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MagyarAsus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Review: Ada mid-ranger with RTX 3090 Ti performance that undercuts AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT by US$50 ↺
Update 01/07: Review now complete
Nvidia's GeForce RTX 40 series launch was not without some consternation from gamers and the press alike. Alongside the RTX 4090, the company originally announced two RTX 4080 cards — a 16 GB version and a 12 GB version.
Although the RTX 4080 16 GB invited criticism due to its pricing (it remains overpriced to this date), its performance gains were still significant. Things went south with the RTX 4080 12 GB, however.
Nvidia's original rationale was that the RTX 4080 12 GB deserves to be named so since the performance is indeed in the class of an xx80 series card. However, gamers and the press did not take too kindly to this which led to the company eventually having to abruptly "unlaunch" the card.
Now, at CES 2023, Nvidia is 'relaunching' the AD104-based RTX 4080 12 GB as the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti priced at US$799 MSRP.
In classic Nvidia style, the RTX 4070 Ti has managed to court some controversy of its own as well. During its reveal, Nvidia said that the RTX 4070 Ti can be up to 3x faster than an RTX 3090 Ti.
While we do see the RTX 4070 Ti being on par or even overtaking the RTX 3090 Ti by a whisker, it is nowhere close to being 3x faster. That might be possible in special test conditions with DLSS, but we don't know the basis for the company's claims.
Nvidia is not offering a Founders Edition card this time around, so potential buyers will have to seek out add-in board (AiB) partner options. While partner cards have their merits over reference designs, the already convoluted market pricing can further complicate purchase decisions as there's a lot of diversity within offerings from the same OEM.
We will look into these aspects as we go on, but for now we have an Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition GPU yearning to be put through its paces. This card is listed at US$850 and at ₹101,799 in the Indian market with a three-year local limited warranty.
We were also sent a Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Master, the review of which will follow shortly.
Comparison of the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti with other Nvidia GPUs
| Specification | RTX 4090 FE | RTX 4080 FE | TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti | RTX 3090 Ti FE | RTX 3090 FE | RTX 3080 Ti FE | RTX 3080 FE | RTX 3070 FE | Titan RTX | Titan X Pascal |
| Chip | AD102 | AD103 | AD104 | GA102 | GA102 | GA102 | GA102 | GA104 | TU102 | GP102 |
| FinFET Process | Custom 4N | Custom 4N | Custom 4N | 8 nm | 8 nm | 8 nm | 8 nm | 8 nm | 12 nm | 16 nm |
| CUDA Cores | 16,384 | 9,728 | 7,680 | 10,752 | 10,496 | 10,240 | 8,704 | 5,888 | 4,608 | 3,584 |
| Texture Units | 512 | 304 | 240 | 336 | 328 | 320 | 272 | 184 | 288 | 224 |
| Tensor Cores | 512 4th Gen. | 304 4th Gen. | 240 4th Gen. | 336 3rd Gen. | 328 3rd Gen. | 320 3rd Gen. | 272 3rd Gen. | 184 3rd Gen. | 576 2nd Gen. | — |
| RT Cores | 128 3rd Gen. | 76 3rd Gen. | 60 3rd Gen. | 84 2nd Gen. | 82 2nd Gen. | 80 2nd Gen. | 68 2nd Gen. | 46 2nd Gen. | 72 | — |
| GPU Base Clock | 2,235 MHz | 2,205 MHz | 2,310 MHz | 1,560 MHz | 1,395 MHz | 1,365 MHz | 1,440 MHz | 1,500 MHz | 1,350 MHz | 1,417 MHz |
| GPU Boost Clock | 2,520 MHz | 2,505 MHz | 2,760 MHz | 1,860 MHz | 1,695 MHz | 1,665 MHz | 1,710 MHz | 1,750 MHz | 1,770 MHz | 1,531 MHz |
| Memory Bus | 384-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 320-bit | 256-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 1,008 GB/s | 716.8 GB/s | 504 GB/s | 1,008 GB/s | 936 GB/s | 912 GB/s | 760 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 672 GB/s | 480.4 GB/s |
| Video Memory | 24 GB GDDR6X | 16 GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR6X | 10 GB GDDR6X | 8 GB GDDR6 | 24 GB GDDR6 | 12 GB GDDR5X |
| Power Consumption | 450 W | 320 W | 285 W | 450 W | 350 W | 350 W | 320 W | 220 W | 280 W | 250 W |
A closer look at the Asus TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition
Asus's TUF lineup is known for offering long-lasting hardware that meets stringent durability requirements, and the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition is no different.
According to Asus, the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition features military-grade capacitors that have been rated for 20,000 hours at 105 °C. Unlike the vast majority of GPUs, the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti sports a metal shroud that is both aesthetically pleasing and functionally effective in proper heat dissipation.
We also get to see a metal backplate that feels durable and with a cutout for ventilation.
The TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition measures 305 mm x 138 mm x 65 mm and should easily fit into a typical ATX case. The card typically weighs close to 1.4 kg and occupies slightly more than three PCIe slots.
The overall design is minimalist, but Asus does offer RGB effects on the TUF logo and in a light bar beneath the logo.
These effects and other card parameters can be adjusted via Asus's optional GPU Tweak III software. You can also control these effects via any Aura Sync-compatible utility.
Most Ada cards offer four display outs including three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1a. But Asus has been benevolent in offering five ports —two HDMI 2.1a-outs and three DisplayPort 1.4a-outs — which can come in handy for hooking up TVs and the likes that do not offer DisplayPort connections.
Like all other Ada cards launched so far, the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition also features the infamous PCIe Gen 5 16-pin power connector. Since the card draws only about 285 W typically, the provided 12VHPWR to 2x 8-pin adapter is sufficient.
Asus offers a red LED indicator near the power input that tells the connector has not been seated correctly, or if the card is not receiving adequate power. The catch is that the LED indicator is off during use but lights up when the PC is turned off, which is a confusing behavior. Asus is apparently planning to fix this with a future software update.
There's also a BIOS switch that enables toggling between Performance and Quiet modes. The modes are largely identical, but Performance mode should be able to allow boosts up to 2,760 MHz while Quiet mode offers up to 2,730 MHz. We will look into how these modes affect power draws, thermals, and fan noise as we go on.
In the box, we find quite a few items including:
- TUF collection card
- 12VHPWR to 2x 8-pin power adapter
- Thank You card
- TUF Gaming Certificate
- Quick Start guide
- Warranty information
- TUF Velcro hook and loop
- TUF GPU holder
The TUF GPU holder prevents card sag and also doubles up as a screwdriver.
The Asus TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition can boost up to 2,760 MHz with the Performance BIOS. The card is rated for a total graphics power (TGP) of 285 W. Overclocking potential is limited with only about 10% additional power target headroom for an increased TGP of 314 W.
The test bench: TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti meets the Intel Core i9-13900K
The test system is largely identical to what we've used for our reviews of the RTX 4090 FE and the RTX 4080 FE. This includes the following components:
- Cooler MasterFrame 700 test bench
- Intel Core i9-13900K
- Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master motherboard
- Gigabyte Aorus Gen 4 2 TB NVMe SSD for benchmarks and games
- 2x 16 GB Kingston Fury Renegade DDR5-6400 RAM with timings 32-39-39-80 at 1.40 V
- Gigabyte M28U 4K 144 Hz monitor
- Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML360L V2 ARGB AIO cooler
- Thermaltake ToughPower Grand RGB 850 W
- A fresh installation of Windows 11 22H2 with the latest patches was used together with the provided test Game Ready driver version 527.62
We would like to thank Cooler Master for supplying the test bench and AIO, Gigabyte for the Core i9-13900K, Z790 motherboard, M28U monitor, and NVMe SSD, and Kingston for the memory.
Synthetic benchmarks: Inches past the RTX 3090 Ti while trying to catch up to the RX 7900 XT
The Asus TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti trails the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT by 16% in Fire Strike Graphics and is 10% behind the RTX 4080 Founders Edition.
This delta with the RX 7900 XT widens close to 21% in Fire Strike Ultra and Fire Strike Extreme. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX, meanwhile, is far ahead of the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti with leads of up to 49% in Fire Strike Ultra.
Time Spy Graphics sees the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti take a 18% hit when compared to the RTX 4080 and about 11% lesser scores in comparison with the RX 7900 XT.
Although still trailing, the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti is able to narrow the gap with the RX 7900 XT while performing generally on par with the RTX 3090 Ti in various Unigine tests. Unsurprisingly, the RTX 4090 FE reigns supreme in Unigine Superposition at 4K Optimized and 8K Optimized settings.
Overall, the Asus TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti is ever-so-slightly ahead of the RTX 3090 Ti in overall synthetic benchmark performance that includes various 3DMark and Unigine tests. The new AD104 GPU is not too far behind the RX 7900 XT, but it cannot match the likes of the RX 7900 XTX and the RTX 4080.
We did not notice any discernable performance drops in select 3DMark tests in the Quiet BIOS mode.
| 3DMark 11 - 1280x720 Performance GPU | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 | |
| AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX | |
| AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT | |
| Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti | |
| Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (Quiet BIOS) | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (59799 - 62189, n=4) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (55144 - 66934, n=15) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (47287 - 57662, n=4) | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT | |
| Average NVIDIA Titan RTX (43461 - 51863, n=29) | |
| Average of class Desktop (508 - 100321, n=48, last 2 years) | |
| 3DMark 11 Performance | 55728 points | |
| 3DMark Ice Storm Standard Score | 289247 points | |
| 3DMark Cloud Gate Standard Score | 87562 points | |
| 3DMark Fire Strike Score | 42479 points | |
| 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme Score | 26604 points | |
| 3DMark Time Spy Score | 22481 points | |
Help | ||
Compute performance: On par with Ampere flagships but Blender CUDA woes with Ada continue
The effects of reduced CUDA core counts in AD104 start becoming clearer in compute benchmarks. The TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti loses to the RTX 4080 by 24% in V-Ray 5 CUDA and RTX tests and this gap increases to 45% when compared with the RTX 4090 FE. However, the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti does show decent improvements over the RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti in these tests.
Blender Classroom CUDA once again shows skewed results with the RTX 4070 Ti similar to what we had observed with the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 even with the latest drivers. We have reached out to Nvidia and are yet to hear back from them on this. Optix rendering with the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti is only two seconds slower than the RTX 4080.
Interestingly, LuxMark Room GPU-only test shows the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti with 35% gains over the RTX 3090 Ti and a massive 63% lead over the RX 7900 XTX. However, AMD GPUs make up for this deficit in the Sala GPU-only benchmark wherein the Radeon RX 6900 XT and the RX 6950 XT top the charts with up to 37% leads over the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti.
The TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti is able to perform on par with the RTX 3090 Ti in ComputeMark but trails the RX 7900 XT by 10% overall.
| V-Ray 5 Benchmark | |
| GPU CUDA | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (5.0.1) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (5.0.1) | |
| Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (5.0.1) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti (5.0.1) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (5.0.1) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (2045 - 2070, n=3) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (1616 - 2131, n=14) | |
| Average of class Desktop (10 - 4309, n=26, last 2 years) | |
| Average NVIDIA Titan RTX (668 - 1052, n=7) | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT (5.0.1) | |
| GPU RTX | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (5.0.1) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (5.0.1) | |
| Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (5.0.1) | |
| Average of class Desktop (992 - 5935, n=12, last 2 years) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (5.0.1) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti (5.0.1) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (2551 - 2979, n=14) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (2727 - 2883, n=3) | |
| Average NVIDIA Titan RTX (1246 - 1348, n=7) | |
| V-Ray Benchmark Next 4.10 - GPU | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (v4.10.07 ) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (v4.10.07 ) | |
| Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (v4.10.07 ) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti (v4.10.07 ) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (v4.10.07 ) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (781 - 877, n=16) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (854 - 855, n=3) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (636 - 643, n=2) | |
| Average of class Desktop (4 - 1872, n=33, last 2 years) | |
| Average NVIDIA Titan RTX (386 - 439, n=16) | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (v4.10.07 ) | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT (v4.10.07 ) | |
| Blender | |
| v3.3 Classroom CUDA | |
| Average of class Desktop (20 - 91, n=5, last 2 years) | |
| Average NVIDIA Titan RTX | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (21 - 22, n=2) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (20 - 22, n=11) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (3.3.0) | |
| v3.3 Classroom OPTIX/RTX | |
| Average NVIDIA Titan RTX | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (14 - 15, n=2) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (13 - 14, n=11) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (3.3.0) | |
| Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (3.3.2) | |
| Average of class Desktop (8 - 15, n=8, last 2 years) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (3.3.0) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (3.3.0) | |
* ... smaller is better
Gaming performance: Significant gains compared to RTX 3090
The Asus TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti continues to stalk the RTX 3090 Ti in gaming tests with perceivable gains over the RTX 3090. Cumulatively, the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti is on par with the RTX 3090 Ti and can be up to 13% faster vis-à-vis the RTX 3090 in tested games.
The performance is not too behind the RX 7900 XT and, in certain cases such as QHD settings, the RTX 4070 Ti is on par or can even edge out AMD's second-best RDNA 3 GPU this generation.
In general, TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti comes across as an extremely capable card for QHD 100 fps gaming at Ultra settings. The card is also capable of running most modern AAA titles at 4K Ultra 60 fps, but QHD is where AD104 shines the most.
While performance is comparable to that of the RTX 3090 Ti, hardware limitations start coming into play, especially at 4K. The RTX 3090 Ti has a much wider memory bus and a higher memory bandwidth, which favors high resolutions and heavy textures. That being said, AD104 manages to come well-within striking distance of the RTX 3090 Ti solely on the basis of architectural improvements.
Compared to the top dog RTX 4090 FE, the RTX 4070 Ti lags behind by about 28% overall in raster performance. Nvidia is pushing DLSS 3 as the panacea to boost fps at maxed out settings, so it should be possible to hit even higher frames at 4K with DLSS 3 in supported titles.
The fact that we are now getting RTX 3090 Ti levels of performance at a US$799 MSRP shows how much of a cash-grab the Ampere flagship was at launch.