Nvidia’s RTX 4070 graphics card has been flying low under the radar lately, with all the focus on the 4070 Ti that’s supposedly about to launch, but now we’ve seen leaked specs for the lower-end model.
Unfortunately, it’s not good news on the face of it, as according to leaker Kopite7kimi – a regular presence on Twitter when it comes to GPU wastage – the RTX 4070 will be significantly shortened compared to the RTX 4070 Ti.
Some updates of RTX 4070: PG141-SKU336/337AD104-250-A15888FP3212G 21Gbps GDDR6X36M L2250WDecember 9, 2022
At least when it comes to the CUDA cores, because as you can see the RTX 4070 is set to reportedly run with 5,888 cores, a pretty old dip from the max load of the AD104 GPU that the 4070 cards are based on, which is 7,680 cores (the configuration the rumor mill says will appeal to the 4070 Ti).
Also, don’t forget that this figure for the RTX 4070 matches the RTX 3070, which has 5,888 cores – although keep in mind that architectural advancements and other specs (such as clock speeds) mean a configured 4070, as this leak will still be a lot faster (there are is of course no chance that Nvidia would have it any other way).
The better news is that while previous speculation pointed to an RTX 4070 with 10GB of VRAM – a prospect that certainly sparked a lot of bitterness in GPU-related online discussions – this leak pins a 12GB loadout on the 4070. a 192-bit memory bus, which is good to hear, as smaller bandwidths have been tampered with in the past.
Analysis: Weaker or stronger, pricing will be key
What we’ve also heard in the past is that Nvidia has struggled to determine where to put the RTX 4070 and whether to push a weaker or stronger offering into this mid-range (or upper mid-range). , we assume).
The theory put forward by Moore’s Law is Dead a few months ago is that Team Green was waiting to see just how powerful RDNA 3 maps are before deciding on a final spec, and sure enough, that wait may continue – although there’s a pretty solid indication is that AMD is focusing entirely on the RTX 4080 with its flagship RX 7900 XTX.
In other words, maybe Nvidia now feels confident enough to make the decision to go for a slightly weaker RTX 4070, with far fewer CUDA cores than the 4070 Ti. It’s certainly a leap, and we shouldn’t get carried away with this one, but this rumor does suggest that Nvidia isn’t going all out to make the RTX 4070 a graphics card this close to the Ti variant.
Even if this is true, as we just discussed, the other specs of this RTX 4070, 12GB of VRAM and a 192-bit bus, do match the 4070 Ti (leaked specs, that is). So even if cores are cut quite brutally, the jury is still out on performance to some extent. And there’s also the possibility that a somewhat lesser-performing graphics card qualifies for a much cheaper price tag than the RTX 4070 Ti, and so could be a good proposition for relative value.
However, given Nvidia’s current shape, we find competitive pricing an unlikely prospect given all those RTX 3000 cards yet to be resold. This rumor has led to a lot of pessimism online about the RTX 4070, and we totally understand why, but the key will actually be price/performance, and how much Nvidia charges for however powerful this GPU ends up being. Unfortunately, we are leaning towards the pessimist point of view here and not holding our breath for a good outcome on that point.
Perhaps the only thing that could change this is if the price on the RTX 4070 Ti gets right, following a price cut on the RTX 4080, which is rumored to be a possibility. In that case, the RTX 4070 might have a relatively palatable price tag…
Watch this space, and of course the other obvious question is, how much lag will there be between the 4070 Ti and 4070? Will the base RTX 4070 also be pushed out next month as the first is supposedly launching in January? Given how under the radar it’s been, that might seem unlikely, and previously rumored release dates of say March 2023 could be more on the money for the RTX 4070 (again, especially if Nvidia needs to carve out more time to sell through remaining RTX 3000 stock).
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