Nvidia RTX 40 Super Series GPUs - Overview and Guide

Nvidia has debuted its first major update to the RTX 40 generation in an exciting fashion. The new Super Series of RTX 40 graphics cards adds a few new models to the top of the stack of cards and they are both more powerful and more affordable than their predecessors, making these some of the best graphics cards for high-end gaming at 1440p and 4K. Especially if what you’re playing supports ray tracing and/or DLSS.

Three new graphics cards are coming to the RTX 40 lineup. They include the Nvidia RTX 4070 Super, the RTX 4070 Ti Super, and the RTX 4080 Super. There’s no Super update to the top model though - the RTX 4090 – but considering how far ahead of anything else that card already is, perhaps that’s for the best. Still, the RTX 4080 Super closes the gap between its non-Super counterpart and the 4090 at the top, and the other two cards flesh out Nvidia’s lineup with some impressive performance and competitive pricing.

If you haven’t upgraded your graphics card or gaming PC in a few years, the new Nvidia RTX 40 Super Series graphics cards are well worth considering as they hit release in the coming weeks.

Let’s take a look at these cards in more detail to see how they measure up to their predecessors and which card(s) might be best for you, considering the newly expanded lineup of options.

RTX 40 Super Series Specifications

The RTX 40 Super series graphics cards are designed to mostly replace their existing non-Super offerings, with the RTX 4080 Super and RTX 4070 Ti Super supplanting them entirely, while the RTX 4070 will still be available alongside the new RTX 4070 Super. This will offer a broader and more nuanced array of GPUs for potential buyers, as well as improving the overall performance of Nvidia’s current GPU lineup.

The improvements to the cards aren’t uniform, though. The RTX 4080 Super received a modest increase in CUDA core count by upgrading to the fully unlocked AD103 GPU, giving it just over 500 additional cores. However, its clock speed saw a much greater increase, with its boost clock leaping 300 MHz to over 2.5GHz.

It maintains the same 16GB of GDDR6X VRAM, but crucially it’s been upgraded to 23 Gbps, which should give it a slight improvement in overall memory bandwidth, helping to augment its performance and close the gap a little further with the RTX 4090. You get that with the reduced price tag (see below), and the same power draw. It’s more, for less money, for the same power. The RTX 4080 Super is very much the improved RTX 4080 it was designed to be.

Image credit: Nvidia

The RTX 4070 Ti Super saw a slightly more substantial upgrade. Its GPU was switched out to the AD103 GPU used in the stock RTX 4080, giving it close to an additional 1,300 CUDA cores to play with. It maintains the sky-high clock speed of the stock RTX 4070 Ti across those new cores, and gets a sizeable bump to its memory, too. The RTX 4070 Ti Super comes equipped with the same 16GB of GDDR6X memory as the RTX 4080. Since it already has the same memory bus width and memory chip speed, the 4070 Ti Super could well nip at the heels of the stock RTX 4080 without much difficulty.

The RTX 4070 Super arguably saw the largest upgrade as part of this Super generational update. While its memory capacity, speed, and CUDA core clock speeds remained the same, it received the largest percentage increase in CUDA cores across the range. With 1,280 new CUDA cores – or more than 25% of its stock counterpart’s CUDA cores, the RTX 4070 Super should perform far faster than the standard RTX 4070.

Considering that card already offers some of the best bang for buck in Nvidia’s RTX 40 generation, the new Super version could be even more of a high-value card for serious gaming at high frame rates. It comes at the cost of a little more power, but that’s nothing that a third-party solution with more advanced cooling can’t fix.

Performance – Power where it counts

The Nvidia RTX 40 Super series isn’t designed to revolutionize graphics performance and it isn’t going to eclipse the RTX 4090 with a new pinnacle of gaming performance. But what it does do is make Nvidia’s RTX 40 series line far more competitive with AMD’s best RTX 7000 graphics cards, which have become increasingly competitive throughout their lifespan. This is thanks to continued driver updates, feature releases, and regular price cuts that bring all of them within the budget of a wider range of gamers.

There are no third-party benchmarks of these new cards just yet, and we can’t reveal our internal testing numbers, but we can say that the RTX 40 Super Series will offer some of the best gaming performance and value for money of any graphics cards in 2024.

The Nvidia RTX 4080 Super will only be slightly faster than the RTX 4080 – likely less than 10% faster in most games, and in some, it might be closer to 5%. However, that’s around the difference between the stock RTX 4080 and the AMD RX 7900 XTX, making for a very interesting matchup between these two top-tier graphics cards. Nvidia would surely love to have the top two GPUs, not just the top model.

The RTX 4070 Ti Super’s additional CUDA cores will give it around a 10% general performance uplift, according to Nvidia. That will be welcome news to anyone looking to buy one of these cards, but the more impactful long-term change is the new memory configuration. With all the talk around inadequate VRAM quantities on lower-tier GPUs, uplifting the RTX 4070 Super Series to 16GB of GDDR6X puts it well outside any of those kinds of discussions and makes it far more capable of handling higher-end visual features, like 4K resolution.

Image credit: Nvidia

The RTX 4070 Super is a sizeable upgrade over its non-Super counterpart, with a 20% uplift in CUDA cores. That should, according to Nvidia at least, mean a near 15% improvement in general gaming performance. Such an upgrade would put it on par, or even slightly faster than the RTX 3090 – a previous generation flagship and a card that costs close to three times as much at launch. The RTX 4070 Super also benefits from newer and faster tensor and RT cores, and has support for DLSS 3 frame generation.

We’ll need to wait for our own testing to complete before we can conclusively say just how fast these new cards are, but we’re quietly confident that they’ll be a worthy addition to the RTX 40 series. Even more so, when you factor in how affordable these new cards are set to be.

Pricing – The biggest surprise

For several generations now, Nvidia has retained a sizeable lead in flagship performance, so it’s no surprise that its graphics cards often hold a slight premium over the competition. However, with the RTX 40 Super release, Nvidia has brought out the big guns and is pricing its new cards aggressively so that they can go directly head to head with AMD’s best RX 7000 GPUs.

Where the RTX 4080 originally launched at $1,200, the RTX 4080 Super has a recommended US retail price of $1,000 – that’s a performance boost and a sizeable price cut in one. The RTX 4070 Ti Super and RTX 4070 Super retain the recommended US retail pricing of their non-Super counterparts: $800 and $600 respectively. The stock RTX 4070 will reportedly receive a recommended price cut to $550 – though we’ll have to see how that works out in the real world.

None of this tells us much about the potential EU/UK pricing for these graphics cards, but they will likely be higher as Nvidia’s suggested prices for the U.S. do not include local sales taxes which bumps things up by a notable margin.

The RTX 4080 is currently priced around £1,100 - £1,300, in the UK, with the RTX 4070 Ti around £800, and the RTX 4070 around £550. As usual with any major new GPU release, stock is likely to be tight at the launch of these new graphics cards, as they have generated a lot of interest from gamers and enthusiasts alike. That means that initial RTX 40 Super pricing is likely to be higher than their suggested pricing would suggest if you buy the cards individually.

Image credit: Nvidia

What’s the best way to get an RTX 40 Super series graphics card?

Due to the pricing and availability difficulties that can arise from any new graphics card generation launch, the best way to get an RTX 40 Super series graphics card near launch, is from a custom PC builder like Chillblast. We are guaranteed a large volume of stock of all new graphics cards when they launch, so you’re sure to be able to get the card you want. We also ensure compatibility with the gaming PC they’re installed in, and make sure that you have the power you need to run the card, and run it to its full potential.

We also don’t mark up our graphics cards just because they’re new and exciting, so you can rest assured that when you buy a gaming PC through Chillblast, you get value for money. Even with a high-end gaming PC with one of the latest graphics cards, you’ll get a gaming PC that offers amazing bang for your buck with all the advantages of a cutting-edge design.

Like the Apex Intel Core i7 RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Gaming PC for example. It features a 20-core Intel 14700K CPU, 32GB of lightning-fast 5600MHz DDR5 RAM, and a massive 2TB of storage all alongside the powerful RTX 4070 Ti Super. 

Or the Apex AMD Ryzen 7 X3D RTX 4080 Super Gaming PC that features one of the most powerful CPUs on the market - the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D - alongside the same super-fast 32GB of RAM and 2TB storage, but this time steps it up a notch with the RTX 4080 Super.

Not sure which RTX 40 Super series graphics card to opt for though? Just get in touch with Chillblast, and one of our expert system builders will talk you through your wants and needs, to find you the best new Super GPU for your next upgrade.

Image credit: Nvidia

Conclusion

The Nvidia RTX 40 Super series graphics cards are a worthy update to the Ada Lovelace generation, giving some of the best cards in the world the boost they need to remain competitive with the best from AMD and Intel. The RTX 4080 Super’s most defining characteristic may be its price cut, but its additional CUDA cores and impressive clock speed should make it one of the most powerful graphics cards in the world – and second only to the RTX 4090 when it comes to games with ray tracing.

The RTX 4070 Ti Super closes the gap with the stock RTX 4080 significantly, and with its new 16GB of GDDR6X memory, it’s broadened its capabilities from a card that was best suited to 1440p, to one that is more than ready for 4K resolution, too.

The RTX 4070 Super is the only new card of the group, with its non-Super counterpart still set to be sold for the foreseeable future. But its huge jump in CUDA core performance helps it offer greater performance for new card buyers, while firmly seeing off competition from the last generation. This is a relatively affordable GPU that offers last-generation flagship performance at a fraction of the price.

All three of these new cards offer excellent performance and excellent value, heating up the graphics card market significantly as we edge closer to a true next-generation design from all major companies in the coming year. Nvidia’s RTX 40 Super series cards are going to be the hot new GPUs of the first half of the year. If you want something new and exciting, the RTX 40 Super series is here.