It’s now a certainty: NVIDIA is preparing to launch a GeForce RTX 4070 with GDDR6 memory in the next few days. How can we explain the move from a 4070 with GDDR6X to a 4070 with GDDR6? The explanation put forward by the Greens is that the market is facing a shortage of GDDR6X memory chips. But the changes won’t stop there, as the original RTX 4070 uses the AD104-250 GPU, while this ‘new’ one will be equipped with the AD104-251. However, this version will have the same configuration, with 5,888 CUDA cores. All in all, it’s highly likely that the original RTX 4070 with GDDR6X memory will remain in short supply. The new model will remedy the situation by taking advantage of available GDDR6. There’s nothing to say at this point that we can expect a ‘gift’ from Nvidia and that the prices of these versions will be lowered.
Same performance, same price: nothing to see here?
From a performance point of view, the GDDR6 memory that will equip the new RTX 4070s will be clocked at a slightly lower speed than GDDR6X (20 Gbit/s compared with 21 Gbit/s). It’s possible that these changes will have an impact on performance, or that the new version of the GPU will erase this detail. In any case, Nvidia isn’t really keen to communicate on this card, hoping that it will quickly occupy the market where there are already so many versions of the RTX 4070 (classic 4070, Ti, Super and Super Ti…). So the difference in performance is likely to be negligible.
If we refer to the leak that’s been doing the rounds on the net, (the Galax version not to mention it), differentiating this new version of the RTX 4070 from the others won’t be easy. According to the leaked visuals, there’s no indication on the box that it uses GDDR6 memory. This is a situation prone for confusion, of course, especially if the card displays a significant differential in performance.
As things stand, if you’re already at a loss to understand the differences between the 4070s, here’s a table summarising the characteristics of the cards that will be on the market in the next few days:
