Is RTX 5070 as powerful as RTX 4090?

The Nvidia RTX 5070 has been introduced as the mid-range offering in the Blackwell lineup. For now, it is the cheapest option — the 60-class options might change that later this year. The 5070 has been advertised to boast RTX 4090-level performance, which is quite a bold claim. The last-gen halo-tier card is faster than any other gaming GPU ever launched, and the 4070 could only mimic a small fraction of the flagship's capability.

It's quite early to guess the accurate performance differences between the 5070 and the 4090. However, based on the specs lists of the graphics processors, we can make an educated guess of what to expect.

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The Nvidia RTX 5070 could be a significant step up from the last generation

Multiple RTX 5070 AIB variants have been introduced by third-party manufacturers (Image via ASUS)

The Nvidia RTX 5070 is a significant step up from its last-generation counterpart on paper. It has been designed to deliver the best experience at 1440p resolutions for quite some time. Despite the improvements, it's no match for the RTX 4090, which is filled to the brim with Ada Lovelace hardware.

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Specs comparison

Let's look at the specs to get an idea of what kind of hardware each GPU packs. For starters, we must mention the difference in the underlying hardware of the two pixel pushers. While the 5070 is based on the latest Blackwell design, the 4090 packs Ada Lovelace. Although both architectures are pretty cutting-edge, the newer version comes with improved efficiency, ray tracing, and rasterization capabilities.

In terms of core counts, the 5070 has received quite the step up. Over the board, you can expect a 5% bump, which, coupled with the gen-on-gen performance improvements, should translate to about 10% or more gains in video game framerates.

However, the core count numbers on the 4090 are more than double what the 5070 has to offer. It's obvious, given the 24 GB GDDR6X memory buffer and the high operating TDP budget, that the BFGPU would outperform the 70-class offering in pure rendering capabilities.

The detailed specs lists of the two graphics cards are:

Specification	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
Architecture	Blackwell (GB205)	Ada Lovelace
Fabrication Process	TSMC N4P (4nm)	TSMC 4N (5nm)
Transistors	Unknown	76.3 Billion
CUDA Cores	6,144	16,384
Streaming Multiprocessors (SM)	48	128
Tensor Cores	5th Generation, 192 cores	4th Generation, 512 cores
Ray Tracing Cores	48	128
Base/Boost Clock	2.16 GHz / 2.51 GHz	2.23 GHz / 2.52 GHz
Shader Performance	31 TFLOPS	83 TFLOPS
Memory	12GB GDDR7	24GB GDDR6X
Memory Bus	192-bit	384-bit
Memory Bandwidth	672 GBps	1,008 GBps
TDP	250W	450W
Price	$549	$1,599
Release Date	January 2025	October 2022

In terms of pricing, however, the new pixel pusher has a massive lead. It is priced at $549, which makes it $50 cheaper than the last-gen 4070. However, the 4090 will cost you a massive $1,599 and more, with most variants coming at about $2,000.

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Performance comparison

The RTX 5070 is considerably faster than the RTX 4070 (Image via Nvidia)

Gauging the exact gaming performance metrics won't be possible right now because we don't have independent reviews of the Blackwell card. However, looking at the graphs published by Nvidia, we can get an idea of what to expect.

All performance numbers showcased by the company at CES are with DLSS 4 turned on. This gives both the 4090 and the 5070 boosts in performance. However, Blackwell cards bring support for multi-frame generation, which gives huge performance improvements over the board.

Depending on the video game being tested, we are looking at about 40-100% better performance compared to the 4070. If we put this card against the 4090, on average, the flagship GPU is twice as fast. The math here checks out, and we get the 5070 to be as capable as the RTX 4090, but there's a catch.

The last-gen flagship delivers even higher framerates with DLSS 3 turned on. Hence, it might go on to beat the 5070 in most titles. Thus, we can conclude that the 5070 with all AI features turned on can only match the 4090's native rasterization potential.

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Nvidia RTX 5070 vs RTX 4090: Final thoughts

The RTX 5070 might theoretically catch up to the 4090 with all deep learning-based upscaling features turned on. In the past, AI has only resulted in poorer image quality and worse latency, traits that aren't welcome in fast-paced titles.

Thus, while Nvidia's claim might hold, the claim might be a bit too big for the 5070 to be taken as a 4090 replacement. This is just our speculation though, and the actual numbers can only be derived once the Blackwell card hits shelves next month.