I played 5 games on an RTX 5070 vs RTX 5070 Ti gaming PC — is it worth paying extra?

Should you splurge and get a gaming PC with an RTX 5070 Ti, or can you save your money with an RTX 5070 and not see a huge sacrifice in performance?

I’m putting both of these GPUs through their paces with five of the biggest and best PC games available today — each offering varying challenging situations to explore the true power of these graphics cards.

While the specs table may show a 30% difference in CUDA cores between the two (the cores that enable fast graphics rendering) and a 25% drop in on-board video memory, you’ll be surprised by just how alike these cards can be.

And even though the performance result is inevitable (spoiler alert: the more expensive RTX 5070 Ti wins), that’s not the question here. It’s not just about it being better, but is it $200-worth of better? In fact, let me rephrase as that’s the MSRP. Based on the rising cost of these cards, is the Ti tax worth that potential $500 / £320 uplift in price?

Let’s meet the competitors and get to it.

Meet the PCs

To do this face-off, we've picked up a couple of cracking machines from PC Specialist — a great source for pre-builds if you're not feeling too confident about building a gaming PC yourself.

How will this work?

So while my PCs chug away in the background, let me tell you how this is going to work. Firstly, I’ll do one pure rendering test with no DLSS options activated — just to get a feel of what we’re playing with on the CUDA core side of things.

Given Nvidia’s stats that show over 90% of RTX 50-series PC gamers are using DLSS, it’s clear this is how I should test, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’ve got Black Ops 6 multiplayer here with no frame generation, but resolution scaling and Nvidia Reflex, an older implementation of frame gen, and a couple on 4x multi frame gen.

And for each one, I’ll calculate the amount of performance per pound and dollar for the GPU's retail price (at the time of writing):

• RTX 5070 is currently $549 / £529
• RTX 5070 Ti is currently $749 / £729

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk isn’t just a great game, it’s a real system punisher. Being honest, a little part of me felt sorry for my RTX 5070 companions when I turned everything up to 4K Ultra (and Psycho for certain graphical options), cranked up the path tracing, and turned off every DLSS feature.

I was waiting for the fans to kick up and for my desktops to take flight. But luckily, they stayed quiet and very much grounded, to deliver a pretty decent number for pure render power.

As you can see, putting them under pressure does mean you’re not getting close to that 60 FPS mark at Ultra settings, and the additional VRAM of the 5070 Ti does give it the edge. Turn it over to DLSS 4, and this is what you get.

Interesting — the gap narrows a little bit! Either way, you’re getting over 100 FPS, which is still going to be plenty smooth enough for most single-player games out there.

Also, shout-out to DLSS 4 really managing to navigate the AI rendering trickiness of that neon lighting. With previous versions of Nvidia’s tech, you always saw them flicker and ghost, but here they’re solid, dependable and don’t break your in-game immersion one iota.

Forza Horizon 5

Yes, I may be the serious sim racing guy, but I like to have fun driving too! And there’s no better fun than blasting through the colorful streets of Mexico at over 200 MPH. So what’s important here is not just a high frame count, but strong 1% lows too.

For those who don’t know, 1% lows are an average based on the lowest 1% of frame rates you may experience. In any game, it’s nearly impossible to guarantee a perfectly rock solid frame rate, so we look at this to establish the consistency of a game’s smoothness. The higher, the better.

And here, these are good numbers on both for sure.

What is most interesting, though, is the similar level of 1% lows between both the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti. Almost as if both GPUs had an equally tough time in Horizon 5’s more demanding moments.

Call of Duty Black Ops 6

Black Ops 6 is an example of where frame generation can get in the way of your in-game performance — creating potential ghosting around characters and introducing some unexpected latency when you need to be near-instant in your shooting reaction times.

So for these, I turned off frame gen, but relied on DLSS resolution scaling while upping every detail setting to high. And it was here when the RTX 5070 started to struggle against the CUDA core and VRAM uplift of the 5070 Ti.

Every additional frame makes everything feel buttery smooth in gameplay on the more expensive machine, and the higher 1% lows guarantees a stronger consistency to that gameplay smoothness too.

While I do think the DLSS doomsayers are a bit overblown in their vocal hatred of the tech, I do agree with them that in serious multiplayer moments, it can be a hindrance.

Black Myth: Wukong

With everything turned up to Cinematic in graphics settings, Black Myth: Wukong is a VRAM hoarder of the highest degree. And while it is a single-player title, this soulslike needs that quick and buttery smooth frame rate to really give you the ability to perfectly time those parries from its monstrous bosses.

There is a noticeable performance gap, but nothing to the point where I felt I was being placed at a disadvantage against Yellowbrow.

Alan Wake II

Let’s be real — Alan Wake II has been a true tour de force for Nvidia. From multi frame gen to even some of the cutting edge neural rendering tech like RTX Mega Geometry, Remedy has been at the front of the queue for all of this, and it’s been great to watch this horror game get even smoother (and even scarier in fidelity).

What that does mean is this game is demanding on a GPU, but with DLSS on, both the 5070 and 5070 Ti more than hold their own with a frame rate that is both fast and smooth with 1% lows being at near parity. Plus, all of this is being done without one iota of noticeable ghosting or visual imperfections.

Of course you’re getting more with the Ti, but seriously speaking, in a slower paced, story-driven game like this, how important is that really?

Bottom line

So to state the obvious, if you can afford to get the RTX 5070 Ti, great! You’re going to have a lot of fun for plenty of years to come with this card.

But when you put it directly up against the 5070, you can see a pretty consistent performance gap where you will actually get a better price to performance going for the lower end. But it really comes down to what your gaming needs are.

Let me help you make your decision in three different ways:

• Are you a multiplayer enthusiast? Get the RTX 5070 Ti: Frame generation is something that can impact your in-game skills, so the additional raw rendering power is needed, and the RTX 5070 falls short here.
• Do you live for a good story? Get the RTX 5070: The Ti tax is unnecessary for making even the most hefty of single-player titles run super smoothly, so don’t feel like you’re missing anything by grabbing the cheapest card out right now.
• What about for variety? Dealer’s choice: Of course, this was a rudimentary test of turning everything up to max. So in the moments where you saw the 5070 drop off, you could just turn some settings down. But if you do have the money to spring for the 5070 Ti, this becomes a non-factor.

Of course, there’s the other question of who should upgrade. And in all honesty, if you’re running anything from the 30 or 40 series, these are still incredibly strong cards that will last you.

But with anything older, I’d seriously consider one of these two for getting you the best frame gen, best resolution scaling and a vast future of neural rendering. Things are certainly looking bright for team green.

More from Tom's Guide

• I just went back to Ravenholm in Half-Life 2 RTX — Nvidia’s new RTX remix tech makes it 10x more terrifying
• I played with Nvidia's AI NPC prototypes — now they're real, and I fear I'll never finish a game again
• I tried the Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025) — it’s what you’d get if the Steam Deck and a gaming laptop had a baby