Rumor mill: Nvidia has so far neglected the mid-range with the RTX 40 series, but that might be about to change. According to a new series of leaks, both the GeForce RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Ti could be about to arrive and repopulate the most popular segment of the market.
The GeForce RTX 4070 fell off the radar some time ago, but leaker Kopite7kimi has put it back on the map with a tweet listing its specs. Kopite has an excellent track record dating back to the GeForce 20-series and is as reliable as any anonymous leaker. That said, he isn't infallible, and nothing is official until it's been confirmed by someone wearing a leather jacket.
Some updates of RTX 4070:
— kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) December 9, 2022
PG141-SKU336/337
AD104-250-A1
5888FP32
12G 21Gbps GDDR6X
36M L2
250W
Kopite claims that the 4070 will arrive with the same core count as the 3070 -- but the cores are of a different architecture, and thus improved. The 4070's memory system has been expanded from 8 GB to 12 GB and upgraded from GDDR6 to GDDR6X. The newer memory type has enabled the bandwidth to increase from 448 GB/s to 504 GB/s despite a reduction in bus width from 256-bit to 192-bit. The total board power (TBP) has been increased by 30W to 250W.
The selling point of the RTX 4070 might be its clock speed. Kopite didn't comment on it, but it's thought that the 4070 and 4070 Ti will have a similar clock speed to the 'unlaunched' RTX 4080 12GB: 2610 MHz. That's almost a whole gigahertz higher than the 3070's 1730 MHz.
Possible Specifications
| GeForce RTX 4090 | GeForce RTX 4080 | GeForce RTX 4070 Ti* | GeForce RTX 4070* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSRP | $1,600 | $1,200 | ? | ? |
| Release Date | October 12, 2022 | November 16, 2022 | ? | ? |
| GPU | AD102 | AD103 | AD104 | |
| Process | TSMC 4N | |||
| CUDA Cores | 16384 | 9728 | 7680 | 5888 |
| Boost Clock | 2520 MHz | 2505 MHz | 2610 MHz** | |
| Memory | 24GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X | |
| Mem. Clock | 21 Gbps | 22.4 Gbps | 21 Gbps | |
| Bus Width | 384-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | |
| Bandwidth | 1008 GB/s | 717 GB/s | 504 GB/s | |
| TBP | 450 W | 320 W | 285 W | 250 W |
*Leaked specifications only. **Clock speed estimate.
Compared to the GeForce RTX 4080 , the 4070 is quite a step down. However, the 4080 retails for an outlandish $1,200, so the 4070 could still be good value if it's priced reasonably. In raw numbers, the RTX 4070 has 39% fewer cores than the 4080, three-quarters of the memory capacity and 70% of the memory bandwidth, and a 22% lower TBP. It should have a similar clock speed.
Nvidia is already purported to be announcing (technically, re-announcing) the RTX 4070 Ti at CES 2023 in early January. It might add the 4070 to the roster or delay it another few months until demand for the RTX 30 series has cooled, or AMD has announced its own next generation mid-range offerings.