The end of the Nvidia RTX 4000 series is nigh – with the RTX 4070 expected to sell out in weeks

The RTX 4070 FE graphics card being held aloft by a grizzled hand in the pits of hell.

Get your hands on it, before it's too late... (Image credit: Nvidia, Shutterstock)

Nvidia's RTX 4070 is expected to sell out by the end of this month
RTX 4060 Ti and 4060 models will still be available via third-party manufacturers in February
Suggestions appear to be plausible as RTX 5070 will launch in February

With the reveal of Nvidia's RTX 5000 series GPUs at CES 2025, plenty of attention has been drawn toward Team Green's affordable RTX 5070, which Nvidia claims can match the much more expensive (at launch) RTX 4090 (when using DLSS 4 with Frame Generation enabled) - and it looks like its predecessor, the RTX 4070, could disappear from the GPU market soon.

As reported by VideoCardz, multiple posts on the Board Channels forum (used by people to talk about updates on the supply and demand of PC hardware) suggest that the RTX 4070 will be completely sold out by the end of January. The same is expected for the RTX 4060 Ti and 4060, with only AIC brands (third-party GPU manufacturers) having stock remaining for those GPUs in February.

This comes after months of speculation before the RTX 5000 series was revealed, which pointed towards Nvidia shifting away from production of the entire RTX 4000 series. Since the RTX 5080 and 5090 will launch on January 30, along with the RTX 5070 launch in February, it lines up well with these rumors - we saw a similar pattern occur at least a year before the RTX 4000 series launch, with the RTX 3000 series shortages.

The Nvidia RTX 5080 GPU on a green background. — (Image credit: Nvidia)

Does this mean you should upgrade to an RTX 5000 series GPU?

If these rumors are legitimate, now might be one of the final chances to grab an RTX 4070 while you still can. But if you're still using an RTX 2000 or 3000 series GPU, the jump to an RTX 5070 is one I can recommend as you’ll have access to Multi Frame Generation which promises to improve upon Nvidia’s previous version of Frame Generation, with up to three more AI generated frames, which can dramatically boost frame rates.

We're still waiting to see how the new GPUs will perform, but with the advantage of the new Multi Frame Generation feature, I'm expecting performance to certainly be impressive (though with the potential of more input latency despite Nvidia's Reflex 2).

As I've mentioned previously, RTX 2000 and 3000 series GPU owners haven't had access to the full package of DLSS 3's offerings (notably Frame Generation which is exclusive to RTX 4000 series) with access to DLSS 3’s super-resolution and the addition of DLSS 3.5 specifically aimed at providing better image quality for ray tracing in select titles (available to all RTX GPUs) like Cyberpunk 2077 using improved denoisers. This reduces ghosting while it also improves dynamic lighting in sequences where ray tracing reflections are enabled, thanks to ray reconstruction.

In a pleasantly surprising move, Nvidia has made DLSS 4 available for all RTX GPUs, rather than making it exclusive to the RTX 5000 series. However, RTX 2000 and 3000 series GPUs will continue to miss out on Frame Generation, while the RTX 4000 series will continue to only generate one AI frame.

DLSS and Frame Generation are two tools that are becoming increasingly important for getting graphically-intensive games running at high frame rates, and it has allowed less powerful GPUs to offer the kind of performance we’d once expect from flagship cards. This means the RTX 5070 has the potential of being the best value RTX 5000 series GPU by offering great performance, especially with DLSS 4, for a much more affordable price starting at $579 / £579 / AU$1,109.