Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti benchmarks: The Green Team's response to Vega 56

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti slots in between GTX 1070 and GTX 1080, giving you about 90 per cent of the performance of the GTX 1080 at far less than 90 per cent of the price. It comes closest to the Vega 56 in AMD's lineup, and usually proves the better performer while costing less to buy or to run thanks to its modest power requirements. Only the recently released RTX 2060 GPU prevents us from recommending the GTX 1070 Ti more strongly, but if you find a used model at a good price, this last-generation card still has got it where it counts.

The GTX 1070 Ti is well-suited for playing PC games at 2560x1440, with more breathing room for ultra-wide resolutions or higher refresh rate displays than is offered by the vanilla GTX 1070. From a marketing perspective, GTX 1070 Ti was released primarily because AMD's Radeon RX Vega 56 comprehensively outperformed the 1070, so with this 1070/1080 'tweener' card, Nvidia was able to stifle its competition rather effectively.

In order to give you a more accurate idea of what kind of performance you can expect and how it stacks up against the Vega line, we'll show you how the GTX 1070 Ti performs in a range of different games released between in the past half-decade. You can find the game that you care about the most and see how it's handled by different video cards when paired with a suitable processor and at a very high or ultra preset.

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For this benchmark roundup, we'll compare the GTX 1070 Ti to four competing cards: two from Nvidia, the GTX 1070 and RTX 2060, and two from AMD, the Radeon RX Vega 56 and RX Vega 64. We'll also show you how the GTX 1070 Ti compares to all of the other GTX 10-series cards and even previous generations in some special benchmarks towards the end.

If you're viewing this page on a desktop computer rather than a mobile device - congrats, you're bucking the trend! You'll notice that instead of an image of a graph, each benchmark takes the form of a YouTube video with live metrics below. Click on the video to play it, and you'll see how each graphics card handles the scene in real time. You can choose precisely what video cards and resolutions you're interested in by using the controls to the right of the video. For example, you could only look at the 4K results, or see how two graphics cards handle a scene at 1440p and 4K simultaneously. For a summarised look at how each card performs throughout the scene, there's a chart below the live data showing frame-rates, including the useful best and worst one per cent figures. You can also click on the chart to swap between frame-rate and percentages - the latter often being rather more useful in getting a handle on how different cards compare.

This system is unique to Digital Foundry, and provides a lot more information than you would get from standard benchmarks so we hope you find it useful! If you want to learn more about the system, check out our article on how the Digital Foundry benchmarking system works right here. With that out of the way, let's take a look at some benchmarks!

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

We begin with the most recent Assassin's Creed, the ancient Greek epic Odyssey. The larger game world is substantially harder to render than its 2014 counterpart Unity, with wide vistas that challenge even modern high-end GPUs. Consequently, we're looking at lower than 60fps averages across the board at 1080p, with the 1070 Ti coming just 1fps behind the new RTX 2060 and a significant 14 per cent ahead of the vanilla GTX 1070. The GTX 1070 Ti remains competitive at higher resolutions, with a playable 46fps at 1440p and 28fps at 4K. By switching to the less challenging high preset and making some other tweaks, we expect that hitting 60fps at 1440p and around 45fps at 4K to be reasonable targets. We haven't spoken much about AMD hardware in this test, as the Vega 56 and Vega 64 are comparative non-starters on the AnvilNext engine used here until we reach 4K resolution.

Assassin's Creed Unity

We continue with 2014 title Assassin's Creed Unity at 1440p, where the GTX 1070 Ti turns in a solid 62 frames per second average. That's 13 per cent ahead of the GTX 1070 and Vega 56, and even six per cent ahead of the Vega 64. Meanwhile, the new RTX 2060 turns in an nearly equivalent result. At 4K, the GTX 1070 Ti drops to 31 frames per second, which is at least more playable than the 27 frames per second of the GTX 1070 and Vega 56. Overall, we'd call that a strong win for Team Nvidia. Also note the wide spread on the AMD results - this is because Radeon hardware seems to have issues with AC Unity's depth of field effect that pops up later in the benchmark.

Battlefield 1

The 2016 BF title, Battlefield 1, doesn't offer a built-in benchmark but it does include a suitably challenging (and reasonably invariant) single-player campaign as the player drives a tank through muddy no man's land. However, there are some close-range explosions that will result in frame-rate spikes, so please disregard these in the comparison. The 1070 Ti hits a healthy score of 93fps at 1440p, but the Vega 56 does better with a score that's seven per cent higher. The game is more than playable at 4K with a score of 52 frames per second for the GTX 1070 Ti, but the Vega 56's lead remains at seven per cent, on par with the RTX 2060.

Crysis 3

Our oldest game in the test suite, 2013's Crysis 3 remains a suitable challenge for modern GPUs. The GTX 1070 Ti records a rare performance win over the RTX 2060 here, as well as a comfortable 12 per cent lead over the GTX 1070 at 1440p. 4K remains a challenge even for graphics cards made five years later, with the 1070 Ti only hitting 37 frames per second. However, that's still 11 per cent better than the Vega 56 at the same resolution.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5's tranquil lake scene is a nice built-in benchmark: not too long, not too short and relatively relaxing to run compared to the repeated explosions of our Crysis 3 train ride. The game also runs well even on mid-range hardware, allowing us to ignore the 1080p results (124fps for the GTX 1070 Ti) and look at 1440p instead. All of our selected cards manage to exceed 60fps average here, with the GTX 1070 Ti proving the most capable alongside the Vega 64 and RTX 2060.

Ghost Recon Wildlands

Our most recent and most demanding test is 2017's Ghost Recon Wildlands, thanks to the strength of its ultra detail setting. The 1070 Ti is just 2fps ahead at 1440p compared to the Vega 56 and the two cards are level at 4K. However, neither card performs wonderfully at 4K, with even the RTX 2060 turning in a result of just under 30 frames per second. Very high settings would be preferable for actual gameplay.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

2016 title Rise of the Tomb Raider's tripartite benchmark has the GTX 1070 Ti 14 per cent faster than the slightly cheaper GTX 1070 at 1440p. In terms of the continuing competition with the Vega 56, the GTX 1070 Ti is four per cent faster at both 1440p and 4K. However, neither card turns in more than a playable result at 4K, requiring lower detail settings or a G-Sync monitor to feel smooth at this taxing resolution.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the 2018 release, has a benchmark that's truer to the real game than its predecessor. Surprisingly given its release date, the GTX 1070 Ti is able to muscle ahead of the RTX 2060 at 1440p by a four per cent margin, with the gap closing to three per cent at 4K. The GTX 1070 Ti also holds a steady lead of about 15 per cent over the GTX 1070 at each resolution we tested.

The Witcher 3

Our final title is 2015 mega-hit The Witcher 3, where we try to coerce Roach into navigating the busy streets of Novigrad without suddenly coming to stop in a market stall or running down the wrong path. The GXT 1070 Ti impresses with a score of 58fps at 1440p, nearly as high as the RTX 2060, but the Vega 56 and Vega 64 cards become increasingly competitive at higher resolutions.

Cross-generational comparison

So how much better is the GTX 1070 Ti than a last-generation GTX 970 or GTX 980? What about a 700 series card? This benchmark shows you exactly that, showing how cards all the way back to the Nvidia GTX 750 Ti act in Assassin's Creed Unity at 1080p. This time, the controls on the right show different generations instead of resolutions to make comparisons easier.

Generational comparison

We'll close out our benchmarks section with a comparison between all of Nvidia's Pascal graphics cards. You can see that the GTX 1070 Ti slots fairly evenly into the significant space carved out by the GTX 1070 and 1080, with a slight bias towards the GTX 1080.

Now that you've seen the benchmarks for one card, why not check out see which PC hardware we recommend to our friends and family? Here are the DF picks for the overall best graphics cards and for the best gaming monitors on the market.

For more on this card, check out our review of the GTX 1070 Ti here. We'll catch you on the next one.