NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070
Side-by-side benchmark comparison, specs, pricing, and value analysis.
Benchmark Comparison
Gaming figures are average frames per second, measured by Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy. Geometric mean of 15 games, ultra settings, no upscaling. Ray tracing figures are DXR-enabled at 1440p. A dash means the card was not tested at that resolution. Productivity and Steel Nomad are synthetic scores on their own scales and are not comparable to the fps columns.
Specifications
| Spec | GeForce RTX 3070 | GeForce RTX 4070 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 8GB GDDR6 | 12GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Bandwidth | 448 GB/s | 504 GB/s |
| Shaders | 5888 | 5888 |
| Boost Clock | 1725 MHz | 2475 MHz |
| TDP | 220W | 200W |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ada Lovelace |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 3,168 | 3,862 |
| Best Price | $499 | $579 |
| Value Score | 39/100 | 51/100 |
Verdict
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is the clear winner — it offers both better performance and better value.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070: Which Should You Buy?
This is not a close race. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers 97.8 fps at 1440p ultra to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070's 77.7 fps, a 26% gap. Only pick the slower card if it is dramatically cheaper or you need it for a lower resolution.
You pay a 16% premium for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ($579 against $499) to get 26% more frames. The extra performance more than covers the extra cost.
Two things beyond raw speed: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 carries 12GB against 8GB — the deciding factor at 1440p and above with ray tracing or texture packs, and the reason 8GB cards age badly; and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is 3 years newer (2023 versus 2020), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.