Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super graphics card review: Peak performer

Nvidia follows a release pattern for each of its graphics processing unit (GPU) generations. First, there are the big hitters with “80” and “90” in the name. Then comes the “60” and “70” graphics cards. Those gamers patient enough to wait longer are rewarded with the “Ti” and “Super” revisions, which tend to have better pricing and benefit from some extra engineering tweaks. I was very impressed by the power of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 at launch (and continue to be). But I’m blown away by what the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super can achieve in a smaller, less-power-hungry package.

When the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 launched, many (rightfully) balked at the $2K+ asking price. Fast-forward to more recent times and the 4080 prices have settled between $1,500 and $2,000. For the RTX 4070 Super, the price range is between $1,000 and $1,500-ish. If you want to weigh up an RTX 4070 Super against its AMD equivalent—the RX 7900 GRE—those GPUs come in at just under $1,000. There is money to be saved if you want to go with an AMD graphics card, but paying extra for the RTX 4070 Super will generally mean better support for games that include Nvidia features like DLSS (not to mention superior ray tracing performance).

Compared to its 4080 brethren, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super is tiny. Instead of a three-slot anvil, the RTX 4070 Super is a two-slot graphics card with a whole lot less heft. More importantly, the RTX 4070 Super only needs two eight-pin power connectors connected to an 18-pin adaptor instead of the three connectors required for the 4080 and above. At least, that was the case for the Nvidia-provided Founders Editions I was using for comparison in my review; third-party graphics cards may vary.

Regardless, I’m a fan of Nvidia’s shift away from the black-and-silver design of its original 40-series graphics cards and into an all-black look. And slotting in the RTX 4070 Super feels a lot more secure with the slimmer, lighter design whose weight is comfortably held by a PCI-express port and two bracket screws. With the power connected, you’re ready to go.

Because I use an RTX 4080 as my everyday graphics card, my GPU drivers were already installed and my Windows 11 PC detected the RTX 4070 Super automatically. No extra steps needed before getting into the nitty-gritty of testing. Even under load, the RTX 4070 didn’t get past 70 degrees Celsius, with fan speed of no more than 37%, plus power draw of no more than 220W.

For benchmarks, I put games on their highest fidelity preset and tested at 1080p, 1440p and 4K native resolutions first. This is a great indicator of performance for most games, which may not include AI upscaling technologies like DLSS. I enabled the highest ray tracing setting for games that include the fidelity feature, but it wasn’t available/on for Red Dead Redemption 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III or Total War: Warhammer 3. For comparison, the table below has RTX 4070 Super frame rates on the left and RTX 4080 results on the right.

At 1080p native resolution, there’s close performance for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Red Dead Redemption 2. There’s more of a gap for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and The Talos Principle 2, with a minimum of 22% difference for all other games. It’s a similar story at 1440p, with Avatar, Red Dead and Warhammer 3 offering marginal differences before the 4080’s extra power takes a noticeable lead. Still, only Cyberpunk 2077 with the insanely demanding Overdrive ray tracing enabled has an unplayable frame rate.

For 4K, the lead is clearer, albeit Avatar and Red Dead only have marginal leads in the battle. Bear in mind that the 4080 is built for 4K native gaming, while the 4070 series is not, which is why these 4070 Super results are better than I expected. Things get even better with DLSS turned on—all set to Balanced performance—particularly for the games below that support DLSS 3: Returnal, Modern Warfare III, Dying Light 2, Cyberpunk 2077 and Hitman 3.

DLSS is where performance really shines. At 1080p, there are 50% and above performance boosts vs native resolutions on the RTX 4070 Super for Modern Warfare IIII, Cyberpunk 2077 and Hitman 3. It’s an even better story for 1440p, with Returnal, Modern Warfare III, Dying Light 2, Cyberpunk 2077 and Hitman 3 all offering at least a 50% boost to frame rate. For 4K resolutions, DLSS takes Cyberpunk 2077 from a 4 frames-per-second (fps) slideshow to a playable 40fps (a 90% boost). Outside of Red Dead and Avatar, both of which have very playable frame rates, all other DLSS games have at least a 40% boost with the 4070 Super.

Graphics cards aren’t all about benchmarking with a curated list of games, though. I threw a bunch of my go-to games at the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super, too, and was continually impressed. I have a 4K 120Hz monitor, so I left maxed-out settings for these games at 4K resolutions.

Hell Let Loose scored an average of 131fps, which is impressive for a large-scale multiplayer game that’s historically been poorly optimised. Newer titles like Alone in the Dark and Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition were impressive at 77fps and 44fps, respectively with native 4K resolution. A DLSS boost for Helldivers 2 saw it jump from a 50fps average to 90fps. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor felt rough at 33fps but then with DLSS 3 frame-gen, it felt very smooth at 81fps. More impressively, Alan Wake 2—the new GPU-melting game on the block—went from an unplayable 18fps at native 4K to a very playable 70fps with DLSS 3.

My new obsession Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor pulled an impressive 164fps at 4K native resolution, while the beautiful Witchfire game leapt from a decent 51fps with native 4K to a very smooth 111fps with DLSS 3 frame generation. Both of those last two games are early access titles, too, so anticipate even better performance for release.

For everyday computing, the hottest part of the graphics card gets up to 53 degrees. Meanwhile, the power draw didn’t get beyond 45W in my tests. The fans didn’t turn on during basic computing tasks, so there is no extra noise to contend with, except if you’re doing something that pushes the RTX 4070 like exporting a 4K video using Nvidia’s encoder. Below is the results of a HandBrake 4K encode of a 55-minute video.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super is a fantastic graphics card. It’s quiet, low on power draw and doesn’t take up a whole lot of case space. Better yet, it has performance where it counts, both for its intended 1440p target resolution but also at 4K. If you’ve been waiting to upgrade from an earlier generation, the RTX 4070 Super is well worth a look.