Nvidia’s RTX 4070 graphics card has been flying low under the radar lately, with all attention focused on the 4070 Ti that is supposed to launch, but now we’ve seen leaked specs for the lower-tier model.
Sadly, that’s not great news on the surface, as according to leaker Kopite7kimi — a regular presence on Twitter when it comes to GPU spills — the RTX 4070 will be downgraded significantly compared to the RTX 4070 Ti.
Some RTX 4070 Update: PG141-SKU336/337AD104-250-A15888FP3212G 21Gbps GDDR6X36M L2250WDecember 9, 2022
At least when it comes to CUDA cores anyway, because as you can see, the RTX 4070 is allegedly set to run with 5888 cores, which is an old dip from the maximum AD104 GPU load that the 4070 cards relied on, which is 7680 cores (the configuration you’d think Rumor mill that the 4070 Ti will promote it).
Also, don’t forget that this number for the RTX 4070 matches the RTX 3070 which has 5888 cores – though remember that architectural advancements and other specs (like clock speeds) mean the 4070 is configured as this leak will still be much faster. (No chance, of course, of Nvidia owning otherwise.)
The best news is that while previous speculation pointed to an RTX 4070 with 10GB of VRAM — a prospect that has sparked a lot of bitterness in online discussions related to the GPU — this leak points to a 12GB load on the 4070. It also allegedly has a memory bus. 192-bit, which is good to hear since less bandwidth has been associated in the past.
Analysis: Weaker or stronger, pricing will be key
What we’ve also heard in the past is that Nvidia has had a hard time trying to decide where to offer the RTX 4070, and whether to push a weaker or stronger offering in this mid-range (or upper-mid-range, we suppose).
The theory Moore’s Law is Dead put forward a couple of months ago is that Team Green has been waiting to see how powerful the RDNA 3 cards are before deciding on final specs, and in fact, that wait may continue – although there is a very strong indication that AMD is squarely targeting RTX. 4080 through the flagship RX 7900 XTX.
In other words, perhaps Nvidia now feels confident enough to decide to go with a slightly weaker RTX 4070, with far fewer CUDA Cores than the 4070 Ti. It’s a leap, sure, and we shouldn’t get carried away here, but this rumor has it that Nvidia won’t go out of its way to make the RTX 4070 a graphics card close to the Ti variant.
Even if that were true, as we’ve just now touched upon, the other specs that the RTX 4070 runs with, 12GB of VRAM and a 192-bit bus, match the 4070 Ti (the leaked specs, that is). So even if the cores are brutally cut, the jury is still out on performance, to some extent. There’s also the possibility that a somewhat lower-performance graphics card could be in line with a much cheaper price tag than the RTX 4070 Ti, so it could end up offering good relative value.
Given Nvidia’s current shape, though, we find competitive pricing an unlikely possibility, with all of the RTX 3000 cards still to be sold. This rumor has led to quite a bit of pessimism online regarding the RTX 4070, and we fully understand why, but the key will really be price/performance, and how much Nvidia charges despite this GPU’s power. Unfortunately, we’re leaning towards the pessimist’s point of view here, and we’re not holding our breath for a good outcome on this score.
Perhaps the only thing that would change this is if the price on the RTX 4070 Ti does well, after the price cut on the RTX 4080 is rumored to be a possibility. In this case, perhaps the price of the RTX 4070 is relatively palatable…
Watch this space, and of course the other obvious question is: How much is the lag between the 4070 Ti and the 4070? With the previous version launching in January, will the base RTX 4070 also be out next month? Given how under-the-radar it’s been, that probably seems unlikely, and previous rumored release dates of the likes of March 2023 could be more on the money for the RTX 4070 (again, especially if Nvidia needs to buy more time to sell off its remaining RTX 3000 stock) .
Via VideoCardz (Opens in a new tab)