RTX 4070 vs 3090 – which GPU is best?

Comparing the RTX 4070 vs RTX 3090 performance, price and specs

Charlie Noon

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In the battle between RTX 4070 vs 3090 – which graphics card comes out on top?

As the RTX 4070 launches, we’ll be comparing it with the hugely popular RTX 3090 – one of the best graphics cards from the previous generation. It’ll be interesting to see how the two measure up now that the specifications have been unofficially leaked. Which will offer the best value for money, which is better for gaming, and which is best overall are all questions we’ll be looking at in the following guide.

So, if you want to see how the RTX 4070 compares to the 3090, keep reading.

RTX 4070 vs RTX 3090 specs

See below for a breakdown of the specifications of both Nvidia graphics cards. As you can see, the RTX 3090 basically trounces the RTX 4070 in every area except clock speed. With not far off double the amount of CUDA cores though, you can still expect the RTX 3090 to be the more powerful of the two, even when operating at a lower clock speed.

That being said, the RTX 4070 with its newer Ada Lovelace architecture, will support DLSS 3.0 – meaning it could claw back some FPS in games that support this when the Frame Generation feature is enabled.

RTX 4070 vs RTX 3090 performance

As the RTX 4070 has been released, we have benchmarks and reviews to look at and see the performance differences. There we see the RTX 4070 in fact fall behind what the 3090 can achieve. But that is to be expected when compared to one of the top-end cards from the previous generation.

So looking at TechSpot’s review, we see how they compare in gaming performance, with a 13-game average in three resolutions. There we see at 1080p, the 4070 achieves a 175 FPS average with a 139 1% low, whilst the 3090 gets 178 FPS with a low of 143. Whilst 1440p gives a 4070 average of 126 FPS with a 104 1%, as the 3090 reached 136 FPS with a 111 FPS low. Then at 4k the 4070 averages 69 with a 57 1% compared to the 81 FPS average with a 68 1% low.

So it is closer than we’d expect and for a much better pricing point. But we can see the gap widen at higher resolutions as you’d expect from the higher memory bandwidth and more cores that compensates for the generational improvements.

RTX 4070 vs RTX 3090 price

The RTX 4070 has got an MSRP of $599/£589. An increase over the 3070, but still reasonable compared to what the higher-end choices of the generation have to offer.

When it was launched the RTX 3090 cost $1,499/£1,399 for the Founder’s Edition, although you can currently buy them for as cheap as $999/£1049.99, depending on the vendor. But that still means the 4070 has a better value for its performance for it.

RTX 4070 vs RTX 3090 – which is best?

With its substantially higher VRAM and memory bandwidth, the RTX 3090 is definitely the better choice if you’re looking to game at 4K or do any high-end workstation/rendering tasks, though if you’re just looking for something to game on at 1440p/1600p or on lower resolutions, then the RTX 4070 is much more affordable and definitely powerful enough.