NVIDIA has unleashed yet another addition to their GeForce RTX 40 series lineup, the RTX 4070 Super. Announced at CES 2024, NVIDIA unveiled three new Super variant additions to their 40-series lineup: RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and RTX 4070 Super. Now, with CES over, we finally have our hands on the RTX 4070 Super, and with its $599 price point, it has all the potential to be the mainstream card many people have been asking for, and if the promises are to be believed, is a major upgrade for people who have been sitting on the fence waiting to jump on the Ada Lovelace range of graphics cards.
As a refresher, the vanilla RTX 4070 launched late last year to mixed reviews. While it offered solid 1440p and entry-level 4K performance thanks to its AD104 GPU and 12GB of GDDR6X memory, many felt its $799 launch price was too high, considering it had a narrow 192-bit memory bus that could hamper performance at higher resolutions. NVIDIA attempted to address this criticism by permanently dropping the price to $599 after the holidays, but the card still left something to be desired.
Enter the RTX 4070 Super. By swapping in a more fully unlocked AD104 GPU with 7,168 CUDA cores (up from 5,888 on the RTX 4070) and upgrading to a wider 256-bit memory bus, NVIDIA has created what looks to be the ultimate 1440p gaming card. The card also sports a healthy 48MB of L2 cache to keep those cores well-fed. With a boost clock speed of 2.61 GHz, it delivers some seriously snappy performance, especially compared to the non-super variant.
| RTX 4090 | RTX 4080 | RTX 4080 SUPER | RTX 4070 TI | RTX 4070 TI SUPER | RTX 4070 | RTX 4070 SUPER | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CUDA CORES | 16,384 | 9,728 | 10,240 | 7,680 | 8,448 | 5,888 | 7,168 |
| BOOST CLOCK | 2,520 MHz | 2,505 MHz | 2,550 MHz | 2,610 MHz | 2,610 MHz | 2,475 MHz | 2,475 MHz |
| MEMORY BUS WIDTH | 384-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit |
| MEMORY CLOCK | 1,313 MHz | 1,400 MHz | 1,437 MHz | 1,313 MHz | 1,313 MHz | 1,313 MHz | 1,313 MHz |
| MEMORY SIZE | 24GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X |
| TGP | 450 W | 320 W | 320 W | 285 W | 285 W | 200 W | 220 W |
Of course, the 4070 Super retains all of the advanced features that make the Ada Lovelace architecture so enticing, like support for AV1 encoding, 4th generation Tensor Cores for AI-powered graphics, and 3rd generation RT Cores for cutting-edge ray tracing effects in supported games. This makes the card very future-proof, able to keep up as games continue leveraging these technologies.
With the card finally on our test bench at CGMagazine, I was glad to see NVIDIA has kept the RTX 4070 Super at a comparable size to the non-super alternative. While a solidly built GPU, it will not take the 2.5 spaces of the RTX 4080, so you will still have room for other cards in your PC if you so choose. The fan design feels similar to the past iterations of the RTX 40-series, but with some minor refinements that I think look fantastic. It also relies on the new 16-pin connector, so if you don’t have an ATX 3.0 power supply, you’ll need to use a two-8-pin-to-one-16-pin adapter. (See our list of the best ATX 3.0 Power Supplies for options if you wish to upgrade)
But with the card now unboxed, we slotted the GPU in our latest intel test bench to see just how it faired with the competition, as well as the non-super variant of the RTX 4070. Our test bench consists of the ASUS Maximus Z790 Dark Hero Motherboard, the latest Intel i9 14900K CPU cooled with the latest NZXT Kraken Z AIO, 32GB DDR5 RAM, and a Corsair SSD, all packed into the ASUS TUF Gaming GT502 PC Case, ensuring there is plenty of room for airflow, and there is enough performance we won’t hit any bottlenecks that could hold the testing back.
So, with everything installed, does all this extra hardware under the hood actually translate into real-world performance? The answer is a resounding yes. NVIDIA claims that the 4070 Super GPU can even keep up with their previous flagship and beat its non-super brother, and in our tests, they are not selling smoke. This is a beastly mid-range offering that delivers on its promises.
We threw our usual slate of tests at the RTX 4070 Super, and it did incredibly well, far surpassing the standard RTX 4070 in all the games at 1080P with ease, showing around a 15-20 percent increase in frames when compared to the RTX 4070, and managed to beat out the Radeon RX 7800 XT in a range of titles, and that is before we turned on any ray tracing or advanced features. Once that was thrown into the mix, the RTX 4070 Super showed some clear gains compared to comparably priced cards and well surpassed the Nvidia 30-series, even on the top end.
Moving things up to 1440p with max settings, the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super averaged around 80-100 FPS, even going well past the 120 FPS mark in esports titles. That allowed me to take full advantage of my high refresh rate monitor. Demanding AAA games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla remained highly playable as well, and once DLSS was thrown into the mix, the RTX 4070 Super really showed what the mid-range card could do, achieving results that will make it a fantastic option for people looking for an upgrade.
Cranking things up to 4K predictably resulted in some slower but playable framerates, and thanks to DLSS, games like Cyberpunk 2077 managed to achieve serviceable framerates, even with graphics settings cranked and ray tracing turned on. I would still not recommend the RTX 4070 Super for people looking for the best 4K experience possible, but with the ability to turn on DLSS and more games supporting it every week that passes, it is very viable with this card.
So, with the game testing out of the way, the RTX 4070 Super managed to show its value very quickly, beating out the standard RTX 4070 rather handily across my test suite, with particularly strong showings in ray tracing workloads. With solid results that show a 15-20 percent increase in performance, the RTX 4070 Super feels like a much more capable offering and one that feels like a much better value than when we looked at its little brother last year.
The extra performance also means non-game workloads also saw an uptick in performance, with even our synthetic benchmarks showing an increase, with 3D Mark Timespy offering up a score of 21067, and applications like Davinchi Resolve, along with PhotoShop and OBS Studio all working very well with the new card, and taking advantage of the features Ada Lovelace brings to the table.
With the features on offer, the RTX 4070 Super is an easy recommendation for any content creator looking for a GPU for video editing, streaming, or even just gaming. It supports AV1, and with the increase in performance all at the same price point as the standard RTX 4070, it is hard to deny just how much a better deal the RTX 4070 Super is over its older brother. There is a lot of power on offer here, and NVIDIA has done all the right things to ensure it is not out of reach for the average consumer or creator.
Thankfully, these improvements did not result in the RTX 4070 Super causing any major issues with heat. As I mentioned above, NVIDIA has also refreshed the underlying board design for their Founders Edition model. The darker alloy they’ve chosen gives the card a sleek, almost menacing look I’m definitely a fan of. The familiar triple-fan cooling array also makes a return to keep thermals in check. Despite the boosted specs, I never saw temperatures exceed 72°C in my full gaming and stress testing sessions, well within reasonable levels.
The power draw has seen a bit of an increase over the stock 4070, which isn’t entirely surprising. Still, at 250W for the Founders Edition, efficiency remains solid. There’s also support for NVIDIA’s Resizable BAR technology for an extra performance kick in systems that support it, something that should be turned on if you have the options for it in the Bios.
The NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition GPU requires a minimum 650W power supply and PCIe Gen 4 connectivity to achieve its full potential. So factor that into your upgrade considerations if you’re running older hardware. But considering it is the same as the non-super variant, I am truly impressed with what the RTX 4070 Super archives with the limits on power in place.
Of course, no graphics card is truly perfect, and the 4070 Super does come with a couple of compromises. Firstly, NVIDIA has stuck with the same 12GB of GDDR6X memory as the vanilla 4070. This continues to feel a bit light for a $600 GPU in 2024, where 16GB has become the new norm, even among midrange offerings. During my testing, the 12GB buffer was plenty for 1440p gaming, but I could foresee it being maxed out sooner rather than later at 4K.
“…the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition is a GPU built to last.”
Also, for anyone who remembers the price of GPUs before the pandemic or the crypto craze, there’s also no getting around the fact that $599 still represents a premium price point for this class of GPU. The performance on hand ultimately justifies the cost, but it’s tough not to think back to the $499 MSRP days when you did not need to sell your firstborn to afford the top-end graphics card for your new gaming rig.
At the end of the day, the RTX 4070 Super delivers excellent 1440p and respectable 4K muscle at a reasonable midrange price. NVIDIA has done an admirable job of filling out its RTX 4000 stack with viable options at every level. If you’re desperately clinging to an aging Pascal or Turing card, you’re in for some major graphical upgrades.
Between vastly improved rasterization and ray-tracing throughput, NVIDIA’s latest architecture, and future-proof features like AV1 encoding, the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition is a GPU built to last. As long as you’re aware of the memory limitations, I have no qualms about recommending it as the new midrange card to beat.
For PC gamers looking for a high-end 1440p or entry-level 4K card, the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super checks all the right boxes. It may not have the raw horsepower to deliver triple-digit 4K frames consistently, but 60+ FPS at maxed settings is very achievable, especially with DLSS thrown into the mix, and you’ll be well-equipped to enjoy next-generation gaming effects. If that sounds like your ideal scenario, picking up one of these GPUs will serve you well for years to come.
