Graphics cards have become a near-yearly thing these days. Back in the day, wow I am old, if you had a GeForce 4 you were the man, for a long time! With the technology changing and improving at such a rate, Nvidia and AMD are pushing out a new generation of GPUs each year.
The latest offering from Nvidia, the 40 series, has received a good response, albeit rather pricey, at least we are not experiencing the scalping that we did during the 30 series launch and first year of that generation. I was fortunate enough to be able to replace my old faithful RTX2080 with a beefy RTX3080. When the ASUS TUF RTX4070Ti arrived on my desk I was expecting a performance that mirrors the RTX 3080 closely, boy was I wrong…
Design and appearance
The ASUS TUF RTX4070Ti certainly is not a small card, my RTX3080 which is also a TUF version. It is a 2.5-slot card, but the ASUS TUF RTX4070Ti is easily a 3-slot card. ASUS states on their website that it is, in fact, a 3.25-slot design. Dimensions are 298 x 138 x 62 and weighs 1342g, which certainly is not small.
From general use, I would think that this extra thickness is to give some more space for cooling as the ASUS TUF RTX4070Ti certainly seems to run cooler than its older brother. But with all that size comes weight, and in recent years, GPU sag has become a real thing, fortunately, ASUS supplies a handy support stand that can be adjusted to support your pride and joy from putting too much strain on your PCIe slot.
Turning our attention to the connector side of the card. Dual HDMI 2.1 outputs and three DP 1.4a outputs. Although HDMI 2.1 is better than DP 1.4a both these will serve you well and I doubt you will ever need more than 5 displays connected at the same time.
Power to the board is provided by a single 16-pin connector, albeit a supplied 16-pin that splits into two 8-pins if you are not on the newer style ATX 3.0 PSU yet. As a nice touch, ASUS has printed some coordinates on the side of the shroud of the ASUS TUF RTX4070Ti, I would hazard a guess in saying those coordinates should take you to the ASUS headquarters in Taiwan.
Performance
Nvidia made it very clear that the RTX4070 Ti is aimed at 1440p. 1440p is becoming more and more obtainable but it is nothing to be scoffed at, you need some serious power to keep a constant framerate at that resolution. Fortunately, Nvidia was right, the RTX4070 Ti is perfect for 1440p. During the real-world game testing that I did, I never saw frames dip below 60 at the highest settings for each of the titles that were tested.
The natural competitors for the RTX4070 Ti are its big brother, the RTX4080, and from team red, the 7900XT and 7900 XTX, as well as its predecessor, the RTX3070 Ti just to see how big the generational gap truly is. With these cards, we can do a good performance for price comparison. The three titles that we compared are The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and Spiderman Miles Morales.
Although the RTX4080 still beats its baby brother overall by around 11% but at a much higher price point. The 7900 XTX is more impressive with a 22% performance bump but at a much closer price. The 7900 XT is, on paper, the AMD equivalent of the RTX4070 Ti but for a little bit more money.
During The Witcher 3, we saw that the game has clearly been optimized for Nvidia and the RTX4070 Ti beat out its red rival, the 7900 XT, by 20%. Comparing the RTX4070 Ti to its previous generation counterpart, the RTX3070 Ti, we see rather big performance jumps that range from 30-40% depending on the title. But it is still worth noting that the Ampere architecture is still more than capable of handling 1440p around the 60 frames region, which for many, is enough and should make you think twice about making the change to either 1440p or 40 series cards if you don’t NEED high framerates. It is also noteworthy to mention that with the introduction of DLSS 3 the RTX4070 Ti sees a significant bump from its older generation competitors as well as the RDNA 3 offerings. 57% between the RDNA 3 cards and more than 120% on the previous generation card.
Temperatures and Power consumption
My very first impression of the RTX4070 Ti was how noticeably quieter and cooler it ran compared to my Ampere architecture RTX3080. This is most likely due to the much bigger heatsink and better airflow throughout the card. During my time with the card, the temperature difference between it and the RTX3080 was astounding. A nearly constant 15-20’C cooler on every game played, even when starting to tweak settings like Ray Tracing in Warzone, just to see when the temperatures would start to rise, it was always stuck below 65.
Nvidia rates the RTX4070 Ti to have a max power draw of 285W which is comfortably lower than the 320W of the RTX3080. This means the RTX4070 Ti outperforms the RTX3080 and uses less power while doing it.
Final Verdict
The RTX4070 Ti is a very appealing GPU, but it’s never that easy. With a very steep retail price, one can’t help but look at what you can get in the previous generation. Considering the prices of RTX3080 and RTX3080 Ti dropping they could become very attractive for similar performance on many occasions but at a lower price point. If you can stretch your budget and find an RTX3090 you might be better off doing that.
This certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look at the RTX4070 Ti, it simply means if you are already on a higher-end 30 series card, you won’t be seeing that massive performance bump you might need to warrant a new GPU. For anyone on a 20 series card and lower, the RTX4070 Ti will blow your hair back and more.
DLSS 3 does make a difference and does take the sting out of the price, but don’t be fooled by DLSS 3. If you do some research and understand how frame generation works you will see it comes down to frames in exchange for latency. Don’t be fooled by Nvidia’s marketing of DLSS.
The RTX4070 Ti is at an RTX3090 level of performance, for cheaper, but two years after the RTX3090 launched, but still arguably the best GPU at that price point…
Where to buy, albeit the RTX4070 Ti Super, check out here, thanks Wootware
Special thanks to ASUS South Africa for the review item
