The Nvidia RTX 5070 was hyped massively before its release, even getting compared to the RTX 4090, which always felt like an impossible achievement. As expected, it fell short of the expectation considerably, lacking any distinct feature that could set it apart as an ideal upgrade for users of the 40 series. Although, RTX 5070 brings DLSS 4 multi-frame generation to the table with the new GDDR7 memory that boasts a considerable reduction of VRAM requirement for games, none of these saves it from being a generic GPU that would soon get buried with better upgrades on the horizon with RTX 5070Ti already appearing as a much better deal.
The RTX 5070 is made for gamers looking to upgrade from an older GPU instead of targeting the 40 series users with an enticing upgrade opportunity. Why do I say so? Well, for that you’ll have to keep reading. Thanks to Zotac, we got the chance to review the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Solid a couple of weeks back. After putting the GPU through the ringer, here’s my honest review of it all:
ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 5070 Solid Specs
Before we begin with anything else, you should know the exact unit we are testing. With that, here are the Zotac GeForce 5070 specs:
| Component | Specs |
|---|---|
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 GPU |
| GPU Architecture | NVIDIA Blackwell |
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 4nm 4N NVIDIA Custom Process |
| Transistor Count | 31.1 Billion |
| CUDA cores | 6144 |
| VRAM | 12GB GDDR7 |
| Memory Bus | 192-bit |
| Engine Clock | 2512 MHz |
| Memory Clock | 28 Gbps |
| PCI Express | PCI Express 5.0 x16 (Gen 5) |
| Display-Outputs | 3x DisplayPort 2.1b with UHBR20, 1x HDMI Connector |
| HDCP Support | 2.3 |
| Multi Display Capability | Quad Display |
| Recommended Power Supply | 650W |
| Power Consumption | 250W |
| Power Input | 1x 12v-2×6 power input |
| DirectX | Microsoft DirectX® 12 Ultimate |
| OpenGL | 4.6 |
| Cooling | IceStorm 2.0 |
| Slot Size | 2 |
| SLI | No |
| Dimensions | 304.4mm x 115.8mm x 41.6mm / 12″ x 4.6″ x 1.6″ |
ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 5070 Solid Design
The Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 5070 Solid is the more modest-looking card compared to the other main design of the Zotac RTX 50 series, the AMP Extreme Infinity. The Solid design is much slimmer and simpler than the AMP Extreme Infinity.
The front part features engraved lines above the cooler shroud, creating a cool wavy design. The RTX 5070 Solid is a true 2-slot graphics card.
On the top side, the part that will be opposite to the PCIe mount, you will find ‘ZOTAC Gaming’ and Zotac’s logo written on the right and ‘GeForce RTX’ written on the left. This ZOTAC Gaming name tag lights up when it receives power, and it is the only RGB on the RTX 5070 Solid model.
Below the front shroud, the IceStorm 2.0 cooling solution is used in the RTX 5070 Solid. The backside of the RTX 5070 Solid features small air vents alongside the heatsink air outlet. The back side is also completely metal, and here, you can find the ZOTAC logo with the GeForce RTX written near the air vents.
If you take a closer look at the rear end, you will see more grill like air vents alongside mounting screw holes. Cabinets that feature a separate GPU mount can use these mounting screw holes to secure the GPU further. The wavy grill-like vents can also be seen at the bottom side of the RTX 5070, giving the card ample air passage.
The Zotac RTX 5070 Solid features four ports—three Display Ports and one HDMI port. This card also uses the new 16-pin 12v-2×6 PCIe 5.1 power connector and comes with a 2 x 8-pin-to-16-pin cable for easy connection. Overall, the Zotac RTX 5070 Solid has a clean and slim look that makes it more visually appealing than its AMP Extreme Infinity design counterpart.
However, we use GPUs for their performance, not for their visual appeal. So, let’s take a detailed look at the Zotac RTX 5070’s performance.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Performance
Now, it’s time for the fun part. The RTX 5070 is a powerful card, but it definitely felt lacking when compared to the tall claims made prior to its release. The card was termed to provide near performance to an RTX 4090, which it obviously doesn’t meet.
I would have been surprised if it did meet the expectation. Still, RTX 5070 is a slight upgrade from the old RTX 4070. But is the upgrade significant enough to entice you to jump ship? Let’s find out using some rigorous benchmarking tools.
First, we used the setup to test the RTX 5070’s performance. We turned off all the background processes that could have affected the benchmark score, keeping the scores mostly unaffected.
| Component | Specs |
|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 9 7900x |
| CPU Cooler | CORSAIR H150 RGB |
| Motherboard | GIGABYTE B650M Gaming X AX |
| RAM | 32GB (32GB x 1) ADATA XPG DDR5 5600FSB LANCER |
| GPU | ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 5070 Solid 12GB GDDR7 |
| SSD | 1TB AORUS Gen 4 5000E NVMe Storage |
| PSU | 850W MWE Gold 850V2 Full Modular Power Supply |
| Case | GIGABYTE C301G-BLACK Glass Mid-Tower |
So with that, let’s begin with the benchmarks.
RTX 5070 Synthetic Benchmarks
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra
We first ran the Fire Strike Ultra test on the 3D Mark Benchmarking tool. This Benchmarking test includes tessellation, illumination, smoke simulation, particles, and post-processing on the GPU and is best for testing 4K gaming with DirectX 11.
The RTX 5070 did surprisingly well on this test, scoring a total of 14,467. This was a slightly higher score than the RTX 4070 Ti and a much higher lead than the base RTX 4070.
3DMark Port Royal Test
Next, we ran the 3D Mark Port Royal test, which is perfect for testing the graphics card’s real-time Ray Tracing performance. Again, the RTX 5070 comfortably beats the RTX 4070, scoring 14,231, a 27% increase in scores.
Furthermore, it once again beats the RTX 4070 Ti, albeit slightly. This shows better Ray Tracing performance in the RTX 5070 than the RTX 4070 or 4070 Ti.
3D Mark Time Spy Extreme Test
It was time to run the old and tested 3D Mark Time Spy Extreme test, where RTX 5070 slightly fell short of expectations. Time Spy Extreme tests 4K gaming with DirectX 12, running two graphics tests.
Graphics test 1 features lots of transparent content, particle shadows, and tessellation, whereas graphics test 2 features ray-marched volumetric illumination with hundreds of lights and many small particles. Although the RTX 5070 does well by itself, scoring 10,465, giving a 12% performance increase compared to the RTX 4070, it still falls short of the RTX 4070 Ti.
3DMark DirectX Raytracing Feature Test
Next, we tested on the 3D Mark DirectX Raytracing Feature Test, which measures pure ray-tracing performance. As seen previously with the Port Royal test, we see the RTX 5070 doing well here, scoring an average FPS of 57.89.
During the test, the GPU recorded a maximum of 78 FPS and a minimum of 38 FPS. The GPU temperature remained at a constant of 60 degrees Celsius, rising from the initial 55 degrees Celsius at the start of the test.
3DMark NVIDIA DLSS Feature Test
Next, we tested the RTX 5070’s DLSS capabilities, as it comes with Multi-Frame generation. We used the 3D Mark NVIDIA DLSS feature test to determine the performance increase with DLSS off and on, and the RTX 5070 again did a good job.
With the DLSS on, the GPU recorded 130 FPS, which is a 333% increase from the FPS recorded with the DLSS disabled, 30.71 FPS.
3DMark Steel Nomad Stress Test
Finally, we ran the 3D Mark Steel Nomad stress test, which checks the reliability and stability of the system. The test runs continuously for 20 loops without pausing or reloading between loops. A full test lasts around 20 minutes.
Here, the RTX 5070 passes comfortably, maintaining a frame rate stability of 98.4%. The best loop score recorded was 4996, and the worst score was 4916, which shows the system’s stability.
RTX 5070 Gaming Benchmarks
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 (Ultra)
After reviewing all the popular synthetic benchmarking tools, we decided to test the GPU directly by running the latest AAA games at max settings. The first game we picked was also one of my Game of the Year contenders for 2025: Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 (review). Although the optimization in KCD 2 is great, it still requires a ton of power to run at max settings. So, we cranked the settings to Ultra and took Henry on a ride around Trosky.
The RTX 5070 did a really good job, giving an average of 90 FPS for 1440p and an average of 130 FPS for 1080p. The game barely hiccupped even while fighting multiple bandits or while traveling inside the Trosky Castle.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Ultra)
The next game on our list was Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (review), which has ridiculously high system requirements. Cranking the settings to Ultra, we found the game running at a comfortable 60-70 FPS in 1440p. Surprisingly, the FPS shot up by 146% when running the game on 1080p, getting an average of 160 FPS.
However, turning on Ray Tracing at Ultra settings brought the game to a screeching halt, giving 3 FPS on the settings menu itself. This was likely due to the RTX 5070’s 12 GB of VRAM not being sufficient to run the game with Ray Tracing.
Cyberpunk 2077 (Max Settings)
After testing the GPU on the latest titles, we decided to give on of the older games a try. The best game in recent years that is perfect for benchmarking GPUs is Cyberpunk 2077 (review), which has its own in-depth benchmarking tool. The game did decently well on max settings with Ray Tracing disabled, giving an average of 75 FPS on 1440p and 120 FPS on 1080p.
However, the performance tanked significantly after enabling Ray Tracing with max settings. The recorded average FPS for 1440p was only 24 FPS, while the average FPS for 1080p was 40 FPS.
Counter Strike 2 CS2 FPS Benchmark (Max Settings)
Benchmarking GPUs is incomplete without running them on Counter-Strike. And yes, while we know CS uses more CPU than GPU, we decided to run it through nonetheless. With Counter-Strike 2 taking over CS:GO, we depended on the trusted CS2 FPS benchmark tool.
This tool can be downloaded from the Steam Workshop for free and runs the game through multiple sequences in a separate map, testing the performance in every scenario possible in Counter-Strike 2.
The RTX 5070 again did a good job, getting an average of 272 FPS on 1440p and 357 FPS on 1080p at max settings. We can safely say that this GPU is well equipped to run Counter-Strike 2, but it still won’t improve your aim.
RTX 5070 Content Creation Benchmarks
Blender Benchmark
After reviewing the gaming benchmarks, it’s time to focus on the content creation side of things. The first content creation benchmark we used was the Blender Benchmark (ver. 4.4.0), which is excellent for testing the GPU if you are planning to work on Blender. The benchmark runs different scenes on multiple resolutions, outputting a cumulative score on the performance.
RTX 5070 does a fairly good job, getting a benchmark score of 6269.98, which ranks in the top 1% of all benchmarks. However, it falls short by quite a lot compared to the performance recorded by our RTX 4070 Ti benchmarks.
PugetBench Premiere Pro and Photoshop
PugetBench is considered the best benchmarking tool for Adobe Premiere Pro and Photoshop. This benchmark simulates a full timeline for Premiere Pro while performing multiple graphics-intensive tasks in Photoshop, like resizing a 150 MP image.
After running the benchmark for the latest Photoshop and Premiere Pro versions, I found the RTX 5070 doing quite a capable job. The test for Premier Pro scored 11,637, and Photoshop scored 9217.
Looking up numbers on the database of other comparable GPUs, the RTX 5070 got comparable scores to the RTX 4070 and wasn’t far behind the 4070 Ti, keeping the price point in mind.
Verdict: Worth the Purchase?
RTX 5070 fails to deliver on the promise made by the NVIDIA CEO before the launch, promising comparable performance to RTX 4090. However, that shouldn’t take away the raw power and performance of the RTX 5070 at an excellent price with DLSS 4 multi-frame generation. However, RTX 5070 is not a massive upgrade from the RTX 4070 or 4070 Super and the other competitors at the same price point.
The RTX 5070 can be a great option if you upgrade from an older 20 or 30 series GPU, but there is no real reason for 40 series card holders to upgrade to it. The 12 GB VRAM also falls short when running very demanding games with ray tracing, like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
With better and more demanding games coming soon, it would be a much more sensible decision to go for the RTX 5070 Ti, which is $200 higher at MSRP. Even though the upgraded memory system is supposed to utilize 30% less VRAM for games, the 12 GB VRAM significantly reduces this card’s future proofness.
I recommend choosing the RTX 5070 Ti over the RTX 5070 if you can scrape together the necessary funds. Other than that, I won’t recommend RTX 4070 users upgrade; I suggest they save for a better upgrade instead. This GPU is clearly for users who are still using the RTX 20 series or RTX 30 series GPUs and are looking for a low-budget upgrade.
And that wraps up our NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 review. Tell us your thoughts on the GPU and whether you plan to upgrade or heed my suggestions.
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