As part of their CES 2024 presentation, Nvidia announced its upcoming lineup of 40-series Super GPUs: the RTX 4070 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and the RTX 4080 Super. The first of these, the RTX 4070 Super sits at the bottom of the stack, taking the place of the RTX 4070, which launched last year.
With more CUDA cores than its predecessor, as well as a larger pool of L2 cache than its predecessor, sitting closer to big brother the RTX 4070 Ti, does the RTX 4070 Super provide enough uplift over the original to make it worth the price tag? Also, how does Nvidia’s claim of the card being faster than the RTX 3090, last generation’s flagship card, stack up? Here’s our review.
Specifications:
- Graphics Processing Clusters: 5
- Texture Processing Clusters: 28
- Streaming Multiprocessors: 56
- CUDA Cores: 7168
- Shader FLOPS: 35.5
- Tensor Cores: 224 (4th Generation)
- AI TOPS: 568
- RT Cores: 56 (3rd Generation)
- RT FLOPS: 82.1
- Texture Units: 224
- ROP Units: 80
- Base Clock: 1980 MHz
- Boost Clock: 2475 MHz
- Memory Clock: 10500 MHz
- Memory Data: 21 Gbps
- L1 Data Cache/Shared Memory: 7168 K
- L2 Cache Size: 49152 K
- Total Video Memory: 12 GB GDDR6X
- Memory Interface: 192-bit
- Total Memory Bandwidth: 504 GB/s
- Texture Rate (Billinear): 56.1 GigaTexels/second
- Max Display Resolution: 4K at 240Hz or 8K at 60 Hz with DSC
- Fabrication process: 4N Nvidia Custom Process
- Transistor Count: 35.8 Billion
- I/O:
- 3 x DisplayPort
- 1 x HDMI
- Power Connector:
- 2x PCIe 8-pin cables (with adapter) OR
- 300 W or Greater PCIe Gen 5 Cable
- Required PSU: 650 W
- Total Graphics Power: 220 W
- Price: $599 MSRP For Founders Edition
- Launches January 17th, 2024
First Thoughts
One of the biggest differences I noticed when opening the RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition sample Nvidia sent us is the color. While the non-Super version has a two-tone color scheme with a silver Mobius strip banding over the card in stark contrast to its softer, gunmetal finish, the RTX 4070 Super is just straight jet black. Everything, from the diamond strip wrapping around the GPU body to the fans themselves, is black, giving an almost obsidian-like appearance. Even the branding, the RTX 4070 Super badge on the back of the card is black, which actually makes it hard to see, especially in low light or while in the case.
I’m not sure I like this look - though I know it will appeal to many out there. It took me a while to come around on the overall look of Nvidia’s GPUs from the Ampere generation forward for some reason I’m still attached to the gaudy gamer aesthetic - if it’s more flamboyant, that must mean it’s faster, right? I think I would like the look of the RTX 4070 Super better if the badge was a different color, maybe taking a cue from the silvers or the dark metallic hues from the other 40-series GPUs to make it stand out.
That said, the card maintains an attractive, artistic design that firmly calls attention to Nvidia’s refined aesthetic, which the GPU maker has embraced since the 30-series. I think the box size is overkill for a two-slot GPU like this - there is no reason the packaging on this card should be identical in size to the RTX 4090 - a behemoth four-slot monster. But that’s a nitpick for sure.
The RTX 4070 Super uses the same 16-pin octopus cable adapter connected to two standard 8-pin connections from the power supply. While in the early days, Nvidia seemed to have issues with these cables combusting, that seems to have largely gone by the wayside. I’ve come around on these adapters as it helps to keep my cable management tidy as I can just tuck everything under the GPU in the case without needing to have cables strung out across the front of the GPU. Would it be easier to just plug directly into the GPU? Sure - though it’s not something that bothers me anymore, really.
We took a deep-dive into the Ada Lovelace architecture in our RTX 4090 review, and the RX 4070 Super, like all 40-series cards, benefit from this new architecture. The RTX 4070 Super comes with 4th Generation Tensor Cores, powerful 3rd Generation RT cores to power ray tracing applications, as well as the new Shader Execution reordering to help make ray tracing performance more efficient. Nvidia’s AI-powered Deep Learning Super Sampling, or DLSS, is also available to 4070 Super users, including its Frame Generation capabilities on supported titles, also called DLSS 3. The RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition also comes with AV1 encoders, Nvidia Studio and more to help power content creation.
The RTX 4070 Super also packs the same L2 cache size as the RTX 4070 Ti, 48MB up from the RTX 4070’s 36 MB. This could be huge, especially when paired with the 22% more CUDA cores of the RTX 4070 Super over the non-Super, while the memory bus is still 192-bit across the board. This does mean the RTX 4070 Super sucks up a little more power, 220 W versus the non-Super’s 200 W TGP.
One of the claims Nvidia made in a pre-brief ahead of CES’s announcement was that the RTX 4070 Super would be, on average, faster than the RTX 3090. Retailing for $599, the original price of the RTX 4070, which is now slotted at $549, this would be incredible performance for the money when compared to the original price of the RTX 3090. This is also a card that could, potentially, offer a compelling upgrade path if you’re still holding onto a 30-series or even 20-series GPU. Though, at $100 more than the nearest AMD competitor, the Rx 7800 XT, does the RTX 4070 Super justify that price gap?
Nvidia RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition Synthetics, Benchmarks, and Thermal Performance
The RTX 4070 Super aims to give generationally better performance over its Ampere cousins, while also providing a performance uplift over its non-Super brother, the RTX 4070. We put it through its paces, comparing it to the Ampere offerings, as well as the 40-series cards closest to it. We tested this at 1080p and 1440p, the target resolutions of the cards and put it through tests with both native and upscaling features enabled to show more real-world results to help make the most informed purchasing decision.
We chose ray tracing heavy games, utilizing both Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution to gague the real-world performance the vast majority of our readers would experience. Since most of us are playing games now with these upscaling features enabled, especially when ray tracing, we feel it gives the most relevant information for our audience. We also tested DLSS 3 and starting with this review, we’ve added our first example of AMD’s platform-agnostic frame generation into the mix with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
You can check out our full post about our test bench and the various parts we’ve chosen to put GPUs and other PC hardware through its paces. Here it is broken down for quick reference:
Test Bench:
- CPU: Intel i9-13900K
- Motherboard: MSI MPG Carbon Wifi Z790
- RAM: XPG DDR5 32GB RAM @ 5200Mhz
- Cooling: Corsair H150i Elite LCD 360mm Liquid Cooler
- Storage: Intel 760p 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD; Samsung 970 EVO 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD
- PSU: Gigabyte P1200 80+ 1200W Platinum
- Case: ASUS ROG Strix Helios
- Nvidia Driver: 531.42 (pre-release driver)
- AMD Driver: Adrenalin Edition 23.4.1
Nvidia Cards Included:
- ASUS TUF RTX 4070 Ti OC
- RTX 4070 Founders Edition
- EVGA RTX 3090 Black XC
- RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition
- RTX 3070 Founders Edition
AMD Cards Included:
We used both 3DMark’s suite of synthetic tests to push each GPU in a series of DirectX 11, DirectX 12 and ray tracing processes to show relative performance. We also utilized games that had their own benchmarking test to get as consistent results as possible. As a result, none of the games we tested required us to replicate a benchmark circuit, as we used to do. This should make for more consistent, accurate results by removing the human element.
We tested both with upscaling enabled on all cards in games that called for it, with the AMD cards running FSR while Nvidia’s GPUs ran using DLSS. The only exception here is Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. While Ubisoft’s open-world title does support DLSS 2 and FSR 2, to utilize frame generation, you have to use FSR 3. There are very few FSR 3 enabled titles on the market now compared with Nvidia’s DLSS 3, but hopefully we’ll be able to add more as time moves on.
This actually gave us an interesting look at the different philosophies at play here between the two companies, where Nvidia is opting for AI-generated frames, and thus has restricted the feature to its powerful 40-series cards, while AMD’s is more driver-based, making it possible to run on competitor hardware.
All tests ran using DLSS or FSR Quality as it’s typically going to be the best-looking image at lower resolutions, and they are using the standard versions that come with each game - no DLSS Swapper in use here. With our test bench we also ensured that ReSizeable BAR and XMP were enabled in the BIOS.
RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition Synthetic Benchmarks
With all our synthetic tests, we see a pattern emerge here: the RTX 4070 Ti tends to top out over everything, while the RTX 4070 Super takes up second place. Even compared to the RX 7800 XT, itself meant to be a comparable 1440p card, the RTX 4070 Super comes out on top.
Compared to the RTX 3090, which is should be noted here that our sample is not a Founders board but instead an overclocked variant of EVGA’s 3090 offerings, the RTX 4070 Super beats it in Firestrike and TimeSpy, but does take some losses when using 3DMark’s Speedway and Port Royal tests. During our press call with Nvidia, the company did say that while, on average, the RTX 4070 Super would be faster than an RTX 3090, this was drawing from the Founders Edition boards, and they do concede that it will trade blows as well. Not every application will see the 4070 Super come out on top, and this test here gives us something of a preview of that.
Compared to the generational uplift, the RTX 4070 Super outperforms both the RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3070 in every test by a wide margin, with the improvements of its 3rd Generation RT Cores on display in Port Royal especially.
RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition Gaming Benchmarks
When looking at gaming performance, the RTX 4070 Super again sits comfortably above the non-Super variant, and it comes up just under our RTX 4070 Ti sample in every test. Games such as Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, a decade-old MMORPG that still holds up (and will be seeing a widespread graphical update with Dawntrail), we see the card comfortably eke out 239 frames per second at 1080p, while it still maintains an impressive 185fps at 1440p. This is right up against the ASUS TUF RTX 4070 Ti OC sample in our bench, with the latter card only achieving a single frame better on average at 1080p.
Across the board, the RTX 4070 Ti was only about 4% faster than our RTX 4070 Super sample at 1080p, while it was on average 5% faster at 1440p. It’s really interesting seeing our RTX 4070 Super right up close to our 4070 Ti sample, and it makes some sense - the extra CUDA cores and that full fat 48MB of L2 cache definitely put it closer specs-wise compared to the non-Super.
When compared to last generation’s 70-series offerings, the RTX 4070 Super is, on average, 33% faster than our RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition card, while it’s 43% faster than our RTX 3070 Founders Edition at 1440p. The interesting result, and one that lined up with what Nvidia told us as we started these reviews, is the comparison to the RTX 3090. At 1080p, the RTX 4070 Super holds just a 2% edge over the 3090, while at 1440p, the latter card outperforms the RTX 4070 Super at just 1% faster on average - both well within the margin of error on our testing.
Pitting it against the AMD cards in our test, the RTX 4070 Super sits at 7% faster on average over the RX 7800 XT at both 1080p and 1440p. The gulf widens when compared to the even cheaper AMD XFX RX 7700 XT, which sees the RTX 4070 Super 19% faster on average at 1080p, 25% faster on average at 1440p.
RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition Ray Tracing Benchmarks
Ray tracing brings some interesting results across the board. It’s here where we really see the 40-series as a whole pull away from the last-generation offerings from Nvidia, as well as AMD’s RDNA3 competition. Without comparing frame generation in each game, the RTX 4070 Super is still 61% faster on average over the RTX 3070 Ti at 1080p, while it maintains a comfortable 29% lead over the RX 7800 XT on average at the same resolution.
The gap between the RTX 3090 and RTX 4070 Super is more defined here, with the latter card faster by 16% at 1080p, though at 1440p that gap closes to just a 5% difference - the RTX 3090 is at home at 1440p in our testing for sure. Compared to the standard RTX 4070, the Super version is 14% faster at 1080p, while it’s 13% faster on average at 1440p.
When you turn on frame generation, especially compared to the 30-series, that gap widens considerably. Given that DLSS 3 is only available on 40-series GPUs, this provides an even larger uplift over the Ampere cards. At 1080p in Forza Horizon 5, we see the RTX 4070 Super hit 219fps with DLSS 3 enabled, 112% faster than the RTX 3070 Ti’s ray tracing test using DLSS 2 at the same resolution.
Avatar really provides us a more level playing field to showcase the cards more evenly with FSR 3 being featured on each. But even here, we still see the RTX 4070 Super pull away from the last generation offerings, and even AMD’s cards with the feature enabled. Using FSR 3’s frame generation, the RTX 4070 Super hits 206fps at 1080p with the ultra preset, 64% faster than the RTX 3070 Ti’s 125fps result, and even 38% faster than the RTX 3090. Compared to the RX 7800 XT, the RTX 4070 Super is 23% faster on average at 1080p.
These gaps close at 1440p, though we still see the RTX 4070 Super achieve higher results on average using FSR 3 than the RDNA 3 cards we tested, and the 30-series Nvidia GPUs. The RTX 4070 Super is 16% faster than the RTX 4070 at 1440p, while it’s 59% faster than our RTX 3070 Ti. Compared to the AMD cards, the Super is 19% faster on average than the RX 7800 XT, while it’s 37% faster than the 100fps average our XFX RX 7700 XT Quicksilver 319 achieved.
RTX 4070 Super Thermals, Power Consumption, And Noise
From a thermal and power consumption standpoint, the entire Ada Lovelace architecture have been incredibly efficient in these areas. While the RTX 4070 Super is rated for 220W Total Graphics Power, it came closest during our testing of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, maxing out at 217W during our 1440p FSR 3 benchmark run.
In terms of thermals, the RTX 4070 Super is incredibly cool under pressure. While it’s not packing the giant heat sink and fan cluster the RTX 4090 sports, the whole thing is still outrageously efficient. In our testing, we never even broke above 70 degrees celsius, hitting a max temp of only 67 degrees. Considering we used Path Tracing in our DLSS 3 tests for Cyberpunk 2077, and practically every game used some sort of ray tracing, this is great, especially for us desert rats worried about ambient temps sending our hardware through the roof.
Noise-wise, the card is quiet, thanks in large part to the fact the fans don’t need to spin at jet-engine levels of speeds in order to cool it down. During my days running the card in my system, both during benchmarks but also gaming on my own, I never once worried about the card becoming loud. I tested this with headphone and without, and not once did I notice any ambient noise coming from the RTX 4070 Super.
Nvidia RTX 4070 Super Conclusion
So what do we make of all this? By in large, if you would have told me when I spent almost a thousand dollars on my own EVGA RTX 3090 Black XC that, within a year, we’d see a 70-class GPU provide similar performance for just over half that price, I might have waited to pull the trigger. 3090-level performance for $599 is compelling, especially if you find yourself sitting on an older 30-series or even 20-series GPU.
The issue I’m running into here is the fact that the price is still $599. On one hand, it’s nice that we’re getting better performance than the original RTX 4070 gave us at that same price - Nvidia could have easily kept the latter card at $599 and bumped this one up to $649 to sit right in the middle of the 70-class stack.
But I can’t help but feel that it puts the current RTX 4070 Ti into a performance no man’s land, at least with our testing. At 33% more money, our card performed only, at most, 8% better than the cheaper RTX 4070 Super. Now, keep in mind, Nvidia is launching the RTX 4070 Ti Super next week, and that is, in theory, going to be more powerful for the same $799 price point. So it bears waiting to see how that shakes out. But I cannot recommend buying a 4070 Ti non-Super at that higher price point. Hopefully, we will see those prices tumble in anticipation of the Super launch.
One thing is clear in our testing, though. You see the best performance uplift when utilizing everything that the 40-series aims to leverage. Ray tracing applications on the RTX 4070 Super were far and away better than the 30-series or even the RDNA 3 cards in our bench. Being able to utilize both AI Frame Generation with DLSS 3 and FSR 3’s solution is awesome as well - especially when both give better results than anything around its price bracket.
While with regular rasterized games the performance difference between the cheaper RX 7800 XT and the RTX 4070 Super might not shake out the way we want - only 7% better while being 20% more expensive, when turning on ray tracing you can see why Nvidia is the market leader on hardware accelerated ray tracing. The 3rd generation RT Cores put in work, while the denoiser Nvidia uses resolves in an overall cleaner image by far in games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Returnal.
With the inclusion of DLSS 3 in so many games on the market as well, the RTX 4070 Super can eke into some 4K gaming as well, though your results here may vary. While we didn’t test the card at 4K across every game, the results in Cyberpunk 2077 when using frame generation were definitely playable, while Forza Horizon 5 benefits mightly from frame gen. I’ve said this before: DLSS 3’s frame generation (and by extension even FSR 3) will benefit these lower-end cards so much more than the high-end, giving effectively free performance when toggled on.
So, at $599, the RTX 4070 Super provides some compelling reasons to look its way. 3090-level performance, a card that launched at $1499, at $599 is compelling for those who never upgraded before. Better ray tracing performance than the 30-series and even the RDNA 3 cards around the same price point also add to the package as more and more games leverage the features to stand out.
DLSS is still the best-looking upscaler, in my opinion, and it keeps getting better thanks to Nvidia’s insistence on using machine learning to train its algorithm. And while DLSS 3 had its fair share of ghosting and issues early on, those are also ironed out by and large as the AI has improved.
$599 is a lot of money for what is effectively a 1440p card, though, and while it might be able to leverage frame generation to punch above its weight class today, that might not hold true as games get more and more graphically intense. Every card we tested provided incredibly playable framerates at ultra settings in our games, making them all good options if you don’t need the latest and greatest, which muddles things even further if you’re looking to save a few bucks.
But, with all that said, the RTX 4070 Super is still a compelling option for those who want a great quality 1440p card that leverages all the latest technologies to power their favorite games. This is a card that, when running advanced technologies like Path Tracing and Ray Reconstruction - both things that are really only playable on Nvidia’s hardware - the RTX 4070 Super shines. Over 110fps average when Path Tracing at 1080p, 89fps average at 1440p on Cyberpunk 2077 - that is nothing to scoff at, no matter the price point.
Given the price point, the RTX 4070 Super is a good option if you’re looking for a stellar 1440p performer. It’s by and large better than its closest AMD rival, the RX 7800 XT, even with less VRAM, and it’s a true generational upgrade over its 30-series cousins. If you’ve been holding onto an older GPU for a while now, the RTX 4070 Super does merit consideration as an upgrade path, one that you’ll hopefully be able to hang onto for a while.
