Best NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Graphics Cards to Buy in 2023

Suggested Article: Palit Dual RTX 4070 Review – Architecture, Design & Performance

The Best RTX 4070 GPUs to Buy

Now for the main portion of the article that you’ve all been waiting for – the recommendations! We’ve rounded up a number of RTX 4070 GPUs to buy, including the Founders Edition, alongside some AIB models too. We’ve given each GPU an award based on it’s various features, aesthetics, and pricing.

1. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition

👑 The best overall option.

This card is the smallest sitting at 250mm, making it perfect for those building a smaller PC, or for consumers that don’t plan on picking up a new case. It sits at MSRP and will be one of the cheapest cards to pickup aside from alternative AIB options. And overall, thermals are great. Founders Edition GPUs weren’t as competitive a few years ago when it came to thermals, but NVIDIA have really stepped up their game, making these cards very competitive.

Key Specs

Key Specs	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition
Video Memory	12GB GDDR6X
Memory Bus	192 bit
Base Clock Speed	1.92GHz
Boost Clock Speed	2.47GHz
CUDA Cores	5888
Power Consumption	200W
RT Cores	46
PCI-E Generation	PCI-E 4.0
GPU Length	250mm
Fans	2
RGB	No

Things We Like

Excellent price point: The biggest benefit of picking up a Founders Edition card is that they can be found at MSRP. Consumers looking to spend the least amount of money on an RTX 4070 should definitely pick up the Founders Edition model.

It’s finally small again!: The RTX 4070 is the first card available on the RTX 4000 series that sits at a more normalised GPU length. This card clocks in at 250mm making it ideal for more compact builds.

Things We Don’t Like

Doesn’t offer much for aesthetic: Unfortunately if you’re the kind of consumers looking to build a fancy PC with plenty of flair, the Founders Edition card won’t be a great option. The overall design is somewhat plain, and there unfortunately isn’t any RGB on this GPU.

Not the best thermally capable option: Although the 4070 Founders Edition card has pretty well-rounded thermals, it isn’t the most efficient options. If you’re prioritising low thermals in your build, there are better cards available that will keep your system quiet and temperatures nice and cool.

Summary

Where to Buy

Buy the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition on:

2. Palit Dual RTX 4070

👑 The best budget AIB option.

This card is a little bit bigger than the Founders Edition model, sitting at a length of 269mm, but ultimately this shouldn’t really affect case choices, which is good to see. Palit have opted for a dual-fan design which has an all-black shroud surrounding them. Due to this being a budget card, thermals won’t be massively better than the Founders Edition, but temperatures are still pretty good overall. Performance is still exceptional with this card, and consumers looking to theme their PC build get access to a solid looking card.

Key Specs

Key Specs	Palit Dual RTX 4070
Video Memory	12GB GDDR6X
Memory Bus	192 bit
Base Clock Speed	1.92GHz
Boost Clock Speed	2.47GHz
CUDA Cores	5888
Power Consumption	200W
RT Cores	46
PCI-E Generation	PCI-E 4.0
GPU Length	269mm
Fans	2
RGB	No

Things We Like

Good price point: Palit’s Dual RTX 4070 is also priced at MSRP, making it a competitive option when compared to the Founders Edition model. I imagine this will be the card that the majority of consumers will look to pickup once the Founders GPUs go out of stock.

Decent aesthetic: The Palit 4070 offers an all-black aesthetic which also features on the fans too. Consumers will also be able to notice some Palit logos and metallic stripes on the card which also provide some additional flair to your build.

Things We Don’t Like

No RGB: Unfortunately, the Palit 4070 doesn’t have any RGB which is a bit disappointing. We would like to see some RGB on this card, as it provides consumers with some extra options when it comes to build customisation.

Doesn’t have an improved clock speed: The biggest benefit of picking up an AIB card, is that they normally offer a slightly higher boost speed which can provide some better performance. However, the Palit 4070 unfortunately seems to have the same clock speed as the Founders variant, which does make it a slightly less competitive offering.

Summary

Where to Buy

Buy the Palit Dual RTX 4070 on:

3. MSI Gaming X Trio RTX 4070

👑 The best aesthetic option.

This particular model comes with three fans (which you’ve probably guessed already). This should maximise airflow and assist heat dissipation quite significantly, ensuring that temperatures stay nice and low. The Gaming X Trio also has some RGB in the form of a diagonal strip that spans the height of the GPU. MSI doesn’t tend to go overboard on their RGB lighting, here making this card more ideal for minimalists, but it is also nice to see some additional customisation being provided. This card also features MSI’s signature black and grey look that we’ve seen on previous MSI Gaming X cards.

Key Specs

Key Specs	MSI Gaming X Trio RTX 4070
Video Memory	12GB GDDR6X
Memory Bus	192 bit
Base Clock Speed	1.92GHz
Boost Clock Speed	2.62GHz
CUDA Cores	5888
Power Consumption	200W
RT Cores	46
PCI-E Generation	PCI-E 4.0
GPU Length	338mm
Fans	3
RGB	Yes

Things We Like

Great RGB lighting: MSI are well known for creating graphics cards that have a well-rounded aesthetic with great RGB lighting options, and the Gaming X Trio is no exception. The diagonal light strip adds some flair to your PC build, allowing consumers to customise RGB colours and effects.

Excellent thermal capability: MSI‘s Gaming X Trio 4070 offers a three fan design alongside their signature FROZR 3 cooling system. This ensures that temperatures will stay nice and cool even in high intensity workloads.

Things We Don’t Like

Rather massive: The majority of the RTX 4070 cards that we’ve looked at so far are pretty reasonably sized, which opens up case choices. However, the Gaming X Trio has a length of 338mm, which will cause clearance issues in certain cases.

Design won’t be for everyone: Although we’re a big fan of MSI’s Gaming X Trio design, the more simplistic look won’t be for everyone. This card does offer a multitude of different styles for builds, but the minimalist style won’t be great for consumers that prefer a flashier aesthetic.

Summary

Where to Buy

Buy the MSI Gaming X Trio RTX 4070 on:

4. Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 4070

👑 The best high-performance option.

Asides from the performance, the Gaming OC RTX 4070 is another triple-fan design offering strong thermals contrasting to the Founders Edition and Palit models that we’ve previously mentioned. The dark grey shrouding surrounding the fans is a little bit lacklustre, but it makes up for this with a huge amount of RGB around the fans and on the top of the card. Each fan has a ring of RGB lighting, with the logo on the top of the card also glowing vividly.

Key Specs

Key Specs	Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 4070
Video Memory	12GB GDDR6X
Memory Bus	192 bit
Base Clock Speed	1.92GHz
Boost Clock Speed	2.56GHz
CUDA Cores	5888
Power Consumption	200W
RT Cores	46
PCI-E Generation	PCI-E 4.0
GPU Length	300mm
Fans	3
RGB	Yes

Things We Like

Solid RGB lighting: Gigabyte’s Gaming OC model features plenty of RGB for consumers to light up their build with. This of course can all be customised in Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion software, which allows you to change lighting effects and colours freely.

Great thermals: Much like the Gaming X Trio model from MSI, Gigabyte’s Gaming OC 4070 offers a three fan design, making it ideal for consumers wanting the best thermals and airflow available.

Things We Don’t Like

Very big: With many AIB models we start to teeter into the ‘massive GPU’ category, and unfortunately Gigabyte does fall in this particular category. With a GPU length of 300mm, consumers may need to look at bigger case options to install this card.

Quite pricey: Unfortunately, another characteristic of AIB cards, is that they tend to have a price that sits a fair bit higher than MSRP. The Gigabyte Gaming OC model is a pretty expensive option, and won’t be ideal for consumers on a tighter budget.

Summary

Where to Buy

Buy the Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 4070 on:

Performance wise, the 4070 compares very closely to an RTX 3090 or 3090 Ti, and the overall performance is also very close to the 4070 Ti too. This means that consumers can easily play games at 4K without too many issues. DLSS and Frame Generation will assist in achieving higher framerates especially when consumers are playing at 1440p or 4K. The RTX 4070 handles pretty well in Ray-Traced games too, it does suffer to a degree in framerates, but from our testing, the general performance was more than playable, with games sitting well above the 60FPS mark in most instances.

To summarise, the RTX 4070 gives me hope that NVIDIA are finally offering new cards that are worth picking up at their given price point. $600 is what I imagine the majority of consumers expect and are comfortable with spending for solid 4K performance at the top-end. I’ve genuinely felt that the RTX 4000 series has been write-off for the most part, but the 4070 is a major step in the right direction, and I would urge consumers to pick up this card if you want a GPU that can handle 4K games with ease!

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Benchmarks

For context we’ve provided some benchmarks just so you can see how capable the RTX 4070 is. This card jostles for position with the 4070 Ti and 3090 Ti which is pretty impressive considering the price and specs of the card. All of the new hardware available in these cards seems to be offering significant gains in performance. For the most part, the RTX 4070 only loses out to the 4070 Ti by a few frames. Titles like COD Warzone, F1 2022, and GTA V saw minimal differences in framerates overall.

This goes to show how valuable, and worthwhile this card will be for gamers looking to build a mid-range or top-end PC. It holds up very well against it’s slightly powerful sibling the RTX 4070, and compares well against the previous generation’s RTX 3090 Ti in most games. This graphics card isn’t ‘cheap’ by any means, and won’t compare as well when Ray-Tracing is enabled. But the $600 price point is an excellent value proposition when looking at the viable performance that you can reach with this GPU.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Dimensions

There is an elephant in the room that we need to address concerning size. How big is the RTX 4070? When the new Founders Edition box arrived at the GeekaWhat office, we were all worried that this card was going to be the same size as it’s predecessors. But upon opening the box, we were greeted with what seems like a tiny graphics card. We’re so used to the gargantuan 300mm GPUs, that it was almost strange to see a card so small. Regardless, consumers don’t need to worry about picking up an expensive case that has a crazy amount of clearance, because the 4070 is a normal size!

This card comes in at 250mm for the Founders Edition, with AIBs sitting at 330-340mm or so at the maximum. Although 300mm is still pretty big, these cards are much thinner overall, so clearance shouldn’t really be an issue. Either way, we’ve provided some more context for dimensions and clearance with a table below that covers the size of some AIB models, and the Founders Edition card.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070	GPU Dimensions	Recommended Case Clearance
Founders Edition (Reference Card)	GPU Length: 250mm	300mm-350mm
Palit Dual RTX 4070	GPU Length: 269mm	300mm-350mm

Looking at the table, there is a notable decrease in the overall size of these GPUs. Pretty much all of the RTX 4070 Ti variants clocked in at 300mm or more straight out of the box, but here we’re seeing sub-300mm cards. It’s honestly such a relief to see smaller cards, because it allows consumers to install these options into more compact cases. This means that Mini-ITX and Micro-ATX builds are much more feasible without the sacrifice of airflow or thermals.

Read our full coverage of the best CPUs to pair up with the RTX 4070

Why You Can Trust Us

We wanted to quickly delve into why you can trust our decision-making. Our team of PC enthusiasts and geeks spend a huge amount of time testing every product that comes through our doors to ensure we know exactly how they perform in a range of different scenarios. For those wanting to learn more about the members of the GeekaWhat team, check out the About Us section, which is where you’ll find more information about our editorial promise.

How We Picked the Best NVIDIA RTX 4070 Graphics Cards

At the GeekaWhat offices we test a myriad of components on a daily basis, including GPUs, CPUs, RAM, and more. During the time we have with each GPU, we put them through a plethora of benchmarks in the most popular triple A and competitive Esports titles. We also put each card into a number of PC builds, which provides us with an understanding of how these components synergise, along with the kind of metrics you should expect from a specific build.

After benchmarking, we then start to look at the key factors of each GPU and how they affect a gaming setup. For graphics cards specifically we look at size, aesthetic, overclocking capability, and pricing. After looking at these, consumers can then make an educated decision on whether a particular graphics card is right of their PC build.

For a more detailed look at our testing and evaluation methods, take a look at some of the reviews that we’ve provided in the table below:

Brand	Review Link
NVIDIA (Founders Edition)	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Review (Founders Edition Benchmarks)
Palit	Palit Dual RTX 4070 Review – Architecture, Design & Performance

Conclusion

Frequently Asked Questions