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Verdict: The GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER was one of Nvidia’s best-balanced early-2024 upgrades. At its original $599 US launch MSRP, it delivered roughly 15–16% more 1440p performance than the RTX 4070, landed close to the RTX 4070 Ti, handled ray tracing better than similarly positioned AMD cards in the tested workloads, and did so with excellent power efficiency.
Its main weakness was inherited directly from the RTX 4070 family: 12GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus. That was workable for the review’s 1440p tests, but it leaves less long-term headroom than competing cards with 16GB or more. The other important qualification is price: $599 is the January 2024 launch MSRP, not a guaranteed 2026 street price. At a current price near newer-generation alternatives, the RTX 4070 SUPER is no longer an automatic recommendation.
RTX 4070 SUPER: specifications at a glance
| Specification | GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Founders Edition |
|---|---|
| Architecture | Ada Lovelace |
| GPU family | AD104 |
| CUDA cores | 7,168 |
| Advertised boost clock | 2,475MHz |
| Memory | 12GB GDDR6X |
| Memory interface | 192-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 504GB/s |
| Total graphics power | 220W |
| Power connector | 16-pin PCIe connector |
| US launch MSRP | $599 |
| Launch date | January 17, 2024 |
The figures above describe Nvidia’s reference Founders Edition configuration. Partner cards can have different clocks, coolers, dimensions, power limits, and noise levels, so Founders Edition testing should not be treated as a guarantee for every ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, PNY, or other board.
What changed compared with the RTX 4070?
Nvidia’s central change was straightforward: more active GPU resources without raising the RTX 4070’s launch price. The RTX 4070 SUPER has 7,168 CUDA cores, and Nvidia positioned it as having approximately 20% more CUDA cores than the original RTX 4070. It also carries the larger 48MB L2 cache used by the SUPER and Ti models, compared with 36MB on the standard RTX 4070.
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The result is a card that sits in the gap between the RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Ti rather than behaving like a minor clock-speed refresh. Nvidia announced the card for January 17, 2024 at $599 in the United States—the same launch MSRP as the RTX 4070. That pricing made the SUPER unusually easy to recommend at launch: it was a meaningful upgrade for the same official price, rather than a faster card with a higher tier tax.
The external design is less dramatic than the specification change. The Founders Edition is closely related to the RTX 4070 FE cooler, with the most obvious visual difference being its all-matte-black shroud and casing treatment.
#1 Best Overall
- Powered by NVIDIA DLSS3, ultra-efficient Ada Lovelace arch, and full ray tracing
- 4th Generation Tensor Cores: Up to 4x performance with DLSS 3 vs. brute-force rendering
- 3rd Generation RT Cores: Up to 2x ray tracing performance
- OC edition: Boost Clock 2550 MHz (OC Mode)/ 2520 MHz (Default Mode)
- Axial-tech fan design features a smaller fan hub that facilitates longer blades and a barrier ring that increases downward air pressure
1440p gaming performance
Tom’s Hardware tested the Founders Edition at 1080p medium, 1080p ultra, 1440p ultra, and 4K ultra across a broad game suite. Its overall result supports Nvidia’s intended positioning: the RTX 4070 SUPER is primarily a high-settings, high-refresh-rate 1440p card, with 4K available when the game, settings, and upscaling mode cooperate.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors| Tom’s Hardware test grouping | Versus RTX 4070 | Versus RTX 4070 Ti |
|---|---|---|
| Overall 1440p | 16% faster | 7% slower |
| 1440p rasterization only | 15% faster | 6% slower |
| 1080p ultra | 14% faster | 6% slower |
| 1080p medium | 9% faster | 5% slower |
The roughly 16% overall 1440p uplift is large enough to matter, especially for games that were close to a refresh-rate threshold on the original RTX 4070. It is not a universal 16% gain in every game: averages change with the test suite, graphics settings, CPU, and whether a title is limited by the processor or another part of the system.
The smaller gap at 1080p medium is instructive. At lower settings and resolutions, the GPU has less work to do and CPU or system bottlenecks become more influential. This is why the card makes more sense for a 1440p monitor than for a budget 1080p build where much of its performance may go unused.
Ray tracing, DLSS, and 4K
Ray tracing materially improves the RTX 4070 SUPER’s position against AMD in the tested games. Tom’s Hardware found that its overall ray-tracing results could edge past the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, although that comparison was workload-sensitive and affected by individual titles, including Minecraft.
That does not turn the card into an uncompromised native-4K ray-tracing solution. In Alan Wake 2 at 1440p with high settings and ray tracing enabled, the card produced approximately 43 frames per second with quality-mode upscaling. That is playable, but it is not the same as native-resolution performance at a high refresh rate.
Nvidia’s launch messaging also emphasized DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, including a vendor claim of 1.5x performance in selected demanding games. That figure should remain attributed to Nvidia. It is not a universal multiplier, and generated frames are not equivalent to the same increase in traditionally rendered frames or input responsiveness. DLSS can make demanding games more comfortable to play, but the quality of the base render, the game’s implementation, and latency all still matter.
RTX 4070 SUPER versus AMD Radeon cards
The AMD comparison depends heavily on whether the workload uses ray tracing.
In Tom’s Hardware’s overall 1440p suite, the RTX 4070 SUPER was 24% faster than the Radeon RX 7800 XT. The comparison came with roughly 20% more launch-period cost for the Nvidia card, so the performance lead was not automatically a value lead. In rasterization-only testing, Nvidia’s advantage narrowed to 8%.
The RTX 4070 SUPER came close to the Radeon RX 7900 XT overall, but the AMD card was 12% faster in the rasterization-only grouping and offered substantially more VRAM. For games that do not use ray tracing, or for buyers prioritizing texture capacity and long-term framebuffer headroom, that trade-off is important.
Nvidia’s stronger ray-tracing hardware, DLSS support, and creator-application ecosystem can justify choosing the RTX 4070 SUPER, but the decision should not be reduced to a single average frame-rate chart. AMD may be more attractive for a raster-focused buyer who values larger memory capacity, while Nvidia is the more convincing choice for a buyer who regularly uses ray tracing or supported GPU-accelerated software.
Creator and AI performance
The RTX 4070 SUPER is not only a gaming upgrade. In Tom’s Hardware’s Stable Diffusion testing, the card used Automatic1111 with TensorRT extensions for Nvidia GPUs and generally fell between the RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Ti.
| Stable Diffusion test | Versus RTX 4070 | Versus RTX 4070 Ti |
|---|---|---|
| 512×512 | Approximately 12% faster | Approximately 11% slower |
| 768×768 | Approximately 11% faster | Approximately 10% slower |
Against the Radeon RX 7900 XTX in that tested workload, the RTX 4070 SUPER was approximately 40% faster at 512×512 and 30% faster at 768×768. Those results should not be generalized to every AI application. The Radeon’s larger VRAM capacity can become more valuable when a model, image size, batch, or workflow exceeds the RTX 4070 SUPER’s 12GB framebuffer.
For GPU-accelerated 3D rendering, Tom’s Hardware used Blender Benchmark 3.6.0 and reported the RTX 4070 SUPER at 84% faster than the RX 7900 XTX in that workload. The result was attributed partly to Nvidia’s ray-tracing hardware, and the Blender Benchmark version matters when comparing this number with results from another test.
Power efficiency, clocks, temperature, and noise
Efficiency is one of the RTX 4070 SUPER’s strongest characteristics. Tom’s Hardware measured average board power of approximately 183W at 1080p medium, 199W at 1080p ultra, 210W at 1440p, and 216W at 4K. That is close to the card’s 220W total graphics power target without requiring the power draw associated with much larger high-end GPUs.
In the same testing, the RTX 4070 SUPER used approximately 90–100W less than the Radeon RX 7900 XTX at every tested resolution. Lower consumption can simplify cooling and reduce heat dumped into the case, although it does not guarantee that every partner card will be equally quiet.
The reference card’s advertised boost clock is 2,475MHz. Tom’s Hardware recorded higher average operating clocks during its tests:
| Resolution and setting | Observed average clock |
|---|---|
| 1080p medium | Approximately 2,761MHz |
| 1080p ultra | Approximately 2,742MHz |
| 1440p | Approximately 2,718MHz |
| 4K | Approximately 2,679MHz |
These are test-observed averages, not guaranteed clocks. GPU Boost behavior changes with temperature, power, workload, firmware, and the individual board.
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Tom’s Hardware measured 41.3dB(A) under load at a reported 39% fan speed. The RTX 4070 SUPER Founders Edition was somewhat louder than the lower-power RTX 4070 Founders Edition, which is unsurprising given the SUPER’s higher power target and closely related cooler design.
TechSpot’s independent measurements provide useful additional context. After an hour of load in a 21°C room, its Founders Edition reached a 66°C peak junction temperature, a 78°C hotspot temperature, and a 78°C memory temperature. An ASUS Dual partner card reached a lower 64°C peak junction temperature and 74°C hotspot temperature, but its memory reached 86°C. The contrast demonstrates why Founders Edition thermal and acoustic results should not be applied automatically to an overclocked or differently cooled partner board.
The 12GB VRAM problem
The RTX 4070 SUPER’s principal technical criticism is not its shader performance; it is the decision to retain 12GB of GDDR6X on a 192-bit memory interface. The card has 504GB/s of memory bandwidth and a larger L2 cache than the standard RTX 4070, but neither changes the capacity ceiling.
For the review’s tested 1440p games, 12GB was adequate. That makes the card a sensible 1440p purchase today when the price is right and settings are chosen realistically. It does not make 12GB universally sufficient for every future workload.
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In practical terms, buyers should ask how long they intend to keep the card and what they actually play. A 1440p gamer who upgrades every few years has a different risk profile from a 4K enthusiast, mod-heavy player, or creator who needs large GPU datasets in memory.
Installation and compatibility checklist
The RTX 4070 SUPER needs a suitable PCIe slot, enough space in the case, and a power supply that can support the whole system. Exact power-supply recommendations vary by partner board, especially for factory-overclocked models, so check the board manufacturer’s specification rather than relying on a universal wattage rule.
- Check case clearance. Compare the card’s exact length, height, and slot thickness with the case specification. A Founders Edition fit does not prove that a larger triple-fan partner card will fit.
- Confirm the power connector. The card uses a 16-pin PCIe connector. Nvidia’s supplied adapter is intended to use at least two separate PCIe 8-pin cables from the power supply.
- Seat the plug completely. Make sure the connector is fully inserted and avoid a sharp bend immediately next to the 16-pin plug.
- Use appropriate cabling. If replacing the adapter, choose a 12VHPWR cable for RTX 4070 SUPER only after verifying that it is designed for the exact power-supply model and GPU connector. Modular PSU cables are not universally interchangeable.
- Check the complete system load. A quality PCIe 5 power supply with native support can make installation cleaner, but the correct capacity depends on the CPU, drives, fans, overclocking, and the specific board.
- Install the current graphics driver. After physically installing the card, use Nvidia’s current driver package for the operating system and remove or replace the previous driver setup if the upgrade path requires it.
A 1440p display is the card’s natural partner. If the GPU is being purchased specifically for high-refresh gaming, a 1440p 165Hz gaming monitor is a more coherent pairing than buying the card for a basic 60Hz 1080p screen. The monitor is an accessory recommendation based on the card’s performance target, not a product tested as part of the GPU benchmarks.
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Its launch verdict and its current buying verdict are different questions.
Rank #3
- Powered by GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER
- Integrated with 12GB GDDR6X 192-bit memory interface
- WINDFORCE cooling system
- Graphene nano lubricant
- Protection metal back plate
At $599 in January 2024, the RTX 4070 SUPER was an excellent upgrade over the RTX 4070: faster, more capable in ray tracing, more useful in several creator workloads, and still unusually efficient. The same conclusion remains valid as a historical review of the hardware.
But the $599 number is not a 2026 street-price guarantee. A July 24, 2026 price-tracking snapshot showed renewed Amazon MSI RTX 4070 SUPER listings around $599.97 and $649.99, while broader user-reported Amazon asking prices ranged roughly from $600 to $800. Those figures are indicative rather than a verified market-wide price, and listings may be renewed, used, partner-board, or third-party inventory.
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Before buying, compare the exact new, renewed, or used card with currently available newer-generation GPUs at the same price. Check warranty coverage, return terms, cooler condition, and whether a newer card offers more VRAM or better performance for the money. Do not call the RTX 4070 SUPER the current best value without performing that live comparison.
Who should buy the RTX 4070 SUPER?
- Buy it for high-settings 1440p if the current price is clearly competitive and you want strong raster performance plus reliable ray-tracing support.
- Consider it for 4K if you are comfortable using DLSS, tuning settings, and accepting that native 4K ray tracing will often require compromises.
- Choose it for ray tracing or Nvidia-supported creator software when those workloads matter more than maximum VRAM per dollar.
- Be cautious for long-term 4K ownership if you want to keep the card for many years, use ultra-resolution texture packs, or regularly run workloads that approach or exceed 12GB.
- Do not upgrade from an RTX 4070 automatically unless the cost of switching is low. The SUPER is a strong new purchase at the original price, but its approximately 15–16% 1440p uplift may not justify replacing a working RTX 4070 at a large loss.
Final verdict
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER was the standout card of the early-2024 SUPER refresh because it improved the RTX 4070’s performance without increasing its $599 launch MSRP. Tom’s Hardware measured it at 16% faster overall at 1440p and 15% faster in rasterization, while its ray-tracing and creator results gave it advantages that are not captured by a raster-only comparison. Its approximately 183–216W measured board power also made it one of the most efficient cards in its performance class.
The 12GB framebuffer is the reason to hesitate, and changing 2026 prices are the reason not to repeat the launch recommendation blindly. At a good discount, the RTX 4070 SUPER remains a very strong 1440p GPU. At a price close to newer cards with more memory or better performance, its age, 192-bit bus, and limited upgrade headroom become much harder to overlook.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much faster is the RTX 4070 SUPER than the RTX 4070?
In Tom’s Hardware’s broad suite, the RTX 4070 SUPER was 16% faster overall at 1440p and 15% faster in rasterization-only testing. It was 14% faster at 1080p ultra and 9% faster at 1080p medium, where CPU and system limits narrow the difference.
Is 12GB of VRAM enough for the RTX 4070 SUPER?
It was adequate for the tested 1440p workloads, but it is not a guarantee of trouble-free performance in every future game or creator task. 4K textures, path tracing, large AI models, and demanding projects can benefit from cards with 16GB or more.
Can the RTX 4070 SUPER handle 4K gaming?
Yes, depending on the game and settings, but it is better described as a 1440p-first card. DLSS and sensible settings can make 4K practical; native 4K ray tracing at a consistently high refresh rate is beyond its comfortable target in demanding games.
What power connector does the RTX 4070 SUPER use?
It uses a 16-pin PCIe connector. Nvidia’s supplied adapter supports at least two PCIe 8-pin cables. Check the specific partner card and power-supply documentation, fully seat the connector, and avoid sharply bending the cable next to the plug.
Is the RTX 4070 SUPER a good buy in 2026?
Only after checking its live price against newer cards. The original $599 launch MSRP made it an excellent 2024 value, but current listings can be renewed, used, or third-party stock and may cost roughly $600–$800. Its 12GB VRAM also deserves more weight in a long-term purchase today.
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Bottom line: The RTX 4070 SUPER is a highly efficient, genuinely faster RTX 4070 for 1440p gaming and a strong ray-tracing and creator-workload option. Buy it in 2026 only when the exact card’s price, warranty, and 12GB capacity make sense beside newer alternatives.
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