Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti Review ft. Gigabyte Gaming OC

As the third RTX 40-series graphics card to hit the market, the RTX 4070 Ti has taken over from the ‘unlaunched' RTX 4080 12GB, offering the same core design and specs, but with a £150 price cut and a xx70-series moniker, rather than the xx80- SKU that it was originally intended to be.

All told, I have to say that decision was undoubtedly a wise move on Nvidia's part. Had this GPU released at £949, as it was originally announced, it would have been very underwhelming and clearly inferior to the RX 7900 XTX. Even now at £799 it's not going to blow your socks off, but the overall package is more appealing at the lower price-point.

That's certainly the case when looking at overall performance, as this is a capable gaming GPU. I’d say it is best suited for high refresh-rate 1440p gaming, where it’s basically a match for the RTX 3090 Ti and is about 13% slower on average than the RX 7900 XT. It could also be a solid entry level 4K card, though it performs worse, relatively speaking, at the UHD resolution due to its pretty narrow memory interface; while it roughly matches the 3090 Ti at 1440p, it’s 9% slower at 4K. It can do a job and will still hit 60FPS in most titles, but the memory bandwidth limitation is much less of a factor at 1440p where the 4070 Ti is delivering 120FPS at ultra settings more often than not.

Ray tracing performance scales similarly, too. Granted, you won't be enabling RT Ultra settings at 4K, but even in Cyberpunk 2077 the 4070 Ti was able to average 45FPS at 1440p with the eye candy cranked up to the limit, and that's without touching DLSS. Less demanding ray-traced titles, including Spider-Man Remastered, run significantly better, with performance generally equal to, if not ahead of, the more expensive RX 7900 XT.

In lieu of a Founders Edition design, today we have tested the Gigabyte Gaming OC model, and found it to be an excellent third-party design. It runs very quiet and very cool, with a choice of BIOS modes to boot and a fairly understated overall aesthetic.

Power draw of the 4070 Ti, however, is slightly higher than I would have hoped considering the performance levels. To be clear, it almost always drew less power than its 285W TGP in our testing, but the difference in power between itself and the RTX 4080 was never particularly significant.

Considering the performance difference between those two cards is fairly wide, at around 20%, the RTX 4070 Ti is actually the least efficient 40-series GPU so far, which is slightly odd given the lower-power SKUs are usually the more efficient. Overall efficiency is not bad by any means and it’s still a good chunk better than the 30-series, but it's slightly concerning that we’re not trending in the right direction as we head down the 40-series stack. For the full set of charts detailing power and efficiency, head to page 28 of this review.

All things considered, I do think the RTX 4070 Ti is a step in the right direction for the RTX 40-series as a whole. Coming in about 20% slower than the RTX 4080, but 33% cheaper, clearly makes the 4070 Ti a much better value, and it works out at 23% cheaper per frame at 1440p and 19% cheaper per frame at 4K.

However, there will still be those pointing out that, compared to the 30-series, the 4070 Ti is still very much a continuation in terms of value and cost per frame, and that's equally valid. Compared to the RTX 3080 10GB for instance, the 4070 Ti is 14% faster at 4K, but 14% more expensive based on current retail prices. Against the RTX 3070 Ti, the 4070 Ti is 46% more expensive comparing MSRP prices, but 43% faster at 1440p.

Clearly, it wasn't hard for the RTX 4070 Ti to look good against the RTX 4080 as it was never a very good value to begin with, but those hoping for a real generational improvement in cost per frame will be left disappointed. That said, there are other features to consider including DLSS 3 Frame Generation, which is definitely a value add, while ray tracing is generally more viable at 1440p with the 4070 Ti than previous 30-series cards.

At the end of the day, the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti is not a bad product. It’s not particularly amazing and I can't imagine many will get overly excited about it, but if you were already going to drop £700 on an RTX 3080, I’d say stepping up to the 4070 Ti makes sense considering the DLSS 3 advantage, as well as the improvements to ray tracing and overall efficiency versus the 30-series.

As a final point however, I do worry that Nvidia is cutting back too much too soon, particularly in terms of the 192-bit memory interface. After all, if this is what is being offered at the £799 price point, who knows what we’ll end up with once the RTX 4060 and even RTX 4050 eventually arrive…

The RTX 4070 Ti will be available from Overclockers UK with an MSRP of £799.

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Pros

• Strong performance that's roughly on par with the RTX 3090 Ti.
• Best value 40-series GPU so far.
• Great ray tracing capabilities for 1440p gaming.
• DLSS 3 is a promising new technology and a value-add for the 40-series.
• Our sample overclocked very well.
• Gigabyte Gaming OC runs quiet and cool.

Cons

• Least efficient 40-series card yet.
• No real improvement in cost per frame versus 30-series.
• Significantly more expensive than previous xx70 SKUs.

KitGuru says: The RTX 4070 Ti may not be a revolution in cost per frame, but it's a solid enough card that we'd take over the RTX 3080.

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