Nvidia RTX 4070 Super Review

After the announcement at CES just last week, today we have put Nvidia's new RTX 4070 Super graphics card through its paces. I have to say it is exactly what I expected – and thankfully, that is a good thing indeed. Essentially, Nvidia has taken the existing RTX 4070, bumped up the core count by about 22% but kept the same £580 price point. The end result is a pretty decent graphics card that is well-placed to fend off the competition.

In terms of its gaming performance, the 4070 Super slots between the RTX 4070 and the RTX 4070 Ti, though it comes in much closer to the latter than it does the former. At 1440p for instance, it's 15% faster on average than the vanilla 4070, but just 6% slower than the Ti variant. That performance bump is enough to make it faster than the RX 7800 XT, this time by an 8% margin, while it offers 13% more performance than the last-gen RTX 3080 10GB. 4K gaming isn't out of the question, especially if you enable DLSS, though the 4070 Super does fare better at 1440p due to its relatively narrow 192-bit memory interface, which isn't suited for higher resolutions.

Ray tracing performance also scales similarly, at least when comparing the 4070 Super to the OG 4070 and the 4070 Ti. It is significantly faster than the RX 7800 XT over the eight games we tested with ray tracing enabled, to the tune of 47% on average, while it's in the same class as the RX 7900 XTX. We already knew Nvidia has the edge when it comes to ray tracing performance, and that is further confirmed by our testing today.

Interestingly, despite performance increasing by about 15% over the original RTX 4070, power draw is only 9% higher on average with this new Super card, and that means it is a touch more efficient than the other xx70 SKUs. It can't quite match the RTX 4080 in terms of performance per Watt, that remains the most efficient Ada GPU we've tested so far, but it only widens the gap between the RX 7800 XT and its competition.

The Founders Edition cooler is also as good as ever, running cool and quiet despite its relatively diminutive dimensions. I personally love the all-black aesthetic too, for me this is up there with the best-looking graphics cards ever released, though it's safe to say not everyone in our Discord server agrees with me… Either way, we have reviews coming tomorrow of the Palit JetStream OC and Gigabyte Aero OC models, so stay tuned for those.

What's clear is that if you are in the market for a new £600 GPU, things just got that bit better. Sure, the RTX 4070 Super may not be a revolution in graphics performance, but it's hard to quibble with an extra 15% performance and increased efficiency, all at the same price as the previous product.

This refresh doesn't answer my main criticism of the RTX 4070 however, that being the 12GB framebuffer, and there's no doubt 16GB would be more attractive at this price point. 12 gigs of VRAM I think is ok, but it will be interesting to see how that situation develops over the next couple of years. My gut feeling is that a 12GB card today will have greater longevity than an 8GB card released in 2020 (cough RTX 3070 cough) but we'll have to wait and see about that one.

It's also fair to point out that the RX 7800 XT remains a viable option for those only interested in bang per buck, with the RDNA 3 GPU still offering the best cost per frame for rasterised 1440p gaming, and of course it does offer that extra 4GB VRAM. Many may now be swayed by the 4070 Super however, considering it is faster outright, significantly so when it comes to ray tracing performance, while also offering support for its superior DLSS upscaling technology alongside increased efficiency.

Whatever your priorities, there's no doubt the Nvidia RTX 4070 Super is a step in the right direction. Let's hope this is a sign of things to come.

The RTX 4070 Super will be available tomorrow, January 17th, with a UK MSRP of £579. Nvidia shared the following buy links for models which are expecting to hit MSRP:

• ASUS Dual (Scan)
• Gigabyte Windforce OC (Scan, Novatech)
• MSI Ventus 2X OC (Scan)
• Palit Dual (Scan, Novatech)
• Zotac Twin Edge (Scan)
• Inno3D Twin X2 (Novatech)

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Pros

• 15% faster than the RTX 4070 at the same launch price.
• Best value RTX 40-series GPU so far.
• Ray tracing performance rivals that of AMD's flagship GPU.
• Slightly more efficient than RTX 4070 and considerably more so compared to its RDNA 3 rivals.
• DLSS support is a strong value-add.
• Founders Edition is a real looker.
• Low-power GPU is easy to cool.

Cons

• 16GB VRAM would be preferable at this price-point.
• RX 7800 XT still offers better cost per frame for rasterised gaming.

KitGuru says: The best RTX 40-series GPU just got that bit better.

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