ASUS GeForce RTX 2070 STRIX OC 8 GB Review

Name: ASUS GeForce RTX 2070 STRIX OC 8 GB
Brand: ASUS

W1zzard

on Dec 12th, 2018,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: ASUS

(14 Comments) »

Introduction

Back in September, NVIDIA launched its GeForce RTX 20-series graphics card family with the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti. Close to a month later, the company launched its third-fastest card in the family, the GeForce RTX 2070. This is an important product for NVIDIA because even at a relatively steep price of $500, it is the most affordable one offering real-time ray tracing in games, or at least a semblance of it. The RTX 2070 is being offered for the vast bulk of gamers that play at 1440p resolution or lower.

NVIDIA has also made certain interesting design choices for the RTX 2070. Predecessors of this card, such as the GTX 1070 and GTX 970, have been based on the same chips as the SKU just above them, such as the GTX 1080 and GTX 980. NVIDIA is basing the RTX 2070 on its third-largest "Turing" chip, the TU106, instead of the TU104.

It's important to mention here, though, that TU106 isn't exactly a successor of chips in the same way as the GP106 or GM206. While those two have exactly half the muscle of the GP104 or GM204 respectively, the TU106 is half of the top-dog TU102 instead of the TU104. This chip also gets the same 256-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, which is unchanged from the TU104. The philosophy behind the TU106 may have been to design a lean chip that is cheaper to build for the simple fact that it has a smaller die size than the TU104.

Today, we are reviewing the ASUS GeForce RTX 2070 STRIX OC, which is an overclocked custom design variant of the RTX 2070. It comes with a medium-sized overclock and features a large triple-slot, triple-fan thermal solution.

The ASUS RTX 2070 STRIX OC is currently listed online for $630.

GeForce GTX 2070 Market Segment Analysis
	Price	Shader Units	ROPs	Core Clock	Boost Clock	Memory Clock	GPU	Transistors	Memory
GTX 1050	$135	640	32	1354 MHz	1455 MHz	1752 MHz	GP107	3300M	2 GB, GDDR5, 128-bit
GTX 1050 Ti	$170	768	32	1290 MHz	1392 MHz	1752 MHz	GP107	3300M	4 GB, GDDR5, 128-bit
RX 470	$165	2048	32	932 MHz	1216 MHz	1650 MHz	Ellesmere	5700M	4 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit
RX 570	$190	2048	32	1168 MHz	1244 MHz	1750 MHz	Ellesmere	5700M	4 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit
GTX 970	$235	1664	56	1051 MHz	1178 MHz	1750 MHz	GM204	5200M	4 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit
RX 480	$230	2304	32	1120 MHz	1266 MHz	2000 MHz	Ellesmere	5700M	8 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit
RX 580	$230	2304	32	1257 MHz	1340 MHz	2000 MHz	Ellesmere	5700M	8 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit
GTX 1060 3 GB	$220	1152	48	1506 MHz	1708 MHz	2002 MHz	GP106	4400M	3 GB, GDDR5, 192-bit
GTX 1060	$260	1280	48	1506 MHz	1708 MHz	2002 MHz	GP106	4400M	6 GB, GDDR5, 192-bit
GTX 980 Ti	$390	2816	96	1000 MHz	1075 MHz	1750 MHz	GM200	8000M	6 GB, GDDR5, 384-bit
R9 Fury X	$380	4096	64	1050 MHz	N/A	500 MHz	Fiji	8900M	4 GB, HBM, 4096-bit
GTX 1070	$390	1920	64	1506 MHz	1683 MHz	2002 MHz	GP104	7200M	8 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit
RX Vega 56	$400	3584	64	1156 MHz	1471 MHz	800 MHz	Vega 10	12500M	8 GB, HBM2, 2048-bit
GTX 1070 Ti	$400	2432	64	1607 MHz	1683 MHz	2000 MHz	GP104	7200M	8 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit
GTX 1080	$470	2560	64	1607 MHz	1733 MHz	1251 MHz	GP104	7200M	8 GB, GDDR5X, 256-bit
RX Vega 64	$570	4096	64	1247 MHz	1546 MHz	953 MHz	Vega 10	12500M	8 GB, HBM2, 2048-bit
GTX 1080 Ti	$675	3584	88	1481 MHz	1582 MHz	1376 MHz	GP102	12000M	11 GB, GDDR5X, 352-bit
RTX 2070	$499	2304	64	1410 MHz	1620 MHz	1750 MHz	TU106	10800M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 2070 FE	$599	2304	64	1410 MHz	1710 MHz	1750 MHz	TU106	10800M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
ASUS RTX 2070 STRIX OC	$630	2304	64	1410 MHz	1815 MHz	1750 MHz	TU106	10800M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 2080	$699	2944	64	1515 MHz	1710 MHz	1750 MHz	TU104	13600M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 2080 FE	$799	2944	64	1515 MHz	1800 MHz	1750 MHz	TU104	13600M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 2080 Ti	$999	4352	64	1350 MHz	1545 MHz	1750 MHz	TU102	18600M	11 GB, GDDR6, 352-bit
RTX 2080 Ti FE	$1199	4352	64	1350 MHz	1635 MHz	1750 MHz	TU102	18600M	11 GB, GDDR6, 352-bit

Packaging and Contents

You will receive:

Graphics card
Documentation
PCIe power adapter
Zip ties

The Card

Visually, the card matches the style of the other ASUS GeForce RTX cards with its "mostly black" theme. A high-quality backplate is installed on the back of the card, and the ASUS ROG logo on the back is RGB controllable. Dimensions of the card are 30.0 x 13.5 cm.

Installation requires three slots in your system.

Display connectivity options include two standard DisplayPort 1.4a, two HDMI 2.0b, and a VirtualLink connector, which is basically USB-C with DisplayPort routing and USB-PD, so a single cable can power, display, and take input from your VR HMD.

NVIDIA has updated their display engine with the Turing microarchitecture, which now supports DisplayPort 1.4a with support for VESA's nearly lossless Display Stream Compression (DSC). Combined, this enables support for 8K@30Hz using a single cable, or 8K@60Hz when DSC is turned on. For context, DisplayPort 1.4a is the latest version of the standard that was published in April, 2018.

The board uses one 6-pin and one 8-pin power connector. This input configuration is specified for up to 300 watts of power draw.

The GeForce RTX 2070 does not support SLI.

The front-left of the card has several tweaking controls. The switch on the left toggles between the "performance" and "quiet" BIOS. The button lets you quickly turn off the LED lighting without any software. The mounts further to the right let you manually test the various voltage domains of this card by using a multi-meter and possibly making some tweaks through soldering.

We shine the light from a self-leveling line laser on to the card, which shows no sagging.

You also get two 4-pin PWM fan headers to sync your case fan to the graphics card's fans and an addressable RGB header to connect other RGB components.

Disassembly

ASUS is using six heatpipes on their cooler.

The backplate is made out of metal and protects the card against damage during handling and installation.

Once the main heatsink is removed, a black baseplate becomes visible, which provides cooling for the VRM circuitry and memory chips. Note how the memory chips aren't fully covered, so part of their cooling relies on the airflow from the fans right above.

On the next page, we dive deep into the PCB layout and VRM configuration.

High-resolution PCB Pictures

These pictures are for the convenience of volt-modders and people who would like to see all the finer details on the PCB. Feel free to link back to us and use them in your articles or forum posts.