As long-time PC gamers know, there are two ways to play on PC. Either we put the graphics on full throttle, with the obligation to make concessions on performance. Either we take an hour before launching our first game to fine-tune all the settings in order to reach the sacrosanct 60 FPS. And then there is the last solution: own the “good” graphics card.
On PC, there is a fundamental difference between playing a game and playing it in the best conditions. If you’ve ever tried to launch Cyberpunk 2077 or Starfield, and unless you have a supercomputer worthy of the CNRS, you know that you have to be ready to make sacrifices to achieve the sacrosanct 60 fps. Lowering the definition, deactivating ray tracing, reducing the quality of textures or the display distance are all ways of improving the fluidity of the game… to the detriment of the visual experience. The equation is unfortunately well known to long-time PC gamers.
And that’s a shame, because the most recent games are arguably some of the most beautiful and impressive ever. Each drop in graphics settings, each tweak robs them of a little more than part of their beauty, and degrades the experience imagined by the developers. To overcome this problem, two solutions exist: make these sacrifices and simply play the game, or act. How ? By choosing hardware capable of handling the demands of the biggest titles of the moment to allow them to express their full potential.
This is what PNY offers with its RTX 4070 12 GB. A card focused on power that we put under a rolling test, in particular by confronting it with five of the most demanding games of the moment.
Ray tracing, DLSS3, 2 or 4K: what is the performance of PNY’s RTX 4070 worth in gaming?
To test the PNY RTX 4070 12 GB, we tested it on 4 big games released in 2022 and 2023 as well as on Flight Simulator. For each of these games, we checked the performance of the card on the following criteria:
- The number of FPS achieved in QHD and 4K, with and without ray tracing
- Card consumption in Watts
- the temperature reached by the card when running these games.
This is what she is capable of.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
Released 3 years ago, Cyberpunk 2077 was the perfect benchmark game to test its new graphics card. Its expansion, Phantom Liberty sets the bar even higher. And for good reason, the developers have integrated all of Nvidia’s latest graphics technologies into their game: support for DLSS 3.5, Frame Generation, Path Tracing, etc.
The result: to go below 60 frames per second, you must activate Path Tracing in 4K. And yet, with an average of 52.3 FPS, the game is still very playable.
F1 2022
We carried out tests on F1 2022, because it uses exactly the same graphics engine as F1 2023. Here again, it is a “showcase game” which supports all Nvidia technologies, including DLSS 2.0. What can be seen in performance:
Whether in 2K or 4K, F1 2022 is never below 100 frames per second. In such a technically demanding game, it’s a real joy.
Flight Simulator
Certainly, Flight Simulator was not released in 2023. It is even going on 3 years now. But it’s a game that’s still capable of bringing an RTX 4090 to its knees. So how does PNY’s RTX 4070 fare?
Unsurprisingly, it is on Flight Simulator that PNY’s RTX 4070 shows its most “poor” performance. The quotes are required, because the game is indeed struggling without DLSS and in 4K (but still above 70 FPS in QHD). But once DLSS 3.0 is activated, performance is simply doubled. In this game, Nvidia’s technology is simply astonishing.
A Plague Tale Requiem
A Plague Tale Requiem was one of the biggest graphic slaps of last year. The game supports ray tracing as well as Nvidia’s DLSS. It’s also a title that brought previous generation graphics cards to their knees. Below you can see how PNY’s RTX 4070 performs.
In QHD, the RTX 4070 displays very good performance, with or without DLSS. But it’s more complicated in 4K. With Flight Simulator, this is the other game in this benchmark where you absolutely must activate DLSS to exceed 60 FPS.
Ratchet & Clank Rift Appart
Former PlayStation 5 exclusive, Ratchet & Clank Rift Appart was released on PC last July. Just once, this is an excellent port from Sony. So good… It runs better in 4K on PC than on PS5.
Ratchet & Clank Rift Appart is also an anomaly in this benchmark: DLSS 3.0 brings practically no performance gain on our configuration. Probably because the gain from DLSS is aimed more at older generation graphics cards than at the powerful RTX generation 40.
So, what is PNY’s RTX 4070 worth in general?
These benchmarks speak for themselves: whether in QHD or 4K, PNY’s RTX 4070 is capable of running all these demanding games full of graphics options at more than 60 FPS… and often even beyond 100 FPS when DLSS 3.0 is enabled.
If you have a QHD screen, this is simply the perfect card to enjoy the games of the moment. If you have a 4K screen, this is the economical option where DLSS 3.0 or 3.5 can allow you to exceed 60 FPS without too many concessions. At less than 650 euros, it’s excellent value for money.
Really reasonable consumption and heating
There are also two other particularly appreciable technical aspects of this graphics card: its consumption. Across all of our tests, we noted an average electrical power consumption of 192 Watts. The card never went below 174 Watts (on Ratchet & Clank Rift Appart), but never exceeded 200 Watts, even in 4K. In other words, you don’t need to have a huge diet or change your diet to be able to benefit from it.
Another appreciable point: the PNY RTX 4070 turns out to be very quiet, even in full sustained operation during a game. We recorded a measurement of 31.2 decibels in full use. For comparison, Nvidia’s RTX 4070 Founder Edition, considered exemplary in this area, exceeded 35 decibels in full use!
And this relative discretion does not come at the expense of temperature. Whether in QHD or UHD, with or without DLSS, the temperature of the PNY RTX 4070 remained permanently stable at 65 or 66 degrees. Never more, never less.
What are the advantages of the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB?
For this model, PNY has pulled out all the stops to offer a model that combines power and ease of use. It owes its power to its 12 GB of GDDR6X VRAM which allows it to shine at 1440p with ray tracing activated. Currently, this is the “right size” of RAM on Nvidia graphics cards to obtain optimal rendering without having to make concessions on the graphics part (as opposed to a card equipped with 8 GB) .
On a practical level, PNY also did things well. To begin with, this graphics card is quite easy to fit into a tower since it only takes up two slots and does not extend beyond this frame (even if it can be a little long in small cases). Then, and this is a significant plus, the PNY RTX 4070 does not require a power adapter. A classic 8-pin connector is enough to power it.
And for the more meticulous among you, know that this RTX 4070 12GB XLR8 Gaming VERTO Edition DLSS 3 benefits from PNY’s VelocityX software suite. The latter allows you to precisely control your GPU, from processor speed to temperature to fan rotation speed. It also provides access to overclocking tools to personalize your experience and gain more power.
Beyond the benefits provided by the design and features specific to PNY, this GPU also has all the advantages of a “classic” RTX 4070. And the first of them, this will not surprise you, undoubtedly remains compatibility with DLSS 3. As a reminder, DLSS or Deep Learning Super Sampling is a technology that takes advantage of artificial intelligence to improve in-game performance. This technology makes it possible to upscale the rendering of images to improve their quality without affecting resources. Concretely, your computer calculates the images in 1080p, and the AI does its magic so that the rendering on the screen is in 4K.
To this, DLSS 3 (and the very recent update 3.5), adds a few small new features:
- image generation (Frame Generation), which allows you to add an AI-generated image between each image generated by the game engine in order to make rendering smoother. Enough to multiply the number of images per second without loading the GPU more than necessary;
- the Ray Reconstruction function which aims to improve the rendering of ray tracing thanks to a noise reduction (Denoiser). Its goal ? Make small imperfections and artifacts disappear (ghosting, noise, etc.) to improve quality or even improve performance in certain cases.
Nvidia GPU obliges, this RTX 4070 signed PNY benefits from the entire software arsenal developed by the manufacturer over the years. Creators will be able to take full advantage of their GPU thanks to Nvidia Studio drivers, while the most competitive gamers will be able to gain performance thanks to Reflex. Finally, let us point out Nvidia Broadcast and its multiple advantages for everything related to the broadcasting of sound and image, both professionally and leisurely.
From Paris to New York: who is PNY?
If you have any interest in the IT ecosystem, it’s a safe bet that you’ve already heard of PNY. Since 1985, this company has designed and manufactured a wide variety of components, with a focus on storage media and graphics cards based on Nvidia architecture.
Based in the United States, the brand maintains privileged relations with France. In addition to its name, which means Paris New York (in reference to the numerous exchanges of components between the two cities), PNY installed its third production line in France, in Bordeaux in the mid-90s. don’t stop there, since it’s the town of Mérignac, in Gironde, which hosts the European branch of the firm.
A facility which houses, among other things, the company’s logistics and technical services, which allows it to offer a quality of service to which very few other brands can claim on French territory.
On a technical level, PNY also has some significant advantages. In addition to complementarity between its different products (GPU, SSD, DRAM, storage), the manufacturer benefits from great expertise in Nvidia architecture thanks to a partnership launched more than 25 years ago (on professional GPUs at origin). This mastery of hardware today allows PNY to offer reliable and efficient components, as proven by the results of the tests we conducted on the GeForce RTX 4070 12GB XLR8 Gaming VERTO Edition DLSS 3.