Nvidia's RTX 70 Series, Ranked: From the 2070 to the 5070 Nvidia's RTX 70 series has long been the company's mainstream performance showcase, the line that promises high-end gaming without fully stepping into enthusiast-tier pricing. So today we are taking a broader look at how this family has evolved, tracing its path from the RTX 2070 launch in late 2018 all the way to this year's newcomer, the RTX 5070. Lining these GPUs up across six years of architectural shifts gives us a clearer picture of what Nvidia has delivered each generation, and where the latest model actually lands within its own lineage. Of course, we have already reviewed the RTX 5070 (and then some), and we have to say that, upon release, we found it underwhelming. The card's most immediate issue is also its most familiar: it ships with the same 12 GB of VRAM as the RTX 4070. With modern games leaning harder than ever on memory, and with ray tracing and upscaling continuing to increase VRAM consumption, sticking with 12 GB at a $550 price point feels increasingly out of step. We argued then, and still believe now, that 16 GB should be the baseline for a GPU positioned in this tier. That raises the question at the heart of this deep dive: is the RTX 5070 actually a step forward, or just a lateral move? Does it meaningfully improve on the RTX 4070? How does it stack up against the RTX 3070's impressive showing back in 2020? And is it genuinely stronger than the original RTX 2070 that launched the series? To find out, we tested all four cards head to head at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, using two quality presets per game to capture both raw performance and real-world playability. The goal is simple: cut through generational marketing and see where the RTX 5070 truly stands. Let us get into the results. Benchmarks Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Basic Preset Starting with the Call of Duty Black Ops 6 basic preset results, we see that at 1080p the older RTX 2070 is good for 109 fps on average, while the 3070 averaged 161 fps, a massive 48% uplift. This helps explain why the 30 series was so exciting. That said, the 4070 was 41% faster than the 3070, while the latest 5070 is just 3% faster in this example, so we are not sure what is going on there. As we increase the resolution, some of the margins grow. For example, the 3070 is now 57% faster than the 2070. However, the 4070's margin over the 3070 falls to 34%, while the newer 5070 is 7% faster when comparing the average frame rate, although it was 23% faster when comparing 1% lows. Extreme Preset When increasing the visual quality settings with the Extreme preset, the RTX 2070 is limited to just 44 fps on average at 1080p. This makes the 3070 a massive 84% faster with 81 fps. The 4070 is another 40% faster, averaging 113 fps, while the 5070 is again barely any faster at 119 fps. We see similar performance trends at 1440p and 4K. The 3070 is around twice as fast as the 2070, the 4070 is a little over 30% faster than the 3070, and the 4070 and 5070 perform almost the same. Let us move on to another game. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Low Quality Next up we have Cyberpunk 2077, starting with the low quality preset data, at 1080p the 3070 was 60% faster than the 2070, rendering 141 fps compared to just 88 fps. From the 3070 to the 4070, we saw a further 35% increase to 191 fps, followed by only a 10% increase from the 4070 to the 5070. It is a similar story at 1440p. The 3070 was 62% faster than the 2070, the 4070 was 33% faster than the 3070, and the 5070 was just 13% faster than the 4070. High Quality Moving to the high preset data, we find that the RTX 2070 is only able to render 67 fps at 1080p. This makes the 3070 54% faster, while the 4070 was another 23% faster. Under these conditions, we finally see a more meaningful performance gain from the RTX 5070, as it is 22% faster than the 4070. The margin increases slightly at 1440p to 26% and then rises to an impressive 45% at 4K. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Medium Testing Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered with the medium preset, we see that the RTX 2070 is good for 88 fps at 1080p and just 65 fps at 1440p. At both resolutions, the 3070 was just under 60% faster, which represents a huge uplift for the 30 series. From the 3070 to the 4070, we are looking at nearly a 30% improvement, while the 5070 provides only a 10 to 15% performance boost over the 4070. Very High Switching to the very high preset leads to some unusual results. This preset, even at 1080p, requires more than 8 GB of VRAM. As a result, the 2070 and 3070, which both only have 8 GB of VRAM, struggle with frame time performance. The average frame rates do not look terrible, but the 1% lows are extremely poor, so the fact that the 3070 is almost 40% faster in average frame rate does not translate into a usable experience. The only viable models here with these settings are the RTX 4070 and 5070. Both delivered similar 1% lows, with the 5070 around 10 to 13% faster when comparing average frame rates. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Medium Looking at the Kingdom Come: Deliverance II data and starting with the medium preset, the 2070 averaged 87 fps at 1080p, making the 3070 53% faster, or 55% faster at 1440p. From the 3070 to the 4070, we see a 25% increase, or 22% at 1440p. Unexpectedly, the RTX 5070 was much faster than the 4070 in this title, delivering 31% greater performance at all three tested resolutions. Ultra Switching to the Ultra preset, the RTX 2070 limits performance to just 52 fps at 1080p, making the 3070 considerably faster with 80 fps, a 54% improvement. From the 3070 to the 4070, we see a 25% increase, followed by a 28% increase from the 4070 to the 5070. Very similar margins are also seen at 1440p. Rainbow Six Siege X Medium A game all four GPUs should tackle with ease is Rainbow Six Siege, and that is indeed the case when using the medium preset at 100% render scale. Here even the RTX 2070 was good for an average of 189 fps at 1080p and 125 fps at 1440p. This meant that the RTX 3070 was around 49 to 53% faster depending on the resolution, while the RTX 4070 offered an additional 27 to 32% uplift. The 5070 was then 22 to 26% faster than the 4070. .
