PNY GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER XLR8 Gaming Verto Epic-X 16 GB review – More clock speed through better cooling

1 - Introduction, technical data and technology 2 - Test system and measuring equipment 3 - Teardown: Cooler 4 - Teardown: PCB, layout and components 5 - Teardown: Detailed material analysis 6 - Gaming Performance FHD (1920 x 1080) 7 - Gaming-Performance WQHD (2560 x 1440) 8 - Gaming Performance Ultra-HD (3840 x 2160) 9 - Gaming Performance DLSS / FSR 10 - Power consumption and load balancing 11 - Load peaks, clipping and PSU recommendation 12 - Temperatures, clock rates and infrared analysis 13 - Fan curves and noise level with audio sample 14 - Summary and conclusion

With the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER XLR8 Gaming Verto Epic-X RGB Overclocked Triple Fan 16GB (the full name), the cooler seems even longer than the name, but it is still a nice exercise in concentration. I have also tested this card separately because it is the best proof of how you can get significantly more clock speed for free with good cooling. I don’t want to spoil everything just yet, but sometimes a powerful cooler is worth more than the most generous power limit. And despite all the euphoria, I will of course not lose sight of the essentials.

It’s not a MSRP card, but the current price of 919 euros is already significantly higher than PNY’s entry-level model PNY GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Verto Overclocked Triple Fan 16GB at just under 848 euros, which is well below the RRP. But most people will certainly be able to live with the extra 70 euros for the better cooler and lots of colorful lights if they don’t prefer the dark side of the Force. Everyone can see that as they wish.

Today, I’m testing the PNY card in its as-delivered state, whereby it serves as an example for the entire 285-watt class of cards, as the performance should actually be identical. Well, it should, because in the end there are up to four more boost steps that can be teased out with more cooling without having to exceed the 285 watts. OC is therefore not an issue today, although the clock rate can be increased to well over 2.9 GHz. More is not possible anyway, because at some point the voltage would limit it anyway. If you want to manually overclock higher at all.

Important foreword

Of course, as usual, there are many benchmarks, the comprehensive teardown, a very elaborate board, cooler and material analysis with some reverse engineering, as well as the analysis of the power consumption and load peaks including a suitable power supply recommendation. As I know that many colleagues will also repeat all the technical details and theory, which have already been presented in various snippets, I’ll save myself the trouble today and just briefly refer to the data already known. After all, you want to see real figures today and not PR fireworks. The specs will of course be coming soon, the chip on my test object from calendar week 52 of 2023.

The AD 103-275 and the new Ada architecture

The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is primarily delivered with the AD103-275 SKU, but the rumored AD102-175 GPU (different board, PG141 SKU 323) is also possible. However, both variants are equipped with a total of 8,448 cores and 48 MB L2 cache. The graphics card will have 16 GB GDDR6X memory, which corresponds to a VRAM upgrade of 4 GB compared to the RTX 4070 Ti Non-SUPER and thus support a 256-bit bus interface. The graphics card has a TBP of 285 watts, which in turn corresponds to the value of the non-SUPER variant.

On paper, the card offers an average performance increase of 10% over the non-SUPER variant and is expected to compete well with the Radeon RX 7900 XT and yes, AMD is not only taking up the gauntlet but has drastically reduced the price of the RX 7900XT to do so. However, as with the non-SUPER cards, there is no NVIDIA’s own Founders Edition (FE), only AIC cards, one of whose shining representatives I am testing today.

The 66 (instead of 60) 3rd generation RT cores offer up to twice the ray tracing performance, while Shader Execution Reordering (SER) also improves ray tracing operations by a factor of two. In addition, there are a total of 264 texture units (TU) and 96 ROPs. The L2 cache is 48 MB in size and, like the GeForce RTX 4070 Non-Super, the card uses the familiar 16 GB GDDR6X with 10500 MHz clock rate, but this time on a suitable 256-bit interface, which corresponds to a data rate of 21 Gbps and a bandwidth of 627 GB/s. The card also offers only one NVDEC (decoder) instead of four, but at least two NVENC (encoders). The AV1 encoder is said to work up to 40% more efficiently than H.264.

The card still relies on a PCIe Gen. 4 interface and only for the external power connection with the 12VHPWR connector (12 4 pin) on an element of the PCIe Gen. 5 specification. The TDP is 285 watts and can be increased even further depending on the board partner.

GPU-Z gives us the exact details for the PNY card, including the small clock plus already assigned ex works. But there is much more to it…

The PNY GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER XLR8 Gaming Verto Epic-X 16 GB in detail

The card weighs a whopping 1537 grams and is a colorfully illuminated sumo wrestler in terms of weight. However, the flexible graphics card holder is included to prevent sagging. However, the 33.5 cm length of the card is more than ample and the height of 12.5 cm is also more than the standard 10 cm. In addition, the height means that you have to use the great 12VHPWR adapter, but with 2x 6 2-pin at the PCIe output, it is also just about suitable for OC. The installation depth is a full 6 cm plus the 5 mm for the backplate attachment on the rear. This makes it a wide 3-slot card.

The black look with the translucent light strips in the cover is certainly not to everyone’s taste, but PNY is now well known for this design and the design language of the fan, cover and slot bracket are not really new either.

PNY uses a single BIOS and if you want to overclock a little, you have to use a suitable tool for the clock, even if the power limit is fixed. The warm feel is somewhat due to the material, but does not appear cheap or even too obtrusive. Incidentally, there is also an exciting material analysis waiting for you, but all in good time.

Front

Back

Top

Bottom

End

Slot Panel

Accessory

ISO Front

ISO Back

ISO Flat Front

ISO Flat Back

Front Bottom

Intro

Box

You can not only plug power into the card, but also video connections. There are four of them, to be precise: three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1a. This is a shame, especially for DisplayPort, when it comes to the new specifications. A missed opportunity, unfortunately. And with HDMI, you have to play around with the compression from 4K onwards if you want to go above 120 Hz.

That’s this first page done and we’re slowly getting ready for the test.