Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070: Specs, performance & price speculation

Nvidia’s RTX 4070 might be released on April 13 2023, with a potential price of $749.99 following an expected announcement at GTC by Nvidia.

The RTX 4070 is one of the most hotly anticipated graphics cards right now, and there’s a lot to talk about, from price, to its release date and specifications. Luckily, we’ve pored over all the rumors and leaks so you don’t have to scour the internet looking for information.

The GPU will likely be released in mid-April 2023, with an announcement at Nvidia’s upcoming GTC conference. Recent leaks also suggest that the card could be priced at $749.99.

In extremely early benchmarks, the RTX 4070 went head-to-head with the RTX 3090 Ti. However, it’s likely that the model tested here was in fact not a 4070, but an RTX 4070 Ti, which is running on the same chip as what we presume the 4070 will.

Before the official announcement of the 40-series GPUs, Nvidia was seemingly paralyzed over which SKU to turn into the base RTX 4070 model. However, it appears that the weaker variant will be finalized as the RTX 4070, with the stronger model turning into the RTX 4080 12GB. However, further leaks have shown that the RTX 4070 has been cut down further, making us more than a little bit worried about the state of the GPU as a whole.

RTX 4070 release date leaks

Nvidia

The RTX 4070 will allegedly be released on April 13 2023. This comes following a leak by hongxing2020, who states that the RTX 4070 will be officially released near the middle of the month. With a date allegedly set, the GPU should be hitting shelves very soon. It would mark around four months after the launch of the RTX 4070 Ti, its bigger, better sibling, launching at an eye-watering price.

We expect that the GPU will be announced alongside an RTX 4060 Ti at this year’s GTC event. Team Green CEO Jensen Huang is expected to take the stage to talk about AI. Though, we’re overdue an announcement of new graphics cards, too. The keynote will take place on March 21, 2023, starting at 4PM CET. Since previous GeForce cards have been announced at the event, we expect that this one will, too.

Insider Greymon55, also previously stated that we could see the card launch in 2023.

Our initial estimations pegged the GPU for release slightly earlier, according to Kopite7Kimi. However, as per a recent video from Moore’s Law is Dead and the latest information from Greymon55, we could be seeing the cards released later, starting with the RTX 4090.

Chinese suppliers reportedly received the first RTX 40-series chips around August 2022. However, this report does not state what chips the suppliers will be shipped, and therefore we cannot say with certainty that the AD104, which the RTX 4070 is going to be based on, is included in that particular crop.

We expect that the RTX 4070 will be arriving at suppliers slightly later, as it’s likely that only the RTX 4090 will be arriving, to begin with. This is also due to an oversupply of current-generation cards, which have just received a price cut.

Nvidia RTX 4070 price speculation

The latest leaks suggest that the RTX 4070 will be priced at $749.99. This information comes courtesy of Moore’s Law is Dead, which sources AIB partners, and has independently verified the integrity of the leaks. This will be $50 higher than our initial estimate of $699,

This is much higher than many would have hoped for the GPU to debut, which could be incredibly disappointing for some folks looking for their next mid-range graphics card, which usually offers a good price-to-performance ratio.

Our estimate was based on Nvidia’s previous pricing structure for the RTX 3070, which launched at $499. However, factors like a rise in materials costs in addition to inflation could cause this baseline MSRP to rise significantly, especially if it possesses a large jump in performance.

Considering that the current-generation Nvidia GPUs are pretty expensive, we also expect that the RTX 4070 will be equally pricey. This is a shame, but it’s the current trend for Nvidia’s cards this time around.

It makes sense to us that Nvidia would want to make the RTX 4070 to fill the gap that the RTX 3080 leaves, but with extra trimmings like DLSS 3 and more.

Nvidia RTX 4070 specifications leaks

The higher-specced AD104 SKU has now turned into the RTX 4070 Ti. This means that the further cut-down AD104 will now be formalized as the RTX 4070. The RTX 4070 has shifted anticipated specifications more times than we can count, though recent leaks point to a markedly weaker GPU than once anticipated.

It’s worth noting that these specifications are not confirmed, though there are multiple rumors that corroborate the fact that these are indeed near-final specifications of the RTX 4070. It’s likely to be one of the most popular graphics cards in the Lovelace stack, so be sure to keep your eyes on it whenever it may release. Though, it is disappointing to see that it is markedly less powerful than we originally imagined that it would be.

The RTX 4070 is expected to be a powerful graphics card, we hope to see it perform about as well as an RTX 3080, however, that remains to be seen. Leaks point toward the RTX 4070 being powered on the AD104 chip, which is the second step down from the full-fat AD102 wafer. However, we’re expecting that the chip will still deliver excellent gaming performance at 1440p and some 4K esports titles

The original RTX 4070 ended up being a 4070 Ti

What we originally thought was the RTX 4070, turned out to be an RTX 4070 Ti. This could be due to Nvidia wanting to make slightly more money from the naming schemes of the graphics cards, but it’s incredibly disappointing to see specifications shift from what we anticipated back in August per Kopite7Kimi’s leaks.

Kopite7Kimi highlighted that the power consumption of the RTX 4070 Ti was lower than originally anticipated, this means that we have slashed the original 300w estimation down slightly, and you can now expect to have that GPU running at 250W.

These August RTX 4070 specifications leaks showed that the card was receiving a slight spec bump compared to earlier leaks, we’re now seeing additional CUDA cores and VRAM available on the card, which should help it in terms of raster and ray-traced performance.

Luckily, being a slightly cut-down chip, you won’t have to rush off to buy a new power supply, at least, we don’t think. Because the higher-end chips run much faster and demand much more power, there is a good chance that if you have a 750W power supply, or above, you’ll be just fine.

With regards to performance, early reports from Moore’s Law is Dead suggested that the RTX 4070 could approach RTX 3090 speeds, but we remain skeptical about this assertion. It was made a good while ago, and since then numerous plans could have changed, and we saw a minor decrease in the reported specifications.

However, Moore’s Law is Dead also reports that Ray Tracing performance is once again significantly improved, potentially making the technology even more accessible to gamers.

We’d say to expect RTX 3080-like performance from the RTX 4070, as it’s the simplest apples-to-apples generational shift that you can expect without going into making some pretty wild lofty claims. We’ll wait for the official specifications, first.

RTX 4070 rumored benchmarks

With the revised specifications on the RTX 4070, it might manage to achieve a score of 10,000 in Time Spy Extreme. This puts the card in direct running against the RTX 3080 Ti, meaning that pure performance will appear to be strong, but we’ll still hold out for official specifications to make up our measure

Earlier leaks suggested the RTX 4070 will manage to achieve a Time Spy Extreme score of 10,000. Its predecessor, the RTX 3070 only managed to achieve around 7,000. This represents around a 35% jump in performance, which is no small feat, and puts the RTX 4070 in direct comparison with the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 Ti. If we were to bet, it’d land somewhere in the middle.

This is looking extremely promising for the RTX 4070, as it will be a much more attainable and mainstream card than the likes of the RTX 4080, or even the RTX 4090. There’s very little doubt that this will be the best price-to-performance option for the upcoming cards.

How much VRAM is the RTX 4070 expected to have?

Right now according to the latest leaks, the RTX 4070 will have 12GB of GDDR6X. This should be more than enough for the GPU to manage to achieve good framerates in demanding titles at 1440p. We’re fairly certain that the RTX 4070’s specifications will not change this close to release, however, nothing is confirmed as of yet.

Why is the RTX 4070 rumored to be power-hungry?

According to the latest leaks, the RTX 4070 will manage to have a 250W TDP. This is slightly higher than the RTX 3070’s 220W TDP. Though, you will be getting yourself a much faster card.

We know that Nvidia is pushing power with Lovelace to potentially increase clock speeds, which will in turn power the higher core counts. The 40-series may still be attempting to get the edge on power past AMD, so are looking to boost power to the systems for an overall performance boost to keep their current power crown.

Though, we wouldn’t say that the RTX 4070 will be particularly inefficient. It will be using the same 12VHPWR connector that we’ve seen in other RTX 40-series GPUs, which is a shame, since there have been quite a number of issues regarding user error with it.

What’s going on with the RTX 4070?

It appears though the initial specifications of the RTX 4070 were simply too powerful for the MSRP that Nvidia was targeting. This caused some internal concern, and then was turned into a 4080 12GB model, which was then cancelled, and what we assume has turned into the RTX 4070 Ti. Then, the revised specifications of the RTX 4070 were cut down further, according to recent leaks.

The RTX 4070 is set to be on a brand-new platform, which Nvidia has reportedly paid TSMC $10 million to book. However recent developments have shown that Nvidia will be facing weaker demand, and wishes to cut orders for the new 4000-series cards, according to Digitimes.

These details are all subject to change, however, so be sure to take all of this with a pinch of salt.

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