- Date:
- Wednesday, October 05, 2016
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1070 O8G-GAMING Review
We will take ASUS’ top-of-the-line ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1070 O8G-GAMING OC Edition video card and find out how it compares to the GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition. We will also push overclocking as far as we can and find out what performance advantages that allows.
Summary
We have just taken a look at the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1070 O8G-GAMING video card. This video card from ASUS is at the high-end GeForce GTX 1070 GPU based video card offerings from ASUS. It packs features and customizations that set this video card at the top of the gameplay experience with a GeForce GTX 1070 GPU.
We evaluated the "O8G-GAMING" STRIX version of this video card which denotes a higher factory set overclock than the regular "8G-GAMING" STRIX version of the ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1070. The factory overclock was impressive. We found that while gaming the real-world in-game clock speed frequency was well above the boost clock and operated around 1985MHz.
Compared to the Founders Edition GeForce GTX 1070 that operates around 1756MHz on average, this was a big performance boost. In our gameplay testing we found that it brought performance up by as much as 10% in some cases over the Founders Edition performance.
Overclocking
When we manually overclocked the video card we found a little wiggle room left and were able to increase the GPU further to around 2.1GHz. That clock speed compared to what is capable out of a Founders Edition is incredible. For example, we overclocked a Founders Edition months ago and we were only able to get it into the lower 2000MHz clock range. Therefore, this customized ASUS video card not only delivers a better clock speed and performance out-of-the-box, but also can be pushed even further.
This shows that a retail customized GeForce GTX 1070 video card is able to outperform a Founders Edition GeForce GTX 1070 in every way. The ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1070 OC Edition comes out-of-the-box faster, can overclock higher, and maintains a cooler running GPU and less noise than the Founders Edition. When overclocked we saw performance increases above 15% most of the time compared to the Founders Edition.
Factory Overclock
Based on our evaluation and overclocking experiences we can confidently say that ASUS has provided a factory overclock that nearly reaches the full potential of the GPU on board with the OC Edition. This is good news as you are ensured to get the most performance from your video card out of the gate without any modification. If you want to manipulate clock speed you will find some headroom on the GPU, but not a large amount. We experienced performance advantages under 10% most of the time with our manual overclock versus ASUS’s factory overclock.
Memory Overclock
One area that we were impressed by was the memory overclock. None of the preset factory overclocks from ASUS manipulate or overclock the memory frequency. This is simply left at 8GHz in all instances. However, we were surprised to find that the memory could overclock very high considering it is GDDR5 and not GDDR5X. We were able to increase the memory frequency from 8GHz to 9.2GHz. This brought the memory bandwidth up from 256GB/sec to 294GB/sec, quite a substantial bandwidth increase.
GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming Experience
One area we experienced our manual highest stable overclock help with on this video card was in the minimum framerate. In several games we found that minimum framerates were often in the 30-FPS zone, or even down to 25 FPS in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided with the games at the highest settings at 1440p with the GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition.
By overclocking our ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1070 OC Edition video card we were able to have those minimums brought up to more acceptable levels and the average framerates were at more enjoyable levels as well. While the GeForce GTX 1070 is a powerful GPU, there are still some games at 1440p with maximum game settings that can challenge it at times, as Deus Ex has demonstrated.
For the most part, the GeForce GTX 1070 with a factory overclock is able to handle today’s game’s well at 1440p with the highest settings. There are new games poised to come out this year though that may test that.
The Bottom Line
ASUS has done an extraordinary engineering job on the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1070 O8G-GAMING video card. This video card is refined not only in its quality of high performing hardware components but its piercing sleek and clean appearance. You can feel the years of experience and refinement made in the ASUS STRIX series as you hold this video card. With the new Aura RGB lighting it stands out as a stark contrast to the last generation of STRIX video cards in a good way.
We experienced a great gameplay experience in its default configuration, and that was only enhanced when we overclocked it. Overclocking the GeForce GTX 1070 GPU is the key, the key to a much happier and enjoyable gameplay experience. As of right now, this is the highest overclockable GeForce GTX 1070 we have encountered yet.
Considering the price of this video card sitting right under Founders Edition pricing, we think it definitely offers a lot better value over a Founders Edition GeForce GTX 1070 video card. You will find this video card available in stock at Newegg for $449 and there is a rebate that will make it $429.99. You can also find this video card in stock at Amazon for the same price of $449 and a rebate also making it $429.99. At this pricing, and the level of gameplay experienced we enjoyed with this video card we can highly recommend this video card if you are shopping for a new GeForce GTX 1070 GPU based video card today.
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