After NVIDIA cancelled the launch of its confusing alternate RTX 4080 12GB GPU, many speculated that the company would rebrand the card to the 4070 Ti. While the brand will unlikely confirm what happened, we now have a whole new 40-series card on the market that boasts the same spec as the cancelled RTX 4080. But NVIDIA isn’t calling this a 4080 and it makes sense as to why. It was just confusing and separating the lineup into different tiers makes a lot more sense. Why change what has worked for the past few decades anyway?

Watch the Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming OC review below

The RTX 4070 Ti would sit in a weird spot if you had to compare the specs to the rest of the lineup. It obviously isn’t as powerful as the RTX 4090 and 4080 but it is 40% faster than the 3070. In fact, the closest comparison for this card would be the RTX 3090 Ti as it performs pretty much the same here. However, it does come with some advantages over the 3090 Ti including DLSS 3 which I have tested in the past during my 4080 reviews and deemed it a revolutionary step for PC gaming.

For the most part, the RTX 4070 Ti is the best value-for-money 40-Series card you can get. You’re getting all the bells and whistles of a 40-series GPU without the heavy price tag of over $1000. It is also incredibly versatile as NVIDIA wants it to be a 1440p 120Hz card. Of course, you can do whatever you want with this power and easily get away with 4K 60Hz with ray-tracing enabled. Once you dive into DLSS 3, the sky is the limit too.

The RTX 4070 Ti is powered by 7680 CUDA Cores, 40 Shader TFLOPS, 93 RT-TFLOPS and 641 Tensor FLOPS. It packs 12GB of GDDR6X memory too. This model I am testing is the Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming OC GPU meaning it comes slightly overclocked out of the box. The base 4070 Ti includes a boost clock of 2610MHz but this Gigabyte OC model packs a slightly higher clock at 2640MHz.

The overall design of this Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming OC isn’t very different from Gigabyte’s other 40-series cards on the market. In fact, it is only ever so slightly slimmer than the. RTX 4080 and 4090 and 2cm shorter than the cards too. The card packs three large fans on the top with RGB rings around them. It also comes with three DisplayPort 1.4a ports and one HDMI 2.1 port.

These slightly shrunken dimensions made a world of difference when installing the card in my case. The lower power supply requirement of 700W also means that instead of the four 4-pin connectors on the 4090 and the three 4-pin connectors on the 4080, this card only uses two. It leaves more room for cables and most importantly, to close your PC case door.

With that being said, I kind of feel like NVIDIA could have dropped its proprietary 12-pin connector for this card completely given that it is basically doing the same thing as the PCIE cables already. But thankfully, the 4070 Ti is the first 40-series card to actually fit snugly in my Cooler Master Cosmos C700M case with the door closed.

Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming OC Performance

NVIDIA’s focus for the 4070 Ti is across a range of pillars. They want you to know that this GPU is much more power efficient than the 30-Series. In fact, it uses a lot less power while delivering up to three times the performance of the RTX 3080 and two times the 3090 Ti.

Of course, NVIDIA is also pushing its DLSS 3 tech which is already quite impressive. I got my first taste of DLSS 3 when I reviewed the RTX 4080 and 4090. In short, DLSS 3 offers up to four times the performance across games with and without ray-tracing. For example, my tests on Portal with RTX showed a 3.9 times improvement with the setting enabled. The same goes for other titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Warhammer 40,000 Darktide and A Plague Tale Requiem. All these games showcased DLSS 3 with over double the performance boost.

Here are some tests I ran using the RTX 4070 Ti. I have also compared the results to the RTX 4080 and 4090 so you can see just where this card falls into place with regard to performance.

RTX DLSS 3 On Test Comparisons

Full build includes

• Cooler Master Cosmos C700M Case
• Gigabyte Aorus X670E Master motherboard
• Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming OC
• 32GB (2 x 16GB) Kingston FURY Beast DDR5 Memory 4800MT/s
• AMD Ryzen 7700X CPU
• Cooler Master ML360RGB AIO
• Cooler Master 2000W PSU

Cyberpunk 2077 (4K Ultra, RT On, Super Resolution On, Frame Generation On, Reflex On) 

• RTX 4070 Ti
  • 51fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 17fps
  • PC Latency – 54ms
• RTX 4080
  • 105fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 50fps
  • PC Latency – 50ms
• RTX 4090
  • 132fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 65fps
  • PC Latency – 38ms

A Plague Tale (4K Ultra, Super Resolution On, Frame Generation On, Reflex On) 

• RTX 4070 Ti
  • 101fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 34fps
  • PC Latency – 51ms
• RTX 4080
  • 154fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 86fps
  • PC Latency – 56ms
• RTX 4090
  • 187fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 142fps
  • PC Latency – 35ms

Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed (4K, Super Resolution On, Frame Generation On, Reflex On) 

• RTX 4070 Ti
  • 109fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 39fps
  • PC Latency – 56ms
• RTX 4080
  • 185fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 52fps
  • PC Latency – 42ms
• RTX 4090
  • 203fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 61fps
  • PC Latency – 36ms

3DMark DLSS 3 Test (RTX 4080, 4K)

• RTX 4070 Ti
  • 115fps
• RTX 4080
  • 152fps
• RTX 4090
  • 175fps

RTX DLSS 3 Off

Cyberpunk 2077 (4K Ultra, Super Resolution off, Frame Generation off, Reflex off) 

• RTX 4070 Ti
  • 38fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 28fps
• RTX 4080
  • 61fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 40fps
• RTX 4090
  • 84fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 49fps

A Plague Tale (RTX 4080, 4K, Super Resolution off, Frame Generation off, Reflex off) 

• RTX 4070 Ti
  • 39fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 28fps
• RTX 4080
  • 57fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 35fps
• RTX 4090
  • 117fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 106fps

Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed (4K Ultra, Super Resolution Off, Frame Generation On, Reflex On) 

• RTX 4070 Ti
  • 65fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 19fps
• RTX 4080
  • 87fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 24fps
• RTX 4090
  • 101fps
  • 1% Low fps – 34fps

3DMark DLSS 3 Test (4K)

• RTX 4070 Ti
  • 28fps
• RTX 4080
  • 38fps
• RTX 4090
  • 52fps

New DLSS 3 Tests

I also did some tests on games which I got after I reviewed the 4080 and 4090 so the test results now are strictly for the RTX 4070 Ti only. I also ran them on 4K to show how well they performed at the best resolution. Of course, you can expect even better performance at 1440p.

• Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (4K, RT On, Super Resolution On, Frame Generation On, Reflex On) 
  • 83fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 50fps
  • PC Latency – 61ms
• FIST: Forged in Shadow (4K, Super Resolution On, Frame Generation On, Reflex On) 
  • 146fps
  • 1% Low fps – 64fps
  • PC Latency – 56ms
• Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (4K, RT On, Super Resolution On, Frame Generation On, Reflex On) 
  • 67fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 16fps
  • PC Latency – 54ms
• Portal With RTX (4K, RT On, Super Resolution On, Frame Generation On, Reflex On) 
  • 59fps avg
  • 1% Low fps – 25fps
  • PC Latency – 59ms

The only downside to DLSS 3 is the lack of software at the time. There’s only a handful of games that support the tech but going into 2023, more titles will get updates to enable the feature. DLSS 3 is also backwards compatible so the 40-Series cards, like the 4070 Ti will also benefit from older enhancements on current games. Sure, the performance boosts won’t be as dramatic as DLSS 3 but the 4070 Ti is already quite a heavy card so expect some massive jumps across certain games.

Where the RTX 4070 Ti shines is in 1440p gaming. You’ll easily get over 120FPS on almost every title while maxing out all the settings and keeping raytracing enabled. If you’re aiming for 4K gaming, this card is more than capable of that too. Some games easily reached 4K with most settings maxed out while others I tested had to be slightly tweaked to get there and stay there at 60fps. Whatever your poison, this card is incredibly versatile.

Testing games without DLSS 3 support also showed some great results. While the performance boosts aren’t as notable as DLSS 3, most games easily managed 60fps at 1440p while others did 4K at 60fps.

DLSS 2 Gaming Tests

• Far Cry 6 1440p Max RT On
  • 104fps avg
  • 119fps Max
  • 88fps Min
• High on Life 1440p Max
  • 119fps avg
  • 125fps max
  • 87fps min

When it comes to temperature and fan noise, the Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming OC GPU handles its load quite well. When sitting idle for five minutes, the card stuck at around 35C without any fans moving at all. When running non-stop gaming tests, the temperature rose to the max of 71C and the fans hit a max of 1507RPM. I also tested the noise from the fans at 35 dB.

As for the overall power consumption, the Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming OC GPU sat idle at 12W. Video playback went up to 19W. Average gaming used 230W and it can max out at 285W of TGP. To put this into perspective, its closest competitor, the RTX 3090 Ti uses around 400W of average power when gaming and a max TGP of 450W. NVIDIA’s focus on energy efficiency shines on this GPU.

Now that I have tested all three available 40-Series cards, I do enjoy where this 4070 Ti falls in. Personally, it seems like the GPU that you might actually consider buying thanks to its versatility and cheaper price tag. Not to mention its slightly smaller form factor fits perfectly in my case. When comparing it to the RTX 4080, this 4070 Ti is slower but not incapable of outputting some great benchmarks. NVIDIA aims for this to be 1440p 120Hz GPU but you can see from the tests that I easily got 4K 60Hz gaming out of it. When you start looking at 1440p, you’ll easily max games out at over 120Hz.

The RTX 4070 Ti also aims to release at around R20,000 or $799. This is substantially lower than the 4080 which is retailing for R35,000 or $1200. This price range also undercuts AMD’s new RX 7900 XT series. In fact, this is NVIDIA’s first 40-series card to target a “more affordable” price point which is great to see. Don’t get me wrong, it is still extremely expensive but the $799 (R20,000) price point is more accessible than the 4080’s R35,000. Given the drastic price difference between the 4070 Ti and 4080, this may be the card you end up getting and it is a pretty capable GPU.

NVIDIA has packed this card with all the best enhancements on the market and going into the year, it is going to be exciting to test more DLSS 3 games.

The Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming OC is available from 5 January 2023. Find out more here