Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super review: more frames for less money

RT benchmarks: Dying Light 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Control.

Review by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry

Published on Jan. 16, 2024

Since the arrival of Intel Arc and RTX 40-series GPUs last year, we've adopted a revised test suite that aims to better reflect the future of gaming technology. That means we're zeroing in on titles using key engines and low-level gaming APIs, while we've beefed up representation for ray tracing and image reconstruction. 1440p resolution is our core focus here, but we've supplied 1080p and a limited number of 4K metrics too.

Ray tracing is no longer a second class citizen with the latest generation of GPUs, and we're seeing some of the most intensive GPU workloads you can get delivered at really decent frame-rates - even before we factor in image reconstruction technologies like DLSS and FSR2.

Our benchmarking system below offers a number of ways to get to the data you want, the presentation varying according to the device you're looking at right now. You'll get a basic overview of our findings on mobile, with metadata from the video capture of each GPU being translated into simple bar charts with average frame-rate and lowest one per cent measurements for easy comparisons.

On a desktop-class browser, you'll get the full-fat DF experience with embedded YouTube videos of each test scene and live performance metrics. Play the video, and you'll see exactly how each card handled the scene as it progresses. Below the real-time metrics is a bar chart, which you can mouse over to see different measurements and click to switch between actual frame-rates and percentage differences. All the data here is derived from video captured directly from each GPU, ensuring an accurate replay of real performance.

Dying Light 2

So, the real question is, what do we really want from the RTX 4070 Super - or rather, what should we be expecting realistically from Nvidia? Ideally, we'd want 4070 Ti performance for 4070 pricing, but there is a certain balancing act that is required so that existing 4070 Ti owners feel that their cards are still better to a certain extent. In short, exactly the balancing act that saw the RTX 2070 Super deliver 2080-class performance without actually out-performing it.

So here, in Dying Light 2, we're essentially getting 90percent of 4070 Ti performance at 1440p - close to where I'd expect the Super to land. This drops down to circa 89 percent at 4K, but still a big boost over the older RTX 4070. Another issue with the RTX 4070 was that it couldn't quite catch the older RTX 3080. The Super now moves clear by double digits and still has 2GB more memory along with improved efficiency and DLSS 3 support.

Dying Light 2, High RT, TAA

Cyberpunk 2077

The RTX 4070 Super continues to do well in ray-traced applications, delivering a decent 12 percent lead over the RTX 3080 at 1440p, while at the same time offering around 93 percent of the performance of the RTX 4070 Ti. Bearing in mind the launch MSRPs of $649 and $799 respectively, the RTX 4070 Super slotting in at $599 isn't a bad deal.

Based on our numbers, there's a nigh-on 19 percentage point lead for the Super over the base RTX 4070, which does make its official $549 pricing somewhat unappealling.

Cyberpunk 2077, Ultra RT, TAA

Control

Control is one of a few 'banana skin' games for the Ada Lovelace architecture where prior generation Ampere cards over-perform compared to the norm - perhaps down to the cut-back memory interface on the new cards, so how does RTX 4070 Super hold up?

Well, it can only deliver a circa three percentage point lead over the RTX 3080, meaning that 3080 Ti, 3090 and 3090 Ti will outperform it. Still, it's 14 percentage points to the better up against the vanilla RTX 4070, while retaining around 94 percent of the RTX 4070 Ti's performance level.