I have been the owner of this card for over a year now, and I bought it just before prices started skyrocketing to €800, which I considered a good price for the specifications at that time. Its size is one of the smallest in its category, which means you don't have to worry about whether it will fit in your Mid tower. I easily installed it in a Corsair ICUE 4000X RGB, as you can see in the photos. It works well with my system, which includes an i9-9900K processor, 16GB of RAM at 3200mhz cl16, and a Dell 34" Ultra Wide gaming monitor with a resolution of 3440×1440p and a refresh rate of 144hz. This is where its performance really shines. At this resolution, it delivers satisfactory frame rates in games like Battlefield 2042 (80-105 fps), COD CW (80-100 fps), and Warzone (100-140 fps), all on ultra settings with Ray tracing enabled. It's worth noting that the frame rates in each game fluctuate with each update released by the developers and the graphics card's drivers. Over time, the performance of each game improves and becomes better. For example, when Battlefield 2042 was first released, I was getting around 45-65 fps on ultra settings, but after numerous updates, I now achieve an impressive 105 fps. As for temperatures, the highest I've seen during the summer months is 67° in a room with a temperature of 25°, and the tower is positioned at a height of one meter, which also plays a role. Typically, it stays below 63°, and this is while gaming. Regarding fan noise, it's difficult for me to distinguish how noisy it is because I have a total of 4 fans in the tower, plus 2 for liquid cooling, and when they all run together, it creates some noise. However, it doesn't bother me as I wear headphones while gaming. The flaw I find in this particular series of 3070 cards is the limited 8GB of VRAM, which is the same as the previous 1070 series. I consider this a significant drawback, especially considering how graphics in games are evolving. In my opinion, the VRAM of each series should increase as follows: 1070 8GB → 2070 10GB → 3070 12GB. The companies realized this mistake late, as evidenced by the fact that they recently released the new 3060 with 12GB of VRAM and the 3080 with 12GB, compared to the initial models of the 3080 with 10GB. Overall, I am satisfied with this purchase, especially considering the price I got it for during a time when prices were increasing by €50 every day and availability was scarce.

Owner of the card for a year and a half. Purchased for 804€. It has been installed in an Nzxt h510 elite case along with a Ryzen 5600x and a slight overclock at 1950MHz on the GPU clock. The card's performance in gaming at 2K resolution is amazing! Specifically, in AAA games such as Halo Infinite (110-135fps at 2K and ultra settings), Doom Eternal (165fps, ultra 2K with dlss and without ray-tracing), Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order (120fps-135fps, high settings), The Ghostrunner (75-80 fps ultra settings). Additionally, it is capable of 4K gaming in several new titles, such as The Medium 45-50fps with RT:normal, Elden Ring 60fps, Fifa 21-22 60fps.

The temperatures of the card are quite good with maximum values at 75-78 degrees and idle at 38-42 degrees at a room temperature of 25C. A fairly good implementation by Gigabyte, in terms of size and its cooler, and furthermore, the fans are relatively quiet under moderate load. Also, a 750W power supply is recommended for better power headroom.

A very good high-end card in the price range of 700-800€.

USAGE & IMPRESSIONS
The initial impressions of the card are amazing but not perfect.
Although the card is obviously PCIe 4.0, I am using it in PCIe 3.0 (due to X470) with a 5600X.

In gaming (BFV, almost all ultra, DX12 without RTX), I saw 135-144 FPS at 2K, without any issues even though the card only has 8 GB of VRAM.
It would definitely achieve higher FPS, but I have capped it at 144.

It reached 249W with a temperature of 68c when the room was at 30c.
The fans kicked in at 60c and went up to 75%.

SCREEN COOLING
The card follows this... (I won't swear) new trend of screen cooling, which means the opening on the backplate that releases heat to the back.

The problem is that while this may help the card itself, it affects the temperatures in the CPU air cooler and even worse, raises the temperature of the RAM by 5c!

Anyone doing extreme RAM overclocking will likely encounter a problem.
I barely managed to avoid it.

I won't deduct a star because I can't say that it's the fault of this particular implementation.
All possible cards with 3 fans do the same thing.
I hope this changes in the future.

NOISE - INTRODUCTION
My system is an open bench, meaning I don't have a case, it's all open.
Because I have an issue with noise, I make sure that the system is as quiet as possible.

PSU fanless, CPU 1x140mm Noctua, RAM OC with 1x80mm Noctua (30%) and M.2 with 1x80mm Noctua (24%)
Practically, my system is silent.

NOISE - FANS
The card was 1m away from my ear.
When the fans reached 75%, they remained practically silent.
This made a tremendously positive impression on me, I didn't expect it.

NOISE - COIL WHINE
Here is a small problem.
Let's be realistic and not fool ourselves.
The card clearly has coil whine.
And when we talk about coil whine, the problem usually isn't specific to a particular card, it's the entire specific series (rev 2).
The potential buyer should be aware of this.

How serious is the problem?
It depends on your setup and your ears.

I assume that if I had a traditional case, I wouldn't hear it.
I assume that if I had 8 fans running like crazy, I wouldn't hear it.
But now I hear it, it is easily noticeable in complete silence.

Can you get used to it and not be bothered by it?
It depends on you and only you.
I think I can

Purchased from a well-known chain at a price just below 700 euros. Transition from Sapphire Nitro+ RX 5700 XT, which I was extremely satisfied with, but I wanted better performance, something on the levels of the 2080ti at 1440p resolution, and to see DLSS 2.0 and Raytracing in action.

Installed in an NZXT H510 Elite case, definitely not the best airflow circulation on the market, more towards average due to the glass panels in the front and side, as well as the limitation of only one fan at the top, which doesn't help.

Very good performance, on par with the 2080ti but at a much lower price, excellent for its purchase price overall. With Ryzen 1700x at 1440p, ranging from 70 to 115 fps in AC Odyssey, mainly around 85 with everything on Ultra except for the volumetric clouds, which I had lowered by one notch.

Ray tracing is still not very noticeable in games, but DLSS is a different story, especially in titles where it has been well-implemented.

In terms of temperatures, after leaving the game running, with the fans in performance mode and the fan curve at stock settings, it reached up to 69 degrees Celsius. With a more aggressive fan curve, it dropped to around 64 degrees, and with the fans at 100%, it stayed at 58 to 59 degrees. Extremely satisfactory result, and it's impressive that even at 100%, the fans were not audible. The card is truly silent.

Certainly, with the new Ryzen or Intel processors that have much higher IPC than the 1700x, the performance will be better. However, it should be noted that in resolutions higher than 1080p, the differences in the impact of the processor on the framerate decrease or become minimal, especially at 1440p and even more so at 4k, as the graphics card carries the heavier load there.

I didn't hear any coil whine, even with the case open, which had troubled me in the past with two Gaming OC Vega 64 cards.

I was disappointed with the card for one reason. Many crashes occurred in my system, especially in AC Odyssey, after a while, regardless of the temperature or my location in the game, it would crash.

With the first drivers, I had the same issues, blue screens, and such. I can't know what was causing it, but with the drivers around December, things improved somewhat, and with the new ones, the same issues occurred again. Random crashes in various games with blue screens out of nowhere and issues even with Mozilla Firefox, where all windows would freeze.

Searching on the internet, I discovered that specific Gaming OC cards in specific setups have such issues, while in other setups, the same cards don't have any problems. I tried with Geforce Experience, without it, with older drivers, and lowered the power limit, but because I bought the card for it to serve my use and not the other way around, I'm going for a different implementation.

I don't know what's going on with Gigabyte's quality control, especially with the Gaming OC series, of which I have 3 out of 3 (two Vega 64 with serious issues that were buzzing on the internet at the time, and one 3070). So now, I will avoid them solely based on my personal experience and prefer other solutions like MSI, EVGA, or Aorus, as I have the impression that they pay more attention to them, even if they are more expensive.

I consider it unacceptable to spend nearly 700 euros, which was the price at the time, and close to 1000 today, and not be able to do your job, wasting incredible amounts of time searching for a solution, having to go without the product you paid for, having to resort to the RMA process through Gigabyte or the store amidst a HUGE shortage of cards in the market, with no idea when your issue will be resolved, for a PREMIUM product that should simply work.

It narrowly escapes two stars, and that's because I want to believe that my card was the exception and not the rule.

Because buying a graphics card during the time of COVID and Bitcoin is like buying land, I will be detailed and as to the point as possible!

First of all, the card is very powerful, I don't think anyone can dispute that, and this one is one of the best and most honest choices one can make for an RTX 3070 as it is somewhere in the middle in terms of quality and price compared to the others on the market.

My setup is in an NZXT 710 (not the best airflow case) with a Ryzen 7 3800X, G.Skill Ripjaws V 32GB 3200, and SSD PCIE Gen 4 Viper VP4100. It maintains temperatures at a very good level (I didn't exceed 60-65) with 3 intakes and 2 exhaust fans. It is still much more expensive compared to the price set by NVIDIA (unfortunately, it is a bad time to buy a GPU as I mentioned) but for 1440p, don't go for the RTX 3080, this one will fully cover your needs.

In terms of appearance, nothing extravagant, just a relatively subtle RGB on the side, the Gigabyte logo which I personally prefer. (The software to control the RGB, RGB Fusion btw, is very bad and truth be told, it only works when it wants to!)

In terms of connections, it requires 2 cables from the PSU, one 8-pin PCI-E and one 6-pin, or you can use a daisy chain cable with 2 connectors if your power supply includes it in the cables (although it is considered better to use 2 separate cables instead of one).

It also handles overclocking well, +150 Mhz core clock and +1500 Mhz memory clock, and remains nice and stable without exceeding 65 degrees.

UPDATE 13/01/21: In PC
-In the "infamous" Cyberpunk 2077, with Ultra Settings in Graphics and Ray Tracing (there is one more level of Ray Tracing, Psycho, which I currently don't dare to use) and DLSS Balanced, I get around 70-80 fps, which can drop to around 45-55 in the more "crowded" urban areas of the map (this can be improved a bit in the future, but even at the game's launch, which was very problematic and full of bugs, it was completely playable).
-COD Cold War: with Ultra Preset (except for some Ray Tracing settings that I left on High to avoid stuttering in multiplayer), I haven't seen it go below 90 fps anywhere, while most of the time it stays around 110-120 fps.
-MS Flight Sim 20: the image quality and frames will fully satisfy you on Ultra Preset (around 50-60 fps), especially in such a demanding game that heavily relies on the CPU. Besides, in such a simulator, high frames are not as necessary as in a competitive multiplayer, so you can sacrifice a few frames to improve the quality.

The main issue, of course, is finding it. I was one of the lucky ones who bought it for around €720 last November, already with a cap, but compared to the current prices, it was a great opportunity! It is flawless for that price. But there are tremendous availability problems, and the prices right now are simply outrageous, so I believe your ceiling should be around €800. It is by no means worth €1100-1200 that many stores are asking for.

Be patient, especially if you already have a PC and want to upgrade it. With the €300-400 or even €500 that you will save at the end of this story, you can get a new processor ;)