contrast to the smaller sister 1070 FE, Nvidia relies on a true vapor-chamber solution for the dissipation of the generated waste heat, which is screwed as a compact module with four screws on the board next to the GPU socket. A total of 51 parts (including all screws) are now on the table, 12 more could be if you also remove the fan completely.

The radial fan is not an absolute novelty and, as a pure DHE solution (Direct Heat Exhaust), blows the sucked air outwards through the slats of the cooler towards the slot aperture. The entire mounting frame (frame) is used not only to stabilize the card, but also to cool components such as voltage converters and memory.

Cooling system at a glance
Type of cooler:	Air Cooling, DHE (Direct Heat Exhaust)
Heatsink:	Large Hybrid Varporchamber
Cooling fins:	Aluminum, horizontal alignment, narrow
Heatpipes	No
VRM cooling:	via cooling frame
RAM cooling	via cooling frame
Fan:	Radial fan
Backplate	Aluminum, blackened no cooling function

Power supply and components

A glance at the board shows that there would have been much air for more. In addition to the one phase for memory, only five of the six possible phases for the GPU are equipped and interconnected. There would also have been room for another PCIe power supply socket. The board is almost 100% the reference board of the GeForce GTX 1080 FE, but has a newer revision.

The 5+1 phase system relies on the standard uP9511P from UPI Semiconductor as a PWM controller. Since the PWM controller cannot directly address the MOSFETs of the individual voltage converter phases, Nvidia relies on solid gate drivers with the 53603A from Texas Instruments to control the Power MOSFETs 4C85N from ON Semiconductor. This is a fairly resilient dual-channel MOSFET for the DC/DC voltage converter range with sufficiently high reserves.

GPU Power Supply
PWM Controller	uP9511 UPI Semiconductor 8-Phase PWM Controller
Gate Driver	53603 Texas Instruments One per Phase
Vrm	4C85N ON Semiconductor Power MOSFET Dual-N-Channel High- and Low-Side
Coils	Encapsulated Ferrite Choke
Memory and power supply
Modules	MT51J256M32HF-80 Micron GDDR5, 8.0 Gb/s 8 Gigabit (32x 256 MBit) eight modules
PWM Controller	1 phase Single Buck Converter Noname
Vrm	4C85N ON Semiconductor Power MOSFET Dual-N-Channel High- and Low-Side
	Encapsulated Ferrite Choke 33nH
Other components
Monitoring	INA3221 Monitoring Chip Currents, voltages
Bios	Winbond 25Q40 Kynix Semiconductor Eeprom Bios
Shunts and filters	1x coil (smoothing) and shunt after PCIe socket (12V input voltage)
More details
Other Features	– 1x 8-pin PCI-Express connectors for power supply – Filter coil in the entrance area