ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Edition 8GB GDDR6 Review

Introduction

The sole reason why the NVIDIA GeForce RTX SUPER lineup exists was to counter AMD’s offerings. When AMD announced the Radeon RX 5700, it overshadowed the GeForce RTX 2060, while the Radeon RX 5700 XT was a bit too close to the GeForce RTX 2070, necessitating the need for something more potent. And voila, we have the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER here. As usual, ASUS threw in all they have onto their rendition of the updated GPU, and that’s the one we are looking at. The ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Edition.

Unboxing

Yeah I guess we can speed past the packaging section of the box. It should be very familiar to anyone who has been looking at the ASUS ROG Strix graphics cards in recent times. It’s worth noting that we received the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Edition, so it is clocked slightly lower as compared to the OC Edition.

On the back we see ASUS highlight their features like the MaxContact and dual BIOS features.

In the box are the setup guide, the velcro cable ties and the GPU itself. All the contents are packed in thick foam to protect them in the event of any unfortunate transportation incidents.

Appearance

The design of the card is pretty familiar, just like the packaging. Aggressive lines and triple Axial-tech fans dominates the front of the of the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER. The SUPER upgrade sees not only a new GPU, but also the new fans, as the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 OC Edition didn’t come with Axial-tech fans.

The back of the card is where you will find some ceramic capacitors peeking through the sleek brushed aluminium backplate. Also on the backplate are some fancy lines and the RGB logo, as you would find on any recent ROG Strix card. Or at least, the higher end ones.

Here on the side, we can see that ASUS upgraded the cooler on the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER. The ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 had a slightly slimmer profile and a less chunky brace for support. This design is shared with the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 cards and higher, so it’s cool to see ASUS bring it to the mid-range card.

Over here of the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER we find two DisplayPort 1.4 outputs, two HDMI 2.0b outputs and a single USB-C port. People have found interesting use cases for the USB-C port, so perhaps if your motherboard doesn’t have a USB-C port, you might want to consider the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER.

For the RGB enthusiasts, you might not be as pleased with ASUS’ ROG Strix offering because of the lack of ARGB as well as a general lack of sufficient RGB zones. There’s one here on the back, and one over on the front. They are not individually controlled, and the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER can only light up in one color at a time.

Specifications

ROG Strix Radeon RX 5700 OC Edition 8GB GDDR6

Since this is ASUS’ Advanced Edition rather than the OC Edition, the overclock is a lot milder. We are looking at boost clocks a mere 30 Hz higher than reference. Unlike AMD’s way of specifying their boost clock, NVIDIA’s card go way above the boost clocks depending on the thermal and power headroom available.

Speaking of power, you do get most of the same overkill hardware here on the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Edition, for example the twin 8-pin PCIe power connectors, rather than the reference’s 6 pin + 8 pin power.

Test Machine

Testing Methodology

We will be running in-game benchmarks where available, at the specified resolution(s) and at the maximum graphics preset, unless otherwise specified. Average framerates during gameplay will be recorded with Fraps, in the event of a benchmarked game not having an in-game benchmarking tool. Temperatures will be recorded with HWiNFO, and the maximum temperature in a 45-minute long Superposition stress test run will be reported. Fan speeds will be according to the default fan curve as defined by the manufacturer. The latest drivers available will be used, unless otherwise specified. Default clocks will be used, unless otherwise specified.

Performance

So as we have highlighted, the unit we have here is the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Edition. The ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER OC Edition is clocked 105 MHz faster. I won’t be running all the game benchmarks, but I will run the synthetic benchmarks, just to give you guys an idea of that bit of extra performance the OC Edition will offer.

Synthetic Performance

Let’s start off by a benchmark that will scare the GeForce RTX 2080 users into selling off their GPUs. The ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER falls just behind as compared to the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080, but when running as an “OC Edition”, it actually bests the more premium, albeit older, card. Of course, that’s why there is a GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER.

In Port Royal we see the same phenomenon. An overclocked GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER can beat a GeForce RTX 2080. And given that we are comparing it against an ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 OC Edition, the results are all the more impressive.

Gaming Performance

In gaming benchmarks, we see the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER come very close to the GeForce RTX 2080 too, which is probably what you would expect after those impressive synthetic benchmark scores.

Interestingly, the gap is wider between the GeForce RTX 2080 and the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER when we run Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER slots right in between the GeForce RTX 2070 and GeForce RTX 2080 here, while still falling short of the last-gen GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, for some reason.

Battlefield V also sees the GeForce RTX 2080 perform quite a bit better than the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, which isn’t all that surprising.

Far Cry 5 is a pretty interesting result. The ROG Strix Radeon RX 5700 OC Edition actually ends up on top of the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, albeit by a mere 2 fps. Still, Far Cry 5 is an AMD-optimized title, so that may have something to do with it.

The Division is an old title, but it is still capable of torturing the latest cards when running at 4K with all the bells-and-whistles turned up.

Dialing the resolution down, we see some impressive numbers across the board. Of course, that’s pretty much expected for a card that touts a cut-down TU104 anyway. 1440p shouldn’t even be a challenge for this card.

Thermals and Boost

The low temps surprised me for a bit, as almost every other card tested ran well above 60C. Then it dawned upon me that the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER here is the Advanced Edition. Plugging in the higher clocks of the “OC Edition” yielded temps that are more in line with the rest of our results.

With well controlled thermals, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER also served up a sustained ~1935 MHz at stock. When set to run in the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER “OC” Edition configuration, it sustained a slightly higher ~2025 MHz throughout our testing. A good showing here.

User Experience

There are two sections to the user experience of this card. Let’s look at some physical controls on the card itself, before we delve into the software bits.

If you hate RGB lighting and found yourself with the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER for some reason, then you can easily disable it via the physical button here. You don’t even need to install software to disable it. Pretty nifty, although I seriously think no one would buy a ROG Strix card if they didn’t like RGB at all. If anything, I hope ASUS adds more RGB next year. Also you can see those pretty NVLink fingers there, something you wouldn’t see on the GeForce RTX 2070 cards.

Due to the addition of the NVLink fingers, we see the BIOS switch moved over here towards the center of the card. It’s really easy to miss, and I would recommend you just forgetting about it too, since there really isn’t any reason to switch to the Quiet BIOS. Unless maybe you messed up the Performance BIOS.

As you might have experienced with previous ASUS cards, you can make use of GPU Tweak II to overclock the card. It’s a pretty nifty bit of software, but nothing makes it stand out in particular over the offerings from NVIDIA’s other partners.

You get GPU-Z baked in as well as monitoring tools. There’s even a shortcut to download Furmark if you decide to try and roast your card.

The software you will use to control the limited RGB will be none other than the AURA suite. If you only have the card, then this is what you need. If you already have ASUS’ RGB-enabled motherboards, then you can just use AURA SYNC to control everything. Or, you can still install this to control the card separately.

Conclusion

While most of ASUS’ ROG Strix cards are quite pricey, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is actually pretty well positioned versus the other GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER cards in the market. At RM2999, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is still priced at a premium over the competition, but by a much smaller margin. Depending on your design preference, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is quite a solid choice.

Since this is a ROG Strix card, you get the full works here. Axial-tech fans that run quiet and cool well, blowing into a huge fin stack connected to a heatplate polished to a mirror shine, mounted on a PCB assembled via a fully automated process. You might be able to get slightly better value from the other cards, but are you really willing to forgo all that just to save a couple of ringgits?

Our thanks to ASUS Malaysia for provisioning the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER for us to review.