Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super: two minute review
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super is a difficult card to rate, despite it being without a doubt one of the best graphics card releases of this generation.
For a US MSRP of $799.99, you're essentially getting a pared-down Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080, including 16GB GDDR6X VRAM, a wider 256-bit memory bus so you can actually play the best PC games at 4K (with tweaks), with noticeably less power draw. On the flipside, you're also getting a card that is only marginally better than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, despite its seriously upgraded specs.
As far as the design goes, unfortunately, there's no Founders Edition for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super, so you don't get the sleek-as-hell all-black metallic finish of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super. Instead, you'll have about a half-dozen or so board partners like Asus, MSI, and others making these GPUs. Which card you get will determine a lot from overclock settings to cooling and RGB lighting effects.
The Asus Tuf Gaming model I reviewed is identical to the Asus Tuf Gaming RTX 4070 Ti I also reviewed, and it's a massive chunky card for what it's worth. Given the power requirements and the need to dissipate a lot of heat, you can fully expect that whatever RTX 4070 Ti Super card you pick up, it's going to be a triple-slot monster.
In terms of performance, there's no getting around the fact that this is essentially the Nvidia RTX 4080 we should have gotten a year ago (it's built off the RTX 4080's AD103 GPU, rather than the RTX 4070 Ti's AD104), and for that, it is one of the best 4K graphics card models to hit the market this year. It's gaming performance is superb pretty much across the board, with the only area it struggles to be playable is where every other graphics card struggles other than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, and that's native ray tracing at 4K.
Even there, however, this card manages to average about 32fps (though its average minimum/1% fps dips below the 24fps that registers as fluid motion, so yeah, it can sometimes be a bit of a slideshow).
Unfortunately, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is also right there further complicating the picture for this card. Outside of creative workloads that rely on CUDA (like Blender or V-Ray), the RX 7900 XT goes toe-to-toe with the RTX 4070 Ti Super in terms of gaming performance, though the RTX 4070 Ti Super will generally handle ray tracing better.
Surprisingly though, AMD's FSR seems to be at the point where it is battling Nvidia DLSS to a draw by and large, with the only real difference being whether you have ray tracing turned up to its highest setting or not. Given the recent price cut for the RX 7900 XT down to $749.99 in the US, anyone looking at the RTX 4070 Ti Super will have to ask themselves some hard questions.
This is especially true given the big looming release set to drop at the end of January: the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super. Though 25% more expensive at MSRP than the RTX 4070 Ti Super, given the high cost of entry for this card, it suffers from a similar problem as the original RTX 4080 had; it's too close in price to a clearly better card, and so ultimately, you'll almost certainly be better off buying the RTX 4080 Super in a week's time. Which is a shame, because the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super is a fantastic card that really should have hit the scene a whole lot sooner than it is.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super: Price & availability
- How much is it? MSRP listed at $799.99 (about £640, AU$1,120)
- When is it out? It was released on January 24, 2024
- Where can you get it? You can buy it in the US, UK, and Australia
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super goes on sale January 24, 2024 for a listed MSRP of $799.99 in the US, which is about £640 in the UK and AU$1,120 in Australia.
This is the same MSRP as the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti is replaces, which is definitely a positive given the generally terrible pricing of Nvidia best graphics cards this generation.
As stated above though, AMD isn't sitting on its laurels, and it's dropped the price of its competing RX 7900 XT graphics card to counter this release. And, given, their relative levels of performance, it's a smart move as it makes the RX 7900 XT a better value as a result, at least enough to be competitive in the absence of any RX 7050 XT-series releases thus far.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super: Specs & features
- 16GB VRAM
- Wider memory bus
- Slightly faster clock speed
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super: Performance
- Marginally better than RTX 4070 Ti
- Loses to RX 7900 XT in gaming performance
- Extra VRAM makes 4K gaming much smoother
Where it counts, the RTX 4070 Ti Super is a fantastic graphics card for work and play, though it's definitely more of a refresh of the RTX 4070 Ti, which is unfortunate since it really should have shown better performance given its specs.
In terms of synthetic performance, the RTX 4070 Ti Super averages about 4.5% better performance than the RTX 4070 Ti, and about 13% slower performance than the RTX 4080, which more or less matching the RX 7900 XT.
On this latter point, much like other AMD vs Nvidia comparisons, in pure rasterization, AMD comes out on top with Nvidia winning out in ray tracing workloads.
For creative performance, the RTX 4070 Ti Super greatly outperforms the RX 7900 XT, but falls well short of where the RTX 4080 lands. If you're looking for the best creative graphics card, then, the RTX 4080 Super is definitely going to be one to look out for considering it's only going to retail for $200 more and should be much more powerful.
In gaming performance, no card really comes close to the RTX 4080, but the RTX 4070 Ti Super more or less ties the RTX 4070 Ti and the RX 7900 XT.
In 1440p gaming performance, the additional 4GB VRAM in the RX 7900 XT starts to become a factor to the RTX 4070 Ti's detriment, but overall, the RTX 4070 Ti Super comes up about 3.5% behind the RX 7900 XT, and roughly tied with the RTX 4070 Ti.
At 4K, the additional 4GB VRAM in the RTX 4070 Ti Super vs the RTX 4070 Ti starts to really have an impact, giving the RTX 4070 Ti Super about 6.5% better performance on average but a nealy 10% higher fps floor at 4K than the RTX 4070 Ti.
The RTX 4070 Ti Super also runs about even with the RX 7900 XT as well.
Wrapping things up, a couple of other points I definitely want to hit on, namely that the biggest thing holding this card back in a lot of ways is its TGP. With the same TGP as the RTX 4070 Ti, you get the sense that this card leaves something on the table in terms of performance given its specs. On the plus side though, it does manage to squeeze some extra performance from the same amount of power, which is a good thing. If you want to try and overclock this card to tap into its full potential, have at it.
It's not going to run particularly hot (unless you overclock the hell out of it) and it's gaming performance is exceptional, even into 4K, where you can expect to average about 70 fps at 4K when not using ray tracing, or you can turn ray tracing on and flip DLSS to balanced or performance for the same amount of frames or better.
It's ultimate value proposition isn't as good as the RX 7900 XT's, but it's better than the RTX 4070 Ti's, and since AIBs are likely to be switching themselves over to the Super rather than keep putting out non-Super RTX 4070 Ti's, this card is effectively giving you something extra for no additional cost.
The ultimate value tell though will be how the Nvidia RTX 4080 Super performs, and it's unfortunately the case that the success of this card depends very much on how well Nvidia's last major graphics card of this generation is received.
Should you buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super
Buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super if…
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How I tested the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super
This is the system we used to test the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti Super:
CPU: Intel Core i9-14900K
CPU Cooler: MSI MAG Coreliquid E360 AIO Cooler
RAM: 32GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6000
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z790 Tomahawk WiFi
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 4TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Thermaltake PF3 1050W ATX 3.0
Case: Praxis Wetbench
I spent about a week working with the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti Super, running our standard battery of tests on it and similar cards in its price category.
I ran it through a number of real world use cases where it will be used, primarily gaming and content creation.
I've been reviewing computer hardware, including graphics cards, for years now, and I am intimately familiar with the kind of performance you should expect from a graphics card at this price point. I bring that knowledge to bear on my graphics card reviews and make sure that every graphics card I compare to the card under review is retested using the most up-to-date drivers to get the best relevant data for comparison, even (as in this case) it means I only test the most relevant competing cards to provide the reader with the most important comparative data when they are considering making their next graphics card purchase.
First reviewed in January 2024
