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Nvidia has officially launched the most affordable RTX 40-series GPU yet, which we can finally say is not that bad. That applies to both its pricing and performance, as well as its efficiency. Though, to be fair to Nvidia, its previous GPUs were also quite efficient. According to lengthy reviews posted today, the card performs similarly to the RTX 3080 while consuming a lot less power. Add in its diminutive size, and you have a compelling upgrade option for 1440p gaming. Another factor that makes it stand out is there’s zero current-generation competition from AMD at this price point, though its last-gen cards are competitive when ray tracing is removed from the equation.
As far as specs go, they are exactly what was previously reported, with 5,888 CUDA cores, 12GB of GDDR6X memory at 21Gb/s on a 192-bit memory bus, and a 200W TDP. It uses the same AD104 GPU die as the RTX 4070 Ti but cut down a bit across the board. The Founders Edition sports the new 12VHPWR power cable, requiring two 8-pin cables for its adapter. Some partner cards will use just a single 8-pin power cable, making for an easy upgrade. It’s a dual-slot GPU that’s only 9.4 inches long, and a 650W PSU is recommended.
Credit: PCMag
Let’s start with our colleagues at PCMag, who found that the card offered surprising performance in games that support DLSS 3 frame generation. For example, in F1 2022 at 1440p, it was one of the fastest cards in the test with DLSS 3, trading blows with the $899 Radeon RX 7900 XT. In pure rasterization, it’s comparable to an RTX 3080 or a Radeon 6800 XT and no longer punches above its weight class. They found it very efficient, though, running at just 55C and the test bench consuming 250W in Furmark compared with 433W for the RTX 3080; that’s quite a difference. Though PCMag did not grant the RTX 4070 an Editors’ Choice award, it still ranks it as “excellent” and a “smart choice” for anyone with a Pacal or Turing card, as it would be a considerable upgrade.
Over at The Verge, they found it disappointing at 4K (not a huge surprise) but an adept 1440p GPU, especially for games that support DLSS 3 frame generation. Across nine games at 1440p, it matched the RTX 3080 most of the time but found it could increase 25 to 40% with DLSS 3 and frame generation enabled, which is the primary selling point of this GPU. The only issue is that not all games support this technology, but the list will grow over time. Unfortunately, they didn’t compare it with any Radeon GPUs, instead only pointing out that it’s 30% faster than the RTX 3070, just like the RTX 3080 was in its day.
The RTX 4070 looks like a GPU made for ants compared with its predecessors.
Credit: Techpowerup
Finally, TechPowerUp has a huge list of benchmarks and testing on offer. They reported it beat the RTX 3080 just barely across their 25-game test suite. When measuring pure rasterization, it was perfectly matched with the Radeon 6800 XT. However, when ray tracing is enabled, the Radeon falls behind by 22%. Even crazier, with ray tracing, the RTX 4070 is just 8% slower than the $899 Radeon RX 7900 XT. That tells you how far behind AMD is on ray tracing. Overall, they praised the card for being quiet, efficient, and able to deliver top-tier 1440p gaming in a tiny package that will fit in virtually any PC chassis.
In the final analysis, Nvidia has delivered a GPU that primarily lives up to its promises. It’s small-ish, efficient, and $100 less expensive than the card it’s replacing. If you compare it with the RTX 3080 12GB, at $599, it’s half the price, making it a reasonably priced GPU for once. The fact that AMD is yet to launch anything other than its flagship GPUs makes it more compelling, as you’d have to buy a two-year-old AMD GPU to get similar performance, and the ray tracing performance is not up to snuff.
This just begs the question of what a Radeon RX 7800/7700 XT would look like and how much it would cost. We can see AMD coming to market with a $499 card with 16GB of memory if past is precedent. Until that happens, Nvidia has the market to itself.
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