A few days ago, NVIDIA presented at its annual CES presentation your new RTX 4070 Ti, which didn’t come as a surprise since there had been murmurs for some time that the “canceled” RTX 4080 12GB had been rebranded under its new name. Our impressions? It has left us completely cold, that is to say, it is the first time that a launch of the brand does not excite us.
One of the consequences of the end of the mining bubble is that the world was suddenly filled with previous generation graphics cards, both on store shelves and on the used market. This collided with the launch of a new generation of graphics cards with greater technical capabilities than the previous one. The way to solve such a mess? Do not associate the price of graphics cards with their real cost, but with their performance compared to what exists on the market. The consequences of it? A generation of graphics cards with a price well above average.
What problem do we see with the RTX 4070 Ti?
We must start from the fact that for us it is not a technical issue, but rather the cost of the graphics card for the end user. It seems that these were designed when the GPU mining bubble was active and its price was designed for a market that no longer exists. We are not saying it just to say it, although first we will review its official specifications so that you can see the problem we are referring to.
| Graphic card | RTX 4070Ti |
|---|---|
| manufacturing node | TSMC N4 |
| base MHz | 2310 |
| MHz Boost | 2610 |
| FP32 Units (CUDA Cores) | 7680 |
| Cores (SM) | 60 |
| Ray Tracing Units | 60 |
| AI Units (Tensor Cores) | 240 |
| L1 cache | 128KB per core |
| L2 cache | 48MB |
| VRAM type | GDDR6X |
| VRAM bus | 192 bit |
| VRAM Quantity | 12GB |
| VRAM Bandwidth | 504GB/s |
| TDP | 285W |
We found the key to everything on your 192 bit busIt’s the first time we’ve seen a 70-terminated graphics card where the memory bus is so narrow. Which also shows us that we are dealing with a chip that is much smaller than the average and since the cost of the chips is related to their size, we can deduce from the outset that if we are not in the situation in which the market is currently Said price would not be justified at all.
And we say it to say? No, due to the fact that the previous generation graphics card with a bus of that size was the RTX 3060. However, apart from all the bad, we must start from the fact that the RTX 4070 Ti sweeps the floor with said card. graph on all performance measures. It is much better in performance per watt and performance per mm2 of the GPU, with respect to said graphics card. However, NVIDIA has decided to take as a reference not the size of the components or their configuration, but the relative performance of other graphics cards on the market.
At the performance level of an RTX 3090
Obviously, those from NVIDIA are marketing geniuses and they are not interested in comparing their new RTX 4070 Ti with the RTX 3060, although they come out ahead in all the comparisons and it is normal from the moment the official sale price of €910 in the European market, that is, double. So they are going to look to compare it with something that is in that price range. And they have done it with an RTX 3090 Ti.
However, looking at its technical specifications, it is clear that it is rather at the level of an RTX 3090. And no, we are not just saying it. Although it is best to leave you a table comparing these graphics cards so that you can see that our statement is not free.
| Graphic card | RTX 4070Ti | RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|
| manufacturing node | TSMC N4 | Samsung 8nm |
| base MHz | 2310 | 1395 |
| MHz Boost | 2610 | 1695 |
| FP32 Units (CUDA Cores) | 7680 | 10496 |
| TFLOPS (FP32) (minimum) | 35.4 TFLOPS | 29.3 TFLOPS |
| TFLOPS (FP32) (maximum) | 40 TFLOPS | 35.5 TFLOPS |
| Cores (SM) | 60 | 82 |
| Ray Tracing Units | 60 | 82 |
| AI Units (Tensor Cores) | 240 | 328 |
| Units Textures | 240 | 328 |
| Texturing Rate (Min) | 554 Gtexels/s | 457.6 Gtexels/s |
| Texturing Rate (Max) | 626 Gtexels/s | 555 Gtexels/s |
| L1 cache | 128KB per core | 128KB per core |
| L2 cache | 48MB | 6MB |
| VRAM type | GDDR6X | GDDR6X |
| ROPS | 80 | 112 |
| Fill Rate (Min) | 184.6 GPixels | 156 GPixels/s |
| Max Fill Rate | 208.8 GPixels | 190 GPixels/s |
| VRAM bus | 192 bit | 384 bit |
| VRAM quantity | 12GB | 24GB |
| VRAM Bandwidth | 504GB/s | 912GB/s |
| TDP | 285W | 350W |
Using TSMC’s N4 node, NVIDIA has managed to create a graphics card with costs, for them, lower than an RTX 3070, but with performance that is on par with an RTX 3090 in Boost, but without having to force the machinery. So we are dealing with a totally valid card for 4K due to its technical specifications. Even with its shortened bus, so NVIDIA has done an excellent job with this graphics card. The only negative thing we see is its price, which is out of the market, and the fact that it does not have a better memory configuration, both in quantity and in bandwidth.
