The RTX 4070 Ti is the third graphics card in the Ada Lovelace generation. Its initial performance is on par with the RTX 3090, but the memory is twice less. It also has lower power consumption. With DLSS 3 it is possible to get a more productive picture.
Contents:
- Advantages and disadvantages
- Video card features
- Nvidia and AMD graphics card specifications
- Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti design with Asus TUF Gaming OC
- Overclocking the Asus RTX 4070 Ti
- Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti test setup
- Gaming performance in 4K
- 1440p gaming performance
- 1080p gaming performance
- Where better to buy an RTX 4070 Ti graphics card?
Advantages and disadvantages
The disadvantages are most often a meaningless 16-pin power connector. DLSS 3 also increases latency. On the plus side:
- users get a good ray tracing device;
- Improved efficiency in operation;
- Compared to the previous generation, there is a big jump in performance
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Video card features
Nvidia offers the 4070 Ti graphics card, which can be considered the most secretive in decades. It was originally introduced as RTX 4080 12GB, but later a new name appeared. Can we call the 4070 Ti the most optimal graphics card? This is a very complex question, which we will discuss in detail in this article and in our tests. Already now we can say that the novelty is faster than most graphics cards of the 30 series. It is intended to replace RTX 3080 with 12 GB of video memory.
We are very familiar with the architecture Ada Lovelace. Now we want to understand how the performance will drop to the AD104 GPU with fewer shaders, less cache and shared memory, a shorter memory interface, etc. Initial leaks made it clear that the model will be 20-25% slower than the 4080, which allows us to equate it to the 3090.
Nvidia and AMD graphics card specifications
Nvidia is doing its best to increase the performance range for the 40 series graphics cards. In this process, you can draw an analogy with the RTX 30. From the fastest to the slowest device in the 20 series, the performance has dropped by a factor of 2. At the same time, the 3090 Ti is 3 times more powerful than the 3050 according to test results. At the moment we do not know what the 4050 will be, but we already see twice as less performance of the model in question compared to more expensive RTX 4090.
All metrics are not perfectly scalable, but the 4090 uses 2x more cores, shaders, etc. Also bandwidth and memory capacity are 2 times higher, but only 50% increase in L2 cache. At workloads the graphics card shows twice as much performance, while consuming 2 times more power.
As for AMD RX 7900 series graphics cards, they outperform the 4070 Ti in teraflops by 30%, with 59% more bandwidth and 67% more memory available to users. When comparing workload and performance metrics with ray tracing, Nvidia is ahead of the competition. In terms of rasterization, AMD leads the way.
There are not many games currently available where ray tracing is needed. Many projects simply use this option to slightly improve the picture quality. Ray tracing is of great importance in projects Cyberpunk 2077 and Control.
All video cards of the Ada Lovelace generation differ in some additional options. AMD does not have an analogue of the Tensor core, so the Al-accelerators run the same blocks as the video card shaders. During FP16 loads, the 4070 Ti card has 3 times higher throughput than the RX 7900 XT.
We can mention the presence of OFA (updated optical stream gas pedal). It can work with DLSS 3 to solve different tasks with video. Right now 50 game projects with DLSS 3 are under development and only 15 are available. All of these games have Reflex and DLSS 2 support in parallel.
Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti design with Asus TUF Gaming OC
Asus RTX 4070 Ti TUF Gaming OC is not a small device, but it is smaller than the older models. The dimensions of the 4070 Ti are 298x138x62 mm, and the weight is 1,342 g. Users get a full 3-slot card. The PCI interface width is approximately 21 mm, but the Asus manual specifies a 3.25 slot design. The remaining value of 0.25 is due to the use of fans, which are designed to provide good ventilation. For such a video card users should choose a large case.
Asus offers users a special insert that provides support for the device. This helps protect the card from sagging.
The cooling system is based on 3 fans. This approach is used in most high-end devices. The fans have a diameter of 89 mm and a built-in bezel. This design is found on powerful Asus video cards, so the video card should work quietly and not overheat.
The graphics card has three DisplayPort 1.4a interfaces and two HDMI 2.1 interfaces. We connected it to a Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 monitor (240Hz, 4K) using different interfaces and got excellent performance results. There is no visual loss in the DSC.
In tests we noticed that the entire 40 series video card functions on a single 16-pin connector. If the 4090 potentially uses more than 500W during overclocking, this connection can be explained. With a TWR of 285W, we don't see the point of using a 16-pin adapter. So users will have to look for a new ATX 3.0 power supply. It will be interesting if the 4050 also comes out with a 16-pin adapter.
If you disassemble the video card, you can see only 6 GDDR6X chips, each using 2 GB. They are easily cooled by the available fans.
Overclocking Asus RTX 4070 Ti
In the above screenshots we offer two types of test settings: standard and overclocked. We performed overclocking by trial and error, the devices behaved differently. Our goal was to stabilize the settings during the stress tests. Sometimes there were glitches when we turned on the game package.
We started this process with the maximum power limitation of about 110%. This value can vary depending on the video card model. As a result, the GPU was overclocked to 175 MHz, and the memory was overclocked to 1600 MHz. At 1800 MHz the system hung when turning on FurMark. In these tests we set the fan speed for 30°C - 30%, for 80°C - 100%. In practice we didn't come close to 80°C.
Similar to the other devices of the 40 series, there is no possibility to increase the voltage of the graphics card here. The only way out is to modify the voltage, which became a limiting factor. The device has a clock speed over 3 GHz in some games, although the FurMark monitor showed lower values.
Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti test setup
For testing we used Intel Core i9-13900K processor. It is installed in a Z790 DDR5 board from MSI. G.Skill memory shows good performance and we used Sabrent 4TB as SSD.
For the test setup on AMD we took the Ryzen 9 7950X CPU, ASRock X670E Taichi board. Here we used G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RAM.
Both test units operate on a 1.5 kW ATX 3.0 power supply with 80 Plus Platinum or Titanium.
All tests were performed on a Windows 11 system. We worked with the standard 9 games without ray tracing. We also tested 6 games with ray tracing. The tests are available for 1080p, 1440p, 4K formats with ultra settings on a Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 32 inch monitor. If necessary, we performed activation of FreeSync and G-Sync options.
4K gaming performance
4070 Ti is a great solution for 4K gaming. Higher FPS are available at lower settings. Most of the tested games do not support DLSS, so we did not use this option.
In our graphics card ranking the 4070 Ti is in the middle of the table. The manufacturer claimed a 1.8x performance increase compared to the 3090 Ti, without DLSS 3 we see a lower figure. The graphics card showed only slightly more performance compared to the 3080 Ti. We were able to make up the difference by overclocking.
Without DLSS 3 the performance of this graphics card is only 8% better than the 3080 12GB. There are variations in different games. The 4070 Ti outperformed the 3090 Ti only in Forza Horizon 5. In other games it conceded values in the range of 9-19%.
Compared to the 3080 Ti, our test card was 6% faster on average. At the same time, it is 61% faster than the 3070 Ti.
If we make a comparison with AMD devices, the 7900 XT has a 10% advantage. The 4070 Ti won in only 2 games. In most games we see a loss in double digits. With DLSS 2 mode we managed to increase the performance.
In more demanding ray tracing tests, the situation for the 4070 Ti did not change significantly. At the same time, the AMD video cards decreased their positions. Unlike 3090 Ti, the video card in question functioned 6% slower without DLSS 3. The 4070 Ti was 11% faster than the 3080 Ti and twice as fast as the 3070 Ti. The gap from 7900 XT was 24%, from 7900 XTX - 24%.
Gaming performance in 1440p
We saw that in 4K games the 4070 Ti copes well with the load. Now let's look at the results in 1440p. We started to see the bottlenecks of the 7950X and 13900K CPU, but the final FPS was about 120, while for 4K it was 69.
The video card under consideration is equal to 3090 Ti in terms of results, and the processor from Intel showed its advantages in comparison with 7950X. In comparison with 4K the performance of the video card under consideration significantly improves, which is due to the cache memory and 192-bit interface.
The 4070 Ti was able to outperform the 3080 Ti by 12% and the 3070 Ti by 44%. This is due to the fact that we did not work with TWW3, which significantly reduces the ability of 8GB cards. Compared to the 7900 XT, our device was slower by 6%, but the 6950 XT is ahead by 6%.
In complex games the graphics card limits came out again. The 3090 Ti outperformed the 4070 Ti by 4% and the 4080 was 26% more powerful. At the same time the 4070 Ti outperformed the 3080 Ti, 3080 and 3070 Ti by 9%, 21% and 62% respectively. This graphics card without DLSS 2 and 3 is 21% and 5% faster than 7900XT and 7900 HTX respectively. With DLSS activated, the power of the 4070 Ti increased by 64%.
We ran the test with pure DXR performance using 3DMark at 1440p. The maximum number of rays was at 20 per pixel. In our ranking the 4070 Ti took the 3rd position, showing a 12% better result than the 3090 Ti. Such a difference is not significant. With less bandwidth and memory the 4070 Ti is able to outperform previous generations of graphics cards.
1080p gaming performance
In PC games in 1080p with ultra settings the 4070 Ti shows excellent results. The 4090 graphics card is only 18% ahead of it. On the whole, all graphics cards in our tables showed good results in 1080p games. This also applies to the ray tracing mode.
The total performance is 94 frames per second. With rasterization in games the FPS was 144. With ray tracing this value was 60 frames per second.
Where better to buy an RTX 4070 Ti graphics card
It is recommended to buy video cards only from reliable stores where they provide a long warranty on it. Now you can buy RTX 4070 Ti from Artline. The catalog offers not only graphics cards, but also other components for building a modern and powerful PC.