techspot RTX4070 reviews out

[UltraMega]

Quote

we'll quickly note that 12GB is now what we consider to be the bare minimum - that is to say, you shouldn't purchase a graphics card with less than 12 GB VRAM when spending over $200 in a new GPU. It is our opinion that 8GB should be reserved for entry-level gaming products now, and anything less than 8 GB isn't suitable for current generation gaming.

 

Bottom line, the GeForce RTX 4070 is a good value product packing a strong feature set and excellent performance. We're happy that the RTX 4070 has turned out to be a product that we can recommend, and we expect this GPU to sell very well if they can meet the promised $600 MSRP.

 

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Review | TechSpot

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Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070 release has been highly anticipated for its potential of bringing the newer generation to a...

 

 

 

TLDR: It's a 3080 with better power consumption for $600. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by UltraMega

[pio]

Nvidia tax.....

[UltraMega]

As much as I like to bash Nvidia for their somewhat overbearing business tactics, I gotta give them credit here. DLSS3 on the 4090 is sort of an afterthought, but when you pair it with a $600 card and run path tracing at "4K" ~60fps, it does make AMD look like they're falling behind again just when it started feeling like they were close to being on even terms with the DLSS2/FSR2 race. 

 

Interesting times. I think it's like 1 out of every 8 pixels is actual rendered, and the rest is being filled in with AI. It does look a bit soft, but it seems like we've gone from caring a lot about native res to very effective upscaling in a relatively short time. I can only imagine where this kind of 'render a small amount of pixels and fill in the rest' style of doing things will hold for the future.

[pio]

7 hours ago, UltraMega said:

As much as I like to bash Nvidia for their somewhat overbearing business tactics, I gotta give them credit here. DLSS3 on the 4090 is sort of an afterthought, but when you pair it with a $600 card and run path tracing at "4K" ~60fps, it does make AMD look like they're falling behind again just when it started feeling like they were close to being on even terms with the DLSS2/FSR2 race. 

 

Interesting times. I think it's like 1 out of every 8 pixels is actual rendered, and the rest is being filled in with AI. It does look a bit soft, but it seems like we've gone from caring a lot about native res to very effective upscaling in a relatively short time. I can only imagine where this kind of 'render a small amount of pixels and fill in the rest' style of doing things will hold for the future.

Oh absolutely.  The only reason why I said Nvidia tax was because its $600, and there's many cheaper cards that outperform it.  Not to mention the die being a traditionally lower tier die size, and any other reasons why this card really shouldn't be considered $600 worth.  You're not wrong though.

Personally, I'd still rather have native resolution.  That might just be me though.  I'm willing to accept things like FSR / DLSS though in exchange for MASSIVE purdies that make me drool at my screen.  Otherwise, not really.  Like Cyberpunk, I'm happy to use FSR in that in exchange for RT (right now, on a first gen RT card).

As far as the AI aspect of it, also correct, very interesting times indeed.  It could get very interesting for video games.  Where I don't like seeing this technology at is with cameras and video recording devices (which are already doing it).  If AI is generating frames or photos in cameras, what's going to stop the AI from producing fake "photographs".  It already does this in certain phones.  Might not be producing "fake" images just yet, but what's going to stop that from happening if the AI is generating the images in your camera?

Gaming wise, I think this tool could be very useful though.  I'd like to see buttery smooth framerates, high resolution (native if possible), and lots of pretties.  This is what I pay big money for a GPU for.  If AI is involved in that, so be it.

[Sir Beregond]

$600 bought you 4k cards not that long ago. This is definitely a 1080p/1440p card, so yeah I have no positive opinions of this card aside from the performance per watt is good.

[UltraMega]

3 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

$600 bought you 4k cards not that long ago. This is definitely a 1080p/1440p card, so yeah I have no positive opinions of this card aside from the performance per watt is good.

To me it seems like all new GPUs are 4K cards to me these days. I think the 4070 can probably run just about any game without RT at 4K just fine. In a sense, Nvidia needed to push RT because without it, there wouldn't be much reason to buy an expensive card part a certain point. Once a mid-range GPU can run HQ photogrammetry assets with enough detail to really flesh out a 3D environment, the only thing to build on next is the lighting. 

Kinda makes me wonder, once we have GPUs that can run path tracing in high detail at high res well enough to just make it the standard for all games, will we even need better GPUs anymore for gaming? 

[pio]

5 hours ago, UltraMega said:

Kinda makes me wonder, once we have GPUs that can run path tracing in high detail at high res well enough to just make it the standard for all games, will we even need better GPUs anymore for gaming? 

I'm sure there will be some advancement in gaming tech that'll make it so we do need new GPU's.  Maybe GPU's won't even be GPU's anymore, who knows.  Fun stuff to think about though.   

[Sir Beregond]

18 hours ago, UltraMega said:

To me it seems like all new GPUs are 4K cards to me these days. I think the 4070 can probably run just about any game without RT at 4K just fine. In a sense, Nvidia needed to push RT because without it, there wouldn't be much reason to buy an expensive card part a certain point. Once a mid-range GPU can run HQ photogrammetry assets with enough detail to really flesh out a 3D environment, the only thing to build on next is the lighting. 

Kinda makes me wonder, once we have GPUs that can run path tracing in high detail at high res well enough to just make it the standard for all games, will we even need better GPUs anymore for gaming? 

I seriously doubt anyone serious about 4k gaming is looking at a severely cut down third tier silicon with only 12GB. The 4070 Ti already showed deficiency in performance scaling to 4k from 1440p. I've already hit a VRAM limit in 1 game at 4k with my 12GB 3080 Ti. These 4070's are not 4k cards. I am not saying you couldn't play 4k with these, but let's be real, these are at best 1440p cards. My point was that $600 not that long ago got you cards that were marketed as 4k cards. So 4k is getting more expensive, ok. But why is 1080p and 1440p also getting more expensive?

 

That issue aside, let's look at something else.

 

970 was roughly equivalent to a 780 Ti - for $329

1070 was equivalent performance to a 980 Ti / Titan X - for $379

2070 was a bit worse than a 1080 Ti - for $499

2070 Super was roughly equivalent or beat a 1080 Ti - for $499

3070 was equivalent performance to a 2080 Ti - for $499

4070 is roughly equal to, but can still lose to a 3080 (regular, not Ti) - for $599

 

So not only is the 4070 not even matching the performance characteristics of previous 70-class branded GPUs, Nvidia has the gall to also charge you $100 extra minimum, for it compared to those.

 

4070 and 4070 Ti are misbranded. 4070 Ti should be the 4070, and the 4070 is really a 4060 Ti, for $600.

 

I hope these rot on shelves.

 

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by Sir Beregond

[UltraMega]

13 minutes ago, Sir Beregond said:

I seriously doubt anyone serious about 4k gaming is looking at a severely cut down third tier silicon with only 12GB. The 4070 Ti already showed deficiency in performance scaling to 4k from 1440p. I've already hit a VRAM limit in 1 game at 4k with my 12GB 3080 Ti. These 4070's are not 4k cards. I am not saying you couldn't play 4k with these, but let's be real, these are at best 1440p cards. My point was that $600 not that long ago got you cards that were marketed as 4k cards. So 4k is getting more expensive, ok. But why is 1080p and 1440p also getting more expensive?

 

That issue aside, let's look at something else.

 

970 was roughly equivalent to a 780 Ti - for $329

1070 was equivalent performance to a 980 Ti / Titan X - for $379

2070 was a bit worse than a 1080 Ti - for $499

2070 Super was roughly equivalent or beat a 1080 Ti - for $499

3070 was equivalent performance to a 2080 Ti - for $499

4070 is roughly equal to, but can still lose to a 3080 (regular, not Ti) - for $599

 

So not only is the 4070 not even matching the performance characteristics of previous 70-class branded GPUs, Nvidia has the gall to also charge you $100 extra minimum, for it compared to those.

 

4070 and 4070 Ti are misbranded. 4070 Ti should be the 4070, and the 4070 is really a 4060 Ti, for $600.

 

I hope these rot on shelves.

 

 

I agree with what you're saying about it being a cut down and overpriced card, but when the 4090 can only do 2077 at 16 FPS without upscaling you could argue there are no 4k cards.

 

I think these days it's more RT or not than res since when RT is on, it's never really at 4k anyway, unless it's very minor RT.