Photo Reveals Ada Lovelace GPU Inside NVIDIA's Unreleased RTX 4070 Graphics Card
NVIDIA is widely expected to flesh out its GeForce RTX 40 series graphics card lineup with a regular (read: non-TI) GeForce RTX 4070 model in the near future. Serving as further proof and adding to the pile of leaks and rumors is a mostly-clean die shot of the underlying AD104-250-A1 Ada Lovelace GPU that will power the upcoming card. According to the markings in the photo, it's a late-stage engineering sample (otherwise known as a qualification sample).
To be clear, NVIDIA has not yet released or even announced a GeForce RTX 4070. The company's desktop lineup currently consists of the GeForce RTX 4090 (AD102-300-A1), GeForce RTX 4080 16GB (AD103-300-A1), and GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (AD104-400-A1). NVIDIA initially planned to offer a second GeForce RTX 4080 model with less video memory (12GB) and fewer CUDA cores, but that ultimately became the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti.
Assuming the photo leaked by MEGAsizeGPU (@Zed_Wang) on Twitter is real and unaltered, it looks like the GeForce RTX 4070 will feature a cut-down version of the AD104 Ada Lovelace GPU found inside its Ti brethren. Here's a quick and dirty comparison of the rumored core specifications between the two cards...
- GeForce RTX 4070 Ti: 7,680 CUDA cores, 2,310MHz base clock, 2,610MHz boost clock, 12GB GDDR6X memory, 192-bit bus, $799 MSRP
- GeForce RTX 4070: 5,888 CUDA cores, 1,920MHz base clock, 2,475MHz boost clock, 12GB GDDR6X memory, 192-bit bus, unknown MSRP
If those specs come to pass, then we're looking at a 23.3 percent reduction in the number of CUDA cores and slower clocks. Whereas the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti cranks out 40 TLOPS of graphics performance, the regular GeForce RTX 4070 will settle in at 29 TFLOPS.
What won't change is the memory configuration. Like the Ti model, the non-Ti version will wield 12GB of GDDR6X memory tied to a 192-bit bus, yielding 504GB/s of memory bandwidth. Again, that's if the rumors and leaks prove accurate.
It's also said there will actually be two versions of the AD104-250, one for reference model cards (PG141-SKU343) and another for the Founders Edition model (PG141-SKU344). In addition, rumor has it there will be an AD104-251-A1 variation for some reference models (PG141-SKU345). So that's three SKUs in all. According to @hkepcmedia, the 250 version requires a voltage a voltage comparator circuit whereas the 251 does not.
The GeForce RTX 4070 is rumored to land on store shelves in April. If that's the case, we suspect NVIDIA will make an announcement during this year's GTC event, which runs from March 20-23.
