Live: Where To Buy The Nvidia RTX 4070 Today

Republished By Plato

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2023-04-13T12:10:34.619Z

Compared to the RTX 3080 it really is a wee graphics card. Y’know, like a normal graphics card. Compared to the RTX 4080, well, that card’s just silly.

Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards — (Image credit: Future)

2023-04-13T12:04:20.958Z

Here’s a list of reference-priced cards in the UK that will go live at 2pm:

The RTX 4070 Founders Edition is the version of the new Ada GPU that you ought to be coveting. It’s the best-looking and the quickest of the reference-priced cards, too. But given the efficiency of the AD104 chip at its heart, the RTX 4070 doesn’t need a beefy cooler, massive heatsinks, or high-end VRMs, so a basic reference-priced card from a third-party manufacturer is still a great second option.

I’ve tested the PNY RTX 4070 Verto (opens in new tab) and while it is a little slower, it’s only ever by a handful of frames per second, and really nothing that you’d notice side-by-side in-game.

2023-04-13T11:31:47.927Z

Nvidia RTX 4070 Founders Edition verdict

Nvidia RTX 4070 Founders Edition graphics card — (Image credit: Future)

Buy if…

✅ You always wanted an RTX 3080: With the same effective performance, a lower price, and DLSS 3.0 support, the RTX 4070 is a great replacement for the retiring GPU.

✅ You’re building a tiny gaming rig: The RTX 4070 is cool, quiet, and supremely efficient. It’s also a lot smaller than any other card of similar performance.

Don’t buy if…

❌ You already own a decent RTX 30- or RX 6800-series GPU: At ~20% higher performance than the RTX 3070 Ti, and similar performance to the RX 6800 XT, spending another $600 so soon isn’t worth it just for Frame Generation.

The RTX 4070 is like a proper graphics card. It’s not some monstrous hulk of PCIe socket-rending GPU, it’s a modest card the size of its RTX 3070 forebear. That makes it a rather cute-looking thing. Well, in terms of scale anyways; that brushed aluminium Nvidia Founders Edition frame still looks pleasingly serious.

And that’s more than aesthetics, too. The size of the card hints at the efficiency of the 4nm Ada GPU quietly thrumming away inside of it. If you want a powerful, but low power card, the RTX 4070 fits the bill. Which will no doubt make it the darling of the small form factor PC brigade, and deservedly so.

That’s certainly one of the benefits I was alluding to earlier in the RTX 4070 vs. RTX 3080 debate, but the key one is the fact the Ada card has access to DLSS 3.0 and Frame Generation. And when that comes into play it’s a game changer, especially for titles that otherwise would struggle at ray-traced 4K settings.

The obvious drawback is that Frame Gen is not widely available. Even so, getting a $100 discount on a cooler, quieter, and far more efficient RTX 3080 has got to feel like a win when you’ve got that extra potential perf bump in the back pocket.