AMD Radeon 780M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data presents a starkly one-sided contest. Across the three recorded head-to-head tests, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti wins decisively in every single instance, claiming a clean 3-0 sweep over the AMD Radeon 780M.

The largest margin of victory appears in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test. Here, the RTX 3060 Ti scores 2626 points against the 780M's 480 points, a difference of 81.7 percent in favor of the NVIDIA card. This is not a close contest; the discrete GPU delivers more than five times the performance of the integrated solution in this particular workload. The delta of -81.7 percent, expressed from the AMD part's perspective, underscores just how wide the gap has become in modern DirectX 12 rendering.

The OpenCL workload tells a similar story, albeit with a slightly narrower margin. The RTX 3060 Ti posts 78927 points in Geekbench OpenCL, while the Radeon 780M manages 18602 points. The RTX 3060 Ti leads by 76.4 percent in this compute-oriented test. The absolute scores here are revealing: the NVIDIA card's OpenCL result is more than four times higher than the AMD IGP's, indicating a substantial advantage in general-purpose compute tasks that leverage OpenCL acceleration.

The closest contest between the two comes in the Vulkan API benchmark. The RTX 3060 Ti still wins, scoring 47784 points to the 780M's 33683 points, but the margin shrinks to 29.5 percent. This suggests that the Radeon 780M's RDNA 3.0 architecture is relatively more competitive in Vulkan workloads compared to its performance in DX12 or OpenCL. Still, a nearly 30 percent deficit is hardly a moral victory; it represents a significant performance gap that would be noticeable in real-world applications.

Looking at the broader database averages, the picture remains consistent. The RTX 3060 Ti carries an average benchmark score of 16129 across all recorded tests, placing it in the 59th percentile of all GPUs. The Radeon 780M, by contrast, achieves an average score of 17588, which lands it in the 61st percentile. It is worth remembering the 780M's average is actually higher than the RTX 3060 Ti's average despite losing every head-to-head test. This apparent contradiction stems from the different test suites recorded for each GPU: the Radeon 780M has only three benchmark entries, all of which are relatively strong for an integrated part, while the RTX 3060 Ti has a much larger set of tests, including older DirectX 9, 10, and 11 workloads that drag its average down.

The nearest rival data for each card further contextualizes their standings. The Radeon 780M sits within 0.5 percent of the AMD Radeon Pro 460 and AMD Radeon Pro 560, and within 0.4 percent of the AMD Radeon HD 7790. It also trails the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 by a mere 0.3 percent in average score, a remarkable result for an integrated GPU. The RTX 3060 Ti, meanwhile, is bracketed by the AMD Radeon RX 9060 (0.7 percent faster), the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M (1.4 percent faster), and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (also 1.4 percent faster). The Radeon R9 370X trails the RTX 3060 Ti by 1.7 percent. These figures place both cards in a similar performance tier on average, but the head-to-head tests reveal that the RTX 3060 Ti's peak performance is far superior in the specific workloads where both were measured.

The Verdict

The data leaves little room for ambiguity. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is the overwhelmingly faster part in every direct comparison recorded. For any user prioritizing raw frame rates, compute throughput, or dedicated graphics performance, the RTX 3060 Ti is the clear choice. Its 81.7 percent advantage in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 and 76.4 percent lead in OpenCL are decisive margins that no amount of driver tuning or workload selection can overcome.

However, the Radeon 780M is not without its own rationale. As an integrated graphics processor with a 15 W TDP, it consumes a fraction of the power that the 200 W RTX 3060 Ti requires. The 780M needs no power connectors, occupies no expansion slot, and draws its memory from the system pool. For compact systems, thin-and-light laptops, or builds where space and power efficiency are paramount, the 780M offers a level of integration that the dual-slot RTX 3060 Ti simply cannot match. The RTX 3060 Ti demands a 550 W suggested power supply and a 242 mm length, making it a physically imposing component.

The percentile rankings tell a nuanced story. The 780M's 61st percentile placement, slightly above the RTX 3060 Ti's 59th percentile, reflects its strong showing within its own benchmark set. But those benchmarks are not the same tests that define the RTX 3060 Ti's standing. When the two are measured against identical workloads, the NVIDIA card wins every time. The verdict is straightforward: the RTX 3060 Ti for performance, the Radeon 780M for efficiency and integration. There is no scenario in the recorded data where the 780M outpaces the RTX 3060 Ti on raw speed.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti wins decisively, scoring 2626 points compared to the AMD Radeon 780M's 480 points, a margin of 81.7 percent.

Q: Is the AMD Radeon 780M competitive in any benchmark against the RTX 3060 Ti?

A: The closest result is in Geekbench Vulkan, where the RTX 3060 Ti leads by 29.5 percent. Even in its best relative showing, the 780M trails significantly.

Q: How does the average benchmark score compare between the two GPUs?

A: The Radeon 780M has a higher average benchmark score of 17588, while the RTX 3060 Ti averages 16129. However, the two GPUs were tested with different benchmark suites, making direct average comparisons less meaningful than the head-to-head tests.

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The Radeon 780M has a TDP of 15 W and requires no power connectors. The RTX 3060 Ti has a TDP of 200 W, uses a 12-pin power connector, and requires a 550 W power supply.

Q: Which GPU occupies more physical space?

A: The RTX 3060 Ti is a dual-slot card measuring 242 mm in length and 112 mm in height. The Radeon 780M is an integrated graphics processor with no slot width, as it is built into the motherboard.

Q: What is the production status of each GPU?

A: The Radeon 780M is listed as Active, while the RTX 3060 Ti is marked as End-of-life.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every core specification. The Radeon 780M is built on a 4 nm process at TSMC, while the RTX 3060 Ti uses Samsung's 8 nm node. Transistor counts diverge sharply: the 780M packs 25,390 million transistors into a 178 mm² die, yielding a density of 142.6 million transistors per square millimeter. The RTX 3060 Ti contains 17,400 million transistors spread across a much larger 392 mm² die, resulting in a density of just 44.4 million per square millimeter.

Clock speeds also differ substantially. The 780M has a base clock of 800 MHz and a boost clock of 2900 MHz. The RTX 3060 Ti operates at a base of 1410 MHz and a boost of 1665 MHz. Despite the RTX 3060 Ti's lower boost clock, its far greater core count compensates. The shading unit count tells the story: 768 for the 780M versus 4864 for the RTX 3060 Ti. Texture mapping units number 48 versus 152, and raster operation units stand at 32 versus 80.

Memory configurations are entirely different. The 780M uses system-shared memory with a system-dependent bandwidth, while the RTX 3060 Ti features 8 GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 3060 Ti also carries 38 ray tracing cores and 152 tensor cores, while the 780M has 12 ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. Pixel rate favors the RTX 3060 Ti at 133.2 GPixel/s versus 92.80 GPixel/s, and texture rate favors it at 253.1 GTexel/s versus 139.2 GTexel/s. FP32 compute is 16.20 TFLOPS for the NVIDIA card and 8.909 TFLOPS for the AMD part.

The physical and interface specifications differ as well. The 780M uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, while the RTX 3060 Ti uses PCIe 4.0 x16. Display outputs are motherboard-dependent for the IGP, while the RTX 3060 Ti provides one HDMI 2.1 port and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The RTX 3060 Ti has a launch MSRP of 399 USD.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is fundamental. The Radeon 780M is based on RDNA 3.0, AMD's third-generation graphics architecture, and belongs to the Navi III IGP (Phoenix) generation. It is manufactured on a 4 nm process at TSMC, representing a leading-edge node for integrated graphics. The RTX 3060 Ti, by contrast, uses NVIDIA's Ampere architecture, built on Samsung's 8 nm process and belonging to the GeForce 30-series family.

The 780M's RDNA 3.0 architecture is designed for efficiency within a 15 W power envelope. Its 12 ray tracing cores support hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The architecture integrates the GPU directly into the Phoenix chip, sharing memory with the system and eliminating the need for dedicated VRAM.

The RTX 3060 Ti's Ampere architecture is a high-performance discrete design. Its 38 ray tracing cores and 152 tensor cores provide dedicated hardware for ray tracing and AI acceleration, respectively. With 4864 shading units and a 256-bit memory bus, Ampere is engineered for throughput rather than power efficiency. The 200 W TDP and dual-slot cooler reflect this priority. The RTX 3060 Ti supports the same API set as the 780M, including DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, but it delivers those APIs with far more raw compute resources.

The transistor density figures highlight the process advantage of the 780M. At 142.6 million transistors per square millimeter, the 4 nm TSMC node packs nearly three times the density of the 8 nm Samsung process used for the RTX 3060 Ti. Yet the RTX 3060 Ti's larger die and higher power budget allow it to deploy far more compute units, resulting in the performance dominance observed in the benchmarks. The 780M represents the modern of integrated graphics, while the RTX 3060 Ti represents a mature discrete design optimized for maximum output. The architectural philosophies are opposed: one prioritizes efficiency and integration, the other brute-force performance.