PNY RTX 4070 Review: Single 8-Pin, No 16-Pin 12VHPWR
In our first Nvidia RTX 4070 Founders Edition launch review, we showed the benchmarks of the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 Verto Dual. Since then, there have been many others, including the launch of the RTX 4060 Ti and RX 7600, but now they are under various third-party reviews. These are some of the best graphics cards for gaming and other uses, and the RTX 4070 seems to be the best in terms of specs and price.
With 2GB more VRAM, the RTX 4070 essentially performs nearly the same as the previous generation RTX 3080, despite having a much narrower 192-bit memory interface. This is thanks to the Nvidia Ada Lovelace architecture, specifically the built-in L2 cache of up to 8MB per 32-bit chunk of the memory interface. More memory helps in some cases, but higher resolutions also tend to favor the increased raw bandwidth of the 3080’s 320-bit interface.
Before we get into the details of the PNY card, let’s start with the usual specs table.
graphics card | RTX4070 | RTX4060Ti | RTX4070Ti | RTX4080 | RX7600 | RX7900XT | RX6750XT | RX6800 | RX6800XT | RX6950XT |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
architecture | AD104 | AD106 | AD104 | AD103 | Navi 33 | Navi 31 | Navi 22 | Navi 21 | Navi 21 | Navi 21 |
process technology | TSMC 4N | TSMC 4N | TSMC 4N | TSMC 4N | TSMC N6 | TSMC N5+N6 | TSMC N7 | TSMC N7 | TSMC N7 | TSMC N7 |
Transistor (billion) | 32 | 22.9 | 35.8 | 45.9 | 13.3 | 45.6 + 5x 2.05 | 17.2 | 26.8 | 26.8 | 26.8 |
Die size (mm^2) | 294.5 | 187.8 | 294.5 | 378.6 | 204 | 300+225 | 336 | 519 | 519 | 519 |
SM/CU | 46 | 34 | 60 | 76 | 32 | 84 | 40 | 60 | 72 | 80 |
GPU core (shader) | 5888 | 4352 | 7680 | 9728 | 2048 | 5376 | 2560 | 3840 | 4608 | 5120 |
Tensor / AI core | 184 | 136 | 240 | 304 | 64 | 168 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Ray Tracing “Core” | 46 | 34 | 60 | 76 | 32 | 84 | 40 | 60 | 72 | 80 |
Boost clock (MHz) | 2475 | 2535 | 2610 | 2505 | 2625 | 2400 | 2600 | 2105 | 2250 | 2310 |
VRAM Speed (Gbps) | twenty one | 18 | twenty one | 22.4 | 18 | 20 | 18 | 16 | 16 | 18 |
VRAM (GB) | 12 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 8 | 20 | 12 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
VRAM bus width | 192 | 128 | 192 | 256 | 128 | 320 | 192 | 256 | 256 | 256 |
L2 / Infinity Cache | 36 | 32 | 48 | 64 | 32 | 80 | 96 | 128 | 128 | 128 |
ROP | 64 | 48 | 80 | 112 | 64 | 192 | 64 | 96 | 128 | 128 |
TMU | 184 | 136 | 240 | 304 | 128 | 336 | 160 | 240 | 288 | 320 |
TFLOPS FP32 (Boost) | 29.1 | 22.1 | 40.1 | 48.7 | 21.5 | 51.6 | 13.3 | 16.2 | 20.7 | 23.7 |
TFLOPS FP16 (FP8) | 233 (466) | 177 (353) | 321 (641) | 390 (780) | 43.0 | 103.2 | 26.6 | 32.4 | 41.4 | 47.4 |
Bandwidth (GBps) | 504 | 288 | 504 | 717 | 288 | 800 | 432 | 512 | 512 | 576 |
TDP (Watts) | 200 | 160 | 285 | 320 | 165 | 315 | 250 | 250 | 300 | 335 |
release date | April 2023 | May 2023 | January 2023 | November 2022 | May 2023 | December 2022 | May 2022 | November 2020 | November 2020 | May 2022 |
Release price | $599 | $399 | $799 | $1,199 | $269 | $899 | $549 | $579 | $649 | $1,099 |
Current price | $585 | $400 | $790 | $1,108 | $257 | $780 | $330 | $490 | $500 | $630 |
The spec table above shows the 10 GPUs used in this review. The PNY RTX 4070 Verto Dual and Nvidia RTX 4070 Founders Edition both have identical specs as they use a reference clock. Nothing more can be added.
The RTX 4070 has a MSRP of $599.99, but there are cards regularly available for less. The RTX 4070 is currently available at: Asus, gigabyte, MSIagain Zotak Use the code “ZIPDADS” and you’ll get an instant rebate of $50 (Father’s Day, if that’s confusing). Unfortunately PNY’s card is not included in the deal. Also, it’s “as long as the funds last” so you may or may not be able to take advantage of that offer.
Deals of this sort say a lot about graphics card sales in general. For example, the past few Black Fridays and Prime Days have had few notable GPU sales, but this is where graphics cards launched within two months of their release get $50 off directly from Newegg. That’s what it means. It’s possible that Nvidia could drop the price of all GPUs by around $50 without much pain.
Short-term sales aside, I can’t help but feel that the RTX 4070 should sell for a lot less than the MSRP. The previous generation he is faster than the RTX 3070 but also has a significantly smaller die size. The TSMC 4N’s 294.5 mm^2 compared to the Samsung 8N’s 392.5 mm^2 probably means his AD104 chips cost more, but he still believes Nvidia has about 190 chips per wafer. should be able to get Even at $19,000 per 4N wafer, it’s only $100 per chip (and he probably paid Nvidia less because of how many wafers Nvidia orders).
PNY GeForce RTX 4070 Verto Dual
PNY uses a low profile box for the base model RTX 4070. Most people are far more interested in performance and graphics cards than packaging, so that’s fine. Inside the box you’ll find the card in an anti-static bag… and you’re almost done.
There’s no support stand here, but considering the card weighs 687g, it doesn’t matter. The dimensions of the card are 247x120x40 mm. As a comparison, Nvidia’s RTX 4070 Founders Edition measures 244x111x40, so it’s slightly shorter in both length and height, but it’s quite heavy at 1021g.
The PNY, as the model name suggests, uses a dual fan configuration. Each fan has a diameter of 85 mm, which is smaller than some cards. More importantly, there is no integrated rim to improve static pressure and airflow. This gives Nvidia’s reference cards two advantages. The 91 mm fan has a wider area and a rim around the outer diameter.
The radiator takes the same approach to avoiding excessive cooling capacity. There are many heatsink fins, but he only has three heatpipes running through them. His TGP (total graphics power) on the RTX 4070 is only his 200W so cooling should be adequate but as we’ll see later this modest setting will ultimately reduce the fan speed and higher noise levels.
Like the latest Nvidia GPUs, it features three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs and one HDMI 2.1 port. With DSC (Display Stream Compression) you can achieve “visually lossless” 4K at 240Hz. Some may question how good the images actually are, but I tested it and have no complaints. Also, in most cases, 4K will not bring the frame rate anywhere near the 240 Hz maximum refresh rate.