“4090 performance at $549.”
That’s what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said of the GeForce RTX 5070 when he announced the card at CES in January. Thanks to AI, this new midrange GPU would be able to match the frame rates of what had been the fastest consumer GPU that had previously existed, for around one-third the price.
Let’s dispel that notion up front. No, the GeForce RTX 5070 is not as fast as an RTX 4090, not without some very creative comparing of non-comparable numbers. Per usual for the 50-series, Nvidia is leaning on its AI-generated interpolated frames for the bulk of its claimed performance improvements. In terms of actual rendering speed, the 5070 isn’t even as fast as a 4080 or a 4070 Ti. It’s barely faster than last year’s 4070 Super, and with disproportionately higher power usage.
