Gaming at 4K
As mentioned before, this is a card that isn’t really geared to the 4K gamer. Now, that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to hit 4K. A number of games will have you reaching around 60 fps, but what was noticed during use is that you’re much more likely to hover around 40-45 fps at 4K. For anything less than 4K60, it just doesn’t feel worth it to even attempt.
Even when using 3DMark‘s DLSS feature to test at 4K, the results weren’t the greatest if that’s what you are looking for. Without DLSS 3, the average framerate was 29.93 fps. Turning DLSS 3 on did jump it up to an average of 91.44 fps. But, with DLSS, you aren’t truly getting 4K resolution at that point. What DLSS does, if you don’t know, is it forces a game to render at a lower resolution than chosen and then uses its trained AI to upscale it with a boost to performance and/or quality. So, again, it’s a great feature, but when you are looking for true 4K gameplay, it’s not worth it with the RTX 4070 Ti.
Playing games, DLSS 3 had F1 22 running at an average of 96.6 fps with a 1% low of 40.6 fps. Turning it off, however, brought it down to an average of 42.4 fps with a 1% low of just 27.6 fps. Other games fared the same way and just never seemed worth continuing to play in 4K.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
RTX 4070 Ti gameplay benchmarks
Before specific games come into play, here are some quick data from synthetic benchmarks of the RTX 4070 Ti to get an idea of the general performance of the card. Using 3DMark’s DLSS feature test at 1440p, the testing without DLSS 3 enabled averaged 64.25 fps. Enabling DLSS 3 saw the framerate jump to an average of 150.41 fps, a 2.3x increase.
Cyberpunk 2077Â saw 1440p perform well. With DLSS 3 enabled, Cyberpunk 2077Â had an average frame rate of 119.6 fps with a 1% low of 71.3 fps using the in-game benchmark. Turning DLSS 3 off saw the performance drop to 49.8 fps with a 1% low of 37.5 fps.
(Image by PC Invasion)
A Plague Tale: Requiem was hitting an average of 162.2 fps with a 1% low of 122.5 fps with DLSS 3 enabled. Turning it off dropped overall frame rates to 88.3 fps with a 1% low of 58.9 fps.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is, without question, the toughest game tested when it comes to hardware demand. To test the card, we loaded into the game’s Sydney landing challenge where we saw an average X with a 1% low of X with DLSS 3 enabled and X with a 1% low of X with it disabled.
Moving on to the racing games, F1 22 hit a solid 181.1 fps with a 1% low of 91.8 fps using the in-game benchmark at Miami with DLSS 3 on. Turning it off still performed well, though it did drop to 84.1 fps with a 1% low of 52.6 fps.
Lastly, we have Forza Horizon 5, a game with Nvidia DLSS but it uses DLSS 2, not DLSS 3. Still, performance was good with it hitting an average of 113.3 fps with a 1% low of 68.1 fps when racing. Turning DLSS off entirely didn’t do too much for Forza Horizon 5, as things still looked good with an average frame rate of 98.4 fps.
(Image by PC Invasion)
Should you buy an RTX 4070 Ti?
Should you buy an Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti? That’s the $799 USD — or more — question. From a performance and quality standpoint, the RTX 4070 Ti, specifically the Asus TUF Gaming OC Edition that we tested, is a pretty solid graphics card that does 1440p gaming really well and it obviously will do 1080p gaming nearly flawlessly. But with 4K, it’s just not worth it in the slightest.
My biggest problem with this card is the price. With it being an XX70 SKU, the RTX 4070 should be priced as a mid- to upper-mid-range card. Instead, it’s priced higher than the RTX 3080 was at launch, despite being comparable, for the most part, to the last generation cards.
While you can make the argument that the price is what it is due to products being more expensive to make, it’s not one you, me, or anyone else should accept. Instead, it feels like it’s a clear case of companies like Nvidia seeing what people were willing to pay for graphics cards from scalpers during the height of the shortage and deciding to keep prices high. After all, despite it being more powerful, the RTX 4070 Ti is $200 USD more than the RTX 3070 Ti was at launch: $599.99 USD vs $799.99 USD.
In reality, though, it’s not $200 USD more powerful, especially with competing cards like the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT being available for just about $100 USD or so more to start. I could justify a price of $650-$699 USD for this card, but with prices much higher than that — $849.99 USD for the Asus TUF Gaming OC Edition tested — it’s just really hard to say this is a graphics card worth picking up with other options close to the price point available.
Reviewer’s note: The Asus TUF Gaming OC Edition Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti was provided directly from Nvidia for review. As with any PC component, this graphics card is only as good as the parts around it. It’s strongly suggested that you pair a high-end PC with the RTX 4070 ti to avoid performance bottlenecks. See our review of the Intel i9-12900K for something that will pair well with the RTX 4070 Ti.
