GeForce RTX 4070 Launches on April 13 with Split Review Embargo Strategy to Promote Custom Designs at MSRP

NVIDIA seems to be planning the launch of its performance-segment graphics card, the GeForce RTX 4070 "Ada," on April 13, with reviews expected to be released a day prior.

The company is shaking things up by implementing a new review embargo strategy for this launch. The review NDA for the cards selling at the MSRP set by NVIDIA is set for April 12, while the non-MSRP models will be reviewed on April 13. This move aims to incentivise NVIDIA's board partners to have at least one custom-design card they're selling at the NVIDIA MSRP, to garner more exposure.

The MSRP for the RTX 4070 is yet to be revealed, but it is expected to be cheaper than the RTX 4070 Ti, which launched at $799. The RTX 4070 is rumored to have 5,888 CUDA cores, out of the 7,680 present on the silicon, with 12 GB of 21 Gbps GDDR6X memory across a 192-bit memory interface. The card's memory sub-system is the same as the RTX 4070 Ti, with 504 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Most premium boards are expected to resemble the RTX 4070 Ti cards, while the ones meant to sell at MSRP could have some cost-cutting to suit the lower typical graphics power (TGP) of the RTX 4070.

The first embargo for the RTX 4070 begins this week, with board partners stocking the cards in their regional warehouses and delivering them to distributors and retailers. AICs (Add-in-Card partners) have almost a month to stock and distribute RTX 4070 GPUs. Reviewers will receive their samples in early April and will have at least a week to complete their reviews.

NVIDIA's decision to split the review embargo based on market price is aimed at promoting cheaper custom models instead of the factory-overclocked designs, which are typically pricier. However, it is unlikely that consumers will have enough time to read the reviews of non-MSRP cards before they hit the shelves. The RTX 4070 is the fourth installment in the Ada Lovelace desktop series and features a 5888 CUDA core AD104-250/251 GPU, 12 GB GDDR6 memory, and a 192-bit memory bus. It also has a TDP of only 200W, making it the first RTX 40 desktop card with such low power consumption.