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MagyarZotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 AMP Airo Review: RTX 3080-ish performance for US$200 markup over RTX 3070
Update 04/17: Review now complete with heat, noise, and power measurements
Even though it's only been a few months since the RTX 4070 Ti launched, Nvidia is back again with a further sliced-down AD104 GPU in the form of the RTX 4070.
Unlike the RTX 4070 Ti, Nvidia is offering a Founders Edition card for the US$599 RTX 4070, whose embargo lifted yesterday alongside other similarly priced add-in board (AiB) partner models.
Today, though, is when the amped-up RTX 4070 cards make their presence felt. We have with us the Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 AMP Airo for review.
While the RTX 4070 Ti featured the full fat AD104 die with 7,680 CUDA cores, the RTX 4070 is a drastically cut-down part with just 5,888 CUDA cores. This is a 23% decrease that manifests accordingly in various benchmarks as we will see shortly.
Together, these 5,888 CUDA cores can output 29 TFLOPs of FP32 performance for rasterization. The RTX 4070 also offers 184 fourth generation Tensor cores and 46 third generation RT cores.
The RTX 4070 shares the same memory subsystem as that of the RTX 4070 Ti — 12 GB of 192-bit GDDR6X with a 504 GB/s bandwidth.
The Zotac RTX 4070 AMP Airo retails for ₹70,199 or US$699. In India, the card comes with a five-year warranty: a standard warranty of three years that is extensible by another two years.
In this review, we test Zotac's premium RTX 4070 offering, see how it compares with the RTX 4070 Ti, and evaluate whether it has the guts to convincingly displace the GeForce RTX 3080 and the Radeon RX 6900 XT.
Comparison of the Zotac Gaming RTX 4070 AMP Airo with other Nvidia GPUs
| Specification | RTX 4090 FE | RTX 4080 FE | Asus TUF RTX 4070 Ti | Zotac RTX 4070 AMP Airo | RTX 3090 Ti FE | RTX 3090 FE | RTX 3080 Ti FE | RTX 3080 FE | RTX 3070 FE | Titan RTX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chip | AD102 | AD103 | AD104 | AD104 | GA102 | GA102 | GA102 | GA102 | GA104 | TU102 |
| FinFET Process | Custom 4N | Custom 4N | Custom 4N | Custom 4N | 8 nm | 8 nm | 8 nm | 8 nm | 8 nm | 12 nm |
| CUDA Cores | 16,384 | 9,728 | 7,680 | 5,888 | 10,752 | 10,496 | 10,240 | 8,704 | 5,888 | 4,608 |
| Texture Units | 512 | 304 | 240 | 184 | 336 | 328 | 320 | 272 | 184 | 288 |
| Tensor Cores | 512 4th Gen. | 304 4th Gen. | 240 4th Gen. | 184 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. | 46 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 | 1,920MHz | 1,560 MHz | 1,395 MHz | 1,365 MHz | 1,440 MHz | 1,500 MHz | 1,350 MHz |
| GPU Boost Clock | 2,520 MHz | 2,505 MHz | 2,760 MHz | 2,535 MHz | 1,860 MHz | 1,695 MHz | 1,665 MHz | 1,710 MHz | 1,750 MHz | 1,770 MHz |
| Memory Bus | 384-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 320-bit | 256-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 1,008 GB/s | 716.8 GB/s | 504 GB/s | 504 GB/s | 1,008 GB/s | 936 GB/s | 912 GB/s | 760 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 672 GB/s |
| Video Memory | 24 GB GDDR6X | 16 GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR6X | 10 GB GDDR6X | 8 GB GDDR6 | 24 GB GDDR6 |
| Power Consumption | 450 W | 320 W | 285 W | 215 W | 450 W | 350 W | 350 W | 320 W | 220 W | 280 W |
A closer look at the Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 AMP Airo
Zotac has taken a new design approach with the RTX 40 series cards, and the RTX 4070 AMP Airo inherits this as well.
The RTX 4070 AMP Airo's two-slot design comes a relief from the bulky Ada cards we've been seeing so far. The front shroud is primarily plastic with a good amount of flex. The rear, however, sports a metal backplate with a prominent ventilation cutout.
The top of the front shroud sports a neat design that gets some RGB love. The GeForce RTX logo is not lit, however. RGB effects can be adjusted via Zotac's FireStorm utility. However, the version supporting this card was not available at the time of testing.
Inside the box, we get some paperwork, stickers, a 2x 8-pin to 12VHPWR adapter, and an anti-sag support.
The RTX 4070 AMP Airo gets a predictable set of ports including three DisplayPort 1.4a-outs and a HDMI 2.1a port. There's no additional HDMI-out as we've seen with the Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC.
The 12VHPWR connector has become the staple of all Ada cards and the RTX 4070 AMP Airo is no different. Unlike some of the other AiB offerings, Zotac doesn't provide any diagnostic LEDs to indicate proper connector seating. There is no physical VBIOS switch either.
GPU-Z unfortunately isn't yet updated to properly recognize the RTX 4070. Nevertheless, the RTX 4070 AMP Airo comes factory overclocked to 2,535 MHz against the reference design's 2,475 MHz.
Thus, the RTX 4070 AMP Airo operates at a 215 W TGP as opposed to the Founders Edition's 200 W rating. It is possible to increase the power target by another 20% for an increased TGP of 258 W.
The test bench: RTX 4070 AMP Airo gets paired with the Intel Core i9-13900K
Our test bench continues to be the same as the one we've used for previous RTX 40 reviews including the RTX 4090 FE, RTX 4080 FE, and the RTX 4070 Ti. Specifications include:
- 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
- A fresh installation of Windows 11 22H2 with latest patches together with provided test Game Ready driver version 531.42
Synthetic benchmarks: RTX 3080-level performance that is well behind the RTX 4070 Ti
The Zotac RTX 4070 AMP Airo sits just above the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT in overall synthetic benchmark performance and leads the RTX 3080 average by about 6%. The RTX 4070 AMP Airo lags behind the RTX 4070 Ti average by a significant 19%.
Although the RTX 4070 Ti is right on the heels of the Radeon RX 7900 XT in cumulative synthetic tests, AMD's second rung flagship manages a comfortable 34% lead compared to the RTX 4070 AMP Airo.
Zotac's best RTX 4070 offering manages to have a decent lead over the RTX 3080 average in 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics, but there's no significant advantage with the Ultra and Extreme variants of the test.
In Time Spy Graphics, the RTX 4070 AMP Airo only manages to inch past the RX 6800 XT by a whisker. Performance vis-à-vis the RTX 4070 Ti seems deficient by 22%.
Unigine Superposition tests see the RTX 4070 AMP Airo trying to close the gap with the RTX 4070 Ti average at 720p, but the card takes a beating at higher resolutions.
| 3DMark 11 - 1280x720 Performance GPU | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition | |
| AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX | |
| AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT | |
| Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Master | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (74228 - 76483, n=5) | |
| Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT Nitro+ Pure | |
| Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti AMP Extreme Holo | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (59799 - 62189, n=4) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (55144 - 66934, n=16) | |
| Intel Core i9-13900K | |
| Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 AMP Airo | |
| 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 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (26812 - 46878, n=9) | |
| Average of class Desktop (508 - 104464, n=46, last 2 years) | |
| 3DMark 11 Performance | 47838 points | |
| 3DMark Ice Storm Standard Score | 272162 points | |
| 3DMark Cloud Gate Standard Score | 80436 points | |
| 3DMark Fire Strike Score | 36970 points | |
| 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme Score | 20698 points | |
| 3DMark Time Spy Score | 18120 points | |
Help | ||
Compute performance: Good gains over Ampere flagships in select tests
Compute benchmarks show a similar trend as before with the RTX 4070 AMP Airo lagging behind the RTX 4070 Ti average by up to 20% in V-Ray 5. However, V-Ray 4.1 GPU sees Zotac's latest offering coming very close to the Aorus RTX 4070 Ti Master resulting in a massive 51% gain over the RTX 3080 average.
The RTX 4070 AMP Airo trails the RTX 3080 Ti average by 1.5 seconds in Blender 3.3 Classroom CUDA. However, the card manages to regain leads by half a second in Classroom Optix.
LuxMark sees the RTX 4070 AMP Airo convincingly leaving behind even the Radeon RX 7900 XTX in Room GPU while being about 29% slower than the RTX 4080 Founders Edition. AMD RDNA 2 cards, however, continue to dominate the charts in Sala GPU.
| V-Ray Benchmark Next 4.10 - GPU | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition (v4.10.07 ) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition (v4.10.07 ) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (1056 - 1076, n=3) | |
| Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Master (v4.10.07 ) | |
| Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 AMP Airo (v4.10.07 ) | |
| Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti AMP Extreme Holo (v4.10.07 ) | |
| Intel Core i9-13900K (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=32, last 2 years) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (464 - 508, n=4) | |
| Average NVIDIA Titan RTX (386 - 439, n=16) | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (v4.10.07 ) | |
| Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT Nitro+ Pure (v4.10.07 ) | |
| Blender | |
| v3.3 Classroom CUDA | |
| Average NVIDIA Titan RTX | |
| Average of class Desktop (10 - 91, n=9, last 2 years) | |
| Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 AMP Airo (3.3.3) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (21 - 22, n=2) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (20 - 22, n=11) | |
| Intel Core i9-13900K (3.3.0) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (18 - 19, n=2) | |
| Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Master (3.3.2) | |
| v3.3 Classroom OPTIX/RTX | |
| Average NVIDIA Titan RTX | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (14 - 15, n=2) | |
| Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 AMP Airo (3.3.3) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (13 - 14, n=11) | |
| Intel Core i9-13900K (3.3.0) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (11 - 12, n=4) | |
| Average of class Desktop (7 - 15, n=11, last 2 years) | |
| Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Master (3.3.2) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition (3.3.0) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition (3.3.0) | |
* ... smaller is better
Gaming performance: Slower memory impedes 4K gaming relative to the RTX 3080
The RTX 4070 AMP Airo is about 8% faster in cumulative game benchmarks compared to the RTX 3080 average while trailing by 20% against the RTX 4070 Ti average. Again, this largely tallies with the corresponding decrease in CUDA core counts compared to the full AD102 GPU in the RTX 4070 Ti.
Taken individually, the RTX 3080 average does have perceivable leads over the RTX 4070 in games such as The Witcher 3, Control, Borderlands 3, and Mafia Definitive Edition in 4K Ultra settings.
This can be attributed to the fact that the RTX 3080 features a 320-bit 760 GB/s GDDR6X VRAM, which helps with heavy textures against the 192-bit 504 GB/s memory of the RTX 4070.
That being said, the RTX 4070 has a clear advantage over the RTX 3080 and the RX 6900 XT at lower resolutions particularly at QHD and 1080p Ultra.
| Control | |
| 3840x2160 High Quality Preset (DX11) | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition | |
| AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition | |
| AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT | |
| Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti AMP Extreme Holo | |
| Average of class Desktop (30.3 - 114.4, n=11, last 2 years) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (63.8 - 66.2, n=4) | |
| Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Master | |
| Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT Nitro+ Pure | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (63.9 - 64.9, n=3) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (61.3 - 66, n=4) | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (56.2 - 56.7, n=2) | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (SAM ENABLED) | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT | |