AMD Radeon RX 5700 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a decisive victory for the AMD Radeon RX 5700 across every shared benchmark test. In the Geekbench Metal test, the RX 5700 scores 86,079 points against the GTX 780 Ti’s 18,144, a delta of 78.9% in favor of the AMD card. This is not a marginal lead; it is a generational gap that places the RX 5700 in a completely different performance tier.

The OpenCL results tell a similar story. The RX 5700 posts 69,603 points, while the GTX 780 Ti manages 27,326. That represents a 60.7% advantage for the AMD part. The GTX 780 Ti’s compute potential, which was impressive for its era, is simply outmatched by the newer architecture’s throughput. The RX 5700’s FP32 rating of 7.949 TFLOPS versus the GTX 780 Ti’s 5.345 TFLOPS confirms the raw compute advantage, though the benchmark delta is larger than the raw TFLOPS gap, indicating efficiency gains beyond just clock speed.

The Vulkan test rounds out the sweep. The RX 5700 achieves 64,166 points, beating the GTX 780 Ti’s 27,238 by 57.6%. This is particularly notable because Vulkan is a low-level API that can expose architectural efficiencies. The GTX 780 Ti’s Kepler design, with its 2880 shading units, cannot compensate for the fundamental IPC and scheduling improvements in the RDNA 1.0 architecture. The RX 5700 wins all three head-to-head tests, recording 3 wins and 0 losses.

Looking at the broader database context, the GTX 780 Ti’s average benchmark score of 24,236 places it at the 70th percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 5700’s average of 22,170 sits at the 67th percentile. This is a counterintuitive result: the older card has a higher percentile ranking despite losing every direct comparison. The explanation lies in the benchmark mix. The GTX 780 Ti’s scores are drawn from a limited set of tests, while the RX 5700’s average includes PassMark DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12 tests, plus G2D and G3D scores, which drag its average down relative to its strong Geekbench results. The per-test data is more meaningful than the aggregate.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 5700 is the clear winner in compute-heavy and modern API workloads. Its Geekbench Metal score of 86,079 is 4.7 times higher than the GTX 780 Ti’s 18,144, making it the preferred choice for Metal-accelerated applications on supported platforms. The OpenCL and Vulkan results reinforce this: the RX 5700 is 2.5 times faster in OpenCL and 2.4 times faster in Vulkan. For users running GPU compute tasks, machine learning inference, or modern game engines that leverage Vulkan, the RX 5700 is the only rational choice.

The GTX 780 Ti does not win a single benchmark in the head-to-head set. However, its historical context matters. The 70th percentile ranking versus the RX 5700’s 67th suggests that in certain legacy workloads, particularly those that rely on the GTX 780 Ti’s 48 ROPs and 384-bit memory bus, the older card can still hold its own. The GTX 780 Ti’s pixel rate of 55.68 GPixel/s is lower than the RX 5700’s 110.4 GPixel/s, but its texture rate of 222.7 GTexel/s is closer to the RX 5700’s 248.4 GTexel/s. In fill-rate-bound scenarios that do not scale with shader complexity, the GTX 780 Ti is less obsolete than the compute benchmarks suggest.

For gaming specifically, the RX 5700’s DirectX 12 (12_1) support and Vulkan 1.4 compatibility give it a modern API advantage. The GTX 780 Ti only supports DirectX 12 (11_1), which limits its ability to execute the latest DX12 feature sets. Older DirectX 9 and 10 titles may still run adequately on both cards, but the RX 5700’s PassMark DirectX 9 score of 209 versus the GTX 780 Ti’s absence from that test list means the AMD card is the safer bet for backward compatibility as well.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from fundamentally different design philosophies. The GTX 780 Ti uses the GK110B chip built on a 28 nm process at TSMC, packing 7,080 million transistors into a 561 mm² die. The RX 5700 uses the Navi 10 chip on a 7 nm process, also at TSMC, with 10,300 million transistors in a much smaller 251 mm² die. The transistor density jump is stark: 12.6 million per square millimeter for the GTX 780 Ti versus 41.0 million per square millimeter for the RX 5700. This is the core of the performance gap, as the newer process allows for significantly more logic per area.

The GTX 780 Ti’s Kepler architecture relies on a massive shader array of 2880 cores, 240 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. The RX 5700’s RDNA 1.0 architecture uses a leaner 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. Despite having 576 fewer shaders, the RX 5700 achieves higher FP32 throughput due to its 1465 MHz base and 1725 MHz boost clocks, compared to the GTX 780 Ti’s 875 MHz base and 928 MHz boost. The RX 5700 also has a game clock of 1625 MHz, a figure the GTX 780 Ti cannot approach.

Memory architecture is another major divergence. The GTX 780 Ti uses 3 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, yielding 336.6 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 5700 uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s. The RX 5700’s narrower bus is more than compensated by the faster 14 Gbps effective memory speed versus the GTX 780 Ti’s 7 Gbps. The RX 5700 also supports PCIe 4.0 x16, while the GTX 780 Ti is limited to PCIe 3.0 x16, which affects data transfer rates to the CPU in bandwidth-sensitive scenarios.

The RX 5700 features fp16 support at 15.90 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), which the GTX 780 Ti lacks entirely. This makes the RX 5700 suitable for workloads that leverage half-precision arithmetic, such as certain AI inference tasks, while the GTX 780 Ti is confined to FP32. The RX 5700’s API support is also more modern: it offers Vulkan 1.4 versus the GTX 780 Ti’s 1.2.175, and DirectX 12 (12_1) versus 11_1.

Specification Differences

The most obvious difference is memory capacity and type. The RX 5700 has 8 GB of GDDR6, while the GTX 780 Ti has 3 GB of GDDR5. This 5 GB difference is critical for modern games and large datasets. The RX 5700 also has 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth versus 336.6 GB/s, a 33% advantage.

Clock speeds differ substantially. The RX 5700’s base clock is 1465 MHz, which is higher than the GTX 780 Ti’s boost clock of 928 MHz. The RX 5700 boosts to 1725 MHz, and its game clock is 1625 MHz. The GTX 780 Ti’s memory runs at 1753 MHz (7 Gbps effective), while the RX 5700’s memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The effective speed is twice as fast on the AMD card.

Power draw and thermal requirements are also different. The RX 5700 has a TDP of 180 W, with a suggested PSU of 450 W. The GTX 780 Ti has a TDP of 250 W and requires a 600 W PSU. Both cards use dual-slot coolers and the same power connector configuration (1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin). The physical dimensions are nearly identical: the RX 5700 is 268 mm long, 111 mm tall, and 36 mm wide, while the GTX 780 Ti is 267 mm long, 111 mm tall, and 38 mm wide.

Display outputs differ. The RX 5700 provides 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the GTX 780 Ti offers 2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 1x DisplayPort 1.2. The RX 5700 supports newer display standards, which matters for high refresh rate monitors and VR headsets.

The bus interface is another point of separation: the RX 5700 uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the GTX 780 Ti uses PCIe 3.0 x16. The launch MSRP for the RX 5700 was 349 USD, lower than the GTX 780 Ti’s 699 USD, though this is a historical figure that does not reflect current market pricing. The RX 5700’s release date is 2019-07-06, while the GTX 780 Ti launched on 2013-11-06.

FAQ

Q: Which card has better compute performance?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 5700 is significantly ahead. It scores 69,603 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 27,326 for the GTX 780 Ti, a 60.7% advantage. The RX 5700 also has 7.949 TFLOPS FP32 versus 5.345 TFLOPS.

Q: Is the GTX 780 Ti competitive in any modern benchmark?

A: No. The RX 5700 wins all three head-to-head tests. The GTX 780 Ti’s closest result is in Vulkan, where it trails by 57.6%. Its higher percentile ranking (70th vs 67th) is due to a different benchmark mix, not superior performance.

Q: How much faster is the RX 5700 in Metal?

A: The RX 5700 scores 86,079 in Geekbench Metal, which is 78.9% higher than the GTX 780 Ti’s 18,144. This is the largest gap between the two cards.

Q: What memory advantages does the RX 5700 have?

A: The RX 5700 has 8 GB of GDDR6 with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, versus 3 GB of GDDR5 with 336.6 GB/s on the GTX 780 Ti. The RX 5700’s effective memory speed is 14 Gbps, twice the GTX 780 Ti’s 7 Gbps.

Q: Which card requires less power?

A: The RX 5700 has a 180 W TDP and suggests a 450 W PSU, while the GTX 780 Ti has a 250 W TDP and suggests a 600 W PSU. Both use identical power connectors.

Q: Are there any architectural features the GTX 780 Ti has that the RX 5700 lacks?

A: The GTX 780 Ti has more shading units (2880 vs 2304) and more TMUs (240 vs 144). However, the RX 5700 compensates with higher clocks, more ROPs (64 vs 48), and much higher transistor density (41.0M/mm² vs 12.6M/mm²).