The new RTX SUPER GPUs are all rolling out over the next few weeks and I am kicking off my coverage with the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER. When it comes to the SUPER range, this is the entry-level model. Essentially, the card sits slightly higher than the normal RTX 4070 GPU with 20% more cores. Being a 40-series RTX card, it also comes with all the advancements from NVIDIA namely, the Ada Lovelace architecture.
Watch the ASUS TUF RTX 4070 SUPER Review Video Below
This means the card includes DLSS 3.5 support, 4th Generation Tensor Cores and NVIDIA says the RTX 4070 SUPER is also faster than the RTX 3090 while also using much less power. The energy efficiency of the Ada Lovelace tech is a pretty big deal. We have seen this across the entire range.
ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, which is featured in this review comes overclocked out of the box with a clock speed of 2595MHz. This is up from the standard 2565MHz found on non-overclocked cards. From a technical side of things, the card includes a 192-bit memory interface with 21 gigabits per second of memory speed.
It is equipped with 7168 CUDA Cores, 224 Fourth Generation Tensor Cores and 56 Third Generation Ada RT Cores. It packs 12GB of GDDR6X RAM and 48MB of L2 cache. The card recommends a 750W power supply and yes, it comes with the 16-pin 12VHPWR socket. I know many of you hate this connector but NVIDIA isn’t taking it away anytime soon. Even if the GPU technically doesn’t need it. If anything, they will likely revise the design and make our lives even more difficult with the 50-series range.
On paper, these specs are fairly close to the standard RTX 4070. It comes with 5888 CUDA Cores, 184 Tensor Cores 46 RT cores and the same RAM. So the RTX 4070 SUPER and standard RTX 4070 are similar cards but the SUPER definitely has the upper hand on specs. How well does this card perform? We’ll get into that in a bit. Let us first look at the ASUS TUF RTX 4070 SUPER card itself.
ASUS TUF RTX 4070 SUPER Design
In the box, you get the GPU itself, a strip of TUF velcro, a GPU anti-sag card holder, some manuals and the TUF GPU collector card – so you know, you can show everyone you own a TUF GPU.
The card itself looks like a TUF model It features some nice ASUS TUF finishes around the unit with some decals on the fan blades and an RGB logo on the top. There’s also an RGB strip underneath the logo. Both of which can be tweaked and changed in Armoury Crate.
The card comes in at 301mm x 139mm and is 63mm thick. It weighs 971g. It comes packed with 1 HDMI 2.1a port and 3 DisplayPort 1.4a ports.
Overall, the design is what you would expect and it works. The black coating combined with the stainless steel finish delivers a clean look. There’s an airflow vent for cooling and the fans themselves use reverse rotation to help with cooling. You’re not getting anything as fancy as the ROG lineup here but that is perfectly fine.
ASUS TUF RTX 4070 SUPER Performance
The RTX 4070 SUPER is marketed as a 1440p card. In most cases, you’ll be able to pull off running the latest games at over 60FPS with DLSS 3 helping drive that performance. This means at 1080p, you’ll be able to get away with disabling some DLSS upscaling for a cleaner image. With that being said, DLSS, especially 3.5, offers a pretty impressive visual experience with minimal artefacts. Of course, the deeper down the “Performance” settings you go, the more these visual hiccups are hard to ignore.
I ran some tests across a number of games. I was also quite keen to see how Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora performed on this card. The game is the latest from Ubisoft and it is quite a demanding visual showcase. The same goes for Alan Wake 2 – it’s Unreal Engine 5.1 features are incredibly taxing on even the best hardware on the market.
Here are some of the results:
You can see from the benchmarks that this card definitely holds its own when it comes to 1440p games. Sure, some games aren’t functional without DLSS enabled, Rift Apart, for example, sits at 23FPS average with ray tracing enabled at 1440p but that is at least one saving grace NVIDIA has for users. We can sit here all day and discuss how accessible games are now thanks to DLSS but you already know this.
I also need to mention that the TGP on this RTX 4070 SUPER has also increased from 200W to 220W. During constant benchmark cycles, the ASUS TUF RTX 4070 SUPER maxed out at 64C this was with an average GPU utilization of 98%. The fan noise was also fairly decent at only around 32dBA.
You can also see the extra TGP is used here and you can see the performance boost as a result. The higher TGP also means the average clock speeds were constantly in the 2800MHz range. I peaked at 2850MHz during my test with Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. But on average, it sat on 2835MHz.
NVIDIA has definitely confused the landscape here with the 4070 SUPER because there’s the standard 4070, 4070 Ti and 4070 Ti SUPER. All cards offer minor increases over one another. However, if you’re comparing apples with apples – or more the 4070 with the 4070 SUPER, there’s no doubt a 15% increase in performance between the two.
The increase in L2 Cache from 36MB to 48MB also helps with the memory subsystem – this was an issue on the standard RTX 4070. The 12GB of RAM combined with the 36MB L2 Cache, could cause bottlenecks when dealing with higher resolution textures at a higher resolution. NVIDIA heard the feedback and bumped this up.
When it comes to the pricing, NVIDIA is dropping the price of the standard 4070 down to $550 but that doesn’t mean you should consider that card instead of the SUPER variant. There’s enough performance boost to warrant the extra $50 for this $600 RTX 4070 SUPER. Still, $600 is a lot of cash to put down for a GPU. But this isn’t the first NVIDIA card to be priced way out there and NVIDIA has been under fire since the introduction of the 40-series for its high costs.
This ASUS TUF RTX 4070 SUPER will retail in South Africa for R19349. This is less than an R2000 compared to the standard RTX 4070 at R17,499. I am not sure how the $50 price drop will affect the standard RTX 4070 pricing yet. If you’re spending, I would say put in the extra cash and upgrade. There’s more to benefit from here than just a few extra frames.
This ASUS TUF RTX 4070 SUPER review is based on a retail unit sent to us by ASUS. The card is available from 18 January at R19349. You can find out more here.
Summary
With increased L2 Cache and some impressive performance, the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 SUPER is a card you can now consider as great value for money. It makes the 4070 feel obsolete at the same time too.