The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card is a highly anticipated new GPU that should fill the mid-tier of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4000 series.
The anticipation has grown since the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 and 4090 were unveiled in September 2022 during the annual Nvidia GTC keynote. While their performance is unprecedented, so are their prices, ranging from $ 899 to $ 1,599.
Those prices may seem reasonable after the outrageous hike in GPU prices we’ve seen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting global supply chain disruptions. But they are still quite expensive and we hope that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 and other mid-range 40 series cards offer similar performance for a much more attractive price.
With that in mind, here’s what we know so far about the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070: Price speculation
We still don’t know how much Nvidia will be asking for a GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, but we can make a pretty plausible guess by looking at the price of existing 40-series cards and comparing them to the prices of previous generations.
When Nvidia initially unveiled the 4090 and 4080, it actually announced two GeForce RTX 4080 models, a $ 1,299 16GB model and a $ 899 12GB model. 16GB RTX 4080; it also had fewer cores and was weaker in some ways that made fans feel like they weren’t getting enough for their $ 899, which is why Nvidia backed off and ended up canceling the November launch of the GeForce RTX 4080 12GB .
The Nvidia RTX 4080 was initially available in two versions that cost $ 899 and $ 1,299 each, but Nvidia has now canceled the launch of the weaker $ 899 model. (Image credit: Nvidia)
This is noteworthy because many of us felt that the Geforce RTX 4080 12GB had specs more in line with what we might expect from a GeForce RTX 4070 or 4070 Ti, based on Nvidia’s history in the price of its cards. However, it seems unlikely that Nvidia will “slack” a 12GB 4080 and then put it back on sale in the future as the GeForce RTX 4070, and even if it did, it would be unlikely to keep the starting price of $ 899.
Since the Geforce RTX 3070 has an MSRP of $ 499 and the lower spec 4080 was priced at $ 899 before its launch was canceled, it seems very likely that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 will cost between $ 500 and $ 900. Our money is on shipping the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 priced at $ 699, but we’ll have to wait and see where Nvidia sets the final price.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070: Expected release date
Predicting when Nvidia will release the GeForce RTX 4070 is a tricky business. The rest of the 40 series debuted a little later in 2022, which is why Nvidia put on sale $ 1,599 4090 in October 2022 and $ 1,299 4080 16GB debuts in November.
It is possible that Nvidia will surprise us by unveiling the 4070 in late November or December 2022, but it becomes less and less likely with each passing day.
The Nvidia RTX 4090 cards just debuted in October, so we may not see the 4070 coming until early 2023. (Image credit: Nvidia)
It seems much more likely that Nvidia will wait to talk about the 4070 until at least CES 2023, which takes place in early January. If this prediction comes true, we expect you should be able to purchase one as soon as in late January or early February 2023.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070: DLSS 3 support
One of the coolest new features in the Nvidia 4000 series is DLSS 3, the latest version of Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) graphics upscaling technology. It is only supported on Nvidia 40 series cards, which makes it a key selling point of the GeForce RTX 4070.
(Image credit: Nvidia)
DLSS is a big deal because it uses machine learning to intelligently “upscale” graphics rendered at artificially reduced resolutions, giving you the fast performance of games at a lower resolution without a major drop in graphics performance.
Nvidia presents DLSS 3 as more effective leaps and bounds than DLSS 2, and to use DLSS 3 you need 4th generation Tensor cores and the new Optical Flow Accelerator technology built into Nvidia 40 series cards such as GeForce RTX 4090, 480 and (hopefully! ) the 4070. The company also claims that, for the first time ever, AI can be used to fill entire game frames, rather than individual pixels, with DLSS 3.
Nvidia is quick to point out how effective its new DLSS 3 technology is at improving framerates in modern games. (Image credit: Nvidia)
This new feature is called Optical Multi Frame Generation and appears to work by using the optical flow accelerator to analyze sequential game frames and interpolate new frames based on work done by a convolutional neural network. When shooting all cylinders, Nvidia claims that DLSS 3 can improve game framerates up to 4 times what they are without DLSS.
Of course, we’ll have to wait and see how the GeForce RTX 4070 performs while running DLSS 3 to know how much difference these buzzwords really make in moment-to-moment gameplay.
Perspectives Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 is exciting because it could potentially be the sweet spot between price and performance in Nvidia’s 40-series range, offering more power than most GPUs on the market at a slightly more reasonable price than the $ 1,299 you’ll pay for a 4080.
However, it’s possible that Nvidia is priced so high for the 4070 that it makes more sense for most people to buy an older 30-series card instead. Remember, Nvidia 30-series GPUs have been hard to find or buy in recent years. , and now that costs are finally plummeting and GPUs are becoming widely available at uninflated prices, the high prices on existing 40-series cards seem remarkably high for the smaller (but significant) performance boost they offer over their predecessors.
If mid-range 40 series cards like the 4070 can offer a more compelling combination of price and performance than their sturdier siblings, they’ll cement Nvidia’s success in 2023. If not, rivals like AMD and now Intel have the option. to take some market share away from Nvidia in the next year.
