Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Review: Nvidia strikes back
The midrange GPU to beat
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti has been out for about a month, and is still the best GPU in its price range, a feat that its bigger sibling, the RTX 4080 definitely can’t claim. Nvidia wins here by pitching the RTX 4070 Ti as the ultimate 1440p graphics card, and given that most of the best gaming monitors are in that resolution these days, it’s a smart move from team green.
At the target resolution of 1440p, I found that the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti performance consistently hits high frame rates, even breaking above the 120 fps range in some of the most demanding games around right now. Mix in DLSS, and this GPU is perfect for the best PC games and is a great addition to the best gaming PCs.
The elephant in the room, though, is the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, which even a month after release still gives the RTX 4070 Ti the fight of its life. The two expensive graphics cards consistently trade blows, making picking the right one a question of which games you play the most, rather than which one is necessarily better.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is here, following the somewhat disappointing Nvidia RTX 4080. But instead of pitching itself as a beefed up 4K monster, it wants to be the best GPU for 1440p gaming. It’s a lofty goal, too, seeing as that’s the fastest growing resolution for the best gaming monitors.
But even for folks with high-refresh displays at 1440p, the RTX 4070 Ti can hit high frame rates, as it did for pretty much any game I threw at it. Even in games with heavy ray tracing effects like Cyberpunk 2077, the RTX 4070 Ti easily managed triple-digit frame rates – albeit with DLSS enabled.
The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the elephant in the room, though. Both graphics cards cost $799 and consistently trade blows in the best PC games. As always, picking the right GPU to build the best gaming PC comes down to which games you play.
Originally reviewed: January 4, 2023
Updated: February 6, 2023
Where to buy the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti
Score: 4 out of 5
Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti specs
🧠 12GB GDDR6X VRAM
⚡285W Board Power limit (Total graphics power)
✨ 7,680 CUDA cores
💡 60 RT Cores (for ray tracing)
🏃♂️ 2,610 MHz Boost Clock
🔌 3 x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI 2.1
How I tested the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti
To test the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, I ran it through a wide range of games and standalone benchmarks to see where it stands up against other graphics cards of its generation. I tested it side by side with the RTX 4080, RTX 2080 Super, Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT.
I picked the Nvidia RTX 2080 Super as the older comparison card because Nvidia claims owners of that card will have a great experience with the RTX 4070 Ti. And, well, the RTX 2080 Super launched at around the same price point as the RTX 4070 Ti has launched today, so it makes sense to me.
My testing system for every benchmark was:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
RAM: 32GB DDR5 @ 6,000MHz
SSD: 1 TB PNY PCIe 4.0
Motherboard: X670E Aorus Master
Case: Cooler Master H500P Mesh
Power Supply: 1000W
Why trust my Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti review?
I’ve been reviewing the best GPUs for years now and before that I’d been building gaming PCs for years. Testing graphics cards is a hobby of mine, so reviewing them is basically second nature. I’m also not interested in the GPU brand wars; my sole goal is to recommend users the best GPU for their specific needs.
I also test in my own personal PC, which means I’ll see when graphics cards act up. That means I catch a lot of driver issues that may otherwise be missed.
If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment here and I’ll make sure I’ll get back to you as soon as possible!
1440p just got better 📺
When it comes to the best gaming monitors, 1440p is king right now. Not only do you get excellent visual fidelity, but it’s becoming easier and easier to play all the best games at a high frame rate. And that’s exactly what the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti is trying to do.
With this graphics card, you can easily run any game under the sun fully maxed out with ray tracing at 1440p, and you can do so at an extremely high frame rate – especially with DLSS enabled. The RTX 4070 Ti can absolutely make the transition to 4K if needed, but honestly it really shines at 1440p.
Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti release date
📅 Available January 5, 2023
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is available January 5 2023. There is no staggered release date this time around, so every version of the card will be available at that date.
Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti price
😁 Starts at $799
😅 Goes up to $1,049
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti starts at $799, but will go up in price from there depending on the version of the graphics card you go with. At the time of writing, I only have prices for Asus versions of the GPU, but you can get the TUF Gaming model for $799.
The overclocked ASUS TUF RTX 4070 Ti that was sent to me for review will set you back $849, but my recommendation would be to go for the base model if you see it available.
Obviously there are more blinged out versions of the GPU available, with the ROG Strix RTX 4070 Ti Overclocked running for $1,049 – nearly the price of the RTX 4080. You will get a more visually stunning version of the GPU for that price, but really at that price the RTX 4080 is a much better buy.
If you can find an RTX 4070 Ti around the base price of $799, though, it’s a great little graphics card. It goes head-to-head with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, which is the exact same price. Plus, you get Nvidia-only features like DLSS. As always, take a look at the games you play or want to play, and if they have a lot of Nvidia tech built into them, the RTX 4070 Ti is probably the better deal for the money.
Either way, though, it’s extremely close.
Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti software and features
Raw gaming performance is only part of the story when it comes to graphics cards these days. Features like DLSS now rule the GPU world, and the RTX 4070 Ti comes with the full suite of Nvidia software at its disposal.
DLSS and Nvidia Reflex are the stars of the show, with the former being a way for the GPU to upscale PC games from a lower resolution to your native resolution. This is huge in hard-to-run games, as it boosts frame rates significantly without seriously impacting visual quality.
But with this generation of GPUs, Nvidia has iterated on DLSS again with DLSS 3.0. Not only does it improve on the core algorithm that made DLSS so good to begin with, but the third version includes AI frame generation, improving framerates even further.
This tech uses the Tensor cores to create entirely new frames by analyzing the frames that came before in order to boost performance without relying as heavily on the CPU. This virtually eliminates CPU bottlenecks, which is a huge deal in graphics cards this powerful.
However, if you really want to take advantage of DLSS 3.0, you kind of need to enable Nvidia Reflex. This isn’t new with this generation of graphics cards, but it will reduce latency in your games. It’s essential, because when you use DLSS 3.0’s frame generation it does introduce a bit of latency to the gameplay experience. It’s nothing I’ve noticed while playing games, however.
Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti benchmarks and performance
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is an incredibly strong graphics card at 1440p. At this resolution, the graphics card is able to keep up with any PC game on the market and do so at above 100 fps a vast majority of the time.
Even in incredibly taxing ray tracing workloads, the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti is easily able to stay around 60 fps, even without ray tracing enabled. Take Cyberpunk 2077, for instance. At 1440p at the Ray Tracing Ultra preset with DLSS disabled, you’re going to get around 50 fps. And in Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition without DLSS and on the Extreme Preset, performance sits around 73 fps.
The RTX 4070 Ti also trades blows with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, but it’s not a one-sided fight. Team Green’s new graphics card beats the 7900 XT in games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Watch Dogs Legion, but it falls short in Far Cry 6 and Metro Exodus.
Still, with the two graphics cards at the same price, going blow for blow is expected.
Where the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti surprises me is how it compares with the RTX 4080. There are some games where the RTX 4080 takes a huge lead. For instance, in Watch Dogs Legion without DLSS, the RTX 4080 takes a 22% performance lead. That’s not a huge gap when you consider the RTX 4080 costs nearly 34% more.
It means that the RTX 4070 Ti is a much better value than the RTX 4080, and given that the RTX 4090 is way more expensive, the RTX 4070 Ti is the de facto graphics card to recommend at 1440p. Anyone playing games at this 1440p is going to have a great time with the RTX 4070 Ti, all without buyer’s remorse, too.
And with its 16GB frame buffer, this GPU should have incredibly solid gaming performance for years, even as game worlds continue to get more complicated.
Should I buy the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti?
Yes, if…
✅ You have an older graphics card
✅ You play PC games at 1440p
✅ You need DLSS and Nvidia Reflex
No, if…
❌ You’re looking for 1080p gaming
❌ You already have a 30-series Nvidia card
❌ $799 is too high a price for you