Nvidia has released the new GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card – for a recommended price of 659 euros. Purely from the name, a graphics card ending in the digits 70 in the GTX era would have been more of a case for around 300 to 500 euros. But since the RTX series, the entry-level prices have been higher, with the new RTX 4000 series also potentially offering enormous performance: The RTX 4090 is a whopping 50 percent faster than the old flagship RTX 3090 Ti. What performance the new RTX 4070 offers in games we will show you today based on a large analysis of tests already published by other editors, which we have summarized statistically.
Later it will also be about the power consumption and the price-performance ratio of the new Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, which is available in some online shops from 639 euros. But which graphics cards are competitors for the RTX 4070? The RTX 3070 Ti is available from 600 euros, the RTX 3080 in turn only from 750 euros. AMD’s RX 6800 XT (from 570 euros) is priced below the RTX 4070, while the RX 6900 XT comes from 700 euros.
In the course of our special, we will clarify how the RTX 4070 performs in comparison. We also offer a market overview with 28 RTX 4070 models already listed in shops.
Advance leaks can be deceptive
According to leaks that appeared more than a week before the release, the RTX 4070 Ti should be about 20 percent ahead of the new RTX 4070.
Palit GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming Pro
Source: Palit
However, generally speaking, the results can look much rosier shortly before the release of a new graphics card thanks to adapted drivers or a patch for the benchmark.
In addition, experience shows that some synthetic benchmarks generally do not reliably reflect average gaming performance.
That’s why tests of a graphics card before or after its release are much more the benchmark that should be used as a guide. That’s exactly what we did, that is, we examined tests, and we will also use the results in a current graphics card purchase guide – but first, let’s take a look at the technology.
GeForce RTX 4070: Tech
The GeForce RTX 4070 is Nvidia’s fourth RTX 4000 graphics card in the desktop sector and works with an AD104 as the GPU. This is the same GPU as the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, but it’s a modified variant. This sounds unspectacular at first – but the following table shows that the cuts are anything but small:
| Characteristic | RTX 3070 | RTX 4070 | RTX 4070 Ti | RTX 4080 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | GA104 | AD104 | AD104 | AD103 |
| Surface | 393 sq.mm | 295 sq.mm | 295 sq.mm | 379 sq.mm |
| transistors | 17.4 billion | 35.8 billion | 35.8 billion | 45.9 billion |
| FP32 ALUs (shader units) | 5888 | 5888 | 7680 | 9728 |
| Ray Tracing Cores | 46 | 46 | 60 | 76 |
| tensor cores | 184 | 184 | 240 | 304 |
| base clock | 1500MHz | 1920MHz | 2310MHz | 2210MHz |
| boost clock | 1725MHz | 2475MHz | 2610MHz | 2510MHz |
| graphics memory | 8GB GDDR6 | 12GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6X |
| RAM connection | 256 bits | 192 bits | 192 bits | 256 bits |
| bandwidth | 448GB/s | 504GB/s | 504GB/s | 717GB/s |
| TDP | 220 watts | 200 watts | 285 watts | 320 watts |
| Price currently approx | 500 euro | from 630 euros | from 880 euros | from 1240 euros |
With the FP32 ALUs (formerly also known as CUDA cores or shader units) as well as the ray tracing and tensor cores, the RTX 4070 Ti offers significantly more, namely 30 percent each.
From the point of view of the RTX 4070, this is about 23 percent less than the RTX 4070 Ti. With the boost clock, however, the difference is only 5.5 percent.
The standard clock of the RTX 4070 is almost 400 MHz lower, a minus of about 20 percent. The comparison to the RTX 3070 is interesting, because the number of FP32 ALUs as well as tensor and ray tracing cores is identical to the RTX 4070, although the cores of the RTX 3070 are of course from the previous generation.
In terms of RAM, the RTX 4070 works just like the RTX 4070 Ti with 12GB of GDDR6X RAM with a 192-bit connection and an effective bandwidth of 504 GB per second.
An advantage for the new RTX 4070 is the power consumption, because the TDP difference of over 80 watts also suggests a similarly high difference in maximum power consumption.
This also ensures that it is easier to cool than the RTX 4070 Ti, which has already proven to be the case at the time of release: The shortest model of the RTX 4070 Ti series measures almost 30 centimeters, the RTX 4070 starts at less than 23 centimeters. Incidentally, later in our special we will also offer an overview of 28 model variants from the partner manufacturers.
