After all the anticipation around Nvidia's RTX 5000 series, gamers have been let down by the lukewarm reviews for the RTX 5090 and 5080. So what about the lower-tier models?
Nvidia has just published the full specifications for the RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti, but the Blackwell lineup still doesn't seem to be winning over consumers.
The RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti were introduced by Nvidia at CES alongside the 5090 and 5080. The key specs had leaked beforehand, but the company has now released official documentation with more hardware detail. Starting with the more powerful of the two, the RTX 5070 Ti uses the same GB203 GPU as the RTX 5080. It also has 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM on a 256-bit memory bus, but the memory speed drops from 30 Gbps to 28 Gbps.
The RTX 5070 Ti has a power consumption (TGP) of 300W, 15W higher than the RTX 4070 Ti. The card will start at 549 USD.
| Graphics Card | RTX 3070 Ti | RTX 4070 Ti | RTX 5070 Ti |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Codename | GA104 | AD104 | GB203 |
| GPU Architecture | NVIDIA Ampere | NVIDIA Ada Lovelace | NVIDIA Blackwell |
| GPCs | 6 | 5 | 6 |
| TPCs | 24 | 30 | 35 |
| SMs | 48 | 60 | 70 |
| CUDA Cores / SM | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| CUDA Cores / GPU | 6144 | 7680 | 8960 |
| Tensor Cores / SM | 4 (3rd Gen) | 4 (4th Gen) | 4 (5th Gen) |
| Tensor Cores / GPU | 192 (3rd Gen) | 240 (4th Gen) | 280 (5th Gen) |
| RT Cores | 48 (2nd Gen) | 60 (3rd Gen) | 70 (4th Gen) |
| GPU Boost Clock (MHz) | 1770 | 2610 | 2452 |
| Peak FP32 TFLOPS | 21.7 | 40.1 | 43.9 |
| RT TFLOPS | 42.5 | 92.7 | 133.2 |
| Frame Buffer Memory Size and Type | 8 GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR6X | 16 GB GDDR7 |
| Memory Interface | 256-bit | 192-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Clock (Data Rate) | 19 Gbps | 21 Gbps | 28 Gbps |
| Memory Bandwidth | 608 GB/sec | 504 GB/sec | 896 GB/sec |
| ROPs | 96 | 80 | 96 |
| Pixel Fill-rate (Gigapixels/sec) | 169.9 | 208.8 | 235.4 |
| Texture Units | 192 | 240 | 280 |
| Texel Fill-rate (Gigatexels/sec) | 339.84 | 626.4 | 686.6 |
| L1 Data Cache/Shared Memory | 6144 KB | 7680 KB | 8960 KB |
| L2 Cache Size | 4096 KB | 49152 KB | 49152 KB |
| Register File Size | 12288 KB | 15360 KB | 17920 KB |
| Video Engines | 1 x NVENC (7th Gen), 1 x NVDEC (5th Gen) | 2 x NVENC (8th Gen), 1 x NVDEC (5th Gen) | 2 x NVENC (9th Gen), 1 x NVDEC (6th Gen) |
| TGP (Total Graphics Power) | 290 W | 285 W | 300 W |
| Transistor Count | 17.4 Billion | 35.8 Billion | 45.6 Billion |
| Die Size | 392.5 mm² | 294.5 mm² | 378 mm² |
| Manufacturing Process | Samsung 8 nm 8N | TSMC 4nm 4N | TSMC 4nm 4N |
| PCI Express Interface | Gen 4 | Gen 4 | Gen 5 |
Nvidia has published performance comparison charts for the graphics card, measured against the RTX 4070 Ti. Unsurprisingly, five of the six performance tests use DLSS.
Moving on to the RTX 5070, it uses the GB205 GPU rather than an xx104 chip like previous generations. The RTX 5070 has 12GB of GDDR7 VRAM (192-bit), the same as the RTX 4070 but at a higher speed of 28 Gbps. As a result, memory bandwidth rises from 507 GB/s to 672 GB/s.
The RTX 5070 has a power consumption (TGP) of 250W, which is 50W higher than the previous generation and over 30W higher than the RTX 4070 Super. Official pricing has not yet been announced.
For reference, at launch the RTX 4070 Ti was priced at 799 USD, 200 USD more than the RTX 4070 (599 USD). That has led many to predict the RTX 5070 could land in the 599 - 699 USD range.
| Graphics Card | RTX 3070 | RTX 4070 | RTX 5070 |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Codename | GA104 | AD104 | GB205 |
| GPU Architecture | NVIDIA Ampere | NVIDIA Ada Lovelace | NVIDIA Blackwell |
| GPCs | 6 | 5 | 5 |
| TPCs | 23 | 23 | 24 |
| SMs | 46 | 46 | 48 |
| CUDA Cores / SM | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| CUDA Cores / GPU | 5888 | 5888 | 6144 |
| Tensor Cores / SM | 4 (3rd Gen) | 4 (4th Gen) | 4 (5th Gen) |
| Tensor Cores / GPU | 184 (3rd Gen) | 184 (4th Gen) | 192 (5th Gen) |
| RT Cores | 46 (2nd Gen) | 46 (3rd Gen) | 48 (4th Gen) |
| GPU Boost Clock (MHz) | 1725 | 2475 | 2512 |
| Peak FP32 TFLOPS | 20.3 | 29.1 | 30.9 |
| RT TFLOPS | 39.7 | 67.4 | 93.6 |
| Frame Buffer Memory Size and Type | 8 GB GDDR6 | 12 GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR7 |
| Memory Interface | 256-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit |
| Memory Clock (Data Rate) | 14 Gbps | 21 Gbps | 28 Gbps |
| Memory Bandwidth | 448 GB/sec | 504 GB/sec | 672 GB/sec |
| ROPs | 96 | 64 | 80 |
| Pixel Fill-rate (Gigapixels/sec) | 165.6 | 158.4 | 201 |
| Texture Units | 184 | 184 | 192 |
| Texel Fill-rate (Gigatexels/sec) | 317.4 | 455.4 | 482.3 |
| L1 Data Cache/Shared Memory | 5888 KB | 5888 KB | 6144 KB |
| L2 Cache Size | 4096 KB | 36864 KB | 49152 KB |
| Register File Size | 11776 KB | 11776 KB | 12288 KB |
| Video Engines | 1 x NVENC (7th Gen), 1 x NVDEC (5th Gen) | 1 x NVENC (8th Gen), 1 x NVDEC (5th Gen) | 1 x NVENC (9th Gen), 1 x NVDEC (6th Gen) |
| TGP (Total Graphics Power) | 220 W | 200 W | 250 W |
| Transistor Count | 17.4 Billion | 31.1 Billion | 35.8 Billion |
| Die Size | 392.5 mm² | 294.5 mm² | 263 mm² |
| Manufacturing Process | Samsung 8 nm 8N | TSMC 4nm 4N | TSMC 4nm 4N |
| PCI Express Interface | Gen 4 | Gen 4 | Gen 5 |
Here is Nvidia's performance chart for the RTX 5070, compared with the RTX 4070
Nvidia has not announced an official release date, but rumors suggest the RTX 5070 Ti will launch on February 20. There is still no word on when the RTX 5070 will be released.
Of course, buyers should wait for reviews before making a decision, but the initial reaction to the specs of these two cards has been far from enthusiastic. That is especially true after the underwhelming reviews of the RTX 5090 (scored 80/100) and RTX 5080 (scored 70/100).
The question now is whether AMD can take advantage of consumers' indifference toward Blackwell. The company is focusing on more affordable midrange cards in the Radeon RX 9000 series. The RX 9070 XT, RX 9070, RX 9060 and RX 9050 are expected to go on sale starting in March.
