Colorful iGame RTX 3070 Advanced OC-V Review

Can China-based Colorful square up to other NVIDIA partners and offer an RTX 3070 graphics card worth considering? We check out the iGame RTX 3070 Advanced OC-V.

Product on Review: iGame RTX 3070 Advanced OC-V
Manufacturer: Colorful
Street Price: GBP £550 | USD $579 | AUD $1200

As we enter a new year, like many, you may be on the hunt for a new graphics card. Tracking one down could be difficult in the current climate with stock availability on both sides of the GPU aisle being severely affected by little, to no supply. Of the different GPUs available, the RTX 3080 seems to be worst hit, which could make the product under review today more appealing!

In the spotlight today we have the Colorful iGame RTX 3070 Advanced OC-V. This graphics card offers a custom offering which is steps away from the cookie cutter designs to provide something truly unique. We get a triple fan cooling solution and a factory overclock straight out of the box.

About Colorful

Established in 1995, Colorful is a brand with a 20+ year history. It is a comprehensive company that holds the largest share in the Chinese graphics card market, integrating independent development, production, and sales. Also, it is a strategic partner of NVIDIA, AMD, and INTEL in China.

Technical Specifications

Below are the technical specifications surrounding the Advanced OC:

GPU
GA104
Shader Units
5888
Video Memory
8GB GDDR6
Memory Bus
256-bit
Engine Clock Boost
1815MHz
Memory Clock
14000MHz Effective
PCI Express
4.0
Display Outputs
3x DisplayPort 1.4
1x HDMI 2.1
Recommended Power Supply
650W
DirectX
12 API feature level 12_2
OpenGL
4.6
Cooling
Triple cooling fans
Slot Size
2
Supported OS
Windows 10
Card Length
315 x 131 x 53 mm

Closer Look

Advanced OC’s physical design is unlike most graphics cards on the market which typically opt for a black/grey theme. Instead, Colorful has opted for a unique colour scheme which combines silver, black and red. Further to this, the shroud is kitted out with RGB lighting which can be customized using the included software – see below for the effect.

The shroud itself may be plastic, but it still feels sturdy. This shroud sits over the cooling system which is comprised of three cooling fans (with 13 blades), and a double-heatsink with 5x 8mm copper heatpipes. Colorful has included their own zero decibel technology with this graphics card, meaning the fans will stop spinning under light load and thus reduce noise levels.

On the rear IO panel there are a total of four video outputs – 3x DisplayPort 1.4 and 1x HDMI 2.1. We’d have liked to see another HDMI port on this section of the card, but what is provided should serve most gamers.

Colorful has decided to include the OC switch at the back of the card which we feel is an excellent decision. Most manufacturers include a switch which is positioned on the side of the card, this can often be difficult to reach but using Colorful’s method means you don’t even need to go inside your computer case. The profiles on offer given two options – one places the GPU clock boost at 1725MHz, whereas the OC mode will shift the GPU clock boost up to 1815 MHz.

Advanced OC requires 2×8-pin PCIe from the PSU and it is recommended to have a 650W model for effectively powering this graphics card.

The lighting, as mentioned, can be controlled using Colorful’s software suite and allows animation effects and different colours to be applied. On the inner edge of the middle cooling fan, there is an RGB ring which provides an interesting effect when the fan spins – this is something which will add something completely different to what other cards offer and once again, we really like the inclusion of this feature.

Test Setup & Methodology

HOW WE TEST GRAPHICS CARDS

Testing a graphics card is an extremely lengthy process. We sometimes see reviews where a graphics card has been tested using out of date equipment, out of date games and even out of date drivers. While the latter can be excused due to the sheer amount of driver updates making a thorough review impossible we will however notify the reader when we have used a different driver to the normal for example a pre-release driver. For the most part however we will always use the same hardware and latest drivers so this does certainly need to be taken into consideration when viewing our testing results. Each game and benchmark is tested times with the lowest and highest scores omitted out of the 5 results and the average then taken from the three remaining to give us our final result for each resolution and setting used.

HARDWARE

In Q3 2020 we decided to move on from our Intel X99-based graphics card test system to embrace AMD Ryzen Gen3. The basis for this was quite simple, AMD’s platform is one of the most popular choices for gamers and by using such a configuration, we can hopefully showcase to our readership what they can expect. In the past we’ve used HEDT platforms and while this does indeed align itself to the bleeding edge for a computer system, it doesn’t reflect what most gamers will be using.

With NVIDIA and AMD now using PCIe 4.0 for their bus interface on graphics cards, AMD Ryzen Gen3 and the X570 chipset are well-equipped to test appropriately.

Graphics Cards on test:
AMD RX 5700
AMD RX 5700 XT
AMD RX 6800
XFX MERC 319 RX 6800 XT
NVIDIA RTX 2060
NVIDIA RTX 2060 SUPER
NVIDIA RTX 2070 SUPER
NVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER
NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti
ZOTAC RTX 3060 Ti Twin Edge OC
GIGABYTE RTX 3070 GAMING OC
Colorful iGame RTX 3070 Advanced OC-V
ASUS TUF RTX 3080 OC
AORUS RTX 3080 Master
ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3090 OC

Special thanks go to AMD, MSI, Corsair, Noctua and AverMedia for providing the hardware configuration for our graphics card reviews:

Motherboard: MSI PRESTIGE X570 CREATION
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X
RAM – 16GB (2x8GB) Corsair LPX Vengeance DDR4 @ 3000MHz
Power Supply – CORSAIR HX1050
Hard Drive – Samsung 830 EVO 250GB + Crucial MX300 2TB
Cooler – CORSAIR Hydro Series™ H150i Pro 360mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
Capture Card – Avermedia Live Gamer Extreme 2

BENCHMARKS

If you are a regular reader of our reviews you will know we like to test the latest hardware with the latest games and benchmarks on the market. Here are the games we’ve chosen:

Horizon Zero Dawn
Control
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
F1 2020
A Total War Saga: Troy

To capture framerates we use a combination of in-game benchmark tools and FRAPS.

We also take into consideration the benchmarkers out there so have included three of the more popular synthetic benchmarks available:

3DMark Time Spy
3DMark Port Royal
Unigine: SuperPosition

In light of the new RTX and DLSS features, we have also added in some tests to cover this tech to provide some analysis, showcasing what users can expect with/without such a feature enabled. For this we are using:

3DMark DLSS
Control – RT Off/RT On

Let’s see how today’s graphics card performed…

Power, Temperatures, Acoustics

To test for power consumption, we take a measurement from the plug socket. It is important to note that the figures below represent total system power use and not just the GPU. The CPU was always in a fixed state so did not affect the additional power load when the GPU was placed under 100% load using AIDA64 stability test (GPU Only) which was ran for 20 minutes at which point a load reading was taken. Idle readings were taken 5 minutes after system boot to ensure any background services and applications had loaded.

TEMPERATURE

To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests we set Unigine SuperPosition running in game mode continuously for ~30 minutes and recorded the peak/maximum GPU temperature.

ACOUSTICS

For the purpose of testing audio levels we have the NDI KC-3300 sound level meter. During the temperature recording above, while in Unigine SuperPosition gamemode we monitored the audio and the results are found below. All graphics cards are tested in their out of the box state (auto).

DX12: 3DMark Time Spy

Download your copy now

With its pure DirectX 12 engine, which supports new API features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, 3DMark Time Spy is the ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of the latest graphics cards.

DX12: 3DMark Port Royal

Download your copy now

3DMark Port Royal is the world’s first dedicated real-time ray tracing benchmark for gamers. You can use Port Royal to test and compare the real-time ray tracing performance of any graphics card that supports Microsoft DirectX Raytracing. As well as benchmarking performance, 3DMark Port Royal provides a realistic and practical example of what to expect from ray tracing in upcoming games.

DX11: Unigine SuperPosition

Superposition is a new-generation benchmark tailored for testing reliability and performance of the latest GPUs. Top-notch visuals, support for VR-devices and an interactive mode with mini-games — the list of features built into Superposition could go on and on.

DX12: Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The plot follows Aloy, a hunter in a world overrun by machines, who sets out to uncover her past

DX12: Control

Control Ultimate Edition contains the main game and all previously released Expansions (“The Foundation” and “AWE&quot

in one great value package. Winner of over 80 awards, Control is a visually stunning third-person action-adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

DX12: Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Eidos Montréal in conjunction with Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. It continues the narrative from the 2013 game Tomb Raider and its sequel Rise of the Tomb Raider, and is the twelfth mainline entry in the Tomb Raider series.

DX12: F1 2020

F1® 2020 allows you to create your F1® team for the very first time and race alongside the official teams and drivers. Alternatively, challenge your friends in new split-screen with casual race options for more relaxed racing. Compete on 22 circuits, with current and classic content.

DX12: A Total War Saga: TROY

A Total War Saga: TROY is the first in the award-winning strategy series to focus on the Bronze-Age Mediterranean and the legendary twenty-year conflict between the kingdoms of Troy and Mycenaean Greece, known as the Trojan War.

Overall Performance

Here we take a look at the overall performance of the graphics card. This figure is determined by finding the average FPS across all of the settings used in a particular benchmark(game) to give us an overall value.

Value For Money

We make a simple calculation for this set of results. For each game we add all of the resulting FPS totals together and then divide by the four sets to give us an overall performance figure. While the figures alone do not give you an accurate picture of how the card will perform in any given scenario, they do tell you, when averaged, which GPU is the more capable across all of the benchmarks and settings tested.

Please note: we’ve used GBP for currency but since this is relative – regardless of which currency you use, this will give you a good indication of value for money.

DLSS Analysis: 3DMark DLSS

Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) is an NVIDIA RTX technology that uses the power of deep learning and AI to improve game performance while maintaining visual quality.

Ray Tracing Analysis: Control

Control is an action-adventure video game title which has the ability to take advantage of real-time ray tracing. For this test we ran the game in 1440p with Ultra Detail set. Under the settings we enable Ray Tracingand assign the preset as “High”. Below are the results with RT On and RT Off.

Conclusion

We already know what to expect from the RTX 3070, after already reviewing this GPU and those reading this review will more than likely have a good understanding of what the 3070 can do, but what’s on offering with Colorful’s iGame Advanced OC-V is especially interesting.

Firstly, if we look at the styling and the colour scheme, Colorful has decided to really step away from the cookie cutter designs and have carved out their identity by taking a different approach. We really like the theme, the silver looks superb and very stylish and the integrated RGB lighting is, again, completely different to the competition.

On the performance front this RTX 3070 performs very well and against GIGABYTE’s GAMING OC, it managed to offer slightly better gaming figures. If you’re gaming at 1080p – 1440p then you’ll be able to crank up the eye candy to “ultra” and even enjoy the delights of Ray Tracing (Apply DLSS for better performance). Advanced OC comes with a handy, each to reach BIOS switch on the back panel of the graphics card, from which you can select quiet or OC mode.

We found the thermal solution on this graphics card decent enough – it doesn’t emit much noise during gaming usage and keeps GPU and VRAM temperatures under control without needing exceptionally high RPM from the cooling fans. There is also the added benefit of the zero decibel technology when the system is under light load.

The only thorn in the side for this particular model (and others from Colorful) is going to be the regional availability. To our knowledge this card is primarily available in US/China with one store in Australia also supplying (but currently out of stock). At the moment, Colourful’s product lines aren’t globally available – but pricing should stand at: GBP £550 | USD $579 | AUD $1200.

The Colorful iGame RTX 3070 Advance OC-V is a stunning graphics card and should not be overlooked. You may just not be able to get your hands on it in your country!

Pros
+ Truly unique design
+ Impressive RGB lighting
+ Handy dual BIOS switch on rear IO
+ Excellent gaming performance
+ Cooling performs very well
+ Zero decibel technology

Cons
– Available in select countries
– Tame overclock

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