~$750-800 GPU : RTX 4070 Ti vs. RX 7900 XT for Gaming

[Space Lynx]

I had a 6800 XT before my current Nvidia card and have had zero isses with either brand's drivers, but there's no doubt that Adrenalin rides roughshod over the fossilized Nvidia Control Panel. Can't speak to the current Geforce Experience; I installed it years ago and removed it in a day or two. Ain't touching that crap again anytime soon.

Anyway; making the drivers a positive or negative point in the buying process is pointless unless you're a constant tweaker. For me they're pretty much set and forget and they're on par in terms of stability, so who gives a monkey's.

I agree with all of this. As someone who has a gtx 1070 laptop. I am actually quite pleased with smooth the UI on AMD has been. I always go to settings/preferences and turn off advertising/hotkeys/overlay/couple other items. never had any issues with either brand though overall.

 

[Eskimonster]

i would probably buy the 3080TI on sale at evga for 850$, sorta a collectible

 

[oxrufiioxo]

4070ti
Pros.
DLSS
Efficiency
RT performance especially in games like CP2077, Witcher 3 NG.

Cons.
12GB vram is miniscule for a 800+ gpu
Poor scaling as resolution goes up

7900XT
Pros
20GB of vram
Very good raster performance at all resolution
Less driver overhead in some games especially with weaker cpus

Cons.
FSR still sucks in my book
AMD is always late adding new features as of late

This would be a pretty difficult decision for me if I was limited to spending $800 max I've never really liked the 4070ti since launch due to how much nvidia cut it down for a 800+ usd product on the otherhand even though I generally like the 7900XT better I hate FSR and would be bummed to be stuck using it in scenarios that the 7900XT didn't have enough juice which for my use case would be many.

I think if I was dead set on an amd card I would much prefer the 7900XTX it's typically 20% faster doesn't consume significantly more power and in rasterizaion can go toe to toe and even best the much more expensive 4080. I don't think there is any scenario I'd feel good about buying a 4070ti unless I got a crazy good deal on it compared to the 7900XT.

 

[Space Lynx]

@oxrufiioxo only reason i did xt over xtx was the price would have been about 230 more, really 270 more cause if im doing xtx im doing nitro... and in many games once oc'd my xt knocks on the door of xtx. So the extra 230 wasn't worth it to me, especially since im 1440p and not 4k gaming. As for your ray tracing argument, i still would rather have higher fps in 2077 than ray tracing on. imo only thing nvidia has going for it is frame generation, it's the only reason i wish i had nvidia. Hopefully amd can match it, I doubt it, but we will see soon enough.

 

[Belfaborac]

To be honest the 12GB VRAM of the 4070 Ti would make it an absolute no-go as far as I'm concerned. It would do, if only just, for today, but next year it'll be borderline useless for any and all titles based on UE5.X and many others unless you're happy to be stuck on 1080p. And 800 for a 1080p card just ain't cool.

I'd much rather have a (sort of) non-RT card which can handle 4K now and 1440p for a good while into the future. There's really no contest there at all as far as I can see.

On the Nvidia side the 4080 and 4090 are the only cards worth buying, if one can stomach the stupid prices

 

[oxrufiioxo]

@oxrufiioxo only reason i did xt over xtx was the price would have been about 230 more, really 270 more cause if im doing xtx im doing nitro... and in many games once oc'd my xt knocks on the door of xtx. So the extra 230 wasn't worth it to me, especially since im 1440p and not 4k gaming. As for your ray tracing argument, i still would rather have higher fps in 2077 than ray tracing on. imo only thing nvidia has going for it is frame generation, it's the only reason i wish i had nvidia. Hopefully amd can match it, I doubt it, but we will see soon enough.

I game primarily at 4k so the extra oomph from the 7900XTX would be very welcome also both cards can be tweaked and unless someone is willing to try out 3-4 cards they could get a dud 7900XT that won't budge over stock.

As far as CP2077 goes I prefer to play with at least ultra RT and nvidia is currently around 50% faster at the same tier of card so that's the difference of barely playable and decent enough performance keep in mind a big reason I went with the 4090 is becuase it obliterates everything in this game at max settings so obviously I place a higher importance than likely most on how well a card does in this game.

Those where just my perspective on the two cards for people who actually have purchased them you obviously made the best decision for yourself based on need and budget nothing wrong with either product they both have strength and weaknesses it's down to the buyer to educate themselves and decide what product more aligns with their use case.

 

[Lost_Troll]

I bought Sapphire 7900XT for 749.00$ US and got Starfield Premium for free with it and I am quite happy with it. I am getting 120 frames on average with it in Cyberpunk 2077 with max settings and 100 frames on average in Hogwarts in ultra, both with RT off with a resolution of 3440x1440.

I think for the money, it is a better card then the 4070 since it has more vram. If you need run Nvidia, I would save up for a 4080 and wait for them to drop to 1000$ like they did a few weeks back.

Another alternative would be the RX 7800XT if you can wait a week or two. It is supposed to compete with the 4070 and be 499$.

 

[freeagent]

You guys are acting like 12GB is only 4GB lol

Maybe I don't have problems at 4K because I only run at 60 FPS?

 

[Frick]

You guys are acting like 12GB is only 4GB lol

Maybe I don't have problems at 4K because I only run at 60 FPS?

12GB is enough for anything, for now anyway. It's the principle of the thing. Here the 4070ti costs the same as the 7900xtx and you get twice the VRAM with the 7900xtx.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

You guys are acting like 12GB is only 4GB lol

Maybe I don't have problems at 4K because I only run at 60 FPS?

I have no issues with 12GB in general I have issue with it being on a card that for most cost $800+... I do have concerns over it's longevity but I also don't have a time machine that is capable of future travel. I still think it's worth mentioning especially when the direct competitor has 20GB.

Personally I hope I'm wrong and the card last 3-4 years before it being an issue.

 

[TresTres]

I prefer Nvidia. The drivers are usually better and more frequent. Upscaling might be a push between both companies but Nvidia's 4000 series cards run cooler. AMD will give you more RAM and wattage... but I'd prefer a cooler more optimized card.

 

[evernessince]

You guys are acting like 12GB is only 4GB lol

Maybe I don't have problems at 4K because I only run at 60 FPS?

I think it says enough about the 4070 Ti that we are already seeing instances of it being VRAM and memory bandwidth starved in more demanding titles, especially given the $800 price tag. The "I don't have a problem so it's not a problem" isn't a constructive argument and only further enables Nvidia's goals of reducing what consumers get. It does not take a scroll of see invisibility to note that VRAM problems in more demanding games now equals more broad VRAM problems down the road. Case in point, the 3070, which people were told had too little VRAM. Fast forward to today and it's outright crashes or is forced to have blurry textures due to texture swapping in games like Halo, Hogwarts, or RE4 because it lacks VRAM. A completely avoidable problem had Nvidia included more VRAM. Can't have that though, gotta maintain those 64% margins and force people to upgrade.

4070ti
Pros.
DLSS
Efficiency
RT performance especially in games like CP2077, Witcher 3 NG.

On average the 4070 Ti has better RT performance but the 7900 XT pulls in newer more demanding titles like RE4 and Hogwarts legacy, particularly at 4K:

You might get superior RT performance on average right now but how knows a for what percentage of the card's lifespan that might hold true.

I prefer Nvidia. The drivers are usually better and more frequent. Upscaling might be a push between both companies but Nvidia's 4000 series cards run cooler. AMD will give you more RAM and wattage... but I'd prefer a cooler more optimized card.

If you look at TPU's downloads section, AMD and Nvidia release drivers at an identical frequency.

It would be accurate to say Nvidia's 4000 series cards are easier to cool but not that they run cooler. How cool a card runs will depend entirely on the aftermarket design. In addition you have to consider whether running cooler is even a relevant factor. My 4080 runs at 68c under full load which is really super overkill. If an AMD equivalent card runs at 76c it would not make an iota of difference to the average end user.

In regards to driver quality, both AMD and Nvidia have been stable as of late. The RTX 4000 series has had more minor bugs but nothing to the level that would influence a buying decision. I rarely see an objective argument in regards to driver quality, anyone is free to search TPU for articles on either brand's driver bugs over the course of the least year as a measuring stick of the 7000 series vs the 4000 series.

 

[Frick]

I think it says enough about the 4070 Ti that we are already seeing instances of it being VRAM and memory bandwidth starved in more demanding titles, especially given the $800 price tag.

Which titles are these? Links?

 

[evernessince]

Which titles are these? Links?

RE4 (as pictured), Hogwarts, TLOU, Forspoken

 

[Frick]

RE4 (as pictured), Hogwarts, TLOU, Forspoken

How does the graph tell you the 4070ti is held back by VRAM?

 

[Not4ce]

Since prices have settled a bit and drivers matured, this is the question. If YOU were shopping for a GPU in this price segment right now for 1440P and the occasional 2160P resolution, what would be your choice and why?

I would honestly go for the 4070ti, unless you suspect Vram will be a limiting factor in 2 years or so. You can make up your own mind regarding that

Emulation also fares better on Nvidia hardware from my personal experience, go Nvidia if you like Yuzu, Rpcs3 etc


It also lacks driver features like DLDSR or Reflex or better per app V-sync settings

You also get some features, that I really like, such as Moonlight for streaming which works surprisingly well, and RTX video super resolution, which works really well on 1080p sourced animated movies or media (Anything studio ghibli upscaled to 4k). I main a 6800xt but still go back to my 3070 for all the other features I have listed

No I am being serious, the problem with terms like stable and polished is that they don't really mean anything without something concrete. In what way would a 4070ti be more polished and stable than a 7900XT when it comes to drivers.

I do have a 7900XT, what did I miss, everything works fine.

A recent example would be Persona 4 Golden on gamepass crashing on my 6800xt and not on the nvidia counterpart. Another example would be cemu glitches and rare (very rare) instability or bugs when emulating on Yuzu. I never noticed them on Nvidia hardware

To this day I cant fix V-sync issues when playing Disco Elysium on steam, and no matter what I do, I get screen tear which is also a well documented issue.

4070ti
Pros.
DLSS
Efficiency
RT performance especially in games like CP2077, Witcher 3 NG.

Cons.
12GB vram is miniscule for a 800+ gpu
Poor scaling as resolution goes up

7900XT
Pros
20GB of vram
Very good raster performance at all resolution
Less driver overhead in some games especially with weaker cpus

Cons.
FSR still sucks in my book
AMD is always late adding new features as of late

This would be a pretty difficult decision for me if I was limited to spending $800 max I've never really liked the 4070ti since launch due to how much nvidia cut it down for a 800+ usd product on the otherhand even though I generally like the 7900XT better I hate FSR and would be bummed to be stuck using it in scenarios that the 7900XT didn't have enough juice which for my use case would be many.

I think if I was dead set on an amd card I would much prefer the 7900XTX it's typically 20% faster doesn't consume significantly more power and in rasterizaion can go toe to toe and even best the much more expensive 4080. I don't think there is any scenario I'd feel good about buying a 4070ti unless I got a crazy good deal on it compared to the 7900XT.

This is by far one of the best breakdowns ive seen. Minus the emulation glitches and grievences I mentioned earlier

In terms of what I like about AMD, their Adrenaline UI is a lot better, no logins needed

But one thing people dont mention is a Tendency for AMD driver being overwritten by windows, which I had to change Registry values to stop

I have also really enjoyed DLDSR even on a 4k panel on older games. I like my 6800xt but there is a lack of feature parity that is undeniable.

There's also some shortcomings that still exist in the AMD hardware but they are becoming increasingly minor, such as lack of 4:2:2 video acceleration, but it's not the end of the world.

True, I actually was annoyed at that but minor

 

[evernessince]

How does the graph tell you the 4070ti is held back by VRAM?

VRAM / Memory bandwidth. Relative to the 7900 XT and even last gen Nvidia GPUs the 4070 Ti's performance drops at a faster rate the higher the resolution. Despite the 4070 Ti being only a bit slower at 1080p, that gap wides as resolution is increased and as RT is enabled. This allows GPUs with less raw horsepower like the 3090 to pull ahead, because they are not being as limited by their memory sub-systems as the 4070 Ti is.

That is considering that RE4 has texture swapping as does Hogwarts legacy and forspoken. TPU doesn't touch upon it in the review but it's important to note as a GPU with not enough VRAM capacity could effectively give you lower visual quality and hide the impact of a lack of VRAM. Hardware unboxed touched upon it in games like Halo Infinite and Hogwarts legacy. I'm not saying the 4070 Ti is experiencing texture swapping here, just that it's something to note that reviewers certainly have to look out for as it could create an apples to oranges comparison.

 

[JustBenching]

No I am being serious, the problem with terms like stable and polished is that they don't really mean anything without something concrete. In what way would a 4070ti be more polished and stable than a 7900XT when it comes to drivers.

I do have a 7900XT, what did I miss, everything works fine.

Just an example, divine divinity and divine divinity 2 does not work on RDNA 2 and probably doesn't work on RDNA 3 either. Old games I know, but every single nvidia card I tried (1060, 1080ti, 3060ti, 3090, 4090) plays them just fine. On AMD it shows black boxes around objects.

12GB is enough for anything, for now anyway. It's the principle of the thing. Here the 4070ti costs the same as the 7900xtx and you get twice the VRAM with the 7900xtx.

You also get half the RT performance so there is that

Since prices have settled a bit and drivers matured, this is the question. If YOU were shopping for a GPU in this price segment right now for 1440P and the occasional 2160P resolution, what would be your choice and why?

The 4070ti. The only AMD card that makes sense would be the 7900xtx if it was priced competitively to the 4070ti.

 

[Frick]

You also get half the RT performance so there is that

It varies between games though.

 

[JustBenching]

It varies between games though.

No, it really doesn't. The rt performance difference is big. Whether a game uses a lot of rt effects to show that difference is another matter.

 

[ixi]

AMD, dunno why would anyone stick to nvidia currently. I guess DLSS nonsense.

 

[Belfaborac]

I prefer Nvidia. The drivers are usually better and more frequent.

If you look at TPU's downloads section, AMD and Nvidia release drivers at an identical frequency.

In regards to driver quality, both AMD and Nvidia have been stable as of late.

Quite so. Sadly an old internet truth never, ever goes away. but stays on forever as a meme, spouted again and again by people who don't know, but has heard it from someone, sometime. Sure, there was a time when AMDs drivers were bad, but it's been so long I can't really remember when it was.

Just an example, divine divinity and divine divinity 2 does not work on RDNA 2 and probably doesn't work on RDNA 3 either.

Old games that I played just fine on my 6800 XT when I had it.

AMD, dunno why would anyone stick to nvidia currently. I guess DLSS nonsense.

DLSS is about as far from being nonsense as you get, given what performance costs these days. If it was, do you think AMD would sink time and money into trying to compete with its own tecnology? Fanboi nonsense.

 

[Vya Domus]

Yeah it's things like this, when you don't get a complete crash or whatever. The repeated BSOD problems and nonsense issues I get often and sometimes months/years go by with no attention paid to it, which really strained my patience as of late.

This is what I am saying, I've had blackscreens/crashes/etc back when I had Nvidia as well, how exactly do you quantify which is better or worse ?

If, of course, you can live without CUDA and the Nvidia ecosystem.

There's also some shortcomings that still exist in the AMD hardware but they are becoming increasingly minor, such as lack of 4:2:2 video acceleration, but it's not the end of the world.

This is more about features not the actual stability/polish of drivers, there are features AMD software's offer than Nvidia's don't as well. Using their control panel feels like something straight out of the 90s, no built in hardware monitoring, no overlocking, no fan tuning, it's missing a lot of stuff that you'd expect to be there from a company that owns 80% or whatever of the market share.

 

[bug]

This is more about features not the actual stability/polish of drivers, there are features AMD software's offer than Nvidia's don't as well. Using their control panel feels like something straight out of the 90s, no built in hardware monitoring, no overlocking, no fan tuning, it's missing a lot of stuff that you'd expect to be there from a company that owns 80% or whatever of the market share.

Fwiw, the control panel is just that: a control panel. I wouldn't tie the general driver quality to it. I think you can have a good driver with a crappy control panel and vice versa.

That said, there were times when one driver was measurably better than the other one: back in AF trilinear optimization days, back when AMD had a measurable higher CPU overhead... Today that is no longer the case, but AMD still tends to lag a bit when releasing something new (e.g. regressing on idle power draw). Unless you look at Linux, that's another can of worms.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

This is what I am saying, I've had blackscreens/crashes/etc back when I had Nvidia as well, how exactly do you quantify which is better or worse ?

This is more about features not the actual stability/polish of drivers, there are features AMD software's offer than Nvidia's don't as well. Using their control panel feels like something straight out of the 90s, no built in hardware monitoring, no overlocking, no fan tuning, it's missing a lot of stuff that you'd expect to be there from a company that owns 80% or whatever of the market share.

Don't a lot of people use Afterburner for OC and fan tuning though? I'd prefer not to have another program running to do it when AB is so small.