PNY GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB OC review

Prices are getting a little out of hand for graphics cards at the moment, but some are affected more than others. While you do have to pay over the odds for the PNY RTX 5070 Ti OC, no more so than most high-end Nvidia graphics cards today, and a good deal less than some. It's a well-equipped card, so let's put it to the test.

The RTX 5070 Ti is the highest tier of graphics card I'd personally consider from the RTX 50 series. A good blend of silicon and memory capacity without a four-figure price tag. It features the same GB203 GPU as the RTX 5080, only with fewer cores: 8,960 to 10,752.

Importantly, it offers an equal amount of GDDR7 memory at 16 GB. This is slightly slower memory than its bigger sibling, at 28 Gbps, amounting to a small reduction in overall memory bandwidth. Though this matters only a little.

With three reasonably sized fans and a metal backplate that includes thermal pads, this card doesn't appear to cut corners. Though this card does not use clamshell memory, the thermal pads are placed to match the layout of the VRAM chips on the opposite side, which are, of course, cooled by thermal pads in contact with a beefy heatsink.

At 298 x 59 x 106 mm, this card is quite thick, and PNY has chosen a triple-slot design here to accommodate—despite much larger cards (say, the RTX 5080 Noctua Edition) requiring just two.

A triple-fan design, even on my open test bench, I've noticed little fan noise from the card, even under load. Those fans deal well with the heat, maintaining temperatures around, if not lower than on average, the 70 °C mark. Comparing those temperatures to other cards tested, it's on the high side. You can find cards that run cooler by 5–6 °C, such as the Asus TUF RTX 5070 Ti Gaming OC. Still, I'm not overly worried about 70 °C for day-to-day operation.

The boost clock is a higher-than-average 2,572 MHz, a +122 Hz offset. That's lower than some we've tested, such as the TUF Gaming OC at 2,610 MHz, but counts for an extra frame or two at 4K. Nothing to be sniffed at. As graphics cards often exceed their rated clock speed in action, I measured an average clock speed of 2,847 MHz during Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition. That's far faster than any other we've tested, which, with the exception of the TUF Gaming OC mentioned above, all ran sub-2,600 MHz in the same test. So, there's a decent amount of headroom on this card.

Look to the performance charts and the PNY OC often does well versus similar competition. It's either in the middle of the pack or slightly ahead of it.

In terms of power draw, the PNY OC edges ahead of other models of RTX 5070 Ti. Once again tested in Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, the card reaches a peak power draw of 350 W—the highest of the lot. Average power draw is also pack-leading, at 305 W, as measured by our PCAT tool.

Ultimately, whether you should purchase this card over any other comes down to price. The PNY RTX 5070 Ti OC costs $1,000/£840. Putting aside any and all complaints I have about the prices of graphics cards more broadly today, the PNY lands towards the middle/low-end of the market. The cheapest RTX 5070 Ti I've spotted as I write this is the MSI Shadow 3X OC at $950. In the UK, it's the Zotac Solid at £800. The PNY may not be the most affordable, but it does at least look relatively sensible versus something like the ROG Strix OC Edition at $1,150.

The alternative pick today is the RX 9070 XT, which has generally been more resistant to price hikes than Nvidia's option. As you can see in the charts above, both cards deliver very similar performance, except the Radeon option has a pretty significant cash saving today. There's little here if you've already made your mind up on buying an RTX card, but if you're on the fence, I'd definitely take a look into the Radeon option. We've spotted one going for as low as $730/£570.

There's a good argument for buying the cheapest model of graphics card, provided it's from a reputable manufacturer, that you can find at any given point. That way, whether the market has gone wild, you know you're at least scoring the best deal of the moment. However, I do think PNY has put together a solid card here for the money and one that feels built to last. That way, if you're spending a lot now, you don't have to worry about an upgrade any time soon.