AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile occupy nearly the same performance tier in the aggregate, with average benchmark scores of 20,713 and 20,534 respectively. The NVIDIA part edges ahead by a slim 0.9% margin, placing both GPUs within a tight cluster that also includes the Intel Arc A750 and Arc B570. Yet the head-to-head results reveal a more complex picture than the overall averages suggest, with the two cards winning in distinctly different workload categories.

Where Each One Wins

The data splits cleanly along workload lines. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile dominates modern and compute-oriented tasks, winning 8 of the 10 head-to-head comparisons. Its largest victories come in Vulkan and DirectX 10, where it leads by 35.2% and 35.4% respectively. The gap narrows considerably in DirectX 12, where the RTX 3070 Mobile still wins but by a more modest 18.7%. In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, the NVIDIA card posts 2380 points versus 1669 for the AMD card, a 29.9% advantage.

The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT claims the remaining two wins, and they are telling. It outperforms the RTX 3070 Mobile by 26.3% in DirectX 9 (202 vs 160) and by 35.7% in the Passmark G2D test (870 vs 641), which measures 2D graphics performance. The AMD card also holds its own in raw compute, trailing by only 7.8% in Passmark GPU Compute despite the NVIDIA card's massive shading unit count advantage. This pattern suggests the RX 5600 XT is optimized for legacy APIs and 2D throughput, while the RTX 3070 Mobile flexes its muscle in modern rendering paths.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from fundamentally different design philosophies. AMD's Navi 10 chip uses RDNA 1.0 architecture built on a 7 nm TSMC process, packing 10,300 million transistors into a 251 mm² die. NVIDIA's GA104 uses Ampere architecture on Samsung's 8 nm node, with 17,400 million transistors spread across a much larger 392 mm² die. The transistor density tells an interesting story: AMD achieves 41.0M transistors per mm², while NVIDIA reaches 44.4M, indicating the latter has a slightly tighter packing despite the larger overall chip.

The shading resources differ dramatically. The RTX 3070 Mobile fields 5,120 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, versus 2,304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 64 ROPs for the RX 5600 XT. The NVIDIA card also carries 40 dedicated ray tracing cores and 160 tensor cores, hardware that the AMD card lacks entirely. This explains the FP32 compute gap: 15.97 TFLOPS for NVIDIA versus 7.188 TFLOPS for AMD. Interestingly, the RTX 3070 Mobile runs FP16 at the same 15.97 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio), while the RX 5600 XT doubles its FP32 rate to 14.38 TFLOPS for FP16 (2:1 ratio), a legacy approach that modern workloads rarely exploit.

Memory configurations also diverge sharply. The RTX 3070 Mobile uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 5600 XT has 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s. Clock speeds are similar at the boost level — both hit 1560 MHz — but the AMD card's base clock is slightly higher at 1130 MHz versus 1110 MHz. The AMD card's memory runs at 12 Gbps effective, while the NVIDIA card's memory runs at 14 Gbps effective.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT has an average benchmark score of 20,713, which is 0.9% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile's 20,534. Both cards sit near the 65th percentile among all GPUs.

Q: How large is the performance gap in DirectX 12?

A: The RTX 3070 Mobile leads by 18.7% in the Passmark DirectX 12 test (64 vs 52). In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, the NVIDIA card's advantage expands to 29.9% (2380 vs 1669).

Q: Does the RX 5600 XT win any benchmark categories?

A: Yes, it wins two head-to-head tests. It beats the RTX 3070 Mobile by 26.3% in DirectX 9 (202 vs 160) and by 35.7% in the 2D-focused Passmark G2D test (870 vs 641).

Q: What is the transistor count difference between the two chips?

A: The NVIDIA GA104 chip contains 17,400 million transistors, while the AMD Navi 10 contains 10,300 million. The NVIDIA chip is also larger at 392 mm² versus 251 mm² for AMD.

Q: Which GPU supports hardware ray tracing?

A: Only the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile has dedicated ray tracing cores (40 of them). The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT has no RT cores listed in its specifications.

Q: How do the memory bandwidth figures compare?

A: The RTX 3070 Mobile provides 448.0 GB/s from its 256-bit bus and 8 GB capacity. The RX 5600 XT provides 288.0 GB/s from its 192-bit bus and 6 GB capacity.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ in nearly every measurable specification. The RTX 3070 Mobile uses an 8 nm process from Samsung, while the RX 5600 XT uses TSMC's 7 nm node. Transistor counts are 17,400 million versus 10,300 million, and die sizes are 392 mm² versus 251 mm². The NVIDIA card has 5,120 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, compared to 2,304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 64 ROPs for AMD.

Memory capacity and bandwidth favor NVIDIA: 8 GB versus 6 GB, and 448.0 GB/s versus 288.0 GB/s. The memory clock is also higher on the NVIDIA card at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) versus 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective). The RTX 3070 Mobile includes 40 RT cores and 160 tensor cores; the RX 5600 XT has neither. FP32 throughput is 15.97 TFLOPS for NVIDIA versus 7.188 TFLOPS for AMD. Pixel rate is 124.8 GPixel/s versus 99.84 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 249.6 GTexel/s versus 224.6 GTexel/s.

Power profiles also differ. The RTX 3070 Mobile carries a 115 W TDP with no power connectors, reflecting its mobile design. The RX 5600 XT has a 150 W TDP and requires a single 8-pin connector, with a suggested 450 W PSU. The AMD card is dual-slot and 267 mm long, while the NVIDIA card's dimensions are listed as portable-device dependent. Both use PCIe 4.0 x16. The RTX 3070 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the RX 5600 XT supports DirectX 12 (12_1). The AMD card's launch MSRP was 279 USD.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test delivers the most decisive result in the comparison. The RTX 3070 Mobile scores 2380 against the RX 5600 XT's 1669, a 29.9% margin that reflects the NVIDIA card's architectural advantages in modern geometry and ray-traced workloads. This is the second-largest absolute gap in the dataset.

Vulkan performance shows an even bigger relative difference. The NVIDIA card posts 86,768 in Geekbench Vulkan versus 56,218 for AMD, a 35.2% lead. This pattern repeats in OpenCL, where the RTX 3070 Mobile scores 92,939 against 68,537, a 26.3% advantage. These compute-oriented results align with the NVIDIA card's 2.2x FP32 throughput advantage.

The Passmark suite reveals a more nuanced picture. In DirectX 11, the NVIDIA card leads 138 to 96 (30.4% ahead). DirectX 10 shows 113 versus 73, a 35.4% margin that matches the Vulkan result almost exactly. DirectX 12 narrows to 64 versus 52, an 18.7% lead. The overall Passmark G3D score favors NVIDIA at 15,309 versus 13,457, a 12.1% gap that is considerably smaller than the synthetic compute tests suggest.

The RX 5600 XT's wins are concentrated in legacy and 2D workloads. Its DirectX 9 score of 202 crushes the RTX 3070 Mobile's 160, a 26.3% advantage. The G2D result is even more lopsided: 870 versus 641, giving AMD a 35.7% lead. These victories are substantial enough to pull the average benchmark scores nearly level, despite the NVIDIA card winning eight of ten comparisons. The Passmark GPU Compute test shows the closest margin among NVIDIA wins, with 6,827 versus 6,296, a 7.8% difference.

The Verdict

The data points to two different use cases. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile is the clear choice for modern gaming and GPU-accelerated compute. It wins every DirectX 10, 11, and 12 test, plus Vulkan and OpenCL, with margins ranging from 7.8% to 35.4%. Its 40 RT cores and 160 tensor cores enable features the AMD card cannot match at all, and its 8 GB memory capacity with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth provides headroom for high-resolution textures and demanding workloads.

The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT appeals to a narrower set of requirements. Its DirectX 9 performance is 26.3% better, and its 2D throughput is 35.7% higher, making it potentially better suited for older game libraries or 2D-heavy productivity tasks. Its 7 nm process delivers a smaller die (251 mm²) with fewer transistors (10,300 million), which correlates with its lower 150 W TDP versus 115 W for the NVIDIA part. The RX 5600 XT also holds the advantage in average benchmark score by 0.9%, though this is within the noise of the 0.6-0.8% deltas separating it from the Intel Arc A750 and B570.

For a user prioritizing modern DirectX 12 titles, ray tracing, or GPU compute, the RTX 3070 Mobile is the data-backed recommendation. For someone running legacy DirectX 9 applications or requiring strong 2D performance, the RX 5600 XT demonstrates clear, measurable superiority. The aggregate scores suggest these are closely matched products overall, but the workload-specific results reveal that they are optimized for different eras of software.