6 years later.... the GTX 1070 is still GREAT
Originally I was looking to buy a 6GB GTX 1060 but the GTX 1070 is a much better value. At the time I bought this, it was only $30 more for the EVGA GTX 1070 than an EVGA GTX 970, and $20 more than a 6GB GTX 1060. The 3GB 1060 shouldn't be on anyone's radar. The GTX 1070 is a no-brainer at these prices. According to the techpowerup database, the GTX 1070 is 50% faster than the GTX 970 and 35% faster than the 6GB GTX 1060.
It's hard to believe the GTX 1070 is still an excellent 1080p Gaming workhorse.... considering that it's over 6 years old. WTF.... this 6 year old card can deliver at least 45fps at Ultra settings in the most demanding games at 1080p? Yep. The only advantage the RTX 3050 has over the GTX 1070 is the addition of new features like DLSS.
I've owned a large number of 10-series cards at this point. I've had five 1080ti cards, two 1080 cards, one 1070ti, one 6gb 1060, and this is my 3rd 1070. Here's my experience with this particular EVGA ACX 3.0 Black Edition 1070 and the other 10-series cards I've had.
The EVGA 1070 SC Black edition card I got had fine temps, but the Hop Spot temps were a bit toasty. Once I repasted the card, the Hot Spot temps were in normal range. I used Arctic MX-4, which is a top-rated paste. I ran into a problem with the card not wanting to work with a 4K monitor but flashing the V-BIOS to a later version fixed the issue.
Another thing to note about the EVGA SC line is they're using the same reference design board as the Founder's Edition model. The only thing that's different is the dual axial fan cooler and no backplate. The dual axial-fan cooler is far and away better than the Founder's Edition blower cooler. With the Founder's edition card, the temps will always be in the 80's, even if you ramp the fan speeds up high. All this does is allow the boost clock to go up higher. This is not a problem with the SC Black edition ACX 3.0 cards, as the card will stay cool and the boost clocks will ramp up above 1900mhz.
The boost clocks are supposed to be limited to 1787mhz on this card, but without touching a dial the boost clocks will reach as high as 1915mhz. In relation to all 10-series cards, the only problem is the GPU on some cards aren't able to sustain this speed. I had this problem with a Strix GTX 1070 and a Gigabyte Aorus GTX 1080. If repasting the card and replacing the thermal pads with high quality pads does not fix the issue, then lowering the core clocks by 50mhz-100mhz should do the trick. Even if you lower the core clocks a little bit, the card will still boost beyond its specs.
Verified purchase: YesCondition: Pre-owned