Conclusion

...spending this amount of money on a single GPU is a considerable investment and one that requires serious thought.

A GeForce GTX 1070 GPU has become an expensive proposition. You could call it a lack of competition, or blame it on a weakened pound, but whatever the case, spending this amount of money on a single GPU is a considerable investment and one that requires serious thought.

There are no shortage of suitors and Asus represents the premium end of the market with a selection of GTX 1070 cards priced from £420 and topped by the £500 ROG Strix OC. Built like a tank and dressed to impress, this is a robust-looking solution primed with an excellent cooler, a guaranteed factory overclock and value-adds such as onboard fan headers and customisable RGB LEDs.

Yet value is a genuine concern, and while the Asus implementation has plenty of strengths, it doesn't quite do enough to justify the considerable price premium over competing GTX 1070 boards. Nvidia's x70 range has historically appealed to users who are priced out of the top-end SKU, but with prices continuing to rise, you may be tempted to hold fire and see what the third-rung GeForce GTX 1060 has in store.

The Good		The Bad
Factory overclocked on core Excellent cooling performance Silent when idle, quiet under load FanConnect is a good idea Three-year warranty Built like a tank		Considerable price premium LED software is basic Stock-clocked memory

Asus ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 OC

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The Asus ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 OC graphics card is available to purchase from Scan Computers and Overclockers UK.

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hexus
Clock speeds and frequencies are of particular interest given that Asus has come under fire for shipping review cards that differ slightly from retail models. As has been widely reported, our ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 review sample arrived with ‘OC’ mode activated by default, resulting in core and boost frequencies of 1,658MHz and 1,860MHz, respectively. Though end users can choose to implement OC mode using Asus's GPU Tweak II software utility, retail cards are shipped with Gaming as the standard profile, producing a 1,632MHz base clock and 1,835MHz boost.

Hardly ideal for benchmarking purposes, and our attempts to apply the Gaming profile manually proved fruitless as clock speeds weren't reduced correctly. After discussions with Asus HQ, HEXUS has been able to retrieve a retail BIOS and flash our review sample to ensure the card runs at retail-matching speeds. We've checked to ensure the frequencies are where they should be and are confident our test results present an accurate reflection of out-the-box performance.

Kudos for checking and chasing to get a representative review.

But as you point out: that price.. nVidia's $379 claim for non-FE cards is looking absurd.

kalniel
hexus
Clock speeds and frequencies are of particular interest given that Asus has come under fire for shipping review cards that differ slightly from retail models. As has been widely reported, our ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 review sample arrived with ‘OC’ mode activated by default, resulting in core and boost frequencies of 1,658MHz and 1,860MHz, respectively. Though end users can choose to implement OC mode using Asus's GPU Tweak II software utility, retail cards are shipped with Gaming as the standard profile, producing a 1,632MHz base clock and 1,835MHz boost.

Hardly ideal for benchmarking purposes, and our attempts to apply the Gaming profile manually proved fruitless as clock speeds weren't reduced correctly. After discussions with Asus HQ, HEXUS has been able to retrieve a retail BIOS and flash our review sample to ensure the card runs at retail-matching speeds. We've checked to ensure the frequencies are where they should be and are confident our test results present an accurate reflection of out-the-box performance.
Kudos for checking and chasing to get a representative review.

But as you point out: that price.. nVidia's $379 claim for non-FE cards is looking absurd.

It's a suggested retail price. Like the i7 6700K that is still being sold way above MSRP. Supply and demand.

Asus, MSI and EVGA amongst others did announce blower style cards I can see ending up around that MSRP. They haven't released them yet because they can ask a lot more money for their super special tri fan, double heatsink cards that sell like hotcakes.

ASUS HQ: Hey let's see if we can charge £100 for some fan headers

It's a bold strategy Cotton…

Still waiting for these prices to fall atleast somewhat closer to the 970/Announced nvidia prices. Never expected the announced $ price to translate directly, but I'm pretty disappointed with the price of the 1070 as a whole.

Hope assuming its just a chip shortage, we'll see the prices drop soon. Unless a lot of people are still buying at this price in which case they get away with it I guess.

Its Madness i tell you Madness!