The first benchmarks for Nvidia’s rumored RTX 4070 Ti have leaked out, and they could put AMD’s recently released RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT in jeopardy.
It comes from the Geekbench browser, which shows the RTX 4070 Ti by name earning an OpenCL score of 214,654. AMD’s RX 7900 XTX can go higher in some cases, but also a bit lower. One run shows AMD’s flagship GPU earning an impressive 231,836, but another shows it below the RTX 4070 Ti result with a score of 209,507. The more pressing concern is the lower-end RX 7900 XT. This card scores closer to 185,000 in Geekbench’s OpenCL benchmark, around 14% slower than the RTX 4070 Ti result.
Nvidia hasn’t announced the RTX 4070 Ti or what price it will sell for. However, leaks from the past few months point to Nvidia repurposing its 12GB RTX 4080 for this slot in its lineup. The RTX 4080 was previously announced for $900 — the same list price as AMD’s RX 7900 XT.
In an unprecedented move, Nvidia “unlaunched” the 12GB RTX 4080 after backlash due to the confusing naming scheme. It was announced alongside the 16GB RTX 4080, but with a cutdown chip under the hood, many accused Nvidia of just rebranding the RTX 4070 for an easy opportunity to mark up the price. The RTX 4070 Ti may be a rebranded RTX 4080 12GB carrying the same price, but it’s too soon to tell.
If these Geekbench results are anything to go by, $900 is the right price. With performance nearing the $1,000 RX 7900 XTX, Nvidia might undercut AMD on price, which would be a big change of pace in the usual dynamic between Nvidia and AMD.
Geekbench is only one test, though, and it usually favors Nvidia’s GPUs in the OpenCL benchmark. The RTX 4080 is nearly 25% faster than the RX 7900 XTX in the Geekbench OpenCL benchmark. As you can read in our RX 7900 XTX review, though, AMD’s card is on par with the RTX 4080 in games.
Leaked benchmarks that emerged shortly after the 12GB RTX 4080 was canceled paint a different picture as well. These benchmarks showed the 12GB RTX 4080 falling short of even last-gen GPUs, which is not a position Nvidia wants to be in for a $900 graphics card.
For now, all eyes are on next month’s CES to see if Nvidia has any new GPU announcements in store. Although Nvidia has already released its flagship RTX 4090, we’ve yet to see what its new generation can do at lower price points.
