Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti review: a next-gen GPU that's worth the asking price?

Top-tier ray tracing experiences put through their paces.

Review by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry

Published on Jan. 4, 2023

We've completely revised our test bench 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. Some of our line-up may need tweaks as the results come in, but right now, we're mostly happy with this more forward-looking approach.

Ray tracing is no longer a second class citizen and with the new wave of GPUs, 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. Here's where you'll start to see how RTX 4070 Ti stacks up against the RX 7900 XT, its companions in the RTX 4000 line-up and of course, the last-gen juggernauts spearheaded by RTX 3080.

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.

Cyberpunk 2077

This is Cyberpunk 2077 in its ultra-high RT mode - the full monty, short of the 'psycho' ray tracing setting but still a hefty workout that brings RTX 3080 and all legacy RDNA 2 AMD cards to their knees in 4K mode. With a 41 percentage point lead over RTX 3080, what you're seeing here is the value of 12GB of RAM up against the 10 gigs of the last-gen Ampere favourite.

Up against its nearest current-gen AMD counterpart, there's a commanding 30 percent lead here for the new Nvidia card, with a 2.1x multiplier against the old RX 6900 XT. Stacking up the new RTX 4070 Ti against its RTX 4000-series brethren and RTX 3090 Ti, the 4090 is almost 80 percentage points to the better, with the 4080's lead dropping to around 28 percent. Against RTX 3090 Ti, we start to find the closest performance equivalent from the last generation - the monstrous RTX 3090 Ti is four percentage points faster.

This is a strong start for the RTX 4070 Ti - there's clear water vs the RTX 3080 while RTX 3090 Ti performance for $799 looks impressive. This isn't the only time that the RTX 4070 Ti mixes it up with Nvidia's last-gen flagship, but this is certainly one of the more positive results.

CYBERPUNK 2077, ULTRA RT, DX12, TAA

Dying Light 2

With Techland's Dying Light 2, we're seeing similar results to our prior look at Cyberpunk 2077 - with one exception. This time, the RTX 3080's 10GB of framebuffer memory is not a limiting factor for the game so the RTX 4070 Ti's performance advantage drops to a more realistic 22 percent. AMD's latest fares a little better, with the 7900 XT delivering around 89 percent of the RTX 4070 Ti's RT performance - though you'll need to move up to the $999 RX 7900 XTX to see AMD hardware pull slightly ahead of the 4070 Ti.

In terms of how RTX 4070 Ti scales against its RTX 4000 counterparts, there are few surprises here: the much maligned RTX 4080 is around 28 percentage points to the better (though it'll cost you 50 percent more judged by MSRPs) while the flagship RTX 4090 powers ahead with a performance lead in excess of 80 percent. Once again, the RTX 3090 Ti is the natural comparison point: the new card is a touch slower - around five to six points off-pace - so it sits in a middleground between RTX 3090 and 3090 Ti performance.

DYING LIGHT 2 ULTRA RT, TAA, DX12

F1 22

Ray tracing performance continues to favour the RTX 4070 Ti up against the RTX 3080 favourite - you're getting around 20 percent more performance for around 14 percent more money. Alongside the other results so far, this is the first time we've actually seen a price/performance ratio that beats last-gen, even if the difference is relatively slight (and figures based on the UK RRP increase are less charitable).

This is a title where we found the RDNA 3 offerings from AMD to run rather well, with the 4070 Ti only mustering an eight percentage point performance lead over the RX 7900 XT. It's hardly the norm, but the 7900 XTX came in considerably faster in our tests - though of course, both RDNA 3 cards are notionally more expensive.

There are no real surprises in terms of scalability against other Nvidia cards - the lack of value found in RTX 4080 is demonstrable with a mere 25 percentage point lead in a world where its MSRP - at the time of writing at least - is 50 percent higher. Once again, RTX 4070 Ti slots in between RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti - the last-gen flagship is almost seven points ahead of the newcomer, which in turn has a four percentage point lead over the RTX 3090.

F1 22, ULTRA RT, DX12, TAA+FSR SHARPENING

Control

Thus far, the emerging narrative is that the RTX 4070 Ti offers performance somewhere between RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti, but it's important to bear in mind that the Ada Lovelace architecture is all-new and different games tax different architectures in different ways. We noted some pretty poor scalability in Control between RTX 4080 vs 4090 and unfortunately, 4070 Ti falls a little short too.

We had to run this one a couple of times, but it's definitely the case that the new card only offers an eight to nine percentage point lead over the venerable RTX 3080 but even so, we're still seeing a decent enough 10 percentage point lead over the RX 7900 XT - so once again, you'd need to opt for the more expensive RDNA 3 card to beat it, but even then, there's no FSR2 support.

Stacking up the new card against other RTX 4000 products and RTX 3090 Ti, you can see the issue here - the last-gen card is almost 19 percent faster overall, which deviates from the script significantly. The RTX 4080 is around 29 points to the better - still not good enough for the price being demanded of it - but the RTX 4090 is 91 percent faster. In this case, the 4090 almost offers the same kind of price/performance ratio, amazingly enough. This is an outlier result but not the only time RTX 4070 Ti falls a little short.