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The RTX 5070 is the fourth consumer Blackwell GPU to hit the market, following in the footsteps of the RTX 5070 Ti that launched in mid-February. Targeting a £539/$549 MSRP, it's the most affordable 50 series model so far, but of course we will have to wait and see whether or not the MSRP actually materialises at launch…
Still, that positioning makes it the logical successor to the RTX 4070 Super which launched in early 2024 for £579/$599. Unfortunately, those hoping for a decent generational improvement will be disappointed, given the RTX 5070 is… 1% faster on average at 1440p. That's right, we saw basically no difference in average performance across all twelve rasterised games tested, nor did we over the eight ray traced games benchmarked today.
That has obvious implications for the overall appeal of this product, which we'll discuss shortly, but it's worth stating that, objectively, the overall level of performance on offer is still decent – in the sense that the RTX 5070 will be able to play pretty much anything at 1440p Ultra settings, and it's not a bad entry-level 4K card too, especially so if you are happy to enable DLSS or lower image quality settings. Ray tracing performance is still streets ahead of AMD's current offerings, coming in faster than the RX 7900 XTX on average, despite launching at roughly half the price.
However, there's no getting around the fact that the lack of any generational improvement over the RTX 4070 Super is somewhat concerning for this new GPU and will make it a fairly tough sell. Granted, the 5070 is cheaper in terms of MSRP, with an 7% price reduction here in the UK, so you could argue it is at least a small step forward, but it really feels like the bare minimum.
You could also argue that it is unlikely the RTX 5070 will actually land at MSRP – at least not for a while. At the time of writing, the cheapest RTX 5070 Ti up for pre-order on Scan is still £100 above MSRP, the cheapest 5080 is £121 above MSRP, and you can't even pre-order the RTX 5090. That said, following on from the announcement of AMD's RDNA 4 GPUs, with the RX 9070 and 9070 XT landing at $549 and $599 respectively, it would not surprise me at all if more 50 series cards suddenly started popping up at MSRP…
I also think it's fair to point out that the RTX 5070 should be cheaper than its forebears. After all, it's using a smaller die, with GB205 measuring in at 263mm2, versus AD104 at 294.5mm2 , while still using the same TSMC N4 node, two and a half years on from production of the 40 series. Of course, cheaper is cheaper and we always like to see that, but a £40 reduction for the 5070 is hardly a return to the days when the xx70 class could be had for 300 quid.
It was also fascinating to take a closer look at performance compared against the RTX 4090 as part of this review. After all, that was the claim made by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, but it did not hold up to any real scrutiny in my testing today. For one, we've already established that the 5070 is no faster than the 4070 Super when it comes to native rendering performance, so it's certainly not matching the RTX 4090 there – in fact it's some 40-50% slower depending on the game.
Nvidia was of course referring to DLSS 4, and specifically Multi Frame Generation (MFG) as the basis for this claim, and in my testing there are examples where the RTX 5070, using MFG 4X, can deliver a similar frame rate to the RTX 4090, with that GPU limited to ‘standard' Frame Gen. Even then, that does not equate to the same performance, as latency was always higher on the 5070, sometimes by up to twice as much, given the 5070 has a much lower base frame rate – and that's not even mentioning the image quality implications, given the 5070 would be displaying twice as many AI-generated frames versus the 4090 in these scenarios.
During this testing we also found a handful of examples where the RTX 5070 was bottlenecked by its 12GB framebuffer. In the likes of Indiana Jones, Spider-Man 2, and Ratchet and Clank, the GPU ground to halt as it had insufficient video memory, and often times it was Frame Generation that pushed it over the edge. To be clear, 12GB VRAM is enough for the vast majority of games I tested today, but we are already starting to see games pushing that limit, especially with ray tracing and frame generation enabled. And if that's the case today, things certainly aren't going to get better down the line.
Ultimately, having reflected on the RTX 5070 over the past few days, I am struggling to see a clear reason as to why this GPU might be a compelling purchase. After all, if you held off buying a 4070 Super, even when it dropped below MSRP throughout 2024, will the RTX 5070 really persuade you otherwise, given it is offering the same performance and the same amount of VRAM? Yes, there is the addition of MFG, some marginal efficiency improvements, and a slightly lower price, so it's not like it's worse – but we can't shake the feeling that the RTX 5070 is a thoroughly unambitious GPU, content with doing the bare minimum and hoping that's enough to scrape by.
The elephant in the room is, of course, AMD and its new RDNA 4-based GPUs – the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT – launching on March 6th. We can't discuss performance of those two cards until tomorrow, but if AMD’s claims hold true, Radeon could be about to deliver some serious competition in this market segment. It will be fascinating to see how the RTX 5070 stacks up against its new rivals…
The RTX 5070 is launching at retail tomorrow, March 5th, with an MSRP of £539/$549. Nvidia sent us the following retail links for cards which are expected to land at the MSRP:
Pros
- Capable GPU for 1440p and entry-level 4K gaming.
- Some small improvement to cost per frame and overall value versus the RTX 4070 Super (assuming MSRP).
- £40 price drop compared to the RTX 4070 Super is better than nothing.
- Certain productivity benchmarks showed bigger-than-expected performance improvements.
- Solid overclocking headroom.
- DLSS 4 has improved Ray Reconstruction and Super Resolution upscaling.
- Multi Frame Generation enables higher frame rates than would otherwise be possible.
Cons
- No discernible performance increase over the RTX 4070 Super.
- The claim that it offers RTX 4090 performance does not hold up, at all.
- 12GB VRAM is a limiting factor in some games already, and will surely only get worse as time progresses.
- Efficiency has taken a step backwards compared to the RTX 5080.
- Prospective buyers will want to wait and see what RDNA 4 can bring to the table.
KitGuru says: The RTX 5070 is the embodiment of doing the bare minimum. We'll find out tomorrow if it's enough to handle the threat of AMD's RX 9070.
