MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 8GB GDRR6 256-Bit HDMI/DP TORX Fan 3.0 Ampere Architecture OC Graphics Card (RTX 3070 Ventus 2X OC), GeForce RTX 3070 Ventus 2X OC

The RTX 3070 is notable for being able to compete with the top-tier Turing graphics card, the RTX 2080 Ti, for less than half of its price, making it maybe the only high-end Ampere that's even remotely reasonable. Even though the RTX 3070 graphics card isn't exactly inexpensive, it brings enthusiast gaming performance to a much more affordable price range. Additionally, it's bringing high-end ray tracing and 4K gaming to a far wider audience.

We're talking about next-gen console pricing here, so $499 is still a sizeable investment by any standard. Still, it's not outrageously expensive compared to the best graphics hardware available for PC gaming. You receive a 4K graphics card in exchange that doesn't require much tweaking to achieve playable, if not high, framerates. And there is no doubt that it will entirely crush it in 1440p.

The RTX 3070 Founders Edition still uses the 12-pin power connector seen on the RTX 3080. Thus one 8-pin to 12-pin adaptor is included in the packing. But with this FE card from Nvidia, a super-compact PCB has again been produced, making the entire shroud much smaller than the RTX 3080.

Even though the card has two front-loaded fans, the spinner at the back of the card amplifies airflow through the heat pipes, which does seem to improve the cooling performance of this clever little GPU.

That's a lot to boost on top of the RTX 3070's excellent raw performance, but it does matter to many people.

The RTX 3070 is always in the Nvidia xx70 series of cards, frequently the true sweet spot for PC gamers. For the vast majority of us, this Ampere card represents a real performance increase at a price that we can almost afford. The moment has come for everyone who held onto their GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti cards during the RTX 20-series to update.