1. Price and release date
2. Overview
3. Specs
4. Design
5. Performance
6. The competition
7. Should you buy it?
NVIDIA's RTX 40 series is 18 months old at this point, and the brand rolled out a mid-cycle refresh at the start of the year to offer up some more options for gamers looking to upgrade. The one thing that stood out with the new launches is the value; in my GeForce RTX 4070 Super review, I dubbed the card to be the best value in NVIDIA's portfolio at the moment.
I used the Founders Edition of the 4070 Super at launch, and then switched over to Colorful's offering, the awkwardly-named RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V. Thankfully, the only thing that's bad about the card is the name, and it is a strong choice if you're looking to go the AIC route and want something with better cooling.
The card is identical to Colorful's RTX 4080 NB EX-V I reviewed last year, and that means you get a bold design that looks pretty cool, along with terrific cooling potential and the same great underlying hardware as other 4070 Super offerings. So if you're interested in picking up a new GPU, this is what you need to know about Colorful's 4070 Super.
Colorful RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V: Price and release date
Colorful unveiled the RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V in mid-January, and the card is now available in all markets where the brand has a presence. Colorful is a big player in Asia, and its cards don't usually make their way outside the region.
The Founders Edition of the RTX 4070 Super is available for $599, and a lot of custom cards — including the ASUS Dual variant — are sold at the same price, and there's enough inventory of these cards that you don't have to shell out a premium. A few overclocked options are going for as much as $649, and Colorful's variant retails at $629. That said, regional pricing varies quite a bit, and I saw the card going up to as high as $850 in markets like the Philippines.
Colorful RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V: Overview
Colorful isn't deviating from the path with its RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V, and the card uses the same foundation as the reference model. As such, you get 7,168 shader cores, 12GB of VRAM over a 192-bit bus, leading to memory bandwidth of 504GB/s. The base frequency is 1,980MHz, with boost going up to 2,475MHz.
Coming to ports, there's the usual trio of DisplayPort 1.4 ports at the back, along with a solitary HDMI 2.1 port. Like the rest of the RTX 40 series, the card has AV1 encode/decode, and it is built on the same 5nm node at TSMC. As the card uses a slightly higher TDP of 220W, it switches to 12VHPWR instead of the standard 8-pin connector that was on the regular RTX 4070.
The 12VHPWR connector has its share of issues, but it does a decent job in this scenario, and you get a converter in the box that lets you use it with 8-pin cables.
Colorful RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V: Specs
Colorful RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V: Design
The RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V is positioned in Colorful's Battle-Ax series, and as such it has a distinctive grey-and-red color scheme that looks great. The design isn't as evocative as Zotac's high-end cards that have smooth curves, but it has a lot of character of its own, and I like the red accents throughout.
What isn't so great is the size; Colorful's card is roughly the same size as its RTX 4080 variant in the same series, and that means you'll need a large case to accommodate the three-slot design. Most other 4070 Super cards use a two-slot design, and if you have a smaller case, you'll want to take a look at those instead.
But the oversized design has its advantages, and you get three 90mm coolers that do a fantastic job managing the thermals on the card. There's also a massive heatsink underneath the fans, and the back of the card has a cutout that allows air to vent out with relative ease.
The card is heavy as it has an aluminum backplate, and you don't get any flex in the design. I like the fact that Colorful didn't go overboard with RGB lighting, and while the brand's logo lights up, that's about as far as it goes. The lighting is customizable via the iGame Center utility, and overall, the card looks clean and has terrific cooling.
Colorful RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V: Performance
Colorful's RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V uses the same frequencies as the Founders Edition, and that's a bit of a letdown as an overclocked edition would have made a decent difference. That said, Colorful's card has standout efficiency figures, and it is frugal in daily use. It consumes 12W while idling, going up to 18W while playing videos, and a maximum of 216W under load.
It's the performance that makes the card such a good choice; it is up to 16% faster than the regular RTX 4070, and that is a big deal considering it is a mid-cycle refresh. It uses the same Lovelace architecture as the rest of the RTX 40 series, and that means you get sizeable generational gains — it is able to measure up to the RTX 3090 at 1080p and most 1440p games, even coming close to challenging the RTX 3090 Ti in select titles.
Colorful's RTX 4070 Super holds up relatively well at 4K, and you can get 60fps in most games, even recent titles. And if you're interested in the latest AAA games, you will need to turn down the settings to make the most out of the card. What's noticeable is the sheer gulf to the standard version of the card, and considering the 4070 Super costs just $50 more, it is a no-brainer.
Even in 2024, 1440p continues to be the sweet spot when it comes to gaming, and the 4070 Super delivers its best performance in this area. The card is able to hit over 100fps in most titles, making it a great option if you have a high-refresh QHD gaming monitor. You get scores that are as high as 17% over the standard model, and that is huge. What's particularly interesting is that the card is more than twice as fast as the RTX 3070.
But the biggest differentiator of the card is with ray tracing. NVIDIA has a sizeable lead in this category, and the card does a great job with RT effects enabled at 1440p. Where things get truly interesting is when you enable DLSS 3; the Frame Generation feature does a stellar job delivering double the framerates without any noticeable decrease in quality, and it makes a huge difference. While AMD has a similar feature, it isn't available on as many titles, and NVIDIA is only going to extend that lead.
Colorful RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V: The competition
The only downside to the RTX 4070 Super is that it has 12GB of video memory; NVIDIA should have added 16GB here. While 12GB is still decent enough for most titles, we are getting to a point where you'll need 16GB to be future-proof, and if you're in that boat, you will need to consider the 4070 Ti Super. It costs $200 more, but it has the requisite amount of memory, and you get decent gains.
Colorful RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V: Should you buy it?
You should buy this if:
✅ You need a GPU for 1440p gaming.
✅ You want all of NVIDIA's latest features.
✅ You need a card that has a good value.
✅ You need good efficiency figures.
You shouldn't buy this if:
❌ You need 16GB of VRAM.
❌You have a smaller case.
Colorful's RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V isn't too different to the Founders Edition variant, and that's a given considering it isn't an overclocked model. That said, the unique design combined with better cooling potential gives the card an edge, and it is a decent option — provided you can get it close to its retail price.
The card has massive gains over the standard model, and you're paying 10% more to get 17% better performance — this is the reason why it is one of the best gaming GPUs in NVIDIA's portfolio. I also like Colorful's design, and while the card is huge, it has excellent thermal management, and doesn't get too loud even under load.
Obviously, the choice to buy Colorful's offering is limited to the regions where the card is officially available, but with the brand having a sizeable presence in most Asian markets, it isn't difficult to get a hold of the 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V. If you need a 4070 Super with a unique design and terrific cooling potential, you'll want to give Colorful's offering a try.
The RTX 4070 Super NB EX 12GB-V combines a bold styling with terrific cooling, and you get sizeable gains over the standard variant.
