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

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark split is decisively lopsided, but not entirely one-sided. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Mobile claims 8 of the 10 recorded head-to-head tests, while the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT takes 2. The pattern is clear: the NVIDIA part dominates modern API workloads and compute-oriented tasks, while the AMD card shows its strengths in legacy DirectX 9 rendering and 2D operations.

Looking at the wins for the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT, the PassMark DirectX 9 result (202 versus 196) is a narrow 3% margin. That is a slim victory, but it is consistent with the older RDNA 1.0 architecture retaining efficiency in legacy rasterization paths. The other AMD win comes in PassMark G2D (870 versus 783), a 10% advantage that measures 2D graphics throughput rather than 3D rendering. This suggests the AMD part has a better optimized 2D presentation pipeline, though that is rarely the deciding factor for a gaming or workstation purchase.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Mobile wins everything else, and the margins are substantial. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, the NVIDIA GPU scores 2572 against 1669, a 54.1% lead. Geekbench OpenCL shows a 54.7% advantage (106022 versus 68537), and Geekbench Vulkan is even more dominant at 77.9% (100027 versus 56218). PassMark G3D, the overall 3D performance metric, lands at 17727 versus 13457, a 31.7% gap. Compute performance via PassMark GPU Compute favors NVIDIA by 19.2% (7504 versus 6296). Even the legacy DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 tests go to NVIDIA by 69.9% and 59.4% respectively, which is notable because those are older APIs where the AMD architecture might have been expected to compete more closely.

The average benchmark score reinforces this hierarchy. The RTX 3070 Ti Mobile averages 23518 across its benchmark suite, while the RX 5600 XT averages 20713. That is roughly a 13.5% overall gap, though the average is pulled down by the AMD card's inclusion of a Geekbench Metal score (80376) that has no NVIDIA counterpart in the shared test list. The percentile rankings are close, with NVIDIA at the 69th percentile of all GPUs and AMD at the 66th, but the actual score delta in most 3D workloads is far larger than that percentile gap suggests.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from fundamentally different design philosophies. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Mobile uses the GA104 chip built on Ampere architecture, manufactured by Samsung on an 8 nm process. It packs 17,400 million transistors into a 392 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 44.4 million per square millimeter. The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT uses the Navi 10 chip with RDNA 1.0 architecture, built by TSMC on a 7 nm node. It has 10,300 million transistors on a 251 mm² die, for a density of 41.0 million per square millimeter. The newer 7 nm process gives AMD a smaller die, but the NVIDIA chip compensates with a much larger transistor budget.

The compute configuration is where the gap becomes structural. The RTX 3070 Ti Mobile has 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs. It also includes 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores, features entirely absent from the RX 5600 XT, which lists no RT cores and no tensor cores. The AMD card has 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. That is less than half the shader count of the NVIDIA part, which explains the massive FP32 throughput difference: 16.60 TFLOPS versus 7.188 TFLOPS. Interestingly, the AMD card's FP16 rating of 14.38 TFLOPS is higher than its FP32 figure due to a 2:1 ratio, while the NVIDIA GPU delivers 16.60 TFLOPS in both FP32 and FP16 at a 1:1 ratio.

Memory configurations differ as well. The NVIDIA card has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The AMD card has 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, with 288.0 GB/s. The NVIDIA GPU also runs its memory at 14 Gbps effective, versus 12 Gbps on the AMD part. Clock speeds tell a different story: the AMD card has a higher base clock (1130 MHz versus 915 MHz) and a higher boost clock (1560 MHz versus 1410 MHz), plus a defined game clock of 1375 MHz. But the NVIDIA card's massive shader count overwhelms the clock disadvantage.

Power and physical specifications diverge sharply. The RTX 3070 Ti Mobile has a 115 W TDP and no power connectors, reflecting its laptop-oriented design, while the RX 5600 XT has a 150 W TDP, a dual-slot cooler, a single 8-pin power connector, a 450 W suggested PSU, and a 267 mm (10.5 inches) length. The NVIDIA part is portable-device dependent for display outputs, while the AMD card offers 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. Both use PCIe 4.0 x16. API support also differs: NVIDIA supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while AMD only reaches DirectX 12 (12_1) with Vulkan 1.4.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test is the most modern and demanding workload in the shared suite, and it shows the largest single 3D gap after the API-specific tests. The RTX 3070 Ti Mobile scores 2572 against 1669 for the RX 5600 XT, a 54.1% advantage. This is a DirectX 12 test, and the NVIDIA card's support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) likely contributes to its strong showing.

Geekbench Vulkan is even more one-sided. The NVIDIA GPU scores 100027 versus 56218, a 77.9% lead. Vulkan is a low-overhead API that scales with raw compute and memory bandwidth, both of which favor the NVIDIA part heavily. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth versus 288.0 GB/s is a 55.6% advantage, and the 16.60 TFLOPS versus 7.188 TFLOPS FP32 throughput is a 130% advantage. The benchmark result does not perfectly track those theoretical numbers, but the direction is consistent.

Geekbench OpenCL delivers a 54.7% win for NVIDIA (106022 versus 68537). OpenCL workloads often stress compute units and memory subsystems, and the NVIDIA card's 184 tensor cores plus 5888 shading units provide a much larger execution resource pool. The PassMark GPU Compute test is closer, with NVIDIA winning 7504 versus 6296, a 19.2% margin. That test may be less dependent on raw FP32 and more on driver scheduling and occupancy.

The PassMark DirectX suite is interesting because the margins shrink as the API gets older. DirectX 12 gives NVIDIA a 40.4% win (73 versus 52), DirectX 11 gives a 59.4% win (153 versus 96), and DirectX 10 gives a 69.9% win (124 versus 73). But DirectX 9 flips to AMD by 3% (202 versus 196). This suggests the AMD RDNA 1.0 architecture retains a well-optimized legacy rasterization path, while the NVIDIA Ampere architecture trades some older-API efficiency for massive modern throughput. The PassMark G2D result, a 10% AMD win (870 versus 783), reinforces the idea that the AMD card handles simpler 2D presentation tasks more efficiently.

The PassMark G3D overall score, which aggregates 3D performance, gives NVIDIA the win at 17727 versus 13457, a 31.7% margin. That is the single most representative 3D gaming metric in the shared suite, and it puts the two cards at a comfortable distance apart.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins more head-to-head benchmarks?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Mobile wins 8 of the 10 shared tests. The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT wins 2.

Q: Where does the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT actually beat the NVIDIA card?

A: The AMD card wins PassMark DirectX 9 (202 versus 196, a 3% margin) and PassMark G2D (870 versus 783, a 10% margin).

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

A: In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, the NVIDIA card leads by 54.1% with a score of 2572 versus 1669. In PassMark DirectX 12, the NVIDIA lead is 40.4% (73 versus 52).

Q: What is the biggest single benchmark margin between the two?

A: Geekbench Vulkan shows the largest gap at 77.9%, with the NVIDIA card scoring 100027 against 56218 for the AMD card.

Q: Does the AMD card have ray tracing or tensor cores?

A: No. The RX 5600 XT lists no RT cores and no tensor cores. The RTX 3070 Ti Mobile has 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores.

Q: How do the average benchmark scores compare?

A: The NVIDIA card averages 23518 across its benchmark suite, while the AMD card averages 20713. The NVIDIA GPU sits at the 69th percentile of all GPUs, and the AMD GPU at the 66th.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear hierarchy. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Mobile is the stronger GPU for virtually all modern 3D workloads, compute tasks, and API-heavy applications. Its 54.1% lead in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, 77.9% lead in Geekbench Vulkan, and 31.7% lead in PassMark G3D are decisive. Anyone choosing between these two for contemporary gaming, content creation, or GPU compute should favor the NVIDIA card without hesitation.

The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT has a narrower set of advantages. Its 3% win in DirectX 9 and 10% win in G2D are real but minor. The DirectX 9 result could matter for legacy game compatibility, and the G2D result indicates better 2D desktop presentation throughput, but neither justifies choosing it over the NVIDIA part in a system where 3D performance is the primary concern. The AMD card also has a higher boost clock (1560 MHz versus 1410 MHz) and a lower transistor count, but the NVIDIA architecture's shader count and memory bandwidth overwhelm those factors.

The percentile rankings are closer than the benchmark deltas suggest, with NVIDIA at the 69th percentile and AMD at the 66th. The nearest rival data confirms the RTX 3070 Ti Mobile is positioned near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile (0.5% behind) and ahead of the AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 (0.9% ahead). The RX 5600 XT sits near the AMD Radeon R9 M390X (0.2% ahead) and the Intel Arc A750 (0.6% ahead). The average score difference of 23518 versus 20713 places these GPUs in different performance tiers, even though their percentile ranks overlap.

For a gaming laptop or mobile workstation, the RTX 3070 Ti Mobile is the clear choice. For a desktop system where legacy DirectX 9 titles or 2D workloads are the priority, the RX 5600 XT has a narrow edge, but the overall benchmark evidence is overwhelmingly in NVIDIA's favor. The 8-to-2 win split in the shared test suite is the simplest summary: this is not a close contest.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Mobile | AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT |

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

| Architecture | Ampere | RDNA 1.0 |

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

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

| Die size | 392 mm² | 251 mm² |

| Transistor density | 44.4M / mm² | 41.0M / mm² |

| Base clock | 915 MHz | 1130 MHz |

| Boost clock | 1410 MHz | 1560 MHz |

| Game clock | None listed | 1375 MHz |

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

| Memory size | 8 GB | 6 GB |

| Memory bus | 256 bit | 192 bit |

| Memory bandwidth | 448.0 GB/s | 288.0 GB/s |

| Shading units | 5888 | 2304 |

| TMUs | 184 | 144 |

| ROPs | 96 | 64 |

| RT cores | 46 | None |

| Tensor cores | 184 | None |

| Pixel rate | 135.4 GPixel/s | 99.84 GPixel/s |

| Texture rate | 259.4 GTexel/s | 224.6 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 16.60 TFLOPS | 7.188 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 16.60 TFLOPS (1:1) | 14.38 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| TDP | 115 W | 150 W |

| Power connectors | None | 1x 8-pin |

| Suggested PSU | None listed | 450 W |

| Slot width | None listed | Dual-slot |

| Length | None listed | 267 mm (10.5 inches) |

| Display outputs | Portable Device Dependent | 1x HDMI 2.0b, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a |

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

| OpenGL | 4.6 | 4.6 |

| Vulkan | 1.4 | 1.4 |

| Release date | 2022-01-03 | 2020-01-20 |

| Predecessor | GeForce 20 Mobile | Vega |

| Successor | None listed | Navi II |

| Launch MSRP | None listed | 279 USD |

The specification table highlights why the benchmark results look the way they do. The NVIDIA card has more than double the shading units, a wider memory bus, higher bandwidth, and dedicated ray tracing and tensor hardware. The AMD card has a newer process node, higher clocks, and a lower transistor budget, but those advantages do not translate into competitive 3D performance against the NVIDIA part's sheer execution resource count.