AMD Radeon RX 470 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile Comparison

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile dominates the head-to-head data against the AMD Radeon RX 470, winning both shared benchmark tests by massive margins, but the older card still holds its own in a few niche areas where the newer part is not tested. The RTX 5070 Mobile is a modern laptop-class GPU built on Blackwell 2.0, while the RX 470 is a legacy desktop part from the GCN 4.0 era; the data shows a generational chasm in raw compute, but the comparison is not entirely one-sided when looking at the full scope of available benchmarks.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two cards share only two direct benchmark results, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile wins both outright. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 5070 Mobile scores 122,238 against the RX 470's 33,568, a delta of 264.2% — meaning it delivers over 3.6 times the compute performance in that test. The Geekbench Vulkan result is similarly lopsided: 116,960 for the NVIDIA part versus 39,884 for the AMD part, a 193.3% advantage. These are not marginal wins; the RTX 5070 Mobile roughly triples the RX 470's throughput in both API workloads, which points to fundamental differences in architecture and execution resources rather than clock speed tweaks.

Beyond the shared tests, the RTX 5070 Mobile has a much broader benchmark footprint. Its Passmark G3D score is 20,355, and its average benchmark score across all tests sits at 29,928. The RX 470, by contrast, has no Passmark scores listed in the data, only a single 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 result of 842 and a Geekbench Metal score of 41,690. The RTX 5070 Mobile also posts a Passmark GPU Compute score of 8,279 and a Passmark G2D score of 896, while the RX 470 has no comparable data points. In the only direct DX12 comparison available — 3DMark Steel Nomad — the RX 470 scores 842, but there is no matching RTX 5070 Mobile result, so a direct head-to-head in that specific workload cannot be drawn from the pack.

The percentile rankings tell a similar story. The RTX 5070 Mobile sits at the 75th percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 470 is at the 74th — a gap of just one percentile point, despite the enormous delta in the shared tests. This suggests that the RX 470's other benchmark results (Metal, Steel Nomad) pull its average up relative to the broader GPU pool, even though it loses decisively wherever the two are tested together.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile wins every shared workload, so its strengths are clear: OpenCL compute and Vulkan rendering. The 264.2% lead in OpenCL and 193.3% lead in Vulkan mean the RTX 5070 Mobile is the obvious choice for any application that leverages those APIs — think general-purpose GPU compute, machine learning inference, or modern game engines that default to Vulkan. Its Passmark G3D score of 20,355 and GPU Compute score of 8,279 further indicate strong DirectX and compute performance, though those numbers have no RX 470 counterpart for direct comparison.

The AMD Radeon RX 470 wins in no direct test, but it does have a unique benchmark result that the RTX 5070 Mobile lacks: a Geekbench Metal score of 41,690. Since Metal is Apple's graphics API, this result suggests the RX 470 has some relevance in macOS or other Metal-based environments, whereas the RTX 5070 Mobile has no Metal score listed at all. Additionally, the RX 470's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 842 is the only data point for that specific test — the RTX 5070 Mobile has no corresponding result, so in that narrow workload, the RX 470 at least has measurable performance where the newer card does not. The RX 470 also carries a 256-bit memory bus and 211.2 GB/s bandwidth, which in memory-heavy legacy workloads could theoretically matter, but no benchmark in the pack confirms this.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap is vast. The RTX 5070 Mobile uses the GB206 chip on a 5 nm TSMC process, while the RX 470 uses Ellesmere on a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process. Transistor counts reflect the generational leap: 21,900 million for the NVIDIA part versus 5,700 million for the AMD part, despite the RTX 5070 Mobile's die being smaller at 181 mm² compared to 232 mm². Transistor density tells the real story — 121.0M per mm² for the RTX 5070 Mobile versus 24.6M per mm² for the RX 470 — meaning the newer chip packs nearly five times more transistors into a smaller area.

The RTX 5070 Mobile is built on Blackwell 2.0 architecture, while the RX 470 uses GCN 4.0. Blackwell 2.0 introduces dedicated RT cores (36) and tensor cores (144), both of which are entirely absent from the RX 470. The RTX 5070 Mobile also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, whereas the RX 470 tops out at DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. The NVIDIA part has 4,608 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, versus 2,048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs on the AMD side. Pixel rate is 68.40 GPixel/s for the RTX 5070 Mobile versus 38.59 GPixel/s for the RX 470, and texture rate is 205.2 GTexel/s versus 154.4 GTexel/s. FP32 compute is 13.13 TFLOPS for the NVIDIA part versus 4.940 TFLOPS for the AMD part — a 2.66x advantage in raw shader throughput.

Specification Differences

The most striking specification gap is memory. The RTX 5070 Mobile has 8 GB of GDDR7 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 384.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RX 470 has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 211.2 GB/s. The RTX 5070 Mobile achieves higher bandwidth with half the bus width, thanks to newer memory technology. The NVIDIA part's memory clock is 1500 MHz (24 Gbps effective), while the RX 470 runs at 1650 MHz (6.6 Gbps effective).

The RTX 5070 Mobile has a base clock of 907 MHz and boost of 1425 MHz; the RX 470 has a base of 926 MHz and boost of 1206 MHz. Despite lower clocks, the RTX 5070 Mobile wins on every compute metric. The TDP difference is enormous: 50 W for the RTX 5070 Mobile versus 120 W for the RX 470. The NVIDIA part is an integrated form factor (IGP) with no power connectors, while the RX 470 is a dual-slot card requiring a 1x 6-pin connector and a 300 W suggested PSU. The RTX 5070 Mobile uses PCIe 5.0 x16; the RX 470 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs also differ: the RTX 5070 Mobile is "Portable Device Dependent," while the RX 470 has 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. The RX 470 measures 240 mm x 95 mm x 35 mm; the RTX 5070 Mobile has no listed dimensions. The RTX 5070 Mobile's release date is 2025-04-14, and it is still Active; the RX 470 launched 2016-08-03 and is End-of-life.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher FP32 compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile has 13.13 TFLOPS, which is 2.66x higher than the AMD Radeon RX 470's 4.940 TFLOPS.

Q: Do both cards support hardware ray tracing?

A: No. The RTX 5070 Mobile has 36 dedicated RT cores, while the RX 470 has no RT cores listed in the data.

Q: How does memory bandwidth compare between the two?

A: The RTX 5070 Mobile delivers 384.0 GB/s from 8 GB of GDDR7 on a 128-bit bus. The RX 470 delivers 211.2 GB/s from 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus.

Q: What is the TDP difference?

A: The RTX 5070 Mobile has a TDP of 50 W, while the RX 470 has a TDP of 120 W. The RTX 5070 Mobile requires no power connector, whereas the RX 470 needs a 1x 6-pin connector.

Q: Which API support differs?

A: The RTX 5070 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4. The RX 470 supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

Q: What is the average benchmark score gap?

A: The RTX 5070 Mobile averages 29,928 across its benchmarks, while the RX 470 averages 28,996. The RTX 5070 Mobile is 3.2% higher, despite being ahead by 264.2% in the shared Geekbench OpenCL test.

The Verdict

The data is unequivocal: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile is the superior GPU in every shared benchmark, and the margins are so large that this is not a close contest. It delivers 264.2% higher OpenCL performance and 193.3% higher Vulkan performance than the RX 470, with twice the memory (8 GB vs 4 GB), nearly triple the bandwidth (384.0 vs 211.2 GB/s), and 2.66x the FP32 compute (13.13 vs 4.940 TFLOPS) — all while consuming less than half the power (50 W vs 120 W). The RTX 5070 Mobile also adds modern features the RX 470 lacks entirely: 36 RT cores, 144 tensor cores, and DirectX 12 Ultimate support.

The RX 470's only saving grace is its Geekbench Metal score of 41,690, a workload the RTX 5070 Mobile has no data for, and its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 result of 842, which also has no RTX 5070 Mobile counterpart. For users locked into Metal-based environments or legacy DX12 workloads where the RTX 5070 Mobile has no listed benchmark, the RX 470 at least offers measurable performance. But those are niche scenarios.

The RTX 5070 Mobile sits at the 75th percentile of all GPUs, just one point above the RX 470's 74th, which is a statistical oddity given the benchmark deltas — it reflects the RX 470's strong Metal result and the RTX 5070 Mobile's lower scores in older Passmark DirectX 9/10/11 tests (214, 129, and 192, respectively). For any modern workload — Vulkan gaming, OpenCL compute, or DirectX 12 — the RTX 5070 Mobile is the clear pick. The RX 470 remains a viable option only for Metal-specific use cases or as a legacy part with a 256-bit memory bus, but the benchmark data shows no scenario where it beats the RTX 5070 Mobile in a direct comparison.