The Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU might be faster than the RTX 3090 Ti
The latest from the GPU grapevine suggests that Nvidia’s RTX 4070 graphics card may have more CUDA cores and video memory than previously thought. Theoretically, Team Green has chosen to increase the CUDA Core count to 7,680, albeit this is still only a theoretical version of the RTX 4070 and we can’t be certain Nvidia has chosen this design (compared to the previously rumored 7,168).
The graphics card is reportedly scheduled to employ 12GB of VRAM (21Gbps GDDR6X) instead of the 10GB loadout that has long been rumored, which is a noticeable increase. According to Kopite7kimi, the RTX 4070 would consume 300W of power, which is the same as the previous leak we’ve been comparing it to. This is good news in principle because the alleged specifications are now more potent.
Future consumers will find the RTX 4070 to be more cost-effective than the higher-end Nvidia cards (4080 and 4090), which come with fairly steep premiums, so the news is that it would reportedly receive a big power boost is interesting. We are well aware of the risks associated with suspected specification changes, but the leaker may have been misled, so the changes may not be accurate at all. Furthermore, what may be true at this time may alter before release as Nvidia finalizes the RTX 4000 GPU specifications across the board.
All of which is to say, refrain from jumping to conclusions when hearing rumors. However, if this does prove to be the RTX 4070’s final iteration, many gamers will be exhaling sighs of relief merely because of the 12GB VRAM configuration. According to what we’ve observed, the RTX 4000 range’s complete graphics card was one of the major sources of annoyance and disappointment due to the supposed 10-GB graphics card (well, that and the obvious power usage worries, particularly towards the higher-end).
If you recall, the theory surrounding the VRAM problem was that Nvidia was saving the 12GB loadout for the RTX 4070 Ti. However, it appears that the company has now essentially transformed the RTX 4070 into the 4070 Ti. Not only is the video RAM being increased, but the number of CUDA cores has also been increased in order to utilize all of the cores on the AD104 GPU.
As Kopite7kimi tweets, the RTX 4070’s 3DMark TimeSpy Extreme score is currently higher than 11,000, which may indicate that it will soon outperform the RTX 3090 Ti flagship. This is now reportedly the case with the vanilla RTX 4070, but it doesn’t have a forecasted power usage of 400W like the rumored 4070 Ti (it’s a much lower 300W, presumably). This is in line with what the leaker indicated regarding the RTX 4070 Ti, who said that it could easily rival the 3090 Ti.