AMD Radeon 740M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile Comparison

NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile and AMD’s Radeon 740M sit at opposite ends of the laptop GPU spectrum, yet their aggregate benchmark scores land nearly on top of each other. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile averages 12,940 points across all tests, while the Radeon 740M averages 12,870. That 0.5% gap, however, hides a massive divergence in how each chip performs. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is a discrete part with dedicated video memory and a 75 W TDP, while the Radeon 740M is an integrated GPU sharing system memory within a 45 W envelope. The data shows two very different design philosophies that happen to converge on the same overall score.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only two tests where both GPUs have matching results are the Geekbench compute workloads, and the NVIDIA part wins both by overwhelming margins. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 57,915, while the Radeon 740M manages just 10,172. That is a 469.4% advantage for the NVIDIA chip — nearly 5.7 times the AMD score. In Geekbench Vulkan, the gap narrows but remains lopsided: the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile posts 55,812 against the Radeon 740M’s 15,568, a 258.5% lead. These are not close contests; the discrete GPU is in a different performance class for raw compute throughput.

However, the aggregate scores tell a different story. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s average of 12,940 is pulled down by its Passmark results, where it scores 60 in DirectX 10, 76 in DirectX 11, 49 in DirectX 12, 120 in DirectX 9, 498 in G2D, 10,093 in G3D, and 4,305 in GPU compute. The Radeon 740M has no Passmark entries in the data, so its average of 12,870 comes solely from its two Geekbench results. This creates a curious situation: the NVIDIA chip wins every shared benchmark decisively, yet its overall average is only 0.5% higher than the AMD part.

Comparing the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile to its nearest rivals puts this in perspective. It sits 0.1% above the AMD Radeon RX 580 (12,928), 0.4% below the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (12,986), and 0.5% above the Radeon 740M. The Radeon 740M, meanwhile, is 0.2% above the AMD FirePro W5100 (12,847), 0.3% above both the AMD Radeon Pro 455 (12,831) and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 (12,830), and 0.4% below the RX 580. These deltas are all within noise, meaning both parts perform at a nearly identical level in aggregate despite their architectural differences.

Architecture Differences

The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile uses NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture on the GA106 chip, built on Samsung’s 8 nm process. It packs 12,000 million transistors into a 276 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 43.5 million per square millimeter. The Radeon 740M, by contrast, uses AMD’s RDNA 3.0 architecture on the Phoenix2 chip, fabricated by TSMC on a 4 nm node. It contains 20,900 million transistors in a much smaller 137 mm² die, achieving a density of 152.6 million per square millimeter — over 3.5 times the transistor density of the NVIDIA chip.

The compute resources diverge sharply. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 2,560 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, 32 ROPs, 20 ray tracing cores, and 80 tensor cores. The Radeon 740M has only 256 shading units, 16 TMUs, 8 ROPs, and 4 ray tracing cores, with no tensor cores listed. Despite having 10 times fewer shading units, the AMD part boosts to 2,800 MHz versus the NVIDIA chip’s 1,035 MHz boost clock, which helps close the raw throughput gap. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile still leads in FP32 compute at 5.299 TFLOPS versus 2.867 TFLOPS for the Radeon 740M, a 1.85 times advantage. The NVIDIA chip also leads in pixel rate (33.12 GPixel/s vs 22.40 GPixel/s) and texture rate (82.80 GTexel/s vs 44.80 GTexel/s).

Memory is where the two diverge most fundamentally. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 4 GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 192.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Radeon 740M uses system shared memory, with bus width and bandwidth listed as system dependent. This means the AMD part’s performance scales with the laptop’s RAM configuration, while the NVIDIA part has a fixed, predictable memory subsystem. The Radeon 740M does have a lower TDP at 45 W versus 75 W, making it easier to cool and more power-efficient, but that comes at the cost of memory bandwidth and consistency.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear split. If you prioritize raw compute performance in OpenCL or Vulkan workloads, the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is the obvious choice — it beats the Radeon 740M by 469.4% and 258.5% respectively in those tests. The NVIDIA chip’s dedicated memory and higher FP32 throughput make it better suited for tasks that hammer the GPU with sustained parallel work.

If you instead value efficiency and modern manufacturing, the Radeon 740M has the edge. It is built on a 4 nm process versus 8 nm, packs more transistors into a smaller die, and consumes 45 W versus 75 W. The AMD part is also an active product, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is end-of-life. For a laptop buyer looking at integrated graphics that can handle light gaming and compute, the Radeon 740M is a more future-proof choice.

Yet the aggregate scores suggest these differences rarely matter in practice. At 0.5% apart in average benchmark score, both parts will feel identical in most real-world workloads. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s wins are concentrated in compute-heavy synthetic benchmarks, while the Radeon 740M’s advantages are architectural and efficiency-based. Neither part dominates the other in a way that should sway a purchase decision based on performance alone.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 57,915 versus the AMD Radeon 740M’s 10,172, giving NVIDIA a 469.4% lead.

Q: How do their average benchmark scores compare?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile averages 12,940 overall, while the Radeon 740M averages 12,870. That is a 0.5% difference in favor of the NVIDIA part.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 192.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Radeon 740M uses system shared memory with system-dependent bandwidth and bus width.

Q: Which GPU has more shading units?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 2,560 shading units, while the Radeon 740M has 256 — a 10:1 ratio in NVIDIA’s favor.

Q: What are the process node differences?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is built on Samsung’s 8 nm node, while the Radeon 740M uses TSMC’s 4 nm node. The AMD chip has a much higher transistor density at 152.6M per mm² versus 43.5M per mm².

Q: Which GPU consumes less power?

A: The Radeon 740M has a 45 W TDP, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has a 75 W TDP.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile wins in every directly comparable benchmark. Its 5.299 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, 82.80 GTexel/s texture rate, and 33.12 GPixel/s pixel rate all exceed the Radeon 740M’s 2.867 TFLOPS, 44.80 GTexel/s, and 22.40 GPixel/s. This makes it the better choice for discrete GPU workloads like rendering, compute offload, or gaming at higher settings where dedicated memory bandwidth matters. Its 80 tensor cores also give it an advantage in AI-accelerated tasks, though the Radeon 740M has no tensor core count listed.

The Radeon 740M wins on efficiency and integration. Its 4 nm process, 45 W TDP, and 137 mm² die size mean it can fit into thinner, lighter laptops with less cooling requirement. The shared system memory architecture eliminates the need for a separate VRAM pool, reducing cost and complexity. As an active product with a 2024 release date, it is also a more current design than the end-of-life RTX 3050 Ti Mobile from 2021. For users who need basic graphics acceleration in a portable form factor, the Radeon 740M is the better fit.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile | AMD Radeon 740M |

| --- | --- | --- |

| Architecture | Ampere | RDNA 3.0 |

| Process Node | 8 nm | 4 nm |

| Foundry | Samsung | TSMC |

| Transistors | 12,000 million | 20,900 million |

| Die Size | 276 mm² | 137 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 43.5M / mm² | 152.6M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 735 MHz | 800 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1035 MHz | 2800 MHz |

| Memory Size | 4 GB GDDR6 | System Shared |

| Memory Bus Width | 128 bit | System Shared |

| Memory Bandwidth | 192.0 GB/s | System Dependent |

| Shading Units | 2560 | 256 |

| TMUs | 80 | 16 |

| ROPs | 32 | 8 |

| Ray Tracing Cores | 20 | 4 |

| Tensor Cores | 80 | null |

| FP32 Performance | 5.299 TFLOPS | 2.867 TFLOPS |

| Pixel Rate | 33.12 GPixel/s | 22.40 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 82.80 GTexel/s | 44.80 GTexel/s |

| TDP | 75 W | 45 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x8 |

| Production Status | End-of-life | Active |

| Release Date | 2021-05-10 | 2024-01-30 |