RTX 5070 is more like an RTX 4070 Super with multi frame gen

Nvidia’s RTX 50-series is quite well fleshed out now, with high-end GPUs and a few more affordable options. But if you’re sitting on a last-generation card and wondering whether it’s worth throwing down some cash for a next-gen upgrade, you need to know whether it’s worth it.

With increased competition from AMD, Nvidia’s upgrades need to be compelling. Let’s see how the RTX 5070 and 4070 Super stack up.

Pricing and availability

The RTX 4070 Super released in January 2024 as a mid-generation refresh of the RTX 4070, and we really liked it at the time. It provided a strong uplift in performance and retained the $600 price tag. Unfortunately, due to stock shortages of all Nvidia cards in early-2025, the only RTX 4070 Supers available at the time of writing cost over $1,000, and even those are in short supply.

The RTX 5070 launched in March 2025, but sold out almost instantly, just like the other RTX 50 graphics cards. Its recommended retail price from Nvidia was $550, but almost no cards have been sold at that price. When available, they more typically go for between $650 and $750, with some closing in on $800. That’s more than the recommended retail price for the RTX 5070 Ti.

Specifications

The specifications for the RTX 5070 raised eyebrows before we even saw the card in action, because where most new graphics cards build upon the previous generation, the RTX 5070 appears to take a step back in a number of ways. It has fewer CUDA cores, fewer RT cores, and fewer tensor cores — although it is built on a new architecture with new generation core designs.

The clock speed is about the same, with only a tiny increase, and the memory is faster, but retains the same 12GB quantity — a limiting factor in 2025 — and limited bus width. Memory bandwidth does benefit from the faster GDDR7, but it all comes at a 30W power increase, despite the cut backs in overall hardware.

Performance

When Nvidia first debuted the RTX 5070 at CES 2025, it promised “4090” performance at $549. Although it did add the caveat that this wouldn’t be possible without AI, it’s clear that such a sentiment is marketing hyperbole at best, and downright misleading at worst.

In Nvidia’s chart, it showed the 5070 doubling RTX 4070 performance in certain games when using DLSS 4 and multi frame generation, while using only DLSS 3.5 and single frame generation on the 4070. In the left-most bar, though, it shows a clear 20%-ish uplift over the 4070 when those factors aren’t at play.

That played out in third-party testing. Most reviews found that the RTX 5070 performs only a couple of percent better than the 4070 Super in most games where multi frame generation isn’t available. Since the 4070 Super can use DLSS 4 as well, it’s really only the added AI frames that can give the 5070 a notable performance increase over its predecessor.

It’s clear now why Nvidia only compared this card to the 4070 (non-Super) and not its faster variant.

Raytracing performance has improved slightly with this generation thanks to the new core design, but the lower core count doesn’t help. Even multi frame generation’s effectiveness is limited because it works best with a high native frame rate, and the 5070 isn’t anywhere near as capable of doing that as the higher-end 50-series cards.

The RTX 5070 is the fastest card, but by almost nothing, making its sky-high price tag seem ridiculous. $700+ for a card that is not really any better than the $600 card that was released over a year ago on an older architecture isn’t anything close to a win.

It certainly isn’t RTX 4090 performance. For reference, here’s how that card stands up to the higher-end 50-series cards:

That’s the 4090 outpacing the RTX 5080 across all our gaming tests. There isn’t any truth to Nvidia’s claim that a 5070 can keep pace with a 4090; It just can’t. At this stage it almost feels lucky it can even beat the 4070 Super at all.

Don’t buy the 5070

Nvidia has put Nvidia fans in a very difficult position. The 4070 Super isn’t available any more, and the RTX 5070 is overpriced. So if you want a team green GPU at this kind of price, the only option is the 5070. And it’s just not a good card for the money. It underperforms by so much that the RTX 5070 Ti is actually a better value buy, even at its own inflated price. And that’s not a great value card either.

What should you buy? Arguably, the AMD RX 9070 XT. It’s facing its own pricing issues, even with much greater availability, but the reviews are strong. It’s a fast card, and with some undervolting, can even outpace the RTX 5080.

If you’re looking for a $700-ish graphics card in 2025, the 4070 Super and 5070 just aren’t it.