AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Comparison

The AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 represent two very different design philosophies, separated by five years of architectural evolution. The data shows the R9700 wins 7 of 10 head-to-head benchmarks, yet the RTX 3080 retains a decisive lead in one critical compute workload. These results paint a picture of a modern professional card that excels in raw graphics throughput and modern API performance, while the older GeForce still holds a niche with its compute-oriented design.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 is the clear victor in modern graphics workloads. Its most dominant win comes in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, where it scores 7006 against the RTX 3080's 4407, a 59% advantage. This is a massive gap that signals the R9700's RDNA 4.0 architecture is far better equipped for current-generation DirectX 12 rendering. The Vulkan API also shows a significant AMD lead, with the R9700 scoring 63550 versus 33620, an 89% difference. These two results alone suggest that any workload leveraging modern graphics APIs will heavily favor the AMD card.

The R9700 also sweeps the legacy DirectX benchmarks, winning DirectX 11 (272 vs 207, +31.4%) and DirectX 9 (363 vs 258, +40.7%). Even in the more synthetic Passmark G3D suite, the R9700 edges ahead with a score of 26979 versus 25086, a 7.5% improvement. Its compute advantage is more modest but real, with the R9700 scoring 15300 in Passmark GPU Compute versus 14397 for the RTX 3080, a 6.3% delta. The G2D test also goes to AMD, with 1236 points versus 1054, a 17.3% gain.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080's wins are concentrated and specific. Its most significant victory is in Geekbench OpenCL, where it scores 152423 against the R9700's 118202, a 22.5% lead. This is a substantial margin and suggests that the RTX 3080's compute shaders are more efficient in certain general-purpose compute scenarios. The RTX 3080 also wins the Passmark DirectX 12 test (100 vs 83, +17%) and the older DirectX 10 test (170 vs 155, +8.8%). These wins, while fewer, indicate that the NVIDIA card has strengths in specific API paths and compute-oriented tasks that the AMD card does not match.

The Verdict

The data clearly separates these two cards by use case. For anyone focused on modern gaming, real-time rendering, or any workload that leverages DirectX 12 Ultimate or Vulkan, the AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 is the superior choice. The 59% lead in 3DMark Steel Nomad and 89% lead in Vulkan are not marginal; they represent a generational leap in graphics processing capability. The R9700's 32 GB of GDDR6 memory also provides a massive capacity advantage over the RTX 3080's 10 GB, which is critical for large datasets or high-resolution textures.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 remains relevant only for users with specific compute-heavy workloads that favor its architecture. The 22.5% lead in Geekbench OpenCL is significant and suggests that the RTX 3080 can still outperform the R9700 in certain scientific or data-processing tasks. However, this is a narrow advantage. The RTX 3080 is also an end-of-life product, while the R9700 is active in production. Given that the R9700 wins the majority of tests and offers more memory, the data suggests it is the more versatile and future-proof option. The RTX 3080 is for those who know their specific application is OpenCL-bound and can tolerate its limitations elsewhere.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most striking result is the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 benchmark. The R9700 scores 7006, a full 2599 points higher than the RTX 3080's 4407. This 59% delta is the second-largest in the entire comparison and underscores how effectively the RDNA 4.0 architecture handles modern asynchronous compute and mesh shaders.

The Vulkan test is even more lopsided. The R9700's 63550 score is nearly double the RTX 3080's 33620, representing an 89% advantage. This suggests that the AMD card's driver and hardware implementation for Vulkan is exceptionally well optimized, likely benefiting from its newer design.

On the NVIDIA side, the Geekbench OpenCL result is the headline. The RTX 3080's 152423 score versus the R9700's 118202 is a 22.5% lead. This is a curious outlier given that the R9700 wins the Passmark Compute test. The discrepancy likely stems from different workload characteristics; Geekbench OpenCL may favor the RTX 3080's higher shading unit count (8704 vs 4096) or its tensor cores (272 vs none), while Passmark tests a different compute pattern.

The DirectX 12 Passmark test is another NVIDIA win, with the RTX 3080 scoring 100 versus the R9700's 83, a 17% delta. This is counterintuitive given the R9700's massive lead in the 3DMark DX12 test. It may indicate that Passmark's DX12 workload is less demanding and does not fully utilize the R9700's advanced features, whereas the RTX 3080's higher base clock efficiency helps it in lighter loads.

The R9700's wins in DirectX 11 (31.4%) and DirectX 9 (40.7%) show that its advantage is not limited to current-generation APIs. The legacy performance is likely boosted by the R9700's much higher pixel rate (373.8 GPixel/s vs 164.2 GPixel/s) and texture rate (747.5 GTexel/s vs 465.1 GTexel/s), which are more than double the RTX 3080's respective rates.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 has an average benchmark score of 23315, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 scores 23172. The R9700 is 0.6% higher, making the difference marginal.

Q: How do the two cards compare in memory capacity and bandwidth?

A: The R9700 has 32 GB of GDDR6 memory with a 256-bit bus and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 3080 has 10 GB of GDDR6X memory with a 320-bit bus and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 3080 has higher bandwidth, but the R9700 has over three times the capacity.

Q: What is the performance difference in the 3DMark Steel Nomad test?

A: The R9700 scores 7006, which is 59% higher than the RTX 3080's 4407. This is the R9700's second-largest win in the benchmark suite.

Q: In which benchmark does the RTX 3080 have its biggest lead?

A: The RTX 3080's largest lead is in Geekbench OpenCL, where it scores 152423 versus the R9700's 118202, a 22.5% advantage.

Q: Which card has a higher percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The R9700 is in the 69th percentile, while the RTX 3080 is in the 68th percentile. Both are nearly identical in overall standing.

Q: What are the power consumption specifications for each card?

A: The R9700 has a TDP of 300 W, while the RTX 3080 has a TDP of 320 W. Both have a suggested PSU of 700 W and are dual-slot cards.

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 is built on TSMC's 4 nm process, packing 53,900 million transistors into a 357 mm² die. This yields a transistor density of 151.0M per mm². The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 uses Samsung's 8 nm process, with 28,300 million transistors on a larger 628 mm² die, for a density of 45.1M per mm². The R9700's denser design allows for more transistors in a smaller area, contributing to its higher performance per watt.

The R9700 uses the Navi 48 chip with RDNA 4.0 architecture, while the RTX 3080 uses the GA102 chip with Ampere architecture. The R9700 has 4096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 128 ROPs. The RTX 3080 has 8704 shading units, 272 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. The RTX 3080 has more shading units, but the R9700 has more ROPs, which explains its higher pixel rate.

A key difference is in ray tracing and AI acceleration. The R9700 has 64 ray tracing cores but no dedicated tensor cores. The RTX 3080 has 68 RT cores and 272 tensor cores. This makes the RTX 3080 more capable in AI-accelerated workloads, which is reflected in its Geekbench OpenCL lead. The R9700's FP32 performance is 47.84 TFLOPS, significantly higher than the RTX 3080's 29.77 TFLOPS, indicating a raw compute advantage for AMD.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every major specification. The R9700 has a base clock of 1660 MHz and a boost clock of 2920 MHz, while the RTX 3080 has a base clock of 1440 MHz and a boost clock of 1710 MHz. The R9700 also has a game clock of 2350 MHz, a feature the RTX 3080 lacks. Memory clocks differ, with the R9700 running at 2518 MHz (20.1 Gbps effective) versus the RTX 3080's 1188 MHz (19 Gbps effective).

The R9700 uses PCIe 5.0 x16, while the RTX 3080 uses PCIe 4.0 x16. Display outputs differ, with the R9700 offering 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1a, while the RTX 3080 has 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. Power connectors are a single 16-pin for the R9700 versus a single 12-pin for the RTX 3080. The R9700 is 267 mm long, 111 mm tall, and 40 mm wide, while the RTX 3080 is 285 mm long, 112 mm tall, and 40 mm wide. The R9700 was released on 2025-07-22 with a launch MSRP of 1,299 USD, while the RTX 3080 was released on 2020-08-31 with a launch MSRP of 699 USD. The R9700 is active in production, while the RTX 3080 is end-of-life.