AMD Radeon 860M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile Comparison

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile decisively outperforms the AMD Radeon 860M in every shared benchmark, but the two GPUs serve fundamentally different roles: the RTX 4070 Mobile is a high-displacement discrete part for gaming laptops, while the Radeon 860M is a low-power integrated processor for thin-and-light machines. The data shows a massive performance gulf, yet the 860M’s efficiency and modern architecture make it a capable option for its intended segment.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only two tests common to both GPUs in the data are Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile wins both by staggering margins. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4070 Mobile scores 109,197 against the Radeon 860M’s 22,759, a delta of 379.8% — nearly four times the raw compute output. The Vulkan test tells a similar story: the RTX 4070 Mobile posts 108,367 versus 30,043 for the 860M, a 260.7% advantage. These are not close contests; the NVIDIA part delivers over 3.7x the OpenCL performance and over 3.6x the Vulkan performance.

The RTX 4070 Mobile’s average benchmark score of 27,435 places it at the 73rd percentile of all GPUs, while the Radeon 860M’s average of 26,401 sits at the 72nd percentile — a surprisingly narrow overall gap given the head-to-head results. This discrepancy arises because the 860M’s average is computed from only two benchmark entries (both Geekbench tests), whereas the RTX 4070 Mobile’s average includes nine tests spanning DirectX 9 through 12, OpenCL, Vulkan, and compute workloads. In the RTX 4070 Mobile’s PassMark tests, it scores 223 in DirectX 9, 179 in DirectX 11, 116 in DirectX 10, 85 in DirectX 12, 19,587 in G3D, 8,399 in GPU Compute, and 763 in G2D. The 860M has no PassMark results in the data, so direct comparisons there are impossible.

Looking at rivals, the RTX 4070 Mobile’s nearest competitor is the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT with an average score of 27,425 (0% delta), followed by the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 at 27,565 (-0.5%), the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell at 27,135 (+1.1%), and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20 at 27,839 (-1.5%). This means the RTX 4070 Mobile trades blows with desktop-class GPUs from the previous generation. The Radeon 860M’s nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce MX550 at 26,421 (-0.1%), with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 at 26,331 (+0.3%), the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary at 26,553 (-0.6%), and the NVIDIA RTX A4000 at 26,683 (-1.1%) close behind. The 860M thus lands in the same performance band as entry-level discrete GPUs, despite being an integrated solution.

The Verdict

The verdict is unambiguous for raw performance: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile is the superior GPU by every metric in the shared test suite. If your priority is maximum frame rates, high-resolution rendering, or compute-heavy workloads, the RTX 4070 Mobile is the only choice — its 379.8% OpenCL lead and 260.7% Vulkan lead are decisive. The RTX 4070 Mobile’s 15.62 TFLOPS FP32 throughput dwarfs the Radeon 860M’s 3.072 TFLOPS, and its 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth versus the 860M’s system-shared, system-dependent bandwidth further cements its advantage.

However, the Radeon 860M is not without merit. Its 15 W TDP versus the RTX 4070 Mobile’s 115 W means it draws dramatically less power — a 7.67x difference in favor of AMD. For ultra-portable laptops where battery life and thermals are paramount, the 860M’s integrated design (slot width: IGP, no power connectors) eliminates the need for bulky discrete cooling solutions. The RTX 4070 Mobile also carries IGP slot width and no power connectors in the data, but its 115 W power envelope requires a substantially larger chassis and thermal solution in practice.

Choose the RTX 4070 Mobile if you demand desktop-class performance in a laptop — its 73rd percentile ranking and competition with the RTX 3090 and RX 6700 XT prove it can handle demanding AAA titles and professional workloads. Choose the Radeon 860M if you prioritize portability and efficiency — its 72nd percentile ranking, achieved with a fraction of the power, makes it a sensible integrated option for mainstream productivity and light gaming. The data does not support choosing the 860M for performance, only for power efficiency and form-factor flexibility.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from entirely different design philosophies. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile uses the AD106 chip built on TSMC’s 5 nm process, featuring 22,900 million transistors on a 188 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 121.8 million per mm². It employs the Ada Lovelace architecture, part of the GeForce 40-series generation, and includes dedicated RT (ray tracing) cores and Tensor cores — 36 RT cores and 144 Tensor cores, respectively. This hardware acceleration for ray tracing and AI workloads is a key differentiator versus the AMD part.

The AMD Radeon 860M uses the Krackan Point chip on TSMC’s 4 nm process, with transistor count and die size listed as unknown. It is based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture, part of the Navi III IGP (Strix Point Mobile) generation. The 860M includes 8 RT cores but no Tensor cores, meaning it lacks dedicated AI acceleration hardware that the NVIDIA GPU provides. Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so API-level feature parity exists, but the underlying hardware capabilities differ substantially.

The 860M’s 512 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 16 ROPs are a fraction of the RTX 4070 Mobile’s 4,608 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. This 9:1 ratio in shading units explains the massive compute gap — the RTX 4070 Mobile’s pixel rate of 81.36 GPixel/s and texture rate of 244.1 GTexel/s crush the 860M’s 48.00 GPixel/s and 96.00 GTexel/s. Both GPUs are listed as active production status, and both use a PCIe 4.0 x8 bus interface, but their memory architectures diverge completely: the RTX 4070 Mobile has dedicated 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the 860M relies on system-shared memory with system-dependent bandwidth.

Specification Differences

The clearest specification differences are in raw compute resources. The RTX 4070 Mobile has 4,608 shading units versus 512 on the 860M; 144 TMUs versus 32; 48 ROPs versus 16; 36 RT cores versus 8; and 144 Tensor cores versus none. Clock speeds also differ: the RTX 4070 Mobile runs at a base of 1395 MHz and boost of 1695 MHz, while the 860M has a much lower base of 600 MHz but a higher boost of 3000 MHz. The memory subsystem is another major split: 8 GB GDDR6 at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective) with a 128-bit bus and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth for NVIDIA, versus system-shared memory with system-dependent bandwidth for AMD.

Process node and transistor counts differ: 5 nm and 22,900 million transistors for NVIDIA, versus 4 nm and unknown transistor count for AMD. The TDP gap is enormous — 115 W for the RTX 4070 Mobile versus 15 W for the 860M. Both use PCIe 4.0 x8 and have identical display outputs (portable device dependent) and slot width (IGP). Release dates also differ: the RTX 4070 Mobile launched on 2023-01-02, while the 860M launched on 2025-02-28. The RTX 4070 Mobile’s predecessor is GeForce 30 Mobile and successor is GeForce 50 Mobile; the 860M’s predecessor is Navi II IGP with no successor listed.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher raw compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile, with 15.62 TFLOPS FP32 versus the AMD Radeon 860M’s 3.072 TFLOPS — a difference of over 5x in favor of NVIDIA.

Q: How much faster is the RTX 4070 Mobile in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The RTX 4070 Mobile scores 109,197 versus 22,759 for the 860M, which is 379.8% faster.

Q: Does the Radeon 860M have Tensor cores?

A: No. The 860M lists zero Tensor cores, while the RTX 4070 Mobile has 144 Tensor cores for AI acceleration.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The RTX 4070 Mobile has a TDP of 115 W, while the 860M has a TDP of 15 W — the AMD part uses about 13% of the NVIDIA GPU’s power budget.

Q: Do both GPUs support the same graphics APIs?

A: Yes, both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

Q: Which GPU has more memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX 4070 Mobile has 256.0 GB/s dedicated bandwidth, whereas the 860M’s bandwidth is system-dependent and shared with the CPU.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile wins in every performance category where both are tested. In Geekbench OpenCL, it is 379.8% faster; in Geekbench Vulkan, 260.7% faster. Its 73rd percentile ranking versus the 860M’s 72nd percentile shows it also edges out the AMD part in overall standing among all GPUs. The RTX 4070 Mobile’s nearest rivals include the RTX 3090 and RX 6700 XT, meaning it competes with desktop-class hardware — ideal for gaming laptops, content creation, 3D rendering, and any workload that benefits from its 144 Tensor cores and 36 RT cores. Its 8 GB GDDR6 memory with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth provides a stable foundation for texture-heavy applications.

The AMD Radeon 860M wins on power efficiency, portability, and integration. Its 15 W TDP versus 115 W makes it the clear choice for thin-and-light laptops where battery life matters more than frame rates. Despite its low power draw, it still achieves a 72nd percentile ranking, with nearest rivals including the GeForce MX550 and RTX 5060 — showing it can handle mainstream gaming and everyday tasks. Its 8 RT cores provide basic ray tracing support, and its 4 nm process node is more advanced than the RTX 4070 Mobile’s 5 nm node, though this does not translate into performance wins. The 860M also launches later (2025-02-28 versus 2023-01-02), making it a more recent design. For users who never game above 1080p and prioritize all-day battery life, the 860M’s integrated architecture is a sensible trade-off — but for anyone seeking maximum performance, the RTX 4070 Mobile is the definitive winner in this comparison.