Nvidia RTX 5070 Review: RTX 4090 Performance?

1. Introduction2. Meet the RTX 5070 Founders Edition3. Testing Methodology4. Alan Wake II5. Black Myth: Wukong6. Cyberpunk 20777. Final Fantasy XVI8. Forza Horizon 59. Ghost of Tsushima10. Horizon Forbidden West11. The Last of Us Part 112. A Plague Tale: Requiem13. Senua's Saga: Hellblade 214. Starfield15. Total War: Warhammer III16. Performance Summary (12-Game Average)17. Cost Per Frame Analysis18. Ray Tracing: Alan Wake II19. Ray Tracing: Black Myth: Wukong20. Ray Tracing: Cyberpunk 207721. Ray Tracing: F1 2422. Ray Tracing: Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart23. Ray Tracing: Returnal24. Ray Tracing: Shadow of the Tomb Raider25. Ray Tracing: Star Wars Outlaws26. Ray Tracing Performance Summary27. DLSS Testing28. AI & Productivity Benchmarks29. Clock Speed30. GPU Temperatures31. Acoustics32. Power Draw: 1080p33. Power Draw: 1440p34. Power Draw: 2160p (4K)35. Performance per Watt: 1080p36. Performance per Watt: 1440p37. Performance per Watt: 2160p (4K)38. Total System Power Draw39. Overclocking40. Closing Thoughts41. View All Pages

Following on from the RTX 5070 Ti that hit the market last month, today we can present our review of Nvidia's new RTX 5070. The smallest Blackwell GPU yet, it's also the cheapest xx70-class SKU since the launch of the RTX 3070 back in October 2020, given it lands with a £539/$549 MSRP. On-paper specs don't suggest much of a leap forward compared to the RTX 4070 Super, though, so just how fast is this new graphics card? We look at rasterisation, ray tracing, DLSS 4 and more to find out, while also putting Nvidia's claim of ‘RTX 4090' performance to the test…

With the retail launch for the RTX 5070 set for tomorrow, March 5th, it will be the last of the four RTX 50 series GPUs that Nvidia announced back at CES 2025. RTX 5090 was first out in mid-January, while RTX 5080 followed a week later, and the aforementioned RTX 5070 Ti landed in February.

This review is all about the RTX 5070 though, and we have plenty of data and charts to look through before delivering our final verdict on this graphics card…

	RTX 5080	RTX 5070 Ti	RTX 5070	RTX 4070 Super	RTX 4070
Process	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4
SMs	84	70	48	56	46
CUDA Cores	10752	8960	6144	7168	5888
Tensor Cores	336	280	192	224	184
RT Cores	84	70	48	56	46
Texture Units	336	280	192	224	184
ROPs	112	96	80	80	64
GPU Boost Clock	2617 MHz	2452 MHz	2512 MHz	2475 MHz	2475 MHz
Memory Data Rate	30 Gbps	28 Gbps	28 Gbps	21 Gbps	21 Gbps
L2 Cache	65536 KB	49152 KB	49152 KB	49152 KB	36864 KB
Total Video Memory	16GB GDDR7	16GB GDDR7	12GB GDDR7	12GB GDDR6X	12GB GDDR6X
Memory Interface	256-bit	256-bit	192-bit	192-bit	192-bit
Memory Bandwidth	960 GB/Sec	896 GB/Sec	672 GB/Sec	504 GB/Sec	504 GB/Sec
TGP	360W	300W	250W	220W	200W

First, a quick spec recap. RTX 5070 marks the introduction of a new Blackwell die – GB205, where RTX 5070 is not quite full implementation but comes close. Comprised of five Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs), each holds up to eight Texture Processing Clusters (TPCs), with a total of 24. Each TPC is home to two Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), giving us 48, and each SM still holds 128 CUDA Cores, meaning the RTX 5070 has a total of 6144 shaders. We also find 48 RT cores, 192 Tensor cores, 192 Texture Units, and 80 ROPs.

This time around, however, there's no node-shrink, and GB205 remains fabricated on TSMC's N4 node, as per the RTX 40 series. As such, rated clock speed has not stepped forwards this generation, with the RTX 5070 rated at 2512MHz, within 40MHz of the RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Super.

The memory configuration is similar to its predecessors, too. We still find 12GB of memory operating over a 192-bit interface, the primary difference being the jump to 28Gbps GDDR7 modules, increasing memory bandwidth to 672 GB/s. L2 cache still comes in at 49MB.

Lastly, the RTX 5070 features a 250W TGP. This is something we focus on closely in this review, using our enhanced GPU power testing methodology, so read on for our most detailed power and efficiency testing yet.

The Nvidia RTX 5070 ships in the same eco-friendly box as the other 50 series Founders Edition models. Inside, the only included accessories are a quick start guide and a dual 8-pin 12V-2X6 power adapter.

The card itself is visually very similar to the likes of the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 Founders Editions, but apart from being a fair bit smaller, the actual cooler has changed slightly.

Essentially, it's not quite a ‘double flow through' design anymore as the PCB is no longer in the middle of the card, it's back to a more traditional placement. This means the fan closest to the I/O bracket doesn't blow directly though the heatsink, as per the other FE cards, as its airflow is now obstructed by the PCB. The other fan at the end of the card does still flow air though the fin stack, though.

Internally, there's no vapour chamber this time around, with Nvidia using a more traditional baseplate, while the fin stack utilises four heatpipes.

As for size, the 5070 is a good bit more compact than the other 50 series Founders models. It's still a dual slot thickness, but it's just 242mm long and 112mm tall.

As mentioned, the fan nearest the I/O bracket is now more blocked off, so while you can actually see the outline of the other fan though the fin stack, the PCB is blocking off the one nearest the I/O bracket.

Interestingly, Nvidia has also adjusted the fin stack on the 5070 too. Where the 5080 and 5090 both feature concave designs, with the central area of the fins essentially being ‘scooped out', this has only been done to the area at the end of the card, where the fan can flow air directly through the heatsink. The other area, nearest the I/O bracket, is completely flat. Presumably there's no benefit to the concave design if air doesn't pass directly through the card.

Power is of course supplied by a single 12V-2X6, with the adapter shown above.

As for video outputs, we find 3x DisplayPort 2.1 and 1x HDMI 2.1.

Driver Notes

• AMD GPUs were benchmarked with the Adrenalin 24.12.1 driver.
• Nvidia GPUs (except for RTX 50 series) were benchmarked with the 566.14 driver.
• RTX 5090 was benchmarked with the 571.86 driver supplied to press.
• RTX 5080 was benchmarked with the 572.02 driver supplied to press.
• RTX 5070 Ti was benchmarked with the 572.43 driver supplied to press.
• RTX 5070 was benchmarked with the 572.50 driver supplied to press.

Results are only directly comparable where this exact configuration has been used.

Test System:

We test using a custom built system powered by MSI, based on AMD's Zen 5 platform. You can view the Powered by MSI store on AWD-IT's website HERE.

CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
Motherboard	MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi
Memory	64GB (2x32GB) Kingston Fury Beast DDR5 6000MT/s CL30
Graphics Card	Varies
SSD	4TB Kingston NV3 Gen 4 PCIe NVMe
Chassis	MSI MPG Gungnir 300R Airflow
CPU Cooler	MSI MAG CoreLiquid i360
Power Supply	MSI MEG Ai1300P
Operating System	Windows 11 23H2
Monitor	MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED
Resizable BAR	Enabled for all supported GPUs

Comparison Graphics Cards List

• AMD RX 7900 XTX 24GB
• AMD RX 7900 XT 20GB
• Sapphire RX 7900 GRE Nitro+ 16GB
• AMD RX 7800 XT 16GB
• Sapphire RX 7700 XT Pulse 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 5090 FE 32GB
• Nvidia RTX 5080 FE 16GB
• MSI RTX 5070 Ti Ventus 3X 16GB
• Nvidia RTX 4090 FE 24GB
• Nvidia RTX 4080 Super FE 16GB
• MSI RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X 16GB
• Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 4070 Super FE 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 4070 FE 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti FE 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti FE 8GB
• Nvidia RTX 3070 FE 8GB

All cards were tested at reference specifications. For factory overclocked cards, this means we manually ‘undo' the overclock via MSI Afterburner or AMD/Intel's built-in tuning tools. Or, for cards like the Sapphire RX 7900 GRE Nitro+, we enable the reference-clocked BIOS instead of the default OC BIOS.

Software and Games List

• Alan Wake II (DX12)
• Black Myth: Wukong (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• F1 24 (DX12)
• Final Fantasy XVI (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Ghost of Tsushima (DX12)
• Horizon Forbidden West (DX12)
• The Last of Us Part 1 (DX12)
• A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12)
• Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (DX12)
• Returnal (DX12)
• Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Starfield (DX12)
• Star Wars Outlaws (DX12)
• Total War: Warhammer III (DX11)

We run each benchmark/game three times, and present mean averages in our graphs. We use FrameView to measure average frame rates as well as 1% low values (99th percentile) across our three runs.

Alan Wake 2 is a 2023 survival horror game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Epic Games Publishing. A sequel to Alan Wake, the story follows best-selling novelist Alan Wake, who has been trapped in an alternate dimension for 13 years, as he attempts to escape by writing a horror story involving an FBI special agent named Saga Anderson. The game was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on 27 October 2023. (Wikipedia).

Engine: Northlight. We test using the High preset, FSR set to native resolution, DX12 API.

Starting off with Alan Wake 2, at 1440p the RTX 5070 hits 58fps on average, so performance is identical to the RTX 4070 Super, RX 7900 GRE and even the RTX 3080 Ti – all four cards are clustered very tightly together.

That stays the same at 4K, too, though 1% lows do drop below 30fps so clearly some upscaling, or tweaks to the image quality settings, are required.

Black Myth: Wukong is a 2024 action role-playing game developed and published by Game Science. The game is inspired by the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West and follows an anthropomorphic monkey based on Sun Wukong from the novel. Black Myth: Wukong was released for PlayStation 5 and Windows on August 20, 2024, with an Xbox Series X/S version to be released at a later date. (Wikipedia).

Engine: Unreal Engine 5. We test using the Cinematic preset, TSR set to 100% render scale, DX12 API.

Black Myth: Wukong scales better on Nvidia GPUs, and at 1440p the RTX 5070 is only a hair behind AMD's RX 7900 XT. It's only 4% ahead of the RTX 4070 Super, though, and that works out as a 23% gain over the original RTX 4070.

4K is again a step too far without any form of upscaling, given the 1% lows landed at just 20fps.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed and published by CD Projekt. The story takes place in Night City, an open world set in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customisable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. Cyberpunk 2077 was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Stadia, and Xbox One on 10 December 2020. (Wikipedia).

Engine: REDengine 4. We test using the Ultra preset, FSR disabled, DX12 API.

Cyberpunk 2077 has been the one game where the 50 series over-performs, relative to the rest of the games we test, and that's no different for the RTX 5070. At 1440p it's 12% faster than the 4070 Super at 1440p and only a handful of frames behind the 4070 Ti Super.

At 4K, it stretches its lead to 22% over the 4070 Super and draws level with the 4070 Ti Super.

Final Fantasy XVI is a 2023 action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix. The sixteenth main installment in the Final Fantasy series, it was released for the PlayStation 5 in June 2023, with a Windows version released in September 2024.

Engine: Square Enix in-house engine. We test using the Ultra preset, DLSS/FSR disabled, DX12 API.

Final Fantasy XVI is next and at 1440p, the RTX 5070 is sandwiched between the 4070 Super and the 7900 GRE, coming within 4% of each of those cards.

4K is another step too far, though performance is no better than either of those two GPUs we just mentioned.

Forza Horizon 5 is a 2021 racing video game developed by Playground Games and published by Xbox Game Studios. The twelfth main instalment of the Forza series, the game is set in a fictionalised representation of Mexico. It was released on 9 November 2021 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. (Wikipedia).

Engine: ForzaTech. We test using the Extreme preset, DX12 API.

That trend stays the same as we head into Forza Horizon 5 – there's nothing to split the 4070 Super, 7900 GRE and 5070 at 1440p, so it doesn't seem like much progress has been made gen-on-gen…

4K is still very playable with an average of 99fps, but again, that's less than a single frame of difference compared to the 4070 Super.

Ghost of Tsushima is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The player controls Jin Sakai, a samurai on a quest to protect Tsushima Island during the first Mongol invasion of Japan.Ghost of Tsushima was released for the PlayStation 4 in July 2020, and an expanded version for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, subtitled Director's Cut and featuring the Iki Island expansion, was released in August 2021. A Windows version of Director's Cut, developed by Nixxes Software, was released in May 2024. (Wikipedia).

Engine: Sucker Punch in-house engine. We test using the Very High preset, DX12 API.

Ghost of Tsushima is more disappointing, given the 5070 slips to being 4% slower than the 4070 Super, while it's just 10% faster than the vanilla 4070.

4K isn't really much better, it can't beat AMD's RX 7800 XT, while the 4070 Super remains a couple of frames ahead.

Horizon Forbidden West is a 2022 action role-playing game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn (2017), the game is set in a post-apocalyptic version of the Western United States, recovering from the aftermath of an extinction event caused by a rogue robot swarm. The game and the Burning Shores expansion were collected together, re-released as Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition for PlayStation 5 in October 2023, and ported to Windows by Nixxes Software in March 2024. A sequel is in development. (Wikipedia).

Engine: Decima. We test using the Very High preset, DX12 API.

Nvidia GPUs fare better against their AMD counterpart in Forbidden West, with the 5070 now matching the 7900 XT at 1440p, but it offers just a 2% gain over the 4070 Super – basically nothing.

The same goes at 4K, where the difference between the two cards is just a single frame, while the gains over the vanilla 4070 land at 17%.

The Last of Us Part I is a 2022 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. A remake of the 2013 game The Last of Us, it features revised gameplay, including enhanced combat and exploration, and expanded accessibility options. It was released for Microsoft Windows in March 2023. (Wikipedia).

Engine: Naughty Dog in-house engine. We test using the Ultra preset, DX12 API.

 

Moving onto TLOUP1, this is another title where the RTX 5070 falls just short of the RTX 4070 Super, coming in 3% slower at 1440p.

4K is borderline, with 1% lows at just 31fps, though performance is identical to the 4070 Super and only 11% better than the original 4070.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is an action-adventure stealth game developed by Asobo Studio and published by Focus Entertainment. It is the sequel to A Plague Tale: Innocence (2019), and follows siblings Amicia and Hugo de Rune who must look for a cure to Hugo's blood disease in Southern France while fleeing from soldiers of the Inquisition and hordes of rats that are spreading the black plague. The game was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on 18 October 2022. (Wikipedia).

Engine: Asobo Studio in-house engine. We test using the Ultra preset, DX12 API.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is slightly more favourable to the RTX 5070 – it's at least now faster than the 4070 Super at 1440p, even if by only 4%.

That margin does extend to 7% at 4K, though that's a difference of just 3fps at this resolution.

Senua's Saga: Hellblade II is a 2024 action-adventure game developed by Ninja Theory and published by Xbox Game Studios. The game serves as the sequel to Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (2017) and is set in 9th century Iceland, drawing inspiration from Norse mythology and culture. Senua's Saga: Hellblade II was released for Windows and Xbox Series X/S on 21 May 2024.

Engine: Unreal Engine 5. We test using the High preset, TSR set to 100% render scale, DX12 API.

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is another title where the 7900 GRE, 3080 Ti, 5070 and 4070 Super all converge, this time with performance around the 50fps mark at 1440p/

4K frame rates drop below 30fps however, so upscaling is going to be required for smoother performance.

Starfield is a 2023 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. Announced in 2018, Starfield was delayed several times. The game was released for Windows and Xbox Series X/S on September 6, 2023. (Wikipedia).

Engine: Creation Engine 2. We test using the Ultra preset, with 100% resolution scale, dynamic resolution disabled, DX12 API.

As for Starfield, at 1440p the RTX 5070 loses out to the 4070 Super by a 5% margin, while it's on par with the 7900 GRE.

4K sees the margins drop away to basically nothing, while the 5070 is 17% faster than the vanilla 4070.

Total War: Warhammer III is a turn-based strategy and real-time tactics video game developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega. It is part of the Total War series, and the third to be set in Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy fictional universe (following 2016's Total War: Warhammer and 2017's Total War: Warhammer II). The game was announced on February 3, 2021 and was released on February 17, 2022. (Wikipedia).

Engine: TW Engine 3 (Warscape). We test using the Ultra preset, with unlimited video memory enabled, DX11 API.

 

Lastly, Total War: Warhammer III once again sees the 5070 delivering equivalent performance to the 7900 GRE, while it claims just a 4% lead over the 4070 Super.

At 4K that lead does extend to 7%, though that's a difference of just 4fps, so it's hardly a game changer.

Here we present frame rate figures for each graphics card, averaged across all 12 games on test today. These figures can disguise significant variations in performance from game to game, but provide a useful overview of the sort of performance you can expect at each resolution tested.

Overall, averaged across the 12 games tested, as mentioned a few times we see very similar performance between the RTX 3080 Ti, RX 7900 GRE, RTX 4070 Super and RTX 5070 at 1440p – performance differences of just 4% separates those four GPUs. Compared to the vanilla 4070, the 5070 comes in 18% faster, while its 5% slower than the 4070 Ti. It's also 19% slower than the RTX 5070 Ti, while it offers a 55% uplift versus the original RTX 3070.

At 4K, we can see a similar story, with just a 3% gain over the 4070 Super, which works out as a 21% uplift versus the vanilla 4070. It's now 21% slower than the 5070 Ti, with a 60% gain over the RTX 3070.

Here we take a closer look at the uplift over the 4070 Super – the last 40 series GPU released in this price bracket. At 1440p, the 5070 is anywhere from 5% slower to 12% faster over the twelve games tested.

The RTX 5070 does scale slightly better at 4K, though eight of the twelve games tested show less than a 5% difference between these two GPUs, in either direction. The Cyberpunk result is what we were hoping to see across the board, but it is a clear outlier.

The MSRPs

Using the average frame rate data presented earlier in the review, here we look at the cost per frame using the UK MSRP launch prices for each GPU. Please note this only compares rasterised performance and value.

Offering basically RTX 4070 Super performance for a 7% price cut (£539, down from £579) results in just an 8% improvement to cost per frame – at least, when calculated using the MSRPs. It's hardly a major change, and the 7900 GRE still tops the chart at 1440p, but at least it's not a backwards step.

Current retail pricing

We also show the data based on current pricing here in the UK, though we've had to leave out several GPUs given the 40 series is very hard to find now, while AMD RDNA 3 GPUs are also becoming more scarce. This data also assumes the RTX 5070 will actually be available at MSRP, but we'll have to see about that…

Alan Wake 2 is a 2023 survival horror game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Epic Games Publishing. A sequel to Alan Wake, the story follows best-selling novelist Alan Wake, who has been trapped in an alternate dimension for 13 years, as he attempts to escape by writing a horror story involving an FBI special agent named Saga Anderson. The game was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on 27 October 2023. (Wikipedia)

Engine: Northlight. We test using the High preset, High Ray Tracing preset, FSR set to Quality upscaling, DXR API.

For our ray tracing performance, we're focusing on the 1440p data, starting with Alan Wake 2. Here the 5070 comes in 6% slower than the 4070 Super, managing just 35fps, so that makes it 10% faster than the vanilla 4070.

Black Myth: Wukong is a 2024 action role-playing game developed and published by Game Science. The game is inspired by the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West and follows an anthropomorphic monkey based on Sun Wukong from the novel. Black Myth: Wukong was released for PlayStation 5 and Windows on August 20, 2024, with an Xbox Series X/S version to be released at a later date. (Wikipedia).

Engine: Unreal Engine 5. We test using the Cinematic preset, Ray Tracing set to Very High, TSR set to 67% render scale, DXR API.

 

Black Myth: Wukong sees a 5% gain over the 4070 Super, with performance matching the 4070 Ti, while it's miles ahead of anything AMD has to offer.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed and published by CD Projekt. The story takes place in Night City, an open world set in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customisable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. Cyberpunk 2077 was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Stadia, and Xbox One on 10 December 2020. (Wikipedia).

Engine: REDengine 4. We test using the Ray Tracing: Ultra preset, DXR API. DLSS/FSR are disabled.

Cyberpunk 2077 sees the 5070 matching the 4070 Super almost exactly at 1440p, while it's 16% ahead of the RTX 4070 and 8% faster than the 7900 XTX.

F1 24 is a racing video game developed by Codemasters and published by EA Sports. It is the sixteenth entry in the F1 series by Codemasters. It holds the official licence for the 2023 Formula One and Formula 2 championships. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Linux (through Valve's Proton compatibility layer) on 16 June 2023. (Wikipedia).

Engine: EGO. We test using the Ultra High preset, High ray tracing quality, DXR API. DLSS/FSR are disabled.

F1 24 shows another tight battle between the 5070 versus the 4070 Super, with the Blackwell GPU just 3% faster, while it offers 10% gain over the 7900 GRE on average, but with significantly better 1% lows.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a 2021 third-person shooter platform game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 5. It is the ninth main installment in the Ratchet & Clank series and a sequel to Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus. Rift Apart was announced in June 2020 and was released on June 11, 2021. A Windows port by Nixxes Software was released on July 26, 2023. (Wikipedia).

Engine: Insomniac Games in-house engine. We test using the Very High preset, Very High ray tracing, DXR API. DLSS/FSR are disabled.

Ratchet and Clank is more of the same, the 4070 Super is nominally faster in terms of its averages but the 5070 does have better 1% lows. The 5070 also comes in 26% faster than the 7900 XTX, illustrating the clear gulf in ray tracing performance between AMD and Nvidia.

Returnal is a 2021 roguelike video game developed by Housemarque and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was released for the PlayStation 5 on April 30, 2021 and Windows on February 15, 2023. The game follows Selene Vassos, an astronaut who lands on the planet Atropos in search of the mysterious “White Shadow” signal and finds herself trapped in a time loop. (Wikipedia).

Engine: Unreal Engine 4. We test using the Epic preset, Epic ray traced shadows and reflections, DXR API. DLSS/FSR are disabled.

Returnal sees the 5070 outperforming the 4070 Super by another 5% margin, while it's a couple of frames faster than the RX 7900 XT at 1440p.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a 2018 action-adventure video game developed by Eidos-Montréal and published by Square Enix's European subsidiary. It continues the narrative from the 2015 game Rise of the Tomb Raider and is the twelfth mainline entry in the Tomb Raider series, as well as the third and final entry of the Survivor trilogy. The game was originally released worldwide for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One. (Wikipedia).

Engine: Foundation Engine. We test using the Highest preset, RT Ultra Shadows, DXR API. DLSS/FSR are disabled.

As for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, we're looking at no difference in performance versus the 4070 Super, though that works out as a 17% uplift over the original 4070.

Star Wars Outlaws is a 2024 action-adventure game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. Set in the Star Wars universe between the events of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), the story follows Kay Vess, a young scoundrel who assembles a team for a massive heist in order to pay off a crime syndicate. Star Wars Outlaws was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on August 30, 2024.

Engine: Snowdrop. We test using the Ultra preset but with Nvidia RTXDI disabled, DXR API. DLSS/FSR are disabled.

Lastly, Star Wars Outlaws continues to under-perform with Blackwell GPUs, and the 5070 is actually 10% slower than the 4070 Super here, making it just 9% faster than the original 4070.

Ray tracing 8-game average FPS

Here we present frame rate figures for each graphics card, averaged across all 8 ray traced games on test today. These figures can disguise significant variations in performance from game to game, but provide a useful overview of the sort of performance you can expect at each resolution tested.

Over the eight RT games tested, performance is a wash between the 5070 and 4070 Super at 1440p. That also means the new Blackwell GPU is just as fast as AMD's RX 7900 XTX for ray tracing, while it offers a 72% uplift over the RTX 3070.

Cost per frame, launch MSRP data

Please note this only compares ray traced performance and value.

That's enough for the RTX 5070 to take top spot in our cost per frame chart at 1440p, though it offers just 7% better value than the 4070 Super when looking at the MSRP data.

Cost per frame, current pricing data

Given so many 40 series GPUs are now out of stock, the next best thing based on current retail pricing is the original RTX 4070, which we found for £510. As a reminder this data does assume the RTX 5070 will be available at MSRP, something we remain skeptical of…

DLSS Multi Frame Generation

Next, we give a few examples of the sort of frame rates – and latency numbers – you can expect when using Multi Frame Generation (MFG) with the RTX 5070. This isn't going to be as complete an analysis as per our RTX 5090 review, so please do check out that content if you are interested.

Just like the RTX 5070 Ti, we've included both 1440p and 4K MFG data for the RTX 5070. Technically the 5070 will produce decent-sounding frame rates when using MFG 4X at 4K, but as the base frame rate is so slow, latency sky rockets – hitting 135ms in Alan Wake 2.

When tested at 1440p using Super Resolution Balanced mode, this is a much more manageable 89ms, though do remember that MFG will always increase latency when compared with only using Super Resolution.

Likewise in Cyberpunk, using MFG 4X on the 5070 at 4K resulted in latency of just under 80ms, due to our base frame rate being just 32fps. At 1440p, the base frame rate is instead 50fps, so overall latency caps out at 55.7ms when using MFG 4X at that resolution.

Of course, some games are much easier to run anyway, so using MFG at 4K isn't a problem in Hogwarts Legacy – the base frame rate is already 100fps, and this increased to 234fps with MFG 4X. Latency still went up, from 25.6ms to 38.9ms, but that's much more manageable than what we saw in Alan Wake or Cyberpunk.

Performance versus RTX 4090

I also want to explore Nvidia's claim that the RTX 5070 offers ‘RTX 4090 performance'. That's certainly not been true in our raster and ray tracing tests, but is it true when using MFG?

The short answer is no. In Alan Wake 2, for instance, the RTX 4090 delivers 145fps on average at 1440p, with latency at 41.3ms. The RTX 5070 may get close enough in terms of frame rate when using MFG 4X, hitting 131fps, but latency is over twice that of the RTX 4090 – and that is a key part of ‘performance', so no – performance does not match the 4090, and that's not even mentioning the image quality comparison, as the 5070 will be displaying twice as many AI-generated frames!

In Cyberpunk 2077, the 5070 does at least produce slightly higher frame rates in its MFG 4X mode, compared to standard frame gen on the 4090. However, latency is still higher – by 41% at 1440p, and that results in a noticeably different feel, and you cannot say that ‘performance' of the two GPUs is equivalent.

In fact, at 4K, the 5070's latency when using MFG 4X is almost double that of the RTX 4090, so clearly this claim is not holding water.

It's more of the same in Hogwarts Legacy. Yes, the 5070 can get a frame rate that's in the ballpark of the RTX 4090, but it will always have higher latency than the RTX 4090 as its base frame rate is that much lower. At 4K, for instance, the frame rates between the two are very similar – comparing MFG 4X to original Frame Gen on the 4090, at least – but latency is 59% higher on the RTX 5070.

I also recommend watching the video review where we delve into this subject even further, as we highlight how performance of the RTX 5070 can also tank in certain scenarios when the 12GB VRAM buffer is exceeded – as we saw in Indiana Jones, Ratchet and Clank and Spider-Man 2. We also highlight in games that only support the original Frame Gen, and not MFG, the RTX 5070 has no hope of catching the RTX 4090, so claiming equivalent performance really is a nonsense.

Here we present a range of AI and productivity benchmarks, designed to offer insight into the sort of workloads that might be undertaken by someone purchasing this calibre of GPU.

For our AI image generation test, the first thing to know is the 5070 actually failed to run our usual Stable Diffusion XL test due to a lack of VRAM. We tried again using the Stable Diffusion 1.5 tests and this worked fine, though performance isn't able to match the RTX 4070 Super.

AI text generation fared slightly better, with up to an 11% gain over the 4070 Super using the Llama 3.1 model, though Llama 2 performance is slightly worse.

Geekbench AI continues to be a mixed bag, with single precision performance lacking, but the half precision metric shows vastly superior results, this time with a 9% lead over the 4070 Super.

There's not much to split the two GPUs in Blender 4.3, however, though Nvidia remains far superior to AMD's offerings.

V-Ray also shows more appreciable gains when using the RTX path, this time with an 18% lead over the 4070 Super, one of the biggest differences we have seen today.

Here we present the average clock speed for each graphics card while running A Plague Tale: Requiem for 30 minutes. We use GPU-Z to record the GPU core frequency during gameplay. We calculate the average core frequency during the 30 minute run to present here.

Given I've not tested other RTX 5070 models as part of this review, for reference I have compared clock speed behaviour of the other Blackwell GPUs on the market – the RTX 5070 Ti, 5080 and 5090. As you can see, overall behaviour is very consistent from all four GPUs, with no large spikes or dips. The RTX 5070 actually clocks the highest, though it's not miles ahead of the 5080, while the 5090 clocks the lowest.

Over our thirty minute stress test, the 5070 averaged 2745MHz, roughly 30MHz faster than the 5080. It'll be interesting to see how far Nvidia's partners can push this with their factory OC boards.

For our temperature testing, we measure steady-state GPU temperatures under load. A reading under load comes from running A Plague Tale: Requiem for 30 minutes.

We don’t yet have comparisons for thermal performance, but the 5070 FE delivers decent results out of the box, hitting just over 70C on the GPU and 74C on the memory. For reference, I've added in the results of the other 50 series cards – they're not a direct comparison as the power demand various hugely compared to the 5070, but it gives you an idea.

We take our noise measurements with the sound meter positioned 1 foot from the graphics card. I measured the noise floor to be 32 dBA, thus anything above this level can be attributed to the graphics cards. The power supply is passive for the entire power output range we tested all graphics cards in, while all CPU and system fans were disabled. A reading under load comes from running A Plague Tale: Requiem for 30 minutes.

Unfortunately, the RTX 5070 Founders Edition isn't the quietest card going. In my testing, the fans spun up to 47%, or just under 2400rpm, producing 40dBa of noise. That makes it louder than even the RTX 5090 FE – clearly, decision to shrink the card and replace the vapour chamber results in a much weaker cooler, even when dealing with just 250W, so noise levels are higher to compensate.

Here we present power draw figures for the graphics card-only, on a per-game basis for all twelve games we tested at 1080p. This is measured using Nvidia's Power Capture Analysis Tool, also known as PCAT. You can read more about our updated power draw testing methodology HERE.

Per-Game Results at 1080p:

Click to enlarge.

12-Game Average at 1080p:

Average power draw at 1080p is well below the 250W TGP, given we saw 194.2W across the twelve games tested – so that is a net decrease compared to the 4070 Super.

Ray tracing results

As a bonus, we now include the power figures for all eight games we test with ray tracing enabled.

8-Game ray tracing average:

Power draw is higher with RT enabled, this time averaging 200.3W

Here we present power draw figures for the graphics card-only, on a per-game basis for all twelve games we tested at 1440p. This is measured using Nvidia's Power Capture Analysis Tool, also known as PCAT. You can read more about our updated power draw testing methodology HERE.

Per-Game Results at 1440p:

Click to enlarge.

12-Game Average at 1440p:

At 1440p, average power draw has increased to 208W over the twelve games tested, and that's still a slight decrease compared to the 4070 Super, but only a reduction of 7 or-so watts.

Ray tracing results

As a bonus, we now include the power figures for all eight games we test with ray tracing enabled.

8-Game ray tracing average:

With ray tracing enabled, power draw now averages 211.4W.

Here we present power draw figures for the graphics card-only, on a per-game basis for all twelve games we tested at 2160p (4K). This is measured using Nvidia's Power Capture Analysis Tool, also known as PCAT. You can read more about our updated power draw testing methodology HERE.

Per-Game Results at 2160p (4K):

Click to enlarge.

12-Game Average at 2160p (4K):

Up at 4K, we can see power now matching the RTX 4070 Super, but it's still barely exceeding 220W – well below the 250W TGP. A couple of games get closer to that figure, as you can see at the top of the page, including Cyberpunk 2077 and A Plague Tale: Requiem, but there's also a few that don't even hit 200W.

Ray tracing results

As a bonus, we now include the power figures for all eight games we test with ray tracing enabled.

8-Game ray tracing average:

Interestingly, the ray tracing average at 4K is slightly lower, given a couple of games tested ran into VRAM limits, thus choking overall performance and lowering power draw.

Using the graphics card-only power draw figures presented earlier in the review, here we present performance per Watt on a per-game basis for all twelve games we tested at 1080p.

Per-Game Results at 1080p:

Click to enlarge.

12-Game Average at 1080p:

In terms of efficiency, at 1080p the RTX 5070 is tied second with the RTX 4080 Super, meaning it still lags behind the RTX 5080, while it's an 8% improvement over the 4070 Super.

Ray tracing results

As a bonus, we now include the power figures for all eight games we test with ray tracing enabled.

8-Game ray tracing average:

With RT enabled, the 5070 slips back behind the 4080 Super and is only a marginal improvement over the RTX 4090.

Using the graphics card-only power draw figures presented earlier in the review, here we present performance per Watt on a per-game basis for all twelve games we tested at 1440p.

Per-Game Results at 1440p:

Click to enlarge.

12-Game Average at 1440p:

At 1440p, overall efficiency is still tied with the RTX 4080 Super, but remains 10% behind the RTX 5080. Compared to the 4070 Super, that means we're looking at performance per watt that is just 6% higher from this new GPU.

Ray tracing results

As a bonus, we now include the power figures for all eight games we test with ray tracing enabled.

8-Game ray tracing average:

With ray tracing enabled, there's no average improvement over the 4070 Super.

Using the graphics card-only power draw figures presented earlier in the review, here we present performance per Watt on a per-game basis for all twelve games we tested at 2160p (4K).

Per-Game Results at 2160p (4K):

Click to enlarge.

12-Game Average at 2160p (4K):

Lastly, 4K is really more of the same, with the 5080 still leading the way, while the 5070 a is mere 5% more efficient than the 4070 Super.

Ray tracing results

As a bonus, we now include the power figures for all eight games we test with ray tracing enabled.

8-Game ray tracing average:

With ray tracing enabled, efficiency is no better than most of the 40 series and still lags behind the RTX 5080.

We measure system-wide power draw from the wall while running A Plague Tale: Requiem for 30 minutes (4K resolution).

Total system power at 4K is in line with our findings, the 5070 creeps above the 7800 XT and 7900 GRE, while the entire system still draws comfortably less than 400W at the socket.

For our manual overclocking tests, we used MSI Afterburner. Our best results are as below.

As with all 50 series GPUs I have tested so far, I was able to maximise the memory slider at +2000MHz. Nvidia allows a 10% power increase, and I also added 380MHz to the GPU core.

This overclock netted us some decent gains, in line with the 5070 Ti and 5080, given frame rates increased by 11% in Cyberpunk and then by 10% in the other two games tested. It's certainly more than we would have come to expect based on how things have been going over the last two years.

Power draw did rise accordingly, up to 272W in Plague Tale, which is a 10% increase over stock – so you're not getting efficiency gains, but I'd say it's well worth it for the extra performance.

The RTX 5070 is the fourth consumer Blackwell GPU to hit the market, following in the footsteps of the RTX 5070 Ti that launched in mid-February. Targeting a £539/$549 MSRP, it's the most affordable 50 series model so far, but of course we will have to wait and see whether or not the MSRP actually materialises at launch…

Still, that positioning makes it the logical successor to the RTX 4070 Super which launched in early 2024 for £579/$599. Unfortunately, those hoping for a decent generational improvement will be disappointed, given the RTX 5070 is… 1% faster on average at 1440p. That's right, we saw basically no difference in average performance across all twelve rasterised games tested, nor did we over the eight ray traced games benchmarked today.

That has obvious implications for the overall appeal of this product, which we'll discuss shortly, but it's worth stating that, objectively, the overall level of performance on offer is still decent – in the sense that the RTX 5070 will be able to play pretty much anything at 1440p Ultra settings, and it's not a bad entry-level 4K card too, especially so if you are happy to enable DLSS or lower image quality settings. Ray tracing performance is still streets ahead of AMD's current offerings, coming in faster than the RX 7900 XTX on average, despite launching at roughly half the price.

However, there's no getting around the fact that the lack of any generational improvement over the RTX 4070 Super is somewhat concerning for this new GPU and will make it a fairly tough sell. Granted, the 5070 is cheaper in terms of MSRP, with an 7% price reduction here in the UK, so you could argue it is at least a small step forward, but it really feels like the bare minimum.

You could also argue that it is unlikely the RTX 5070 will actually land at MSRP – at least not for a while. At the time of writing, the cheapest RTX 5070 Ti up for pre-order on Scan is still £100 above MSRP, the cheapest 5080 is £121 above MSRP, and you can't even pre-order the RTX 5090. That said, following on from the announcement of AMD's RDNA 4 GPUs, with the RX 9070 and 9070 XT landing at $549 and $599 respectively, it would not surprise me at all if more 50 series cards suddenly started popping up at MSRP…

I also think it's fair to point out that the RTX 5070 should be cheaper than its forebears. After all, it's using a smaller die, with GB205 measuring in at 263mm², versus AD104 at 294.5mm² , while still using the same TSMC N4 node, two and a half years on from production of the 40 series. Of course, cheaper is cheaper and we always like to see that, but a £40 reduction for the 5070 is hardly a return to the days when the xx70 class could be had for 300 quid.

It was also fascinating to take a closer look at performance compared against the RTX 4090 as part of this review. After all, that was the claim made by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, but it did not hold up to any real scrutiny in my testing today. For one, we've already established that the 5070 is no faster than the 4070 Super when it comes to native rendering performance, so it's certainly not matching the RTX 4090 there – in fact it's some 40-50% slower depending on the game.

Nvidia was of course referring to DLSS 4, and specifically Multi Frame Generation (MFG) as the basis for this claim, and in my testing there are examples where the RTX 5070, using MFG 4X, can deliver a similar frame rate to the RTX 4090, with that GPU limited to ‘standard' Frame Gen. Even then, that does not equate to the same performance, as latency was always higher on the 5070, sometimes by up to twice as much, given the 5070 has a much lower base frame rate – and that's not even mentioning the image quality implications, given the 5070 would be displaying twice as many AI-generated frames versus the 4090 in these scenarios.

During this testing we also found a handful of examples where the RTX 5070 was bottlenecked by its 12GB framebuffer. In the likes of Indiana Jones, Spider-Man 2, and Ratchet and Clank, the GPU ground to halt as it had insufficient video memory, and often times it was Frame Generation that pushed it over the edge. To be clear, 12GB VRAM is enough for the vast majority of games I tested today, but we are already starting to see games pushing that limit, especially with ray tracing and frame generation enabled. And if that's the case today, things certainly aren't going to get better down the line.

Ultimately, having reflected on the RTX 5070 over the past few days, I am struggling to see a clear reason as to why this GPU might be a compelling purchase. After all, if you held off buying a 4070 Super, even when it dropped below MSRP throughout 2024, will the RTX 5070 really persuade you otherwise, given it is offering the same performance and the same amount of VRAM? Yes, there is the addition of MFG, some marginal efficiency improvements, and a slightly lower price, so it's not like it's worse – but we can't shake the feeling that the RTX 5070 is a thoroughly unambitious GPU, content with doing the bare minimum and hoping that's enough to scrape by.

The elephant in the room is, of course, AMD and its new RDNA 4-based GPUs – the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT – launching on March 6th. We can't discuss performance of those two cards until tomorrow, but if AMD’s claims hold true, Radeon could be about to deliver some serious competition in this market segment. It will be fascinating to see how the RTX 5070 stacks up against its new rivals…

The RTX 5070 is launching at retail tomorrow, March 5th, with an MSRP of £539/$549. Nvidia sent us the following retail links for cards which are expected to land at the MSRP:

1. MSI Ventus 2X (Scan)
2. Zotac Solid (Scan, OCUK)
3. Palit GamingPro (Scan)
4. ASUS Prime (Ebuyer, CCL, Scan)

Pros

• Capable GPU for 1440p and entry-level 4K gaming.
• Some small improvement to cost per frame and overall value versus the RTX 4070 Super (assuming MSRP).
• £40 price drop compared to the RTX 4070 Super is better than nothing.
• Certain productivity benchmarks showed bigger-than-expected performance improvements.
• Solid overclocking headroom.
• DLSS 4 has improved Ray Reconstruction and Super Resolution upscaling.
• Multi Frame Generation enables higher frame rates than would otherwise be possible.

Cons

• No discernible performance increase over the RTX 4070 Super.
• The claim that it offers RTX 4090 performance does not hold up, at all.
• 12GB VRAM is a limiting factor in some games already, and will surely only get worse as time progresses.
• Efficiency has taken a step backwards compared to the RTX 5080.
• Prospective buyers will want to wait and see what RDNA 4 can bring to the table.

KitGuru says: The RTX 5070 is the embodiment of doing the bare minimum. We'll find out tomorrow if it's enough to handle the threat of AMD's RX 9070.

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