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The ASUS RTX 3070 Noctua Edition is easily the most interesting graphics card launch of the year. Admittedly, the new GPUs announced in 2021 have not set the bar high, but even a few years ago I think this particular card would have got a lot of attention.
That's because it marks Noctua's first foray into the graphics space, with the Austrian company teaming up with ASUS to help design the cooler and shroud that sits atop the same PCB as found with the RTX 3070 TUF Gaming.
In all honestly, this card is just as good as I would have hoped when I first saw those two 120mm NF-A12x25 fans and the 87.5mm thickness of the thing. It simply runs incredibly cool and incredibly quiet. I can say without a doubt in my mind that this is the quietest card KitGuru has ever tested, so from that perspective, we can only say it is a job very well done by ASUS and Noctua.
Of course, there are a couple of caveats. The first is this graphics card is simply enormous – you will need four free expansion slots in your system, and it makes the RTX 3070 Founders Edition look like a child's toy. Considering that significant size difference, I would've liked to see a Noctua-themed support bracket come included, but that is missing here.
The second point may be obvious, but the card's colour scheme will certainly provide divisive – as it has already judging by the comments on our YouTube video. While I would personally prefer a Chromax version, I think it is safe to say plenty of folks already have brown and beige CPU coolers or fans in their systems, so now there is the possibility of getting a card to match – it would make quite the centre piece for a Noctua themed build…
And that's where we are going to end this article. We would usually include a buy link and discuss the pricing at this point, but we simply have no idea as to how much these cards are going to cost in the real world and we all know what graphics card availability is like in 2021. For those interested, think of this as a technical examination of a Noctua graphics card cooler, rather than a review with concrete buying advice.
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KitGuru says: It's a fascinating card to look at from a technical perspective, and I hope to see more Noctua cards in the future.
