When I got this card, I really couldn’t believe I got the 3070 that I wanted. Call it superficial, but I was hooked on getting the little screen.
However, upon attempting to set up the card, I get errors with the screen where it gets stuck either on the little metal eagle egg or the aorus logo and you can’t change any LCD options after that, as Gigabyte’s RGB software is... well, a pile of crap. If you attempt to use some of the features of the LCD (i.e. uploading a gif or custom text) it does that eagle egg thing and Gigabyte’s software STOPS DETECTING ITS OWN CARD.
The solution? Well after hours across days and many experiments with resets and deleting certain files and uninstalling and reinstalling... I finally found a helpful reddit comment in some obscure post. Combining what that person said with that I had been doing works. (I will put the method at the bottom for those interested). Their most recent Aorus Experience update got the LCD panel working for me for a while, but if you have any other graphics cards going through the system for any reason, it completely screws over the software and you get the infuriating little metal egg.
HORRIBLE SOFTWARE ASIDE (when you get the gif feature working it’s super cool and having a temps/fans/other stats monitor panel is nice):
the actual card ROCKS. It runs a bit toasty compared to other aftermarket cards, as the Gigabyte aftermarkets tend to (buyer beware GB’s thermal pads are low quality) but the temps still stay well within ideal. I have an airflow case though, so do pay attention. The fan mechanism on this is an absolute beast and looks like one too, but you do have to give it air and understand where the 3070 cards in general spit out their hot air.
Overclocking is absolutely unnecessary but as a hobbyist I’m finding that you can crank out amazing performance AND undervolt to save a buck on electricity and spare some heat. On top of that, IIRC this card is one of the best two or three cards in terms of aftermarket base/boost clock speeds right out of the box, blowing the FE out of the water. I don’t play the eye candy games (ahem cyberpunk) that most people use as judgement, but this beast of a card EASILY achieves max settings on Overwatch 1440p, staying above 144fps. Overwatch is well optimized, sure, but I still achieve 144+ fps on mostly cranked settings WHILE HAVING OTHER GPU-DEMANDING PROCESSES GOING.
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To fix the eagle egg of doom:
- first off, HAVE A BACKUP when messing with stuff like this
- cleanly uninstall all Gigabyte software including all the leftover files (I use Revo Uninstaller). (Some of the software is sneaky like the Patriot SSD software, which is downloaded with the Aorus suite even without a Patriot SSD) and get rid of their RGB Fusion software too
- download DDU and most recent working Aorus Engine. You MAY also have to roll back to comparable Nvidia drivers and keep it from updating... I didn’t have to do that this time. I kept these files on my desktop to make safe mode easier.
- Restart, booting into safe mode.
- Run DDU and select the “nvidia GPU” options and the “turn off computer as if installing a new GPU option”. The computer will shut itself off when the process is over.
- Boot up once more. (No nvidia drivers so your monitor may act weird and lower quality. All is fine.)
- Install Aorus Engine using the file you downloaded. Open it and click the RGB GPU button in the lower right. it will prompt you to download RGB Fusion 2.0, and possibly update the firmware. Do both of those things. (DO NOT try to attempt RGB Fusion by itself. Always use Aorus Engine to do it. I had horrible crashes and some people (not me) reported data loss from trying RGB fusion alone.)
- Let it do its installs, then try clicking the RGB GPU button again.
- All features on the LCD should work! I’m still afraid of getting the software “stuck” again, so I like to set it to the system monitor in a tasteful white scheme and just leave it alone.
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ANYWAY, TLDR: The guts of this card are great, with some of the best clock speeds and a really well engineered cooler (minus thermal pads). This card is more power than most gamers need and then some! However, Gigabyte’s software needs some SERIOUS help and had me even thinking about returning the card once or twice. Yes... even in this GPU shortage. If you’re not comfortable troubleshooting software stuff, tread carefully with this one until they give a better update.
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