Palit RTX 5070 GamingPro OC Review

1. Introduction2. Meet the Palit RTX 5070 GamingPro OC3. Testing Methodology4. Game Benchmarks5. Clock Speed6. GPU Temperatures7. Acoustics8. Noise-Normalised Temperatures9. Power Draw and Efficiency10. Overclocking11. Closing Thoughts12. View All Pages

After reviewing Palit's RTX 5070 Ti GamingPro OC last week, today we are taking a step down the product stack to check out its more affordable sibling, the RTX 5070 GamingPro OC. Offering a very similar feature-set, with dual-BIOS support alongside ARGB lighting and a triple-fan cooler, this card hits the market at around £600 here in the UK and it seems like you can actually go out and buy one… but should you? We find out today.

We were fairly unimpressed with the RTX 5070 in our day one review, and since then both of AMD's RDNA 4 challengers, the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT, have hit the market. While Palit's RTX 5070 GamingPro OC isn't an MSRP card, it's certainly one of the more affordable options, so let's see what it can bring to the table.

	RTX 5080	RTX 5070 Ti	RTX 5070	RTX 4070 Super	RTX 4070
Process	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4
SMs	84	70	48	56	46
CUDA Cores	10752	8960	6144	7168	5888
Tensor Cores	336	280	192	224	184
RT Cores	84	70	48	56	46
Texture Units	336	280	192	224	184
ROPs	112	96	80	80	64
GPU Boost Clock	2617 MHz	2452 MHz	2512 MHz	2475 MHz	2475 MHz
Memory Data Rate	30 Gbps	28 Gbps	28 Gbps	21 Gbps	21 Gbps
L2 Cache	65536 KB	49152 KB	49152 KB	49152 KB	36864 KB
Total Video Memory	16GB GDDR7	16GB GDDR7	12GB GDDR7	12GB GDDR6X	12GB GDDR6X
Memory Interface	256-bit	256-bit	192-bit	192-bit	192-bit
Memory Bandwidth	960 GB/Sec	896 GB/Sec	672 GB/Sec	504 GB/Sec	504 GB/Sec
TGP	360W	300W	250W	220W	200W

First, a quick spec recap. RTX 5070 marks the introduction of a new Blackwell die – GB205, where RTX 5070 is not quite full implementation but comes close. Comprised of five Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs), each holds up to eight Texture Processing Clusters (TPCs), with a total of 24. Each TPC is home to two Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), giving us 48, and each SM still holds 128 CUDA Cores, meaning the RTX 5070 has a total of 6144 shaders. We also find 48 RT cores, 192 Tensor cores, 192 Texture Units, and 80 ROPs.

This time around, however, there's no node-shrink, and GB205 remains fabricated on TSMC's N4 node, as per the RTX 40 series. As such, rated clock speed has not stepped forwards this generation, with the RTX 5070 rated at 2512MHz, though Palit has increased this to 2572MHz.

The memory configuration is similar to its predecessors, too. We still find 12GB of memory operating over a 192-bit interface, the primary difference being the jump to 28Gbps GDDR7 modules, increasing memory bandwidth to 672 GB/s. L2 cache still comes in at 49MB.

Lastly, the RTX 5070 features a 250W TGP. This is something we focus on closely in this review, using our enhanced GPU power testing methodology, so read on for our most detailed power and efficiency testing yet.

The Palit RTX 5070 GamingPro OC ships in a blue box with a large image of the graphics card visible on the front. On the back, Palit mentions a few key areas of the graphics card.

Inside, a small mousepad is included, Nvidia and Palit branded, along with a whole bunch of stickers and the dual 8-pin power adapter.

The graphics card itself is visually identical to the RTX 5070 Ti model we looked at last week. That means it is sporting the same shroud design, which is plain black all over, but with some glossy sections which add some reflectivity. I don't think it's ugly per se, but compared to some other partner cards we have reviewed this generation, it does look less refined to my eye.

It does still offer three fans as part of the cooling solution, with each measuring 100mm in diameter.

 

Dimensions are identical to the 5070 Ti model, measuring 331.9 x 127.1 x 60 mm, while it weighed in at 1537g on my scales.

The front side of the card is home to the GeForce RTX and GamingPro logos, the latter of which is illuminated by RGB LEDs.

As for the backplate, it's another full-length metal design, but almost half of it has been cut out to act as the ‘flow through' area, though it's not completely open as Palit has opted for a vented approach.

There's also a BIOS switch positioned near to the I/O bracket, offering users a choice of Silent or Performance modes, with the former operating a more relaxed fan curve.

Here we can see the RGB lighting in action, and you can also connect an ARGB cable to the card and control the lighting via your motherboard if that is your preference.

As expected, power is delivered by a single 12V-2X6 connector. Display outputs consist of three DP 2.1 and one HDMI 2.1 ports.

Looking now at the PCB, it's quite densely packed, offering 9 phases for the GPU, and 3 for the memory. Alpha & Omega AOZ5311NQI MOSFETs are used throughout, and these are rated at 55A. The GPU VRM is controlled by an Alpha & Omega AOZ73004CQI controller, while a another one is deployed for the memory VRM.

Unlike the RTX 5070 Ti GamingPro OC, this RTX 5070 model has ditched the vapour chamber in favour of a more traditional coldplate design, with the GPU contact a central copper plate, while the memory contacts with some slightly raised sections of the baseplate. The MOSFETs are cooled by separate baseplates, while the fin stack utilises a total of six heatpipes.

No thermal pads are used on the rear of the PCB to contact with the backplate.

Driver Notes

• AMD GPUs (except RX 9070 series) were benchmarked with the Adrenalin 24.12.1 driver.
• AMD RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT were benchmarked with the Adrenalin 24.30.31.03 driver supplied to press.
• Nvidia GPUs (except for RTX 50 series) were benchmarked with the 566.14 driver.
• RTX 5090 was benchmarked with the 571.86 driver supplied to press.
• RTX 5080 was benchmarked with the 572.02 driver supplied to press.
• RTX 5070 Ti was benchmarked with the 572.43 driver supplied to press.
• RTX 5070 was benchmarked with the 572.50 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 powered by MSI, based on AMD's Zen 5 platform. You can view the Powered by MSI store on AWD-IT's website HERE.

CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
Motherboard	MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi
Memory	64GB (2x32GB) Kingston Fury Beast DDR5 6000MT/s CL30
Graphics Card	Varies
SSD	4TB Kingston NV3 Gen 4 PCIe NVMe
Chassis	MSI MPG Gungnir 300R Airflow
CPU Cooler	MSI MAG CoreLiquid i360
Power Supply	MSI MEG Ai1300P
Operating System	Windows 11 23H2
Monitor	MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED
Resizable BAR	Enabled for all supported GPUs

Comparison Graphics Cards List

• ASRock RX 9070 XT Taichi 16GB
• Sapphire RX 9070 Pulse 16GB
• AMD RX 7900 XTX 24GB
• AMD RX 7900 XT 20GB
• Sapphire RX 7900 GRE Nitro+ 16GB
• AMD RX 7800 XT 16GB
• Sapphire RX 7700 XT Pulse 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 5090 FE 32GB
• Nvidia RTX 5080 FE 16GB
• MSI RTX 5070 Ti Ventus 3X 16GB
• Nvidia RTX 5070 FE 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 4090 FE 24GB
• Nvidia RTX 4080 Super FE 16GB
• MSI RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X 16GB
• Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 4070 Super FE 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 4070 FE 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti FE 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti FE 8GB
• Nvidia RTX 3070 FE 8GB

All cards were tested at reference specifications. For factory overclocked cards, this means we manually ‘undo' the overclock via MSI Afterburner or AMD/Intel's built-in tuning tools. Or, for cards like the Sapphire RX 7900 GRE Nitro+, we enable the reference-clocked BIOS instead of the default OC BIOS.

Software and Games List

• Alan Wake II (DX12)
• Black Myth: Wukong (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• F1 24 (DX12)
• Final Fantasy XVI (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Ghost of Tsushima (DX12)
• Horizon Forbidden West (DX12)
• The Last of Us Part 1 (DX12)
• A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12)
• Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (DX12)
• Returnal (DX12)
• Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Starfield (DX12)
• Star Wars Outlaws (DX12)
• Total War: Warhammer III (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 three games, all at 2560×1440 resolution using maximum image quality settings.

We don't focus too heavily on game benchmarks in our partner cards reviews as performance doesn't tend to change a whole lot when compared to the reference models. That was certainly the case for the GamingPro OC, given we saw just no more than a 5fps difference compared to the reference clocked RTX 5070 FE over the three games we tested.

Here we present the average clock speed for each graphics card while running A Plague Tale: Requiem 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.

On a technical level, we can observe a small clock speed improvement for the GamingPro OC over the Nvidia FE, though it's not a major step forward as you can see above.

In fact, averaged over the thirty minute stress test, the difference was 63MHz, so it's no surprise that didn't lead to significant real-world performance gains. We also tested the GamingPro OC's Silent BIOS, which ran just as fast as the Nvidia Founders Edition.

For our temperature testing, we measure steady-state GPU temperatures under load. A reading under load comes from running A Plague Tale: Requiem for 30 minutes.

As for out of the box thermal performance, the GamingPro OC is a clear improvement over the Nvidia FE. The Silent BIOS saw 6C reductions to both GPU and VRAM temperatures, while the Performance BIOS runs cooler still, hitting just 61C on the GPU and 66C on the VRAM.

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.

It's also great to see the GamingPro OC offering significant reductions in noise output compared to the FE card. We saw the Silent BIOS run at just 30%/1150rpm, while the Performance BIOS only increased that to 35%/1315rpm, so it was still very easy on the ears.

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.

As expected, the GamingPro OC therefore offers significantly improved noise-normalised thermals compared to the FE, dropping both GPU and VRAM temperatures by 12C, a very impressive result.

Power Draw

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 A Plague Tale: Requiem (4K/2160p) for this testing.

Power draw is slightly higher than the FE, but only by 12 or-so Watts, so it's nothing to worry about.

Performance per Watt

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

Overall performance per Watt is still level with the RTX 5070 FE, though the RX 9070 is the clear winner in this instance.

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

For our overclocking tests, we were able to max out the memory slider at +2000MHz, bringing effective speeds up to 34Gbps. My best GPU result came with +330MHz applied, and this brought real-world frequency to just below 3.2GHz. Palit also allows a 20% increase to the power limit.

RTX 5070 continues to impress with its overclocking prowess, and the GamingPro OC saw performance gains of 10-11% in these three games – not bad at all and well worth doing!

Power draw did rise as a result, up to 305.2W, and that works out as an 18% increase compared to stock, so a slight reduction to overall efficiency, but most would consider it worth it for the increased performance.

After reviewing the RTX 5070 Ti GamingPro OC last week, today we have assessed Palit's RTX 5070 model and it is another effective partner card from the Taiwanese manufacturer.

For starters, it offers a significantly better cooler than the Nvidia Founders Edition, offering both much lower temperatures and reduced noise levels; in our 40dBa noise-normalised thermal test, we saw both the GPU and VRAM temperatures improve by 12C.

It also offers features that I consider to be important, including dual-BIOS, which some cards at this price point lack. There's also a metal backplate, plus ARGB lighting if you like that sort of thing, which can even be controlled from your motherboard if you use the ARGB header on the card.

Overclocking continues to reap dividends for the Blackwell architecture, given we saw performance improvements of 10-11% over stock. Power draw did rise as a result, hitting around 300W in A Plague Tale: Requiem, but I think most enthusiasts won't be too worried about that.

The main thing holding this card back is really the fact that the RTX 5070 silicon itself is rather lacklustre. As noted in our day 1 review, it's barely an improvement on the RTX 4070 Super, while the 12GB framebuffer already struggles in certain games today, which does not bode well for the future. On top of that, AMD's RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT cards are both faster overall – Nvidia does still holds the edge for ray tracing, especially so in path traced games, but there is stiff competition around this price point.

The one thing Palit does have in its favour is the fact that the GamingPro OC is in stock and it's actually fairly sensibly priced. We found it for £600 at OCUK, but you could save £21 by opting for the non-OC version, which is otherwise identical aside from the fact it ships without the 60MHz factory overclock. Considering the cheapest RX 9070 cards are currently very similarly-priced, we'd say the Palit RTX 5070 GamingPro OC is still worth thinking about, limitations of the RTX 5070 silicon aside.

Pros

• Solid gaming performance on offer.
• Runs cool and quiet, much more so than the Nvidia FE.
• Our sample hit just under 3.2GHz when overclocking with relative ease.
• Much better value than some other partner cards.
• DLSS 4 has improved Ray Reconstruction and Super Resolution scaling.
• Multi Frame Generation enables higher frame rates than would otherwise be possible.

Cons

• RX 9070 offers stiff competition around this price-point.
• RTX 5070 is one of the 50-series' weaker offerings, especially considering the 12GB framebuffer.
• Still quite expensive at around £600.

KitGuru says: We're still not convinced by the RTX 5070 as a whole, but Palit's GamingPro OC model has a few tricks up its sleeve to make it worthy of consideration.

Become a Patron!