Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Isn’t a Miracle Worker; It’s Just a Solid Card for Non-4K Gaming

The $550 Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition looks like the toy version of the larger RTX 5080 and RTX 5090. It’s a third the size and offers a third of the performance of the highest-end GPU. But will it truly hit the performance needed to offer up solid framerates at 4K resolution? Read on to find out (spoiler: occasionally, in some games, but not always).

Nvidia has a harder sell, since AMD now has its $550 Radeon RX 9070 and $600 9070 XT out in the open. If AMD can figure out how to produce enough 9070 XTs to meet demand, we imagine it could become a thorn in Nvidia’s side, especially considering the raging stock issues plaguing its latest GPUs. We’ll have our thoughts about AMD’s slate soon, but for now let’s focus on Nvidia’s newest, cheapest GPU option.

The current cheapest Nvidia RTX 50-series graphics card is, as it stands, the card you get for maxing out games at 1440p. What about 4K, you ask? The minimum you want for that is still the RTX 5070 Ti. We seriously doubt you’ll be able to buy a RTX 5070 for $550 any time soon. The RTX 5070 Ti, which is supposed to sell at MSRP for $750, is instead going for $70 or more above what should be its base listed price by some OEMs like MSI or Asus. Hell, it’s not like you can buy them anyway, when practically every online retailer lists them as “out of stock.”

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang boldly claimed that the 5070 is so good, it can equal RTX 4090 performance. It was obvious puffery that’s made more stark thanks to ongoing stock woes. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 can’t equal performance on a RTX 4090. The 5070 can’t hit the necessary 60 FPS to let multi-frame gen take over in some demanding titles. Without 60 FPS native, you won’t get the smooth, artifact-free gameplay you really want. However, this card is great for 1440p gaming, and it can hold its own in some 4K scenarios. That will be good enough for budget-minded gamers, but only if the price remains at or close to MSRP.

If the RTX 5070 Ti was a “mostly 4K, sometimes 1440p” graphics card, then the RTX 5070 reverses that standard. For those who dropped hundreds of dollars on a high-end monitor or want to play on their fancy TV, this is not the 4K beast you need it to be. However, I will be the first to admit it’s fun to watch the numbers go up to 180 FPS in Alan Wake II at 1440p and with high ray tracing settings with the help of multi frame gen. But that’s not a gen-on-gen miracle, it’s AI.

If you were looking for the purity of rendered frames or no-compromise 4K gaming, the RTX 5070 isn’t the best option you. Budget buyers who can find the card for at or close to MSRP may not care. Gamers looking for the best bang for their buck can get a lot out of the RTX 5070. Actually using it won’t be nearly as exciting as Huang’s full-throated assertion, even with the help of AI.

The RTX 5070 Founders Edition Lacks Some of the Flair of Its Larger Counterparts

I truly believe that part of the hype for Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs was the look of its Founders Edition cards. They’re striking yet still subtle, even with the big “GeForce RTX” stenciled on the side. You’d have to be very, very lucky to get this version instead of one from any other AIB maker.

The RTX 5070 Founders Edition bears the same overall aesthetic as the RTX 5080 and 5090, though in a 9-inch by 4-inch unit. The 2-slot Founders Edition Card is the width of my PC’s MSI z890-P WiFi motherboard, and I can see how this design would fit well into short, stocky towers. The other thing to mention is that, just like the other Founders Editions, this is a weighty card, heavy enough that it tends to drop in its PCIe slot as you desperately try to screw it in before it breaks anything.

The only other aspect to consider is the lack of zone lighting on the RTX 5070 FE. I realize how much I miss seeing the “X” light up inside my case—acting as a reminder just how much money these GPUs demand. At least, the RTX 5070 demands at least a 650 W PSU, the same as the RTX 4070.

Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Is What You Want for Gaming at 1440p, but 4K Is Hit or Miss

We plan to offer a better card-for-card comparison with AMD’s latest mid-range GPUs after that review embargo lifts. But we can talk about where the RTX 5070 fits into the greater paradigm of Nvidia’s GPU slate. Nvidia hasn’t revealed anything about the RTX 5050 or the RTX 5060. For now, this is the baseline of the 50-series, and in that way it’s just managing to hold its own with a 4070 Ti from 2023, though it still falls down next to 2024’s 4070 Ti Super.

All our tests were done on a Origin PC Neuron 3500X config with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU with a iCUE H150i Elite Capellix XT liquid cooler, plus 32 GB of DDR5 RAM. In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 5070 managed about 400 points less in 3d Mark Steel Nomad compared to the RTX 4070 Ti Super from 2024. It similarly scored close to 350 points less in 3D Mark Speed Way. The $200 price difference between the two cards is stark, though close enough to see the gen-on-gen difference.

The 5070 is a definitive drop in performance compared to the 5070 Ti. The RTX 5070 scored 5031 in 3D Mark Steel Nomad versus the 5070 Ti’s 6644. The $550 card also scored around 2,000 points less in 3D Mark Speed Way and 5,000 points less in 3D Mark Port Royal. At half the price of the RTX 5080, the RTX 5070 does 3,000 less in 3D Mark benchmarks. As for AI benchmarks, the Geekbench AI quantified scores showed the RTX 5070 scored 1,792 less than the RTX 5070 Ti.

The most important thing is in-game tests, and there is where things get complicated. If the RTX 5070 Ti barely manages to scratch 60 FPS at the highest settings in Cyberpunk 2077 with DLSS on balanced, then the RTX 5070 will get below 50 FPS. Nvidia has recommended players get 60 FPS on frame generation to maximize the effect of the AI-generated frames. Switching to 1440p could net you closer to 57 FPS, even with path tracing enabled. In effect, the fabled 60 FPS is within your grasp on the highest settings, so long as you’re not looking to play at the highest resolution.

And that sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it? The RTX 4070 Ti hit similar framerates at those same 4K settings. In Black Myth: Wukong benchmarks, I saw the RTX 5070 hit 63 FPS with DLSS on balanced settings at 4K. Without DLSS, it was closer to 40 FPS. The RTX 5070 Ti hits 10 FPS more on average under those same settings. If you planned on using multi frame gen, then the extra 10 FPS doesn’t matter nearly as much, since with 4x frame gen you’ll be hitting well over 100 FPS anyway.

Sure, the 5070 Ti will hit 117 at 4K in Horizon Zero Dawn: Remastered, though the RTX 5070 isn’t far behind at 90 FPS in benchmarks. You won’t find the same situation in Alan Wake II, where you will struggle to find a happy medium between 4K visuals and performance. Even without ray tracing settings on, I didn’t manage to get 60 FPS at very high settings without going down to 1440p.

For a game like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, ray tracing settings make such a huge difference, anybody playing without them is missing out. At 4K, with very high settings and ray tracing on high preset, I managed around 45 to 55 FPS on average with the RTX 5070. This is the kind of game that can experience wild swings in performance, and the declines were very noticeable.

Nvidia’s Frame Gen Won’t Be the RTX 5070’s Savior

The RTX 5070 is priced accurately. It’s a solid GPU for those who plan to game at below 4K. Hell, I was playing Avowed on a 1440p monitor and a PC with an RTX 3070 pushing settings to high and managing above 60 FPS, but the 5070 could hit that number at 4K. Then, with multi frame gen, that turns into well over 100 FPS. I’m not the type of gamer that wants to get hung up on every visual discrepancy. For me, the 5070 is a GPU I could honestly see myself upgrading to, even though it’s on the very far edge of my own personal budget.

But there are so many caveats and carveouts for the RTX 5070’s performance, and it makes it hard to set this GPU in any particular category of gamers. Who honestly would dare reduce their monitor’s max resolution for the sake of getting a few more FPS? The gamer who is stuck at 1440p will be fine, but they were arguably already fine with either the past-gen or the past-past gen of Nvidia’s GPUs.

If you really want to game at 4K, I recommend trying to find the RTX 5070 Ti at its $750 MSRP. But you probably won’t find it at that price, so what’s a gamer to do? The elephant in the room is AMD with its new graphics cards, especially the Radeon RX 9070 XT for $100 more than the RTX 5070. We’ll have performance benchmarks on that GPU soon enough.

If the RTX 5090 is overkill, then the RTX 5080 is what’s best for playing all your games at 4K without compromise. The RTX 5070 Ti should have been the 4K GPU for the rest of us, but with inflated prices, it can’t be for most gamers. If you know what you’ll be playing on the RTX 5070, the card will be worth the cash if you can get it for $550. If you can’t get it for the base price, my suggestion is to sit back and wait for the best deal you can get.