Leaks of Nvidia's RTX 40-series Super refreshes have been appearing ever more frequently but now we appear to have confirmation that one rumour we'd hoped was nonsense is actually true. Yup, Nvidia is going to grace us all with the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super.
The Super moniker was first used for the RTX 20-series mid-life update, however Nvidia decided to go back to its old Ti system for the RTX 30-series (for reasons unknown). News that the Super tag was making a comeback started to appear around October, with the first model expected to be an RTX 4080 Super.
Naturally, everyone expected the RTX 4070 and RTX 4060 tiers to get Super refreshes, and further leaks seem to hint at some of this being very likely. But one thorny problem is that Nvidia already uses the Ti name in those segments, which has made people wonder exactly what an RTX 4070 refresh would be called.
A Twitter post by well-known leaker MEGAsizeGPU (as spotted via Videocardz) appears to solve the case, all Sherlock Holmes stylee. The RTX 4070 Ti refresh will be called the RTX 4070 Ti Super. No, I'm really not kidding, and that will be alongside the 4070 Super refresh.
While this has yet to be officially confirmed (and that looks like it will potentially happen at the CES 2024 event), it's now looking almost certainly true. That means, for a short while at least, you'll be able to select from a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super, RTX 4070 Ti, RTX 4070 Super, and an RTX 4070.
The current RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4070 both use the same AD104 GPU, with the former SKU using a full-die version of the chip and the latter housing one that has 23% fewer shaders. The RTX 4070 Ti Super is rumoured to be based on a cut-down AD103 (as used in the RTX 4080) or a seriously restricted AD102 (from the RTX 4090), sporting 10% more shaders than the Ti model and perhaps 16GB of VRAM.
I don't really care about the supposed specs, to be honest, simply because I can't get over just how bloody awful the RTX 4070 Ti Super is for a name. Phonetically it's clunky as hell, and while 'Super Ti' wouldn't line up with how Nvidia wants to name everything, at least it would roll off the tongue a lot smoother.
God awful graphics card names are typically the preserve of third-party add-in board (AIB) vendors, with examples such as XFX's Radeon RX 5600 XT THICC II Pro or Gigabyte's GeForce 3 Ti 500 Thundra clearly stemming from the after effects of a giddy night at the local pub.
Nvidia put itself into a corner for naming the refreshes when it announced two RTX 4080 variants (the RTX 4080 16GB and RTX 4080 12GB), with the Ada Lovelace generation announcement. The public backlash over this ill-conceived idea resulted in Nvidia holding off releasing the lesser 4080 model for a few months and then rebranding it as the RTX 4070 Ti.
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Once the lower-spec RTX 4070 came out, there was clearly going to be a problem with naming the inevitable product refreshes, because the Ti tag was already out in the wild. I suppose if the RTX 4070 Ti Super ends up being sensibly priced (cough…cough), and performs really well, I'll perhaps forgive Nvidia for the clumsy name.
Actually, no. I won't. This isn't the first time that Nvidia has messed up product naming. Does anyone remember the farce that was the Titan brand? The first one (called the GTX Titan) appeared in 2013 but over the years we were given the GTX Titan Black, the GTX Titan Z, and the GTX Titan X. Then we got the Titan X (no GTX), followed by the Titan Xp, and oh I just can't add any more. It was just an absolute mess.
As for the RTX 4070 Ti Super, Nvidia could have gone with the RTX 4070 DAYUM or 4070 HELLAFAST and either would still be miles better. Who actually makes these decisions?
