The release of the Nvidia RTX 4070 appears to be getting closer if a new report is anything to go on, and it might just be the most accessible next-gen graphics card that most people are going to be able to buy for the next few months.
The new report comes from VideoCardz, which shared a screenshot of an Nvidia GeForce Desktop Embargo timeline purportedly sent to Nvidia's board partners. The info, most of which is blurred out or 'TBD', has the On-Shelf date for the RTX 4070 as April 2023, though it does not specify which part of the month.
Of course, take this with a grain of salt since Nvidia hasn't said anything official yet, but with the release of the RTX 4090, RTX 4080, and RTX 4070 Ti, the RTX 4070 and RTX 4060 Ti are definitely inbound sooner rather than later, and April 2023 still puts it almost two months away at this point, so this is definitely a believeable timeline.
We'll get a better sense once benchmarks start leaking out as we get closer to the launch date, so now is definitely the time to start keeping an eye out for news on what we hope will be the best graphics card for most people on the market.
The RTX 4070 should be the first accessible graphics card for most people
One of the reasons we're all looking forward to the RTX 4070 announcement is because — lets be honest — graphics card prices have gone off the rails in recent years.
Even without the complete unavailability of GPU stock during the most recent cryptobubble, graphics card price inflation is a major concern. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX got high praise from us for its outstanding performance while keeping its price "under" $1,000 (it has an official MSRP of $999.99).
After third-party RTX 3090 Ti cards regularly cleared $2,000 and the Nvidia RTX 4080 MSRP came in at $1,199, gamers everywhere have been incredibly frustrated to be locked out of next-gen cards because of their frankly outrageous pricing. Even the RTX 4070 Ti has an MSRP of "just" $799.99.
An RTX 4070 non-Ti should be the first next-gen card to come in under $700 and hopefully under $600, a price point that would put it at least closer to the budgets of a lot of gamers out there who are going to be a lot more price conscious than they have been in years past.
It would also go a long way to deflecting one of AMD's biggest advantages over the RTX 40-series GPUs, but whether that's enough to inspire a change of pace from Nvidia remains to be seen.
