AMD Radeon Pro 5700 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Comparison

The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 represent two distinct design philosophies from the same era, with the former built for professional Mac integration and the latter as a high-end consumer graphics card. The benchmark data reveals a stark contrast: the RTX 3070 dominates the shared test suite with 8 wins out of 9 head-to-head comparisons, yet the Radeon Pro 5700 secures a single, decisive victory in Vulkan performance that highlights its architectural strengths. This analysis breaks down where each card excels, what separates their internal designs, and which workloads favor which GPU based strictly on the provided benchmark scores and specifications.

Where Each One Wins

The Radeon Pro 5700’s sole head-to-head victory comes in the Geekbench Vulkan test, where it scores 51,289 against the RTX 3070’s 21,022. That represents a 144% advantage, making it the single largest performance gap in either direction across all shared benchmarks. This suggests the RDNA 1.0 architecture in the Pro 5700 handles Vulkan’s low-level API overhead particularly efficiently, delivering more than double the performance of the Ampere-based competitor in this specific workload.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 wins everywhere else, and it does so by wide margins. In the Passmark DirectX suite, the RTX 3070 leads by 52.7% in DirectX 10 (150 vs 71), 57.1% in DirectX 11 (182 vs 78), 43.5% in DirectX 12 (85 vs 48), and 42.1% in DirectX 9 (247 vs 143). The OpenCL test shows the largest absolute gap: the RTX 3070 scores 112,821 versus 52,787, a 53.2% deficit for the AMD card. The compute-oriented Passmark GPU Compute test also favors NVIDIA heavily, with the RTX 3070 posting 11,195 against 4,961, a 55.7% advantage.

For 3D gaming and general graphics workloads, the RTX 3070 is the clear choice. Its Passmark G3D score of 22,214 dwarfs the Pro 5700’s 11,583, a 47.9% difference. Even in 2D desktop tasks, the RTX 3070 leads with a Passmark G2D score of 1,001 versus 805, a 19.6% margin. The data indicates the RTX 3070 is designed for raw throughput across legacy and modern DirectX APIs, while the Pro 5700’s lone Vulkan win suggests a specialized strength in API-level efficiency rather than brute-force rasterization.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs could hardly be more different internally. The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 uses the Navi 10 chip built on RDNA 1.0 architecture, fabricated on TSMC’s 7 nm process. It packs 10,300 million transistors into a 251 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 41.0 million per square millimeter. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, by contrast, uses the GA104 chip on Ampere architecture, built on Samsung’s 8 nm process. It contains 17,400 million transistors across a 392 mm² die, with a slightly higher density of 44.4 million per square millimeter.

The compute resources differ dramatically. The Radeon Pro 5700 has 2,304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation pipelines. The RTX 3070 more than doubles the shading units to 5,888, with 184 TMUs and 96 ROPs. Critically, the RTX 3070 includes 46 dedicated ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores, while the Pro 5700 has none of either — a fundamental feature gap for any ray-traced or AI-accelerated workload.

Clock speeds also favor NVIDIA. The RTX 3070 runs at a 1500 MHz base and 1725 MHz boost, compared to the Pro 5700’s 1243 MHz base and 1350 MHz boost. Memory configurations are similar in capacity — both have 8 GB of GDDR6 — but the RTX 3070’s memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) versus 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective), yielding 448.0 GB/s bandwidth versus 384.0 GB/s. The RTX 3070 also has a higher thermal envelope at 220 W versus 130 W, and it requires a dual-slot cooler with a 12-pin power connector, while the Pro 5700 is an integrated GPU (IGP) with no power connectors or display outputs.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The Geekbench OpenCL test delivers the most lopsided result in NVIDIA’s favor. The RTX 3070 scores 112,821, more than double the Pro 5700’s 52,787. This 53.2% deficit for AMD aligns with the RTX 3070’s higher shading unit count and clock speeds, which translate directly to raw compute throughput in the OpenCL API.

Vulkan flips the script entirely. The Pro 5700’s 51,289 score beats the RTX 3070’s 21,022 by 144%. This is an extraordinary outlier — the AMD card wins by a wider percentage than NVIDIA wins any other test. It suggests that RDNA 1.0’s Vulkan driver implementation and hardware scheduling are exceptionally well-optimized, or that the RTX 3070’s Vulkan path suffers from a significant bottleneck despite its superior hardware.

The Passmark DirectX tests show consistent NVIDIA dominance across all API versions. In DirectX 10, the RTX 3070’s 150 beats 71 by 52.7%. DirectX 11 sees 182 versus 78, a 57.1% lead. DirectX 12 narrows the gap slightly to 43.5% (85 vs 48), while DirectX 9 shows a 42.1% advantage (247 vs 143). These results indicate the RTX 3070 handles both legacy and modern DirectX APIs with equally strong performance, while the Pro 5700 lags consistently by roughly half.

The Passmark G3D test, which aggregates DirectX performance into a single score, confirms the trend: 22,214 for the RTX 3070 versus 11,583 for the Pro 5700, a 47.9% difference. The GPU Compute test widens the gap further to 55.7% (11,195 vs 4,961), highlighting the RTX 3070’s advantage in non-graphics parallel compute. Even the G2D test, which measures 2D desktop performance, favors NVIDIA by 19.6% (1,001 vs 805), showing that the Pro 5700 cannot match the RTX 3070 in any Passmark metric.

FAQ

Q: Why does the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 win the Vulkan benchmark by such a large margin?

A: The Pro 5700 scores 51,289 in Geekbench Vulkan versus the RTX 3070’s 21,022, a 144% advantage. This is the only head-to-head test the AMD card wins, and the data suggests RDNA 1.0’s Vulkan implementation is markedly more efficient than Ampere’s in this specific API workload.

Q: Which card is better for DirectX 12 gaming?

A: The RTX 3070 wins the Passmark DirectX 12 test with a score of 85 versus 48 for the Pro 5700, a 43.5% advantage. The RTX 3070 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Pro 5700 only supports DirectX 12 (12_1), giving NVIDIA a feature-level edge as well.

Q: Do both cards have the same memory capacity?

A: Yes, both have 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus. However, the RTX 3070’s memory operates at 14 Gbps effective versus 12 Gbps on the Pro 5700, resulting in higher bandwidth: 448.0 GB/s versus 384.0 GB/s.

Q: Does the Radeon Pro 5700 support ray tracing or tensor operations?

A: No. The Pro 5700 has zero ray tracing cores and zero tensor cores. The RTX 3070 includes 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores, making it the only one of the two capable of hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-based features.

Q: How do the two cards compare in average benchmark scores?

A: The Pro 5700 has an average benchmark score of 18,189, while the RTX 3070 averages 17,208. Despite this, the RTX 3070 wins 8 of 9 head-to-head tests, indicating the Pro 5700’s average is buoyed by its exceptional Vulkan score.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The RTX 3070 has a TDP of 220 W and requires a 550 W suggested PSU, while the Pro 5700 has a TDP of 130 W with a 300 W suggested PSU. The RTX 3070 is a dual-slot card needing a 12-pin power connector, whereas the Pro 5700 is an integrated GPU with no power connectors.

The Verdict

The data points overwhelmingly to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 for any general-purpose or DirectX-based workload. It wins every Passmark test by margins ranging from 19.6% to 57.1%, and its OpenCL score is more than double the AMD card’s. The RTX 3070 also brings ray tracing and tensor cores, features the Radeon Pro 5700 lacks entirely, making it the only option for those workloads. Its higher clock speeds, more shading units, and greater memory bandwidth all contribute to its dominance in the shared benchmark suite.

The AMD Radeon Pro 5700 is a niche product with a single, spectacular strength: Vulkan performance. Its 144% win in that test is unprecedented in this comparison, and it suggests that for Vulkan-specific applications — likely including certain professional or Linux-based workloads — the Pro 5700 could be the better choice. However, its lack of display outputs, IGP form factor, and absence of ray tracing hardware make it unsuitable for most consumer use cases.

For gamers, content creators, or anyone running DirectX applications, the RTX 3070 is the clear winner based on benchmark results. For developers targeting Vulkan as their primary API, the Pro 5700’s performance advantage is worth noting, though its other limitations may still be disqualifying. The RTX 3070’s 8 wins out of 9 tests, combined with its architectural feature set, make it the recommended choice for virtually all scenarios where these two cards are being considered.

Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD Radeon Pro 5700 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 |

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

| Architecture | RDNA 1.0 | Ampere |

| Process Node | 7 nm (TSMC) | 8 nm (Samsung) |

| Transistors | 10,300 million | 17,400 million |

| Die Size | 251 mm² | 392 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 41.0M / mm² | 44.4M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 1243 MHz | 1500 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1350 MHz | 1725 MHz |

| Memory Clock | 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective) | 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) |

| Memory Bandwidth | 384.0 GB/s | 448.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 2304 | 5888 |

| TMUs | 144 | 184 |

| ROPs | 64 | 96 |

| RT Cores | None | 46 |

| Tensor Cores | None | 184 |

| Pixel Rate | 86.40 GPixel/s | 165.6 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 194.4 GTexel/s | 317.4 GTexel/s |

| FP32 Performance | 6.221 TFLOPS | 20.31 TFLOPS |

| FP16 Performance | 12.44 TFLOPS (2:1) | 20.31 TFLOPS (1:1) |

| TDP | 130 W | 220 W |

| Slot Width | IGP | Dual-slot |

| Power Connectors | None | 1x 12-pin |

| Suggested PSU | 300 W | 550 W |

| Display Outputs | No outputs | 1x HDMI 2.13x DisplayPort 1.4a |

| DirectX Support | 12 (12_1) | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |

| Release Date | 2020-08-03 | 2020-08-31 |

| Launch MSRP | Not available | 499 USD |