Gigabyte RTX 4070 Super Aero OC Review

1. Introduction2. Meet the Gigabyte RTX 4070 Super Aero OC3. Testing Methodology4. Game Benchmarks5. Clock Speed6. GPU Temperatures7. Memory Temperatures8. Acoustics9. Noise-Normalised Temperatures10. Power Draw and Efficiency11. Overclocking12. Closing Thoughts13. View All Pages

Following on from our review of Nvidia's RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition yesterday, today we can present reviews of two partner cards. This article is focused on the Gigabyte Aero OC, but we also have a review of the Palit JetStream OC if you are interested. The Aero OC is a beautiful white graphics card, complete with a triple-fan cooler, silver metal backplate and a hint of RGB lighting. Let's find out if the beauty is only skin deep…

Alongside the triple-slot, triple-fan cooler, the Aero OC also comes with a mild factory overclock, support for dual-BIOS, as well as a power limit that can be increased all the way to 320W. Combine that with the aesthetic and it certainly looks like an attractive card on paper, so let's see if it does enough to justify the £659.99 MSRP…

	RTX 4090	RTX 4080	RTX 4070 Ti	RTX 4070 Super	RTX 4070
Process	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4
SMs	128	76	60	56	46
CUDA Cores	16384	9728	7680	7168	5888
Tensor Cores	512	304	240	224	184
RT Cores	128	76	60	56	46
Texture Units	512	304	240	224	184
ROPs	176	112	80	80	64
GPU Boost Clock	2520 MHz	2505 MHz	2610 MHz	2475 MHz	2475 MHz
Memory Data Rate	21 Gbps	22.4 Gbps	21 Gbps	21 Gbps	21 Gbps
L2 Cache	73728 KB	65536 KB	49152 KB	49152 KB	36864 KB
Total Video Memory	24GB GDDR6X	16GB GDDR6X	12GB GDDR6X	12GB GDDR6X	12GB GDDR6X
Memory Interface	384-bit	256-bit	192-bit	192-bit	192-bit
Memory Bandwidth	1008 GB/Sec	716.8 GB/Sec	504 GB/Sec	504 GB/Sec	504 GB/Sec
TGP	450W	320W	285W	220W	200W

First, a quick spec recap. Just like the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4070, the new 4070 Super uses a cut-down AD104 die, measuring 295mm². The fundamental building blocks are still the same of course, with the RTX 4070 Super offering a total of 56 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), each housing 128 CUDA Cores, for a total of 7168. We also find 56 RT cores, 224 Tensor cores, 224 Texture Units, and 80 ROPs.

TSMC's N4 node has Nvidia cranking up the clock speed significantly this generation, with the RTX 4070 Super sporting the same 2475MHz rated boost clock as the original model. Gigabyte has increased this slightly, with the Aero OC offering a 2565MHz boost.

The memory configuration also remains the same as both the 4070 and 4070 Ti. That means a relatively narrow 192-bit memory interface, so even with 12GB GDDR6X running at 21Gbps, total memory bandwidth comes in at 504 GB/s, lower than the RTX 3070 Ti. That said, there has been a substantial upgrade to the L2 cache with the Ada architecture, with the RTX 4070 now offering 49.1MB, compared to just 6MB for GA102.

Considering the increased core-count, power draw is naturally a touch higher than the RTX 4070, with the 4070 Super boasting a 220W TGP. Gigabyte has not increased this out of the box for the Aero OC, but the power limit can be manually pushed up to 320W.

The Gigabyte RTX 4070 Super Aero OC ships in a very clean white box, with just the Aero branding, alongside Gigabyte and GeForce logos visible on the front. On the back, Gigabyte highlights a few key features along with an image of the graphics card itself.

Inside the box we find a warranty note, a quick start guide and a dual 8-pin power adapter.

As for the graphics card itself, it is certainly a looker – assuming you like white PC components! Gigabyte has opted for a white plastic shroud, though there is a silver metal plate surrounding the three fans. I don't think it does much for structural integrity so is likely purely for aesthetics.

Each of the three fans measure 90mm in diameter, and they feature Gigabyte's Unique Blade Fan design, along with Alternate Spinning technology, meaning the central fan spins in reverse relative to the other two.

In terms of dimensions, the Aero OC measures 300 x 130 x 57.6mm, while it weighed in at 1263g on my scales.

The front side of the card is home to the GeForce RTX logo, while the Aero logo towards the I/O bracket is the sole RGB lighting zone on the card.

As for the backplate, this is a full-length design made of silver metal, but it has a large cut-out towards the end to allow air to pass directly though the heatsink. We can also note the dual-BIOS switch positioned just above the power connector, offering a choice of the OC or Silent BIOS. Both feature the same clock speed and power profiles, the only difference is the fan curve, but we test both later in the review.

Power is supplied by a single 12VHPWR/PCIe Gen5 power connector, though a dual 8-pin adapter is included in the box. Display outputs are standard, with 3x DisplayPort 1.4 and 1x HDMI 2.1 connectors.

Driver Notes

• AMD GPUs were benchmarked with the Adrenalin 23.12.1 driver.
• Nvidia GPUs (except RTX 4070 Super) were benchmarked with the 546.33 driver.
• RTX 4070 Super was benchmarked with the 546.52 driver supplied to press.

Results are only directly comparable where this exact configuration has been used.

Test System:

We test using a custom built system from PCSpecialist, based on Intel’s Rocket Lake platform. You can read more about this system HERE and configure your own PCSpecialist system HERE.

CPU	Intel Core i9-13900KS
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z790 Gaming X AX
Memory	32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5 6000MHz
Graphics Card	Varies
SSD	4TB Seagate Firecuda 530 Gen 4 PCIe NVMe
Chassis	Corsair 5000D Airflow Tempered Glass Gaming Case
CPU Cooler	Corsair iCUE H150i Elite RGB High Performance CPU Cooler
Power Supply	Corsair 1600W Pro Series Titanium AX1600i Digital Modular PSU
Operating System	Windows 11 23H2
Monitor	MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD
Resizable BAR	Enabled for all supported GPUs

Comparison Graphics Cards List

• AMD RX 7900 XTX 24GB
• AMD RX 7900 XT 20GB
• AMD RX 7800 XT 16GB
• Sapphire RX 7700 XT Pulse 12GB
• AMD RX 6700 XT 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 4090 FE 24GB
• Nvidia RTX 4080 FE 16GB
• Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming 12GB
• Palit RTX 4070 Super JetStream OC
• Nvidia RTX 4070 FE 12GB
• Gigabyte RTX 3080 Eagle 10GB
• Nvidia RTX 3070 FE 8GB

All cards were tested at reference specifications.

Software and Games List

• 3DMark Fire Strike & Fire Strike Ultra (DX11 Synthetic)
• 3DMark Time Spy (DX12 Synthetic)
• 3DMark DirectX Raytracing feature test (DXR Synthetic)
• Alan Wake II (DX12)
• Assassin's Creed Mirage (DX12)
• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• F1 23 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• The Last of Us Part 1 (DX12)
• Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered (DX12)
• A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12)
• Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (DX12)
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (DX12)
• Resident Evil 4 (DX12)
• Returnal (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Starfield (DX12)
• Total War: Pharaoh (DX11)

We run each benchmark/game three times, and present mean averages in our graphs. We use FrameView to measure average frame rates as well as 1% low values (99th percentile) across our three runs.Here we test five games, all at 2560×1440 resolution using maximum image quality settings.

We don't focus heavily on gaming performance in these AIB card reviews, for the simple reason that factory overclocks don't make that much difference. Despite a theoretical clock speed advantage of 90MHz, real-world gaming performance is only 2-3% ahead of the Nvidia Founders Edition across the 5 games we tested. That does put the Aero OC even closer to the 4070 Ti, but the differences are very small compared to the Founders Edition. If you do want to see how the 4070 Super performs in a much wider array of games, check out our day 1 review.Here we present the average clock speed for each graphics card while running Cyberpunk 2077 for 30 minutes. We use GPU-Z to record the GPU core frequency during gameplay. We calculate the average core frequency during the 30 minute run to present here.

The Aero OC does enjoy a small performance advantage over Nvidia's Founders Edition thanks to slightly higher clock speeds, as it hovered around the 2750MHz mark during our testing. In fact, it averaged 2749MHz after a 30-minute stress test, so it's about 50MHz faster than the Founders Edition in the real world. Both the OC and Silent BIOS share the same clock speed and power target, so there is only a negligible 8MHz difference between their average clock speeds.

For our temperature testing, we measure the peak GPU core temperature under load. A reading under load comes from running Cyberpunk 2077 for 30 minutes.

Thermal performance is a positive area for the Aero OC. Not only does the OC BIOS record a very strong reduction in temperature of about 10C compared to the Founders Edition, even the Silent BIOS is impressive, hitting a peak of 61C.

For our memory temperature testing, we measure the peak memory temperature under load. A reading under load comes from running Cyberpunk 2077 for 30 minutes.

Memory thermals are better still, with the OC BIOS peaking at just 56C, while the Silent BIOS only hit 64C – both results are significantly better than the Founders Edition.

We take our noise measurements with the sound meter positioned 1 foot from the graphics card. I measured the noise floor to be 32 dBA, thus anything above this level can be attributed to the graphics cards. The power supply is passive for the entire power output range we tested all graphics cards in, while all CPU and system fans were disabled. A reading under load comes from running Cyberpunk 2077 for 30 minutes for 30 minutes.

The Aero OC also impresses in terms of its noise levels. Of course, the Silent BIOS is the quietest mode, where the fans spin at just 1170rpm, producing 33dBa of noise. The OC BIOS sees fan speed increase to 1485rpm, but even that is still very easy on the ears, with noise levels hitting just 35dBa.

Following on from our stock thermal and acoustic testing, here we re-test the operating temperature of the GPU, but with noise levels normalised to 40dBa. This allows us to measure the efficiency of the overall cooling solution as varying noise levels as a result of more aggressive fan curves are no longer a factor.

We increased fan speed to 1830rpm for our 40dBa noise-normalised temperature testing, where the Aero OC saw GPU and hot spot temperatures of just 53C and 63C, respectively. That's a clear improvement over the Founders Edition and a hair better than Palit's JetStream OC.

Memory temperatures are better still, peaking at just 52C – 6C cooler than the JetStream OC.

We use Nvidia PCAT to measure power draw of the graphics card only, with readings from both the PCIe slot and the PCIe power cables combined into a single figure. We use Cyberpunk 2077 (1440p) for this testing.

Interestingly, Gigabyte has not increased the default TGP out of the box, and we actually saw the Aero OC pull slightly less power than the Founders Edition, as it drew 219.7W.

Combining the power draw values shown above with the performance data, we present performance per Watt for each graphics card tested:

That, coupled with a small increase in gaming performance, means efficiency is higher than the Founders Edition and on par with the RTX 4080 – not bad at all!

For our manual overclocking tests, we used MSI Afterburner. Our best results are as below.

As mentioned, Gigabyte allows the Aero OC's power limit to be increased all the way to 320W, or 145% on the power slider. We did that and managed to add 180MHz to the GPU and 1520MHz to the memory.

That overclock increased real-world clock speed by a good amount, with a new average frequency of 3045MHz – the highest we've seen from the three 4070 Super cards we have tested so far.

Even then, performance gained from this overclocked ranged between 5-8% – it did outperform the JetStream OC, but not by very much in practical terms.

Power draw also rose a fair chunk with this overclock dialled in, reaching just over 250W, or a 15% increase over stock.

Gigabyte's RTX 4070 Super Aero OC is another impressive graphics card from the Taiwanese manufacturer. Of course, if you're reading this review there's a good chance you are interested in white components, as that is clearly a key selling point of the Aero OC. I personally think it looks fantastic, with the white shroud and silver backplate, and that is complimented by a single RGB zone.

Thankfully, the beauty is not just skin deep, as the Aero OC utilises a very effective cooler. Out of the box it peaked 10C lower than the Founders Edition when using the OC BIOS, while its noise-normalised thermal performance is the best of any 4070 Super we have tested so far. I also love the inclusion of dual-BIOS, allowing users to choose between the Silent or OC modes without compromising gaming performance.

Speaking of gaming performance, it's only a whisker better than what we saw from the Founders Edition, thanks to the Aero OC's relatively mild factory overclock – in the real world, it ran about 50MHz faster than the Founders. That still means it's a very capable GPU for 1440p, or even entry-level 4K gaming, just don't expect massive frame rate increases compared to the reference card.

Our sample overclocked relatively well, too, and I like Gigabyte's decision to allow the power limit to be increased all the way to 320W. This enabled us to maintain a clock speed over 3GHz with our overclock dialled in, and that is again the best we have seen from any 4070 Super card so far.

All-in-all, there's really nothing to complain about with this card. The price is going to be the biggest sticking point for most, as with a £659.99 MSRP, the Aero OC commands a 14% price premium over the reference £579 MSRP. Even then however, I can imagine plenty of people will be willing to stump up the extra cash considering the features, aesthetics and thermal performance on offer. Good job, Gigabyte.

We don't yet have a buy-link but we've been told the Gigabyte RTX 4070 Super Aero OC has a UK MSRP of £659.99.

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Pros

• Looks fantastic.
• Runs significantly cooler than the Founders Edition.
• Whisper quiet using the Silent BIOS.
• Dual-BIOS support.
• Power limit can be increased to 320W.
• Our sample reached over 3GHz when overclocked.
• Support for the full RTX feature set including DLSS, ray tracing etc.

Cons

• Not everyone will want to pay an extra £80 over the baseline £579 asking price.

KitGuru says: Gigabyte has done a great job with the RTX 4070 Super Aero OC. It does come with a slight price premium, but the looks alone go a long way in making that worthwhile.

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