Nvidia's Midrange Graphics Cards Over the Years: A Comparative Gaming Battle - Reviewing the RTX 5070 against the RTX 4070, 3070, and 2070 in a comprehensive gaming duel
In a comprehensive analysis by ComputerBase.de, Nvidia's latest graphics cards, the RTX 2070, 3070, 4070, and 5070, have shown significant generational improvements in performance, efficiency, and thermal behaviour. Here's a breakdown of how these GPUs stack up against each other.
Performance
The RTX 5070 delivers the highest raw frame rates in rasterization, outperforming the 4070 by roughly 25% and nearly doubling the 2070’s raster FPS. Ray tracing performance follows a similar trend but with a smaller margin. The RTX 4070 offers a large uplift compared to the 3070 and 2070, typically doubling ray tracing FPS over the 2070 and significantly exceeding the 3070. The RTX 3070 roughly doubles the 2070’s ray tracing performance and improves raster FPS by about 70% over the 2070. These numbers translate well to both 1080p and 4K gaming, considering DLSS and other Nvidia technologies also notably enhance performance for the 4070 and 5070, especially at 4K.
Efficiency
The 4070 and 5070 are close in efficiency, with the 4070 generally edging out the 5070 due to 20-25% lower power draw in gaming titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, Horizon, and Doom Eternal. The 4070’s superior fps/W ratio especially shines in rasterization (0.45 FPS/W for 4070 vs 0.46 for 5070, effectively neck and neck) and more clearly in ray tracing (0.29 vs 0.27 FPS/W). The 3070 is more power-hungry than the 2070 but offers better fps/W efficiency; however, both are significantly outclassed by the newer 40 and 50-series GPUs. The RTX 2070 is the least efficient, with the lowest fps per watt across metrics.
Thermal Behaviour
The 4070 operates at lower power levels (~188 W) compared to the 5070 (~231 W), giving it better thermal headroom, quieter operation, and cooler running temperatures. The 5070’s increased power comes with diminishing efficiency returns and increased heat output, making it less optimal for thermally constrained environments. Users prioritizing balanced performance, thermals, and acoustics will find the 4070 the most favorable upgrade from previous-gen GPUs like the 2070 or 3070. The 5070, despite higher raw performance, may require more robust cooling solutions given its higher power consumption.
Summary
For 1080p and 4K gaming:
- RTX 5070: Best raw performance; slightly worse efficiency and higher thermal cost.
- RTX 4070: Best balance of performance, efficiency, and thermal behaviour; great for players caring about acoustics and power consumption.
- RTX 3070: Solid generational uplift from 2070 but less efficient and thermally favorable than 40 and 50 series.
- RTX 2070: Outdated by today’s standards; lowest performance and efficiency.
The jump from 2070 and 3070 to 4070 and 5070 offers transformative gains at 1080p and 4K, with the 4070 often preferred for better thermals and efficiency, while the 5070 is for highest raw performance with increased power/thermal requirements.
In games like Doom Eternal, Cyberpunk 2077, and Horizon, the RTX 4070 outperforms the RTX 5070 in terms of efficiency. In Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing and DLSS Balanced at 1080p, the RTX 5070 peaked at 61.3 FPS, more than 4 times the RTX 2070's 12.9 FPS. In Horizon: Forbidden West at 4K, the RTX 5070's performance climbed from 31.6 FPS on the RTX 2070 to 91.1 FPS. The RTX 5070's efficiency in rasterized titles (FPS/W) was 0.46, while the RTX 2070's was 0.21. The DLSS feature in Nvidia GPUs was updated to a much faster Transformer model. The RTX 4070 more than doubles the 2070's performance in some games with ray tracing while consuming almost the same wattage.
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