A recent EEC filing from MSI suggests that Nvidia's upcoming GeForce RTX 4070 could have 12GB of video memory. The company shared the names of several RTX 4070 video cards with the EEC, and all cards feature 12GB capacities. If true, this will make the 4070 a prime candidate for our list of best graphics cards, and be a significant boost over the GPU's last two predecessors, which were locked at 8GB. This will provide the 4070 with enough VRAM to run the latest AAA at higher-quality textures and higher resolutions simultaneously. For now, take the news with a pinch of salt. Not every product listed in an EEC filing becomes a reality.
The EEC report from MSI lists names of eight new RTX 4070 SKUs, including triple fan and dual fan versions of an MSI Ventus variant, plus two other factory-overclocked versions with one associated with each cooler design. Next are two RTX 4070 Gaming Trio variants, consisting of "X" and "non-X" flavors, and finally, two RTX 4070 Suprim models - the company's flagship brand, again, consisting of "X" and "non-X" flavors.
- GeForce RTX 4070 VENTUS 3X 12G
- GeForce RTX 4070 VENTUS 2X 12G OC
- GeForce RTX 4070 VENTUS 3X 12G OC
- GeForce RTX 4070 VENTUS 2X 12G
- GeForce RTX 4070 GAMING X TRIO 12G
- GeForce RTX 4070 GAMING TRIO 12G
- GeForce RTX 4070 SUPRIM X 12G
- GeForce RTX 4070 SUPRIM 12G
MSI's model names use "12G" to identify and confirm the 4070 GPUs that will use 12GB of memory. For now, take the news with a pinch of salt. The sheer number of 12G cards means that hopefully at least one should make it to consumers. But, EEC filing reports do not guarantee the reported names will be used by the company filling them. It only means the company can use the listed names if desired. As a result, we will have to wait for an official confirmation from Nvidia to see whether or not the 4070 will come in a 12GB version.
But, if the RTX 4070 comes with 12GB, it will be an excellent upgrade for the 70-class cards. GPU memory requirements for the latest AAA titles have gone up extensively over the past two years to the point where memory capacities in the double digits are almost required to get maximum settings - with RT working at high resolutions in some of the latest AAA titles.
This is especially true of Nvidia's previous-generation RTX 3070 8GB and RTX 3070 Ti 8GB cards, where the low memory capacity hinders the GPU from performing optimally in these new AAA titles. Daniel Owen demonstrated this issue perfectly in a recent YouTube video, where he tried running Resident Evil 4 at 1440P ultra settings with an RTX 3070 Ti. He found that the game would hard crash anywhere close to the game's maximum texture settings, forcing him to lower texture quality to an almost unacceptable level.
With the performance we expect from an RTX 4070, 8GB would almost certainly be a death sentence for this GPU. So we're glad Nvidia appears to be settling on a 12GB capacity, just like it did with the RTX 4070 Ti. Current rumors speculate the RTX 4070 will have 29 TFLOPS of GPU compute performance and a 200 - 250W TDP. CUDA core count is expected to be the same as the RTX 3070, but it will have significantly higher clock speeds and the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture to boost performance. The 4070's expected release date is next month, so we should know official specs by then.
