The newly revealed Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 is making waves, and for good reason. Unveiled at CES 2025 as the entry-level GPU in Nvidia’s cutting-edge 50-series lineup, this $549 card has already drawn comparisons to Nvidia’s former heavyweight champion, the RTX 4090. But does it truly match—or even surpass—the flagship performance? The short answer: yes, but there’s a catch.
RTX 5070 vs. RTX 4090: The Claim
Nvidia’s CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, made a bold statement during the CES keynote: the RTX 5070 offers “RTX 4090 performance at $549.” For gamers and tech enthusiasts alike, this is an eyebrow-raising claim, especially given that the RTX 4090 launched with a jaw-dropping $1,599 price tag just two years ago.
The Numbers Back It Up... Sort Of
Initial testing by PCGamesN reveals that the RTX 5070, leveraging Nvidia’s latest DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation technology, can indeed outperform the RTX 4090 in specific scenarios. During a demo of Marvel Rivals, the RTX 5070 delivered an impressive 240 fps at 4K resolution, surpassing the RTX 4090’s 180 fps under similar settings. The catch? Those numbers owe a lot to DLSS 4—a game-changing AI-driven technology that generates up to three synthetic frames between traditionally rendered ones.
This frame-generation prowess exemplifies Nvidia’s ongoing shift away from pure raster graphics rendering. As Huang put it in 2024, “We compute one pixel, we infer the other 32.” While revolutionary, this approach raises questions about the nature of performance gains: are we seeing raw power, or is AI doing the heavy lifting?
DLSS 4: A Game-Changer for the RTX 5070
DLSS 4 is undeniably the star of the RTX 5070’s show. By analyzing in-game data and leveraging Nvidia’s new Tensor cores, it enables smoother gameplay with minimal computational load. This technology is what allows the RTX 5070 to punch above its weight class in optimized titles like Marvel Rivals.
At CES, side-by-side comparisons showcased the RTX 5070 with DLSS 4 against the RTX 4090 using the older DLSS 3. Despite identical resolutions and graphical settings, the RTX 5070’s frame-generation capabilities gave it the edge. However, key details about the test setups—such as the CPUs used—remain undisclosed, leaving room for skepticism about how universal these results may be.
A Performance Gap in Non-Optimized Games
Nvidia has acknowledged that Marvel Rivals is particularly well-optimized for the RTX 5070, making it an outlier. In less-optimized games, the performance gap between the RTX 5070 and RTX 4090 narrows significantly. This underscores the importance of DLSS 4 support in unlocking the RTX 5070’s full potential.
The Verdict: Great Value, With Caveats
The RTX 5070 represents a significant leap in performance for its price, making previously premium-level gaming power accessible to more users. However, these gains rely heavily on DLSS 4, meaning that gamers playing titles without support for Nvidia’s latest AI tech may see a smaller improvement.
While the RTX 5070 might not fully dethrone the RTX 4090 in raw performance terms, it redefines what’s possible at a mid-tier price point. For those seeking cutting-edge AI-driven graphics at a fraction of the flagship cost, the RTX 5070 is an exciting proposition. But as always, the true test will come when the 50-series hits shelves this February, giving gamers everywhere a chance to put Nvidia’s bold claims to the test.
Leave a Reply