GTX 1070 vs RTX 4060 Ti: Should You Upgrade?

Yes, upgrading from a GTX 1070 to an RTX 4060 Ti is worthwhile for anyone still gaming on Pascal: the RTX 4060 Ti is roughly twice as fast in modern games, adds ray tracing, DLSS 4 upscaling and frame generation, and can run newer titles that refuse to launch on a GTX 1070. The one thing that does not improve is VRAM, which stays at 8 GB, so buyers planning to keep the next card for many years should consider the 16 GB RTX 4060 Ti or a current 16 GB card such as the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB or RX 9060 XT 16 GB.

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#1 Pick

PNY GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Graphic Card (VCGGTX10708PB) (Renewed)

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#2 Pick

MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 1070 8GB GDDR5 SLI DirectX 12 VR Ready Graphics Card (GTX 1070 GAMING X 8G) (Renewed)

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#3 Pick

GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4060 Ti WINDFORCE OC 8G Graphics Card, 2X WINDFORCE Fans, 8GB 128-bit GDDR6, GV-N406TWF2OC-8GD Video Card (Renewed)

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#4 Pick

MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Ventus 3X 16G OC Graphics Card -NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti, 16GB GDDR6 Memory, 18Gbps, PCIe 4.0, DLSS3

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Seven Years of GPU Progress

The GTX 1070 launched in June 2016 at $379 and became one of the longest-serving gaming cards ever, comfortably handling 1080p and 1440p for years. The RTX 4060 Ti arrived in May 2023 at $399, almost the same price, built on Ada Lovelace and a 5 nm process. Between those launches sit three architecture generations, the arrival of hardware ray tracing and AI upscaling, and a steady rise in what games expect from a GPU.

In 2026 the RTX 4060 Ti is itself a previous-generation card, succeeded by the RTX 50 series. It remains a common upgrade target, especially on the used market, and the comparison still captures how far a Pascal owner can jump at a similar price point.

Spec Comparison Table

The narrower 128-bit bus looks like a step back, but the RTX 4060 Ti’s 32 MB L2 cache, sixteen times the GTX 1070’s, cuts how often the GPU needs to reach main memory. Effective bandwidth in games is far higher than the raw 288 GB/s figure suggests.

Real-World Performance Gain

How big the jump looks depends on the test. Older synthetic benchmarks such as PassMark put the RTX 4060 Ti around 67-77% ahead, but modern workloads that reflect current games show a much bigger gap, with newer 3DMark tests placing it about 2.1-2.3 times faster. Game-based estimates generally land around double, especially in recent titles that lean on features Pascal handles poorly, such as asynchronous compute and modern shader pipelines. For context, TechPowerUp’s RTX 4060 Ti data shows it beating the RX 6700 XT by about 10% at 1080p, a card that is itself far beyond GTX 1070 territory.

In practice, a recent AAA game that struggles at 30-40 fps on a GTX 1070 at 1080p medium settings will typically run around 70-85 fps on the RTX 4060 Ti at the same settings, before any upscaling. Results vary with settings, CPU and game patches. Enabling DLSS upscaling and frame generation can raise those numbers further, an option the GTX 1070 simply does not have.

Features a GTX 1070 Cannot Use

Ray tracing and DirectX 12 Ultimate

Pascal has no dedicated ray-tracing hardware and no DirectX 12 Ultimate support. Several recent games, including Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Doom: The Dark Ages, require ray-tracing-capable GPUs and will not run on a GTX 1070 at all. Other games built around mesh shaders run very poorly on it. The RTX 4060 Ti handles all of these.

DLSS 4 and frame generation

The RTX 4060 Ti supports DLSS 4 Super Resolution with the transformer model, DLSS frame generation and Reflex latency reduction. Multi frame generation is reserved for RTX 50 cards. The GTX 1070 can only use vendor-neutral upscalers such as FSR or XeSS, which deliver noticeably lower image quality at 1080p.

Driver support

Nvidia ended Game Ready driver support for GTX 10-series cards in late 2025, moving Pascal to security-only updates. New games will no longer receive Pascal-specific optimizations or fixes, which makes the GTX 1070 an increasingly risky platform for new releases.

Video encoding

Ada Lovelace includes a newer NVENC encoder with AV1 support, a clear improvement for streaming and recording over Pascal’s older encoder.

The VRAM Caveat

Both cards have 8 GB. That was generous in 2016, but in 2026 it is the floor. At 1080p with high settings, 8 GB is generally still workable, though some new releases need texture quality reduced. At 1440p with ultra textures, ray tracing or frame generation, 8 GB is often exceeded, causing stutter or texture pop-in. A GTX 1070 owner moving to 1440p should strongly consider the RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB, which costs more but avoids that ceiling.

PSU, Platform and Case Checks

Power barely changes: 150 W for the GTX 1070 and 160 W for the RTX 4060 Ti. Using GPU TDP plus CPU plus about 150 W headroom, an RTX 4060 Ti with a 95 W CPU needs roughly 160 + 95 + 150 = 405 W, so any quality 500-550 W unit that ran a GTX 1070 will usually be fine. Most partner RTX 4060 Ti cards use the same single 8-pin connector as the GTX 1070; only the Founders Edition uses a 16-pin connector with an adapter.

Many GTX 1070 systems run on PCIe 3.0 motherboards. The RTX 4060 Ti’s x8 link then runs at half its PCIe 4.0 bandwidth. The performance cost is usually small while games fit in VRAM, but it grows once the 8 GB buffer overflows. Older CPUs from the GTX 1070 era, such as quad-core chips, can also limit how much of the new card’s performance shows up, particularly at 1080p.

Physically, the RTX 4060 Ti reference figure is 240 mm, shorter than the GTX 1070’s 267 mm, and both are 2-slot, so fit is rarely a problem. Users relying on the GTX 1070’s DVI port will need a DisplayPort or HDMI adapter or a newer monitor.

Value Calculation

Setting the GTX 1070 at 100 performance points and the RTX 4060 Ti at about 200 in modern games:

• GTX 1070 at launch: $379 / 100 = about $3.79 per point.
• RTX 4060 Ti at launch: $399 / 200 = about $2.00 per point.

On the used market, a GTX 1070 usually sells for roughly $70-$100, while a used RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB tends to sell for roughly $250-$300. Selling the old card brings the net cost of a used RTX 4060 Ti to about $150-$230 for double the performance and a modern feature set. New current-generation options such as the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB cost more but add 16 GB of VRAM and multi frame generation.

Pick the RTX 4060 Ti If / Look Elsewhere If

Frequently Asked Questions

How much faster is the RTX 4060 Ti than the GTX 1070?

In modern games the RTX 4060 Ti is roughly twice as fast, with newer benchmarks showing about 2.1-2.3 times the performance. Older synthetic tests show a smaller gap around 70%. DLSS upscaling and frame generation can widen the effective difference further.

Does the GTX 1070 still get driver updates?

Nvidia ended Game Ready driver support for GTX 10-series cards in late 2025. Pascal cards now receive security updates only. New games will not be optimized for the GTX 1070.

Will an RTX 4060 Ti work with my old power supply?

Usually yes. The RTX 4060 Ti is rated at 160 W, only 10 W more than the GTX 1070, and most partner models use the same single 8-pin connector. A quality 500-550 W unit is generally sufficient.

Is the RTX 4060 Ti bottlenecked on a PCIe 3.0 motherboard?

Slightly. Its PCIe 4.0 x8 interface runs at half bandwidth on PCIe 3.0, which usually costs only a few percent when games fit in VRAM. The penalty grows when the 8 GB buffer overflows, so keeping texture settings sensible helps.

Should a GTX 1070 owner buy the 8 GB or 16 GB RTX 4060 Ti?

For 1080p gaming, the 8 GB model is generally adequate. For 1440p, ultra textures or a card meant to last several years, the 16 GB model is the safer choice. Both have identical GPU performance otherwise.

Can the GTX 1070 run games that require ray tracing?

No. The GTX 1070 has no ray-tracing hardware and lacks DirectX 12 Ultimate support. Games that mandate RT-capable GPUs will not launch on it.