NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER occupies a distinct position in the benchmark hierarchy, landing at the 84th percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 42,576. This places it in a tightly contested cluster where the data shows it is statistically tied with professional and workstation-oriented cards, while maintaining a slight edge over older compute-focused hardware. The card's aggregate performance is defined by consistency across DirectX 12, Vulkan, and compute workloads, making it a balanced option for modern rendering pipelines.

Benchmark Performance

The RTX 4070 SUPER delivers a composite average score of 42,576, which positions it just 0.2% below the NVIDIA RTX A6000 (42,653) and 0.3% below the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE (42,723). These deltas are negligible in real-world terms, indicating that the 4070 SUPER trades blows with these rivals within a margin of error. Against the AMD Radeon Pro 580X (41,991), the 4070 SUPER is 1.4% faster, and it leads the NVIDIA Tesla M40 (41,897) by 1.6%. While these percentage differences are small, the character of the performance differs: the 4070 SUPER achieves parity with a workstation GPU (A6000) and a recent mainstream card (RX 7650 GRE) while outpacing older prosumer and datacenter parts.

In specific benchmark tests, the card shows notable strengths. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4,627 reflects strong rasterization throughput for a 5 nm Ada Lovelace chip. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 192,684 is substantially higher than the Vulkan score of 179,271, suggesting that OpenCL compute workloads extract more performance from the 7,168 shading units. Passmark results further illustrate the card's profile: a G3D score of 29,995 is the headline figure, while the GPU compute score of 17,108 indicates robust general-purpose processing. Legacy DirectX tests show lower scores (DX10: 167, DX11: 273, DX9: 344), which is expected for an architecture optimized for modern APIs rather than backward compatibility.

The FP32 compute rating of 35.48 TFLOPS, paired with a 1:1 FP16 ratio of 35.48 TFLOPS, explains why the card performs well in compute benchmarks. The 554.4 GTexel/s texture rate and 198.0 GPixel/s pixel rate provide the throughput needed to sustain high frame rates at demanding settings. The data indicates that the 4070 SUPER is not a niche performer; it sits in the upper tier of consumer GPUs, with the 84th percentile ranking confirming that it outperforms roughly five-sixths of all GPUs in the database.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The RTX 4070 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, which includes 56 RT cores and 224 tensor cores. These dedicated hardware units are central to its ray tracing and AI-accelerated capabilities. The tensor cores enable DLSS and other neural network-based features, while the RT cores offload bounding volume hierarchy traversal and ray intersection calculations from the shaders. The presence of 224 tensor cores, four times the RT core count, suggests a strong emphasis on AI-driven workloads, including denoising and frame generation.

API support is comprehensive for modern software: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) ensures compatibility with the latest game features, including mesh shaders and variable rate shading. Vulkan 1.4 support provides a low-overhead path for cross-platform engines, and OpenGL 4.6 covers legacy applications. The card also includes 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, enabling high refresh rate and high resolution displays. The 12 GB GDDR6X memory buffer, while not the largest on the market, is paired with a 192-bit bus and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth, which is sufficient for ray tracing workloads that often require substantial memory traffic. The data does not specify a dedicated ray tracing benchmark score, but the hardware configuration—56 RT cores and 224 tensor cores—indicates a card designed to handle ray-traced effects with hardware acceleration rather than relying on compute fallbacks.

Who Should Consider It

Benchmark results indicate that the RTX 4070 SUPER is best suited for gamers and professionals targeting high refresh rate 1440p or entry-level 4K gaming. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4,627 and Passmark G3D score of 29,995 suggest that the card can handle demanding titles at high settings without compromise. The 12 GB VRAM and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth provide enough headroom for texture-heavy scenes at 1440p, though 4K ultra settings may require adjusting some options to maintain smooth frame rates.

Users with workloads that leverage OpenCL will find particular value, as the Geekbench OpenCL score of 192,684 outpaces the Vulkan score by 7.5%, indicating strong compute performance in applications that use OpenCL for rendering, physics, or data processing. The 84th percentile ranking means that the card outperforms the majority of GPUs in the database, making it a viable choice for those who need consistent performance across a range of modern APIs. Conversely, users running legacy DirectX 9 or 10 applications will see lower relative performance (Passmark DX9: 344, DX10: 167), so the card is not optimized for older software libraries. For ray tracing, the 56 RT cores and 224 tensor cores provide the necessary hardware foundation, but users should expect to engage DLSS or similar features to maximize frame rates at higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: How does the RTX 4070 SUPER compare to the NVIDIA RTX A6000 in average performance?

A: The RTX 4070 SUPER scores 42,576 on average, which is 0.2% lower than the RTX A6000's 42,653. This difference is effectively negligible, making the two cards comparable in overall benchmark performance.

Q: What is the card's DirectX 12 performance based on benchmark data?

A: In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, the RTX 4070 SUPER achieves a score of 4,627. The Passmark DirectX 12 score is 110, which is lower than the DirectX 11 score of 273, indicating that the card is better optimized for modern DX12 workloads in synthetic tests.

Q: Does the RTX 4070 SUPER support Vulkan?

A: Yes, the card supports Vulkan 1.4. Its Geekbench Vulkan score is 179,271, which is lower than its OpenCL score of 192,684.

Q: What is the memory configuration of the RTX 4070 SUPER?

A: It features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. The memory clock is 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective speed.

Q: How does the card perform in compute tasks?

A: The Passmark GPU Compute score is 17,108, and the FP32 compute rating is 35.48 TFLOPS. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 192,684 is notably strong, suggesting solid compute performance for OpenCL-based applications.

Q: What is the production status of the RTX 4070 SUPER?

A: The card is listed as end-of-life in the production status, with a release date of January 7, 2024.

Power and Cooling

The RTX 4070 SUPER has a TDP of 220 W, which requires a suggested power supply of 550 W. The card uses a single 16-pin power connector, a modern standard that delivers power efficiently. The dual-slot cooling design is compact, with dimensions of 267 mm in length, 112 mm in height, and 42 mm in width. This form factor allows it to fit in most mid-tower cases, though the 16-pin connector may require an adapter for older power supplies without native support. The 220 W TDP is moderate for a card with 7,168 shading units, and the 5 nm process node from TSMC helps manage thermal output. The cooling solution is unspecified in the data, but the dual-slot design and 220 W TDP suggest that a capable air cooler is sufficient for most use cases. Users with smaller cases should verify clearance for the 267 mm length, while those with older PSUs need to confirm 550 W capacity and 16-pin compatibility.

Memory Subsystem

The RTX 4070 SUPER is equipped with 12 GB of GDDR6X memory, a type known for high bandwidth. The 192-bit bus width, combined with a memory clock of 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective), yields a total bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. This configuration is well-matched to the card's 80 ROPs and 224 TMUs, ensuring that texture and pixel throughput are not bottlenecked by memory access. For high-resolution gaming, 12 GB is sufficient for 1440p and most 4K scenarios, though the 192-bit bus is narrower than higher-tier cards. The 504.2 GB/s bandwidth is adequate for ray tracing, which often requires frequent data fetches for acceleration structures. In benchmark terms, the memory subsystem supports the card's 35.48 TFLOPS FP32 performance, as the bandwidth is not an outlier in either direction relative to the compute capability. The GDDR6X type offers higher effective speeds than standard GDDR6, which is reflected in the 21 Gbps effective rate. For users pushing 4K with high-detail textures, the 12 GB capacity is the limiting factor rather than bandwidth, but the data shows no specific memory-bound test scores to quantify this.

How It Compares

NVIDIA RTX A6000: The RTX 4070 SUPER trails the A6000 by just 0.2% in average score (42,576 vs 42,653). This is a statistical tie, meaning the 4070 SUPER delivers comparable raw performance to a workstation GPU at a fraction of the complexity. The A6000 likely excels in memory capacity, but the benchmark data shows no significant performance gap in these tests.

AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE: The RX 7650 GRE leads by 0.3% (42,723 vs 42,576). This is the closest rival in the data, with the two cards effectively matching each other across the benchmark suite. The 4070 SUPER offers its own feature set with DLSS and RT cores, but raw scores show no clear winner.

AMD Radeon Pro 580X: The 4070 SUPER is 1.4% faster than the Pro 580X (42,576 vs 41,991). This is a modest but consistent advantage, indicating that the 4070 SUPER outperforms this older professional card in modern workloads. The Pro 580X is not a direct consumer competitor, but the delta shows the 4070 SUPER holds up well against prosumer hardware.

NVIDIA Tesla M40: The 4070 SUPER leads the Tesla M40 by 1.6% (42,576 vs 41,897). The M40 is a datacenter-oriented card from a previous generation, so this result is expected. The 4070 SUPER's newer architecture and higher shading unit count (7,168 vs an unspecified M40 count) contribute to its advantage, though the small delta suggests the M40 remains competitive in compute-heavy tasks.