Nvidia’s controversial ‘RTX 5070 vs 4090’ claim is finally coming true
When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced the RTX 50 series at CES 2025, he made some performance-related statements that left many enthusiasts rolling their eyes. They weren’t wrong. At launch, these claims were far from true.
Now, more than a year later, Nvidia could finally deliver on the promises made at CES 2025.
So, did the RTX 5070 really equal the RTX 4090?
Many people doubted these claims.
When the RTX 50 series was first announced over a year ago, the hype was definitely there. Although the upgrade from the RTX 40 series to the RTX 50 series was smaller than the 30 series upgrade, it was still substantial… for some cards. For the most common models, the specs suggested incremental upgrades, which is nothing out of the ordinary.
However, Huang made one promise that stood out and was echoed in various tech publications: the RTX 5070 would deliver the performance levels of the RTX 4090 at a price of $549. This raised many eyebrows, for obvious reasons.
In terms of specs, the RTX 5070 didn’t even have a chance to breathe the same air as the RTX 4090. With almost 10,000 fewer GPU shaders and half the VRAM, not to mention everything else, it was decidedly a mainstream card. But Nvidia had a card up its sleeve: DLSS 4. With the multi-frame generation, the RTX 5070 would offer similar performance to the RTX 4090 at a much lower cost and power consumption.
Reviewers were quick to verify these claims.
XDA Developers took a look at the RTX 5070 and measured it against the RTX 4090. Over a test suite of 10 games played at 4K, the RTX 5070 averaged 52.8 fps compared to the 88.9 fps the RTX 4090 achieved. totally there.
Was anyone really surprised when the horrible truth about the RTX 5070 was revealed? I don’t think so. Only the biggest Nvidia fans thought we’d get an RTX 4090 level card for $549. However, DLSS 4 was still good, even these claims were controversial.
DLSS 4 was great, it was just too big an ask
This has not made the technology any less transformational.
At launch, Nvidia’s DLSS 4 was only available on RTX 50-series GPUs, providing an additional selling point for people who already own the previous generation. After all, DLSS 4 introduced multi-frame generation, generating up to three additional frames per rendered frame. And while I personally thought the claim that the RTX 5070 could replace the RTX 4090 was an unfair way to look at these “fake frames”, DLSS 4 performed well.
DLSS 4 was solid, with a huge increase in frame rates and limited quality issues, provided your GPU can already deliver stable baseline frames per second. Forcing the RTX 5060 to run Cyberpunk on RT Overdrive in 4K was never supposed to look pretty, and even Nvidia’s AI-driven software stack couldn’t do it, but every GPU benefited from DLSS 4… but not enough to live up to that “RTX 4090 for $549” claim. But DLSS 4.5 changes the situation.
DLSS 4.5 could be the solution to closing the gap
Consumer GPUs, rejoice.
DLSS 4.5 is Nvidia’s big Super Resolution upgrade. For me, a big win right off the bat was that DLSS 4.5 was made available on all RTX GPUs, although the upcoming spring update will only launch on the RTX 50 series. Still, what the entire RTX lineup is getting is pretty impressive.
Many reviews of DLSS 4.5 are already available and the results are positive for those on newer hardware (RTX 40 and 50 series). Nvidia itself has made it clear that older GPUs, from the RTX 20 and 30 series, could experience a performance loss when using certain DLSS models. Some reviewers have spotted fps drops of up to 20% when upgrading to DLSS 4.5 on older GPUs. Even though I don’t like it, it makes sense: the new model is much heavier, requiring 5 times more calculation than the original transformer.
As the owner of an RTX 40 series GPU, I see solid performance across the board. I have an RTX 4080 Super, so I didn’t have much to complain about at first, but running Cyberpunk 2077 in RT Overdrive is smoother. I notice a cleaner reconstruction, with almost no artifacts. Everything looks razor sharp, almost too sharp for my taste.
Compared to DLSS 3, frame rates and image quality simply seem more stable. Without any DLSS enabled, I averaged around 80fps; with DLSS 3 I was at around 130 fps with occasional jumps. DLSS 4.5 gave me a stable 145-150fps no matter what I was doing in the game.
The biggest gains, for me, were on the visual side. It’s hard to deny that the image was sharper and remained consistent throughout a few minutes of gameplay.
Nvidia’s RTX 5070 could finally achieve its goal
If it’s not here yet, it’s on the way.
When it comes to frame rates, DLSS 4.5 may not yet look like that game-changing event that magically turns the RTX 5070 into an RTX 4090, but it’s a good start.
The second generation Transformer model will make it easier for the RTX 5070, or similar cards, to use harsher DLSS modes without the image appearing rough. This will provide a better experience across a range of titles, allowing you to move away from the Quality preset while still maintaining solid visuals while improving performance. Upgrading to a higher resolution should also be possible while maintaining high settings.
The real game changer may still be coming for DLSS 4.5. Scheduled to arrive on the RTX 50 series in the spring, Dynamic Multi-Frame Generation will offer 6x MFG combined with Dynamic FG. This is where we could see the RTX 5070 reach new heights.
As of now, the RTX 5070 is still not an RTX 4090, but in some ways it’s just as good. It may not be one of the best GPUs launching in 2025 at its current price, but it’s a valuable mainstream pick that just received a major boost and is yet to receive another one in a few months. It’s a win, even if it didn’t quite live up to the high expectations Jensen Huang set for him when he arrived.
