"RTX 5070. 4090 Performance at $549."

In an ideal situation for Nvidia, Jensen Huang's quote from his opening keynote at CES 2025 would make for an eye-catching headline and nothing more. It would have come with an asterisk, of course, since this statement was made with the card's AI capabilities in mind, but that would be the end of it. Instead, Nvidia's launch of the RTX 50-series of cards has been a sequence of bad things happening one right after the other. There are accusations of a paper launch due to very low stock, there's a huge rise in prices from board partners and retailers that go way above the expected MSRP, and there's a performance lift that isn't much higher than what was seen in previous generations and a few black screen issues after some driver updates. There are also faulty 16-pin power connectors and cards with missing ROPs in addition to a mixed critical reception and apathetic consumer reaction. The RTX 5070 is closing out the series' launch period in a less than favorable environment, and the company has to hope that this will finally be the card that excites the masses about the series.

First things first, the MSRP is still planned to be $549 for the base Founders Edition model of the card, with board partners expected to come in a little higher than that. Unlike with the 5070 Ti, we have no early indication of what the real prices will be, as retailers don't have listings for any of these cards at the time of this writing. Unless some miracle happens, however, everyone knows that the price is going to reach more ludicrous levels, and you can already see this with the RTX 4070 line of cards, which has reached prices going over the $1,000 mark.

That pricing is important, since AMD recently announced the prices for its cards. The Radeon RX 9070 XT is coming in with an MSRP of $599, while the RX 5070 is coming in with an MSRP of $549. The performance of both of those cards is unknown at this time, but the prediction is that they'll still fall behind the GeForce cards in frame generation and perhaps ray tracing, while possibly matching Nvidia's offering with upscaling and rasterized performance. If AMD does the impossible and has plenty of cards in stock while also keeping the prices at a relatively sane level, there's a good chance of the RTX 5070 being in real trouble from the get-go.

Taking a look at the specs of the RTX 5070, it isn't clear where this card is supposed to be positioned when compared to its predecessors. The 12GB of 192-bit VRAM places the card behind the 4070 Ti Super, which is 16GB running with a 256-bit bus but in line with all of the other 4070 cards, but it has the faster GDDR7 type of VRAM instead of GDDR6X. The card has 80 ROPs like the 4070 Super and 4070 Ti, but this card has a smaller shader count. The RT cores are barely above that of the regular 4070, but the wattage matches that of the 4070 Ti and Ti Super. It's a mashup of several different 4070 models at this rate.

If you've read our previous reviews on the other 50-series RTX cards, you know that there are two main features that Nvidia is touting specifically for games with these cards. The first is DLSS 4, which promises to be a significant upgrade over every other version of the AI technology to date. The main concept is still the same, where the technology has the game run at a lower internal resolution and then uses the card's tensor cores to upscale the image so it looks like a good facsimile of the target resolution. This time, the focus is on image clarity, so ghost images are eliminated and finer details like chain link fences, thin foliage, and power lines look clear and smooth instead of jagged or noisy. For the most part, this works quite nicely at both 4K and 1440p, so it can act as a great screen sharpener compared to those native resolutions. Small movements on the screen don't produce odd-looking images, and the shimmer associated with fine details is reduced to the point where you have to lean into the screen to see if something's amiss. There are still some instances where shimmering and noise can be seen, but you'll have to look closely and hunt for those anomalies.

The second thing is multi-frame generation. DLSS 3 used AI to generate an extra frame of visual data to make games look smoother. DLSS 4 goes the extra step by letting you create up to three more frames of AI-generated screen data to create what is perceived as a higher frame rate experience. This creates extra latency in games, and while Reflex 2 is supposed to mitigate that, the feature isn't out yet. The amount of latency can be determined by the game's base frame rate at that upscaled resolution, and the fear is that the lower you go down the card stack, the latency penalty will increase.

While that fear didn't manifest with either the RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 cards, it really shows up with the RTX 5070. Take something as heavy as Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with path tracing and every setting turned up to the maximum, and the frame rate is low enough to be unplayable. Turn on DLSS and 4X multiframe generation, and it isn't enough to smooth out the experience. Frame rates are still abysmally low, and the game feels sluggish even if you can increase the frame rate to the mid-20s. This isn't the magic combination that suddenly transforms the higher mid-range card into a top-tier contender. On the flipside, even though using multiframe generation for online multiplayer games is a bad idea, the technology works well enough to make Marvel Rivals look smooth and play fine — provided you're using a controller and aren't sensitive to latency.

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 24H2, and the Nvidia press driver is version 572.50. Testing is split between 1440p and 4K resolutions, but the list of titles tested has been reduced due to time constraints. Unless noted, all of the graphical settings were placed at their maximum individual levels instead of relying on presets, and DLSS upscaling was always set to Quality or Ultra Quality. Tests were also conducted using the game's built-in benchmarks, and the RTX 5070 was pitted against the 4070 Ti Super. 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

As always, we start the benchmark portion of the review with the 3DMark suite of synthetic benchmarks, and things start off rather strangely. In Fire Strike, the 5070 scores 41611, which is 1674 points higher than the 4070 Ti Super. Fire Strike Extreme sees the 5070 score a little over a 100 points less than the 4070 Ti Super, and the gap remains the same with Fire Strike Ultra. Time Spy has the 5070 scoring almost 1000 points less than the 4070 Ti Super, and the story is similar with Time Spy Extreme, as the 5070 hits 9535 points. Port Royale gives the card a score of 13939, Speed Way has it scoring 5769, and Steel Nomad gives the card a score of 4968.

Red Dead Redemption II

Red Dead Redemption II is the oldest game in our benchmarks, but it is still considered heavy enough to be a good benchmarking title, at least until Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced arrives in a few weeks. Similar to 3DMark, we're seeing some varying results with the RTX 5070. At 1440p, the 5070 reaches an average of 90fps, which is higher than the 88fps produced by the 4070 Ti Super but still lies within the margin of error. That gap widens when DLSS is turned on, as the 5070 scores 105fps, eight frames higher than the 4070 Ti Super. At 4K, the situation is reversed, as the 5070 scores an average of 56fps and an average of 68fps with DLSS on, slightly lower than what the 4070 Ti Super produces at this resolution.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered

With Horizon Zero Dawn rebuilt using the same engine as Horizon Forbidden West, performing a benchmark in the Remastered version should provide a good idea for how both games will perform on this card. At 1440p, the 5070 scores a 107fps average, which grows a bit to 115fps with DLSS on and 132fps when frame generation is activated. That's a 21.7% difference at native resolutions and with DLSS but a whopping 44% difference with frame generation on. The differences are similar at 4K with the 5070 scoring 64fps at native resolutions, 83fps with DLSS, and 96fps with frame generation on.

Final Fantasy XIV Online: Dawntrail

The benchmark goes through parts of the MMO in a cinematic fashion, and the only knock against it is the fact that you can't turn off either FSR or DLSS. Unlike with the first two benchmarks on the list, Dawntrail brings results that are in line with expectations. The 5070 scored an average of 139fps at 1440p and a 78fps average at 4K. Respectively, that's a 12.1% and a 9.7% differential against the RTX 4070 Ti Super.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

Frontiers of Pandora isn't the newest iteration of the Snowdrop engine, but it is still valuable as a title that always runs ray tracing and relies on FSR for frame generation. It is also a weird title in that it actually shows some degradation when using DLSS. At 1440p, the 5070 scores a 72fps average, and that drops to 70fps with DLSS on before jumping back up to 111fps with FSR3 and frame generation on. At 4K, the 5070 puts out reasonable performance numbers with a 43fps average natively, 41fps with DLSS on, and 71fps with FSR3 and frame generation on.

Black Myth: Wukong

Wukong is heavy to the point where you can't max out everything and run at the native 4K resolution without some sort of resolution scaling. Unlike many other games, this title has no presets; it prefers to set a good number of its graphical options with percentages. Luckily, those percentages provide some hints on naming conventions. At 1440p with ray tracing on and off, the 5070 produces averages that aren't that far off from what the 4070 Ti Super can produce. It's only when you activate frame generation that the differential gap starts to widen a bit. The story is the same at 4K, but you wouldn't want to use this card for playing this game at that resolution unless you never activate ray tracing and start doing some heavy graphical settings tweaks.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 happens to be a title with just about every graphical option available. It also remains one of the more taxing games when it comes to the various forms of ray tracing. The different configurations are plentiful enough that it is the perfect title to test every graphical feature of a video card.

With the game barely functional at 4K, testing was restricted to 1440p instead. With ray tracing off, we see the same strangeness that we saw with Red Dead Redemption II in that the performance on the 5070 is higher than what's seen with the 4070 Ti Super. That lasts until you use frame generation, as you'll need 3X and 4X on the 5070 to beat the averages produced by the 4070 Ti Super. Turn on ray tracing, and the differences fall back to normal, with the 5070 scoring lower than the 4070 Ti Super. The same goes for path tracing, but path tracing is heavy enough that frame generation is necessary for playable frame rates unless you start turning down some settings.

Monster Hunter Wilds

Though Monster Hunter Wilds just came out last week, we're still using the benchmark tool publicly released a few weeks ago. Unlike with Horizon Zero Dawn, the drops aren't that drastic. At 1440p, the 5070 scores a 72fps average with 88fps once DLSS is on and 114fps with frame generation on. Turn on ray tracing, and those respective numbers drop a bit to 65fps, 80fps, and 101fps on average. At 4K, the game runs decently if you were looking for a console-like experience, but going for 4K with ray tracing, DLSS and frame generation won't go well. There are huge chunks of the benchmark where you can see the game struggling despite the averages in the chart telling you otherwise.

It's tough to judge the GeForce RTX 5070 at this time. It's a solid 1440p card that falls below the 4070 Ti Super in varying degrees, and it can flirt with 4K if you're willing to be realistic about settings and aren't afraid to use upscaling. DLSS 4 is excellent most of the time, while multiframe generation only becomes impressive if the game already has a good frame rate. The small amount of VRAM available is slightly disappointing because it feels like 12GB is the base minimum for a growing segment of modern titles. However, other factors are casting a cloud over this card's launch. From the impending release of new AMD cards to the potential lack of stock and even crazier high prices, there's no way that one can safely recommend the GeForce RTX 5070 right now unless you're a die-hard believer of Nvidia cards and are still rocking a video card that's a few generations old. It might hurt in the short term, but it's best to wait for all of the reviews of this card and the duo of Radeon cards to drop before you consider a purchase.

Score: 6.5/10