Between discovering out the GTX 1070 Ti was a thing and truly getting my palms on one, I spent plenty of time attempting, and failing, to find out the place this 4K-bothering card sat in Nvidia’s general technique. Its place within the Nvidia hierarchy is clear – between the GTX 1070 and the GTX 1080 – however aside from sharing 8GB of reminiscence, it appears to be extra of a toned-down 1080 than a souped-up 1070. After all, it has way more cores than the GTX 1070 – 2,432 of them in comparison with the 1070’s 1,920 – however simply 128 fewer cores than the (ostensibly) beefier GTX 1080. Why, then, would you not simply take the tiny step additional to a GTX 1080?
It will get weirder, too: Nvidia appears to have a unusual rule towards its companions setting their GTX 1070 Tis up with manufacturing unit overclocks, which means that you could solely purchase at inventory speeds (1607 MHz base, 1683 MHz increase). Workarounds have already been discovered for this (overclocking isn’t outlawed per se), nevertheless it appears an terrible lot like Nvidia’s fearful of the 1070 Ti sapping GTX 1080 gross sales. That, or they only needed to offer a central digit to AMD’s Radeon Vega RX 56 by outperforming it with a much less ‘important’ card. I dunno, mainly. But to assist treatment my ignorance, I’ve acquired Zotac’s take, the GeForce GTX 1070Ti AMP Extreme.
This explicit mannequin skirts round Nvidia’s sort-of overclock ban by providing a “factory tested” 150MHz increase as a downloadable profile for the agency’s Firestrom software program, however that’s nonetheless sufficiently small for it to be broadly consultant of the GTX 1070Ti as a complete.
First up for testing is Doom. Unsurprisingly, it runs beautifully at each 1,920×1,080 (1,080p) and a couple of,560x,1,440 (1,440p), holding collectively even when the display is rammed with baddies. Upping all the way in which to 4K (three,840×2160) has a clearly noticeable affect, however the GTX 1070 Ti nonetheless retains smoothness properly as much as pacey shooter requirements. Most importantly, it’s steady: there’s no actual change between quiet scenes and big shootouts. That’s partly a testomony to Doom’s optimizations, but additionally a promising exhibiting for the graphics card.
Switching to Hitman, which is routinely full of hardware-punishing NPCs, Nvidia’s card held agency. At 1080p, there have been slight drops from perfection through the busier scenes, however these had been tiny slips somewhat than sheer drops. 1440p had a single lurch throughout a rooftop scene, nevertheless it handed instantly, and wasn’t repeated throughout a 4K run. Again, excessive marks in any respect resolutions.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War(dor) proved to be its first large take a look at. Ignoring the menu’s warning that we lacked the VRAM for Ultra high quality textures, in addition to every little thing else on full, we launched into 1080p to seek out that every little thing was…high quality, truly. The similar was true at 1440p – you could possibly simply wring extra frames out by turning down some settings, however while you’ve already acquired an excellent stability between excessive constancy and smoothness, it is smart to stay with Ultra.
It wasn’t till we tried 4K that the GTX 1070 Ti began to wrestle. It nonetheless ran at what we’d contemplate an appropriate tempo, however large moments like a fort siege clearly pressure the GPU. Expect to wave goodbye to some luxurious settings in any case, when you’re going to be taking part in at this res.
Total War: Warhammer II ticked alongside properly, although understandably not as easily as our extra centered benchmarks. Zooming in to inside a spear’s size of a unit might be the quickest path to stuttery distress in RTS video games; not so right here, with each 1080p and 1440p staying suitably easy on the battle map. On the marketing campaign map, there was a contact of lurching on 1440p, albeit solely within the sense that efficiency went from ‘great’ to ‘pretty good’. 4K was the one res the place maxed-out settings is anyplace close to an excessive amount of; there was noticeable jittering on each battle and marketing campaign maps, with extra distinct gulfs between highs and lows on the latter.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus was mainly one other Doom, in that it was beautiful at 1080p, nonetheless beautiful at 1440p, and barely much less beautiful (however nonetheless beautiful) at 4K. Rise of the Tomb Raider, with all its various climate, particle, and Lara Croft hair results was a barely more durable take a look at: not at 1080p and 1440p, but once more, however at 4K, smoothness took a comparatively large hit. That stated, the GTX 1070 Ti nonetheless stored issues completely playable, so it’s not an enormous concern.
The Witcher III was second solely to Doom in evoking the “Hey, I switched from 1080p to 1440p and could barely tell the difference” feeling, which is to say that the GTX 1070 Ti excels at each. 4K was actually good as properly; it’s not that you could’t see a efficiency hit, however you received’t be compelled to sack graphics high quality both.
Lastly, we’ve got Assassin’s Creed Origins, which didn’t have points conveying its notably stabby recollection of Egyptian historical past. At least, not at 1080p: 1440p wobbled a teeny bit throughout transitions into extra open areas, with the identical occurring on a clearer scale at 4K. It nonetheless runs high quality, however switching off a few of the fancier visuals could be clever right here.
No surprises, then: the GTX 1070 Ti is barely higher than the GTX 1070 and RX 56, and barely worse than the GTX 1080. That doesn’t preclude it from being an excellent card, thoughts; it must be to return so near Nvidia’s authentic Pascal flagship, and whereas it could possibly’t run each single recreation flawlessly at 4K, not even the GTX 1080Ti can do this.
I ought to say that I’m not terribly eager on this AMP Edition’s basic design – it’s thicker than a Gears of War protagonist’s neck, and regardless of the large radiator and tripled-up followers providing good cooling, the latter nonetheless go just like the clappers.
Here’s the true situation, although: this explicit GTX 1070Ti card costs £500, and a first rate partner-customised GTX 1080 costs £495. There are, in fact, cheaper 1070Ti choices on the market, such because the £420 model you should buy straight from Nvidia, however this doesn’t include any of the helpful stuff like simple overclocking software program, and its coolers are practically as refined as different accomplice playing cards. The greatest deal I’ve seen is EVGA’s £439 version, however to repeat an earlier query, while you’re spending that a lot within the first place, what’s an additional £60 to get the superior GTX 1080?
