NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition review: A super card for 1440p gaming

Note: This review was first published on 16 January 2024.

When I reviewed the GeForce RTX 4070 last year, I was impressed by its 1440p capabilities and to a certain extent, how it could perform in certain 4K situations too. But NVIDIA thought it could push its ADA Lovelace AD104 GPU – the GPU model behind all RTX 4070 cards – even more and so here we are, with the GeForce RTX 4070 Super, pitched at the same US$599.

Sticking with their guns, NVIDIA has retained the 192-bit memory bus and the 12GB GDDR6X memory on the new RTX 4070 Super. However, the real game-changer lies in the significant uplift in CUDA cores. This enhancement nudges the RTX 4070 Super closer to the heels of the RTX 4070 Ti in terms of performance. In all my benchmarks, the card delivers better 1440p and 4K gaming performance than before.

At a glance, the RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition does not deviate much from its predecessor, the RTX 4070 Founders Edition. The most noticeable alteration is the shift to a darker alloy covering the card, but in terms of size, it remains a familiar two-slot affair. Of course, there's also the addition of a 'Super' label. NVIDIA has opted for a die-cast aluminium body for the RTX 4070 Super, coupled with dual axial fans and an eight-layer PCB. It's Founders Edition business as usual here, but as always, expect cards from AIB partners to offer a smorgasbord of cooling system designs.

Connectivity-wise, the RTX 4070 Super features three DisplayPort 1.4 ports and a single HDMI 2.1 port at the rear. While NVIDIA hasn't upgraded to DisplayPort 2.1 yet, I reckon it's not a significant drawback for a card primarily aimed at 1440p gaming, rather than pushing the boundaries of 4K gaming.

NVIDIA’s decision to stick with the single 12-pin PCIe 5 connector on this card is unsurprising, but the 12VHPWR cable that came with the RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition comes with an improved design (see photo above) that should eliminate the “cablegate” issue that plagued the early days of the RTX 40 series cards’ launch.

Now let’s go to the interesting part: gaming benchmarks!

Performance benchmarks

For our GPU benchmarks, our graphics card test rig has been upgraded to the following specifications:

• Intel 14th Gen Core i9-14900K CPU
• ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero
• Seagate FireCuda 540 PCIe 5.0 SSD
• Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5
• Windows 11 Home 64-bit
• ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ 4K Gaming Monitor

For this review, I’ll be comparing the RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition with the predecessor RTX 4070 Founders Edition. There isn’t a Founders Edition version of the RTX 4070 Ti, so our reference card based on that GPU is the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Eagle 12GB.

To put the RTX 4070 Super through its paces, I compared it with the predecessor RTX 4070 Founders Edition and the RTX 4070 Ti. There isn’t a Founders Edition version of the RTX 4070 Ti, so our reference card based on that GPU is the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Eagle 12GB. I ran all cards with a variety of AAA games across multiple genres. All games are set to the highest visual. The results? The RTX 4070 Super consistently delivered over 100fps at 1440p in most titles, or at least hovered near that mark. In fact, we can see how the RTX 4070 Super seems to edge closer to the RTX 4070 Ti in games. It's no wonder NVIDIA is retiring the RTX 4070 Ti with the RTX 4070 Ti Super.

The RTX 4070 Super is quite literally offering RTX 4070 Ti performance but at US$200 less.

Turning to 4K, the RTX 4070 Super showed a convincing performance improvement over the RTX 4070 in all of the games tested with – about 15 per cent increase in frame rate over the RTX 4070.

This performance uplift makes the RTX 4070 Super a more compelling option for 4K gaming, particularly if you're open to tweaking the settings away from ultra or high – even better when you’re running the card on games that support DLSS 3.0.

Power consumption has seen a slight uptick with the RTX 4070 Super, however, now drawing more than 220-watts at its peak, a 21-watt increase over the RTX 4070. Yet, the recommended power supply remains at 650 watts. If you ask me, this modest increase in power consumption is a good compromise to extract a bit more juice to deliver better 1440p and 4K performance.

My main gripe, however, is the card’s memory allocation. The RTX 4070 Super still houses 12GB of memory and I think it’s a bit of a missed opportunity to not have upgraded this to 16GB especially considering the card's US$599 price tag. While this might not pose an immediate problem, we are in an era where games are increasingly voracious for VRAM. Having 16GB would have given the RTX 4070 Super a bit of a longer lifespan. This becomes particularly glaring when you juxtapose it with AMD's Radeon RX 7800 XT, which offers 16GB of VRAM at a lower price point of US$499.

Final thoughts

In my view, the RTX 4070 Super solidifies its position as a top-notch choice for 1440p gaming providing a more comfortable cushion over the original RTX 4070 for handling today’s modern games, especially for those pondering an upgrade from 1080p.

The RTX 4070, in its heyday, was essentially a US$599 version of the GeForce RTX 3080. The RTX 4070 Super steps beyond this, offering performance that not only rivals but in many cases can surpass last-gen GPUs, all while maintaining the $599 price point of its predecessor. For anyone still gaming on a GTX 10-series or an RTX 20-series card, the RTX 4070 Super represents a tempting upgrade proposition especially if 1440p is the targeted resolution.

NVIDIA’s debut RTX 40 series Super card marks a significant leap over the original RTX 4070 and it's a leap that I find quite compelling, particularly for anyone looking to build a PC geared towards 1440p gaming. It’s just got me even more excited to see how the two upcoming RTX 4070 Ti Super and RTX 4080 perform against their respective predecessors – the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4080.

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