ASUS unveiled its third model based on the GA104-300 GPU – ASUS TUF GAMING series.
ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 TUF
The RTX 3070 TUF looks a lot like the RTX3090/3080 series. The manufacturer unveiled TUF cards in two: the OC and non-OC models, sadly no specs were provided for both, so we need to wait a bit more for the official clock speeds.
The TUF 3070 series feature a triple-fan cooler design with a metal shroud. Similarly to GA102 TUF models, this is a 2.5 slot design. We can immediately notice that the heatsink has changed and the display connectors are in a different layout. Although the RTX 3070 TUF has kept the additional HDMI port (all ASUS RTX 30 models have three DisplayPort 1.4a + two HDMI 2.1 connectors.
Despite requiring less power than the RTX3090/3080 series, the card retains dual 8-pin power connectors. The TUF Ampere series were among the best models at the Ampere launch. Not only did the revised model featured full MLCC configuration, but the card launched at NVIDIA suggested retail price, which was certainly a great alternative if anyone was actually able to preorder one.
It is much easier to notice the difference between GA102 and GA104 TUF models by comparing the backplate. The RTX 3070 series has a different SP/MLCC cap layout at the back, but only a portion of the PCB is visible on official photos:
ASUS TUF RTX 3080 preproduction – left, ASUS TUF RTX 3080 retail – center, ASUS TUF RTX 3070 retail – right
| ASUS RTX 3070 8GB TUF OC | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Specs provided by VideoCardz.NET Database | |||
| GPU : | GA104-300 | Base Clock : | 1500 MHz |
| Cores : | 5888 | Boost Clock : | 1845 MHz (+7.0%) |
| TMUs : | 184 | Memory Clock : | 14 Gbps |
| ROPs : | 96 | Memory : | 8 GB GDDR6 256b |
The TUF Gaming is certainly not the last series for GA104-300 GPU. ASUS is also set to launch its “KO| RTX 3070 series for the Korean market. A sub-variants of the DUAL series are also to be expected: DUAL EVO (likely to have a different display connector configuration) and DUAL MINI (Mini-ITX form factor).
NVIDIA has postponed the launch of the GeForce RTX 3070 by two weeks. The card officially launches on October 29th, a day after AMD unveils its Radeon RX 6000 series.
A custom display connector layout (3x DP + 2x HDMI)
ASUS RTX 3070 ROG STRIX
ASUS RTX 3070 DUAL
