NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition Video Card Review

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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition Video Card

Introduction

The wait is over, NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4070 is here, and we’ve got a full review of the Founders Edition. Moving down the GeForce RTX 40 Series lineup, the GeForce RTX 4070 slots in underneath the RTX 4070 Ti, and thus a lower price point making the RTX 40 Series more affordable for all.

NVIDIA launched its GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs based on the Ada Lovelace architecture in October of 2022 with the introduction of the top-end GeForce RTX 4090 which dominated performance in gaming across the board. The GeForce RTX 4090 launched with an MSRP of $1,599. The next video card NVIDIA launched was the GeForce RTX 4080, which was in November of 2022 with an MSRP of $1,199. The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti was the next video card from NVIDIA which finally broke below the $1,000 barrier. The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti was launched this year in January 2023 at $799.99.

This pricing has still been quite high for gamers, and gamers have been waiting for more affordable GPUs. The new GeForce RTX 4070 is the first of those more affordable GPUs, and it is finally launching.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Specs

Firstly, the pricing, the GeForce RTX 4070 will have an MSRP of $599. This compares in price to the previous generation GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, which was also $599. The GeForce RTX 3070 was $499. Therefore, the proper price and performance comparison to the last generation is actually the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is based on the Ada Lovelace architecture and is the AD104 die. For comparison, the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is also based on AD104, so that means the RTX 4070 is a cut-down 4070 Ti, which makes sense in this context.

The GeForce RTX 4070 has 4 Graphics Processing Clusters, 23 Texture Processing Clusters, 46 Streaming Multiprocessors, and 5,888 CUDA Cores. It has 184 4th Generation Tensor Cores and 46 3rd Generation RT Cores as well as 184 Texture Units and 64 ROPs. The base clock is 1920MHz and the boost clock will be 2475MHz on the Founders Edition. Memory consists of 12GB of GDDR6X running at 21GHz on a 192-bit memory bus providing 504GB/s of memory bandwidth. For comparison, the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and 3070 had 8GB of VRAM, therefore 4070 does provide an upgrade over the previous generation.

The power demand also needs to be talked about, because Ada Lovelace has proven to be very efficient, and the GeForce RTX 4070 is no exception. The TGP of the GeForce RTX 4070 is just 200W. For comparison the 4070 Ti is 285W. Compared to the previous generation, the RTX 3070 Ti was 290W and the RTX 3070 was 220W. Therefore, the RTX 4070 should use less power than the 3070, but perform faster than the 3070 Ti, that’s a huge power improvement gen-to-gen. NVIDIA claims the average gaming power is around 186W on the RTX 4070, and other tasks like video playback or idle power should also be lower than the last generation GPUs.

NVIDIA is positioning the GeForce RTX 4070 at $599 as a very fast 1440p Ray Traced Gaming video card at 100+ FPS. Now, to reach those levels of performance, technologies like DLSS and DLSS 3 especially, have to be used, but it is possible. Even without DLSS 3 or DLSS, the GeForce RTX 4070’s focus should be at 1440p and it should allow a good gaming experience in native resolutions.

Naturally, the GeForce RTX 4070 is chock-full of Ada Lovelace features. Notably, you’ll get DLSS 3 Frame Generation support. For certain types of games, it can improve the experience and give you the opportunity to match the refresh rate on very high refresh rate monitors. It also allows you to play game settings or games which may be just a little too slow for you otherwise. Of course you also still have DLSS native support, so upscaling is there to give you a great experience without Frame Generation. Another notable new feature is AV1 encode and decode support, so the video card works for more than just gaming but reaches into content creation. There’s also a huge list of other NVIDIA features RTX 4070 will provide like NVIDIA Studio, NVIDIA Broadcast, NVIDIA Omniverse, NVIDIA Canvas, NVIDIA Reflex, and more.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition Pictures

Gamers will rejoice knowing that the GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition is NOT as large as its bigger brothers. It has broken the trend and is actually in a very small and slim size profile. This means it should fit in many builds, including small form factor very easily. The GeForce RTX 4070 measures 9.5″ inches in length, 3.75″ inches in height, and 1.5″ inches thick, or 2-slots. For comparison, at 9.5″ long the GeForce RTX 4070 is the same length as the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition and smaller than the RTX 3070 Ti which is 10.5″ inches long.

First, to the design, it has the GeForce RTX double-sided fan design we are used to, and it looks really nice. It uses a die-cast aluminum body and dual axial fans. The Founders Edition is built using an 8-layer PCB and a 6-phase power supply with two dedicated power phases supplying power for the memory.

The cooling has been improved from the previous generation RTX 3070 GPUs. At the heart of the cooling system is a new copper pedestal. This removes heat from the GPU to an aluminum base plus aluminum finstack. Inside the cooler are four heat pipes that sit directly over the core area and have a rectangular-shaped profile that improves cooling. The fans are also more powerful with a 20% improvement in airflow compared to the RTX 3070 Ti.

For the GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition, it will use the 12VHPWR connector, and there is an adapter that splits out to two required 8-pin power connectors. AIB cards, however, may or may not use this connector, they could opt for 8-pin connectors, so it will vary by model. For display output, you get 3x DisplayPort and 1 HDMI.

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REVIEW OVERVIEW

Gaming Performance
9
Power Efficiency
10
Build and Cooling
10
Price Value
7

SUMMARY

We reviewed the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition video card, offering a more affordable RTX 40 Series GPU geared for 1440p high framerate gaming. Its gaming performance was very fast, surpassing the previous generation at the same price point by a good margin. It does so with great power efficiency, offering a cool running well built video card with exceptional savings on power demands. It offers more features than the previous generation, but the price point is elevated in this category compared to the previous generation, raising the price segment for this tier of GPU.
Brent Justicehttps://www.thefpsreview.com
Former managing editor of GPUs at HardOCP for 18 years, Brent Justice has been reviewing computer components since the late 90s, educated in the art and method of the computer hardware review, he brings experience, knowledge, and hands-on testing with a gamer-oriented and hardware enthusiast perspective. You can follow him on Twitter - @Brent_Justice You can sub to his YouTube channel - Justice Gaming https://www.youtube.com/c/JusticeGamingChannel You can check out his computer builds on KIT - @BrentJustice https://kit.co/BrentJustice

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We reviewed the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition video card, offering a more affordable RTX 40 Series GPU geared for 1440p high framerate gaming. Its gaming performance was very fast, surpassing the previous generation at the same price point by a good margin. It does so with great power efficiency, offering a cool running well built video card with exceptional savings on power demands. It offers more features than the previous generation, but the price point is elevated in this category compared to the previous generation, raising the price segment for this tier of GPU.NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition Video Card Review