I knew the RTX 5070 was tricking me. Parked subsequent to the extravagant silliness of the two-grand RTX 5090, this £539 / $549 graphics card regarded like a really agreeable deal, providing all the identical DLSS 4 and Multi Body Era as its larger, pricier brothers. Additionally, an improve to the RTX 4070 Tremendous, a GPU that would deal with 4K with out wanting too misplaced in a premium 1080p rig. Tragically, although, the RTX 5070 breaks a sacred covenant, a mutual understanding between PC house owners and components makers that’s held robust for many years: in the event you purchase a brand new model of a factor, it needs to be quicker than the outdated model of that factor. Look previous the MFG phantasm, and much too typically, it isn’t.
Rifling via the specs doesn’t flip up any clear causes for this lack of efficiency acquire; the RTX 5070’s CUDA core depend is available in at 6144, placing it merely in-between the RTX 4070 (5888) and the RTX 4070 Tremendous (7168), however each base and increase clock speeds have been raised to compensate. VRAM, in the meantime, stays at 12GB, however with a swap from GDDR6X to GDDR7 that confers considerably extra bandwidth. Then there’s the facility score, which each the delayed Founders Version and this right here triple-fan PNY GeForce RTX 5070 OC set at 250W – 50W greater than an entry-level RTX 4070 Tremendous. It appears, and sounds, like a good generational replace.
And but…
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 evaluate: 4K benchmarks
Whereas the RTX 5070 does make the lower as a 4K contender, surpassing 60fps in most Extremely-quality video games with out upscaling, the one time it produced a visibly quicker framerate was in Cyberpunk 2077. Elsewhere, it solely outperforms the RTX 4070 Tremendous by a scant handful of single-digit frames per second, and repeatedly loses out to the non-Tremendous RTX 4070 Ti within the course of.
Clearly, only a few potential patrons are going to be upgrading straight from final yr’s RTX 4070 Tremendous to the RTX 5070, and the newest mannequin does not less than make for a meaty enchancment on the RTX 3070. Hassle is, that enchancment has already been made within the final era, and for costs that – even in the event you’re fortunate sufficient to seek out an RTX 5070 in inventory under £600 – are possible drop a lot quicker, particularly the place the secondhand market is anxious.
It’s additionally value addressing a selected declare, made by Nvidia throughout their authentic RTX 50 collection announcement, that the RTX 5070 delivers “RTX 4090 efficiency” with MFG. That is, relying on how beneficiant you wish to be, both missing in context or full tosh. Whereas it’s true that, as an illustration, 4x MFG can drag the RTX 5070 to 71fps in a totally path-traced Alan Wake 2, that’s solely equal or quicker than the RTX 4090 in the event you deny the older GPU its personal instruments. Certain sufficient, it solely wants DLSS 3’s old-timey, 2x body era to common 82fps on in any other case an identical settings. In brief, the one method the RTX 5070 is really transferring on the similar tempo because the RTX 4090 is that if they’re in the identical supply van.
You may nonetheless think about MFG to be the RTX 5070’s social gathering trick, although at 4K particularly, it’s not as a lot of a difference-maker as it’s on on burlier playing cards just like the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080. In each Cyberpunk and Alan Wake 2, the RTX 4070 joins its 40-series rivals in being unable to churn out playable path tracing efficiency on DLSS High quality; actually, within the latter, it’s narrowly the slowest of the lot. In consequence, when 4x MFG kicks in, it’s producing a better quantity in a framerate counter however isn’t really serving to the video games to run and smoother or extra responsively than on the DLSS 3-limited 40 collection fashions. So far as your PC is aware of, it’s nonetheless solely working at 26/21fps, and all of the AI-generated frames on the earth gained’t do away with the sluggish really feel that aiming and digicam management will undergo in these situations.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 evaluate: 1440p benchmarks
1440p is a extra comfy setting for the RTX 5070’s body gen tech, although its issues with overfamiliar efficiency stay. If something, it’s extra bothersome right here, as the upper framerates make it even more durable to inform a naked-eye distinction between this and its predecessors.
In Murderer’s Creed Mirage, the RTX 4070 Tremendous even finishes forward, if solely be a single body, whereas even the video games that the RTX 5070 does comparatively properly in (Cyberpunk 2077, F1 24) solely see an uptick of 10% or so. There’s a simultaneous gap-narrowing with the RTX 5070 Ti, suggesting you don’t must stretch to the Ti model for high quality Quad HD, and once more, anybody upgrading from the RTX 3070 will take pleasure in a sizeable pace increase. Nonetheless, these advantages might apply to the RTX 4070 Tremendous simply as a lot because the RTX 5070.
The identical can’t be mentioned, in equity, for body gen efficiency. Though these checks counsel the RTX 5070 is actually barely worse at coping with path tracing/full ray tracing than these pesky RTX 40 GPUs, in contrast to at 4K, it is ready to produce sufficient pre-generation frames to help a workable software of 4x MFG.
I’m not saying that is an satisfactory alternative for historically rendered frames, however not less than at this decision, you’ll be able to sort of see the place Nvidia is coming from. Spared from the necessity to compensate for sub-30fps framerates, body gen is free to easily shine up the visible smoothness of already adequately-running video games, appropriately.
Nonetheless, it’s additionally arduous to not peer over at these towering RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 bars, questioning why the usual RTX 5070 couldn’t simply perform a little extra within the standard rendering division.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 evaluate: 1080p benchmarks
The drop to an excellent much less demanding display rez does little to boost the RTX 5070’s worth proposition. But once more it’s haunted by the Ghosts of XX70 GPUs Previous, particularly in Murderer’s Creed Mirage, the place it repeats its embarrassing loss. It does acquire a number of additional frames over the RTX 4070 Tremendous in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, however then that’s already working so quick that you just’d want a 300Hz monitor and downright inhuman statement expertise to understand them in motion.
That each one means we should return to the world of maxed-out lighting results and AI body era in quest of a comfort prize. Like at 1440p, the RTX 5070 begins off inexplicably worse than the RTX 4070 Tremendous when path tracing in concerned, although in each video games it nonetheless types itself a strong sufficient base to use 4x MFG with out enter lag coating your PC innards in treacle.
You’ll should forgive me for not sharing these outcomes with the sort of bubbly enthusiasm that multicoloured bar charts deserve. I do know it’s not just like the RTX 5070 has regressed to the purpose that it’s a nasty GPU within the normal sense – get it at RRP, like this PNY mannequin prices, and it’s nonetheless a superb multi-discipline graphics card that may comfortably play something outdoors of essentially the most brutalising 4K settings. And what I used to be saying earlier, concerning the RTX 4070 Tremendous going cheaper quicker? Reader, I’m afraid that was conjecture. Proper now, these are nonetheless on sale within the £600-£700 vary, and whereas loads of board accomplice RTX 5070s will certainly fill the identical area, if these two GPUs value the identical then there’s no compelling purpose to stay with the older one. There’s perhaps an argument in favour of the RTX 4070 Tremendous’s energy effectivity – I measured it peaking at 219W throughout my checks, versus 251W on the RTX 5070 – however for all its shortcomings, I’d quite have MFG than a 30W saving.
Even so, it’s additionally utterly honest and affordable to count on some sort of significant, not wholly AI-reliant enchancment from every new era. The RTX 5070 merely doesn’t ship, and I’m actually a little bit frightened that if we merely shrug and settle for that, body era actually would be the solely method that future GPUs trouble to improve “efficiency”. Even when, as this very card’s 4K path tracing outcomes present, such an method is insufficient when the video games facet of the business continues to ask increasingly of your {hardware}.
This evaluate relies on a retail unit supplied by the producer.
