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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super

Platform(s): PC
Genre: Hardware
Developer: NVIDIA
Release Date: Jan. 24, 2024

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Hardware Review - 'Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super'

by Cody Medellin on Jan. 23, 2024 @ 6:00 a.m. PST

The GeForce RTX 4070 Super is the latest iteration of NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture-based GPUs delivers up to 52 shader TFLOPS, 121 RT TFLOPS and 836 AI TOPS to supercharge gaming and creating — and provide the power to develop new entertainment worlds and experiences.

At CES 2024, Nvidia announced the release of three new video cards in the RTX 4000 family, all of which are releasing in the month of January. The first of these cards was the RTX 4070 Super, a card that managed to impress as it came very close to matching the performance of the more powerful RTX 4070 Ti but with an MSRP that's $200 less than the latter. The next card in the lineup is the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super, which is both the successor and replacement to the RTX 4070 Ti, which is no longer being made. With an MSRP of $799, the question is whether the performance difference can make it a viable choice for those looking to get something more powerful than the RTX 4070 Super.

As with the RTX 4070 Ti from last year, Nvidia has let its board partners handle the production of the card instead of making a Founder's Edition itself. The card we received is the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti Super, and while the card isn't factory overclocked, it is outfitted with things that are expected from something that performs with more than stock clocks. It is supposed to be a two-slot card but occupies one more slot due to its large three-fan cooler. The shroud is made of metal with a nice backplate covering the top. It has the same physical dimensions as the RTX 4090 Founder's Edition, and while it weighs less, the card still comes with a stand to prevent it from sagging and tearing off the PCI-E connector from the motherboard. It can be accused of being over-engineered, but the card runs quietly no matter what you throw at it.


The spec sheet for the 4070 Ti Super shows off some notable improvements from the card that it is replacing. All of the cores and units and clusters get a slight bump from the 4070 Ti. The memory gets an increase to 16GB of GDDR6X VRAM with a higher memory interface and bandwidth. It also uses the same chip as the original RTX 4080. However, memory clocks, boost clocks, and memory data rate are all the same. The good news is that the required system power supply is still 700 watts.

The PC we're using for these tests is a Ryzen 7 7700X equipped with 32GB of G.Skill Flare X5 Series DDR5-6000 RAM in a dual channel configuration. The motherboard is the MSI B650-P Pro. We're using Windows 11 version 23H2, and the Nvidia press driver is version 551.15. Since we already know that previous 4070 series cards did 1080p with ease, we focused our testing on 1440p and 4K resolutions. Unless noted, all of the graphical settings were placed at their maximum level, and DLSS upscaling was always set to Quality with frame generation on when available. As always, we recommend using this review in conjunction with others that may have a wider selection of cards to test with to get a clearer picture about where this card stands overall.

3DMark

We start off the benchmarking run with the 3DMark suite of synthetic benchmarks. Fire Strike is the only test that we will take 1080p measurements for, and the 4070 Ti Super gets a score of 42724. At 1440p, it gets 26435 and 14209 at 4K. With Time Spy, the 4070 Ti Super gets a score of 21297 at 1440p and 10364 at 4K.


The DirectX Ray Tracing test takes place in the Port Royale environment but completely renders the scene using a number of ray-traced samples in 1440p. Unlike the other major benchmark tests in the suite, this one measures things in the standard frames per second. With two samples used, the 4070 Ti Super hits 374.4fps. Six samples bring down the frame rate to 138.89fps. Twelve samples see the card score 71.26fps, while going to a whopping 20 samples sees the RTX 4070 Ti Super score 43.27fps.


The final synthetic test is Port Royale DLSS, which measures performance at different resolutions using various forms of DLSS and once again measures everything in fps. At native 1440p, the 4070 Ti Super scores 71.05fps. DLSS 2 increases that to 116.03fps, while DLSS 3 with frame generation boosts that further to 137.52fps. At 4K, native resolution hits 33.13fps, while DLSS 2 bumps that to 60.91fps and DLSS 3 helps the card hit 85.17fps.


In all situations, you see that the 4070 Ti Super offers an improvement over the other cards but not by a significant amount. The 4070 Ti is only a touch slower than the 4070 Ti Super, and the 4070 Super is only a bit slower than the 4070 Ti. The gains are there, but those expecting bigger improvements from the various boosts and a processor change are going to be a little disappointed in these results. These are just synthetic benchmarks, but they set the table for what to expect from the following game tests.

Forspoken

The first actual game on the benchmark list is Forspoken. Due to the nature of the benchmark, the 1% lows can't be read, so all we can get are the averages. With ray tracing off, the 4070 Ti Super can hit 111fps at 1440p and 137fps with DLSS on. Turn on ray tracing at that resolution, and the card can hit 88fps while jumping to 116fps when using DLSS. At 4K, the 4070 Ti Super can hit an average of 68fps while going to 94fps with DLSS on. Ray tracing drops things to 51fps at this resolution, but it regains some ground with 77fps with DLSS on. The improvements are decent over the 4070 Ti, but this card can reach over 60fps in 4K with max settings, so ray tracing appears to be a hindrance.


The Callisto Protocol

The Callisto Protocol is the one game on the list that doesn't have DLSS, but FSR2 works well for performance, since both technologies are a match for each other in this department. With ray tracing off at 1440p, the card can reach a 118fps average with a 46fps low. FSR2 boosts that to 140fps with a 59fps low. Turn on ray tracing at this resolution, and the frame rate hits 88fps with a 53fps low and 95fps with a 71fps low with FRS2 on. Jump to 4K with ray tracing off, and the 4070 Ti Super hits 71fps with a 25fps low and 96fps with a 38fps low. Ray tracing drops the frame rate to 51fps with a 20fps low, but things bounce back with FRS2 as the card gets 80fps with a 43fps low. As before, gains over the 4070 Ti are slight but still welcome.


Forza Motorsport (2023)

Forza Motorsport is good but not as tightened up as the Xbox Series X version. Just like in the 4070 Super review, DLSS isn't tested, since it doesn't seem to work correctly. If you can ignore the anomaly at 4K with the 4070 Ti, then the performance of all three cards is in line with what was seen so far in other titles. At 1440p, the 4070 Ti Super hit a 118fps average with a 92fps low with ray tracing off and 80fps with a 67fps low with ray tracing on. At 4K, the card still achieves good frame rates, as it hits 90fps with a 66fps low with ray tracing off but maintains a playable frame rate with ray tracing on, as it shows a 64fps average with a 51fps low.


Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5 is well optimized, and while ray tracing isn't a big deal compared to its more serious sibling, it does have functioning DLSS. The 4070 Ti Super at 1440p achieves an average of 127fps with a 114fps low with ray tracing off and leaps to 193fps with a 125fps low with DLSS on. Turn on ray tracing, and the drop isn't that big, as it hits 117fps with a 107fps low and 186fps with a 120fps low with DLSS on. At 4K, the 4070 Ti Super gets a bigger lead over the rest of the 4070 card family compared to other games so far, with differences in the average finally reaching the double digits. With ray tracing off, the 4070 Ti Super hits 83fps with a 71fps low and 124fps with a 90fps low with DLSS on. The drop with ray tracing on is also pretty small, as the card hits 78fps with a 68fps low while DLSS gives it 120fps with a 87fps low.


Red Dead Redemption II

Rockstar's game is perhaps the oldest one on the list, but it still can give some cards a good workout. It also happens to be one game we have using Vulkan instead of DirectX. As with most of the games tested before, the 4070 Ti Super results show only a slight performance improvement over its predecessors. At 1440p, the 4070 Ti Super gets 89fps with a 38fps low with a bump to 101fps and a 37fps low with DLSS on. At 4K, the 4070 Ti Super hits 63fps with a 39fps low, which moves to 78fps with a 37fps low when DLSS is on.


Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

The latest version of the Snowdrop engine does a great job of showing off tons of foliage and other elements in an open world, but it comes at a cost. The DLSS option is present, but for some reason, our tests didn't show that it actually works, so our tests won't include them. It also happens to be a game that requires some real horsepower to get it running at max settings at a playable frame rate. At 1440p, the 4070 Ti Super hits 100fps with an 80fps low, which is impressive until you realize that it matches the 4070 Ti's performance in this game. The 4070 Ti Super fares a little better at this resolution with ray tracing on, as it hits 82fps on average with a 64fps low, a few frames better than what the 4070 Ti could accomplish. At 4K, we see that the 4070 Ti Super can't quite hit that magical 60fps mark like it could in other games; its average is 55fps with a 46fps low. Turn on ray tracing, and it closely matches the performance of the 4070 Ti, as the 4070 Ti Super hits 41fps with a low of 33fps.


Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023)

The benchmark for this game is more focused on multiplayer, so ray tracing doesn't become a factor in the benchmark. The card won't disappoint when using it for this game. At 1440p, the average framerate hits 132fps with a 109fps low while DLSS pushes it to 199fps with a 121fps low. At 4K, the 4070 Ti Super hits 90fps with a 72fps low while DLSS gives it 117fps with a 82fps low.


Returnal

Returnal stutters quite frequently during the benchmark, hence the reason for the very low 1% lows all around, but the game still puts up some good numbers all around. At 1440p with ray tracing off, the 4070 Ti Super hits an average of 111fps with a 32fps low and that jumps to 178fps with a 42fps low when DLSS is on. Turn on ray tracing at 1440p, and the frame rate only drops to 93fps with a 33fps low but improves to a 168fps average with a 41fps low with DLSS on. At 4K, the card still maintains playable frame rates with ray tracing off, as it hits 67fps on average with a 23fps low, improving to 109fps with a 31fps low with DLSS on. Turn on ray tracing, and the frame rate hits 52fps on average with a 19fps low while getting 100fps with a 30fps low once DLSS is on. As stated before, the numbers are nice, but the gains over the other 4070 cards aren't as significant as expected.


Assassin's Creed Mirage

The latest in Ubisoft's long-running series actually performs quite well on both cards in all resolutions without needing DLSS, but the tests show some big discrepancies with the 1% lows from time to time. The 4070 Ti Super at 1440p hits a 133fps average with a 33fps low, but turning on DLSS improves that to 153fps with a 37fps low. At 4K, the frame rates are more than playable, as the average hits 84fps with a 56fps low and improves to 114fps with a 62fps low when DLSS is on.


Cyberpunk 2077

Rounding up the benchmark list is Cyberpunk 2077, a game that has quickly become the go-to title for Nvidia's RTX 4000 series of cards due to its bevy of ray tracing and upscaling features. One thing to note is that we turned on the path tracing option when performing ray tracing tests, so the game becomes a much heavier workload. With that technology on, 1440p is barely playable, as the 4070 Ti Super hits an average of 28fps with a 20fps low. Playable levels are only achieved when you activate DLSS, as frame rates hit 83fps with a 37fps low. With numbers that low, running the game at 4K with ray tracing on is out of the question, even with DLSS on. Turn off ray tracing, and things go back to normal. At 1440p, the 4070 Ti Super hit an average of 98fps with a 71fps low and 113fps with a 57fps low with DLSS on. At 4K, the 4070 Ti Super actually matches the 4070 Ti with 42fps and a 31fps low. Turn on DLSS, and the 4070 Ti Super gets better with 70fps on average and 34fps for the low, making it perform 10 frames better than the 4070 Ti.


It is difficult to recommend the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super to many people. The card is actually fairly good, as most games can go 60fps at 4K with max settings — if you aren't including ray tracing. The stat upgrades are good on paper, while the 16GB of GDDR6X VRAM on board gives it some breathing room later down the line when the bigger games rely more heavily on video RAM. The small boost over the 4070 Ti is nice, but since the 4070 Ti is being discontinued, we're already starting to see some price drops that make it a little more tempting, especially since the performance delta isn't too substantial. The real problem is the 4070 Super, which punches above its weight to deliver good 4K non-ray-tracing performance with a few settings turned down while saving $200 in the process. As a result, the 4070 Ti Super might need a combination of a price drop and the upcoming 4080 Super underperforming to be considered a contender for your cash.

Score: 7.0/10


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