AMD Radeon RX 590 GME vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a clear and decisive performance advantage for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile in every shared benchmark. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RTX 4070 Mobile scores 109,197 against 36,294 for the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME. That is a 66.8% lead for the NVIDIA part. The margin is narrower but still substantial in Geekbench Vulkan, where the RTX 4070 Mobile posts 108,367 versus 60,508 for the RX 590 GME, a 44.2% advantage. Across the two head-to-head tests, the NVIDIA card wins both, giving it a perfect 2-0 record in direct comparisons.

The OpenCL result is particularly striking because it represents more than a doubling of the AMD card's raw compute output. The RX 590 GME's 6.543 TFLOPS FP32 peak is far below the RTX 4070 Mobile's 15.62 TFLOPS, and that gap shows up directly in OpenCL workloads that scale with shading unit count. The RTX 4070 Mobile carries 4,608 shading units, exactly double the 2,304 in the RX 590 GME. The Vulkan gap, while smaller in percentage terms, still leaves no ambiguity about which part dominates.

When placed in context against the broader market, the two cards occupy surprisingly similar percentile positions despite the large delta in direct testing. The RX 590 GME sits at the 77th percentile of all GPUs in the database, while the RTX 4070 Mobile is at the 73rd percentile. The RX 590 GME's average benchmark score of 32,601 actually exceeds the RTX 4070 Mobile's 27,435 average, though this reflects the different mix of tests recorded for each card rather than any real parity in performance. The RTX 4070 Mobile's nearest rivals in the database, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, sit within 0.5% of its average score, which indicates the mobile part is trading blows with desktop-class hardware from the previous generation.

The RX 590 GME, by contrast, clusters around a group of professional and workstation cards. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA T600 Mobile, is 0.8% faster on average, while the AMD FirePro S9300 X2 trails by 0.2%, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE by 0.4%, and the AMD FirePro S10000 by 0.7%. This tight grouping suggests the RX 590 GME's average score is highly consistent with a specific performance tier, and its 77th percentile placement reflects that stability rather than any standout capability.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the Geekbench OpenCL test and by how much?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile wins with a score of 109,197 versus 36,294 for the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME, a lead of 66.8%.

Q: Is the Vulkan benchmark closer than OpenCL?

A: Yes, but not by much. In Geekbench Vulkan, the RTX 4070 Mobile scores 108,367 against 60,508, a 44.2% advantage. The OpenCL gap was 66.8%.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in overall database percentile ranking?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 590 GME is at the 77th percentile of all GPUs, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile is at the 73rd percentile.

Q: What are the closest rivals to each card in the database?

A: For the RX 590 GME, the nearest rival is the NVIDIA T600 Mobile, which is 0.8% faster. For the RTX 4070 Mobile, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is exactly matched at a 0% delta, with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 0.5% faster.

Q: Does the RTX 4070 Mobile support hardware ray tracing?

A: Yes, it has 36 dedicated RT cores. The RX 590 GME has no RT cores listed in its specifications.

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 590 GME has an average benchmark score of 32,601, compared to 27,435 for the RTX 4070 Mobile, though the two cards were tested across different benchmark suites.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from completely different architectural lineages. The AMD Radeon RX 590 GME uses the Polaris 20 chip built on GCN 4.0 architecture, a design that dates back to the Polaris generation within the RX 500 series. It is fabricated on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile uses the AD106 chip built on Ada Lovelace architecture, part of the GeForce 40 Mobile generation, and is fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. This process node difference is enormous: the RX 590 GME packs 5,700 million transistors into a 232 mm² die for a density of 24.6 million transistors per square millimeter, while the RTX 4070 Mobile crams 22,900 million transistors into a smaller 188 mm² die, achieving 121.8 million transistors per square millimeter.

The transistor density gap of roughly five times explains much of the performance difference. The RTX 4070 Mobile also introduces features entirely absent from the older AMD part. It includes 36 RT cores for hardware ray tracing and 144 tensor cores for AI acceleration. The RX 590 GME lists no RT cores or tensor cores at all. In API support, the RTX 4070 Mobile reaches DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the RX 590 GME tops out at DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. Both cards support OpenGL 4.6.

The bus interface also differs. The RX 590 GME uses PCIe 3.0 x16, while the RTX 4070 Mobile uses PCIe 4.0 x8. The newer PCIe 4.0 standard on a x8 link provides comparable bandwidth to the older x16 connection, but the architectural generation gap remains the dominant factor in the benchmark results. The RTX 4070 Mobile also lists power connectors as "None, indicating an integrated design, and its slot width is IGP (integrated graphics processor) rather than Dual-slot for the desktop card.

Specification Differences

The shading unit count is the single biggest specification difference. The RTX 4070 Mobile has 4,608 shading units, exactly double the 2,304 in the RX 590 GME. Both cards have 144 texture mapping units, so the TMU count is identical, but the RTX 4070 Mobile has 48 ROPs against 32 in the AMD part. The pixel rate reflects this: the RTX 4070 Mobile achieves 81.36 GPixel/s compared to 45.44 GPixel/s for the RX 590 GME. Texture rate is closer, with the RTX 4070 Mobile at 244.1 GTexel/s versus 204.5 GTexel/s.

FP32 compute is more than double: 15.62 TFLOPS for the RTX 4070 Mobile against 6.543 TFLOPS for the RX 590 GME. FP16 is also 15.62 TFLOPS (1:1) for the NVIDIA part versus 6.543 TFLOPS (1:1) for AMD. Both cards have 8 GB of memory, but the types differ: GDDR6 for the RTX 4070 Mobile and GDDR5 for the RX 590 GME. Memory bus width is 128 bit on the NVIDIA part versus 256 bit on the AMD part, yet bandwidth is identical at 256.0 GB/s because the GDDR6 runs at 16 Gbps effective versus 8 Gbps effective for GDDR5.

Clock speeds are higher on the RTX 4070 Mobile: base 1395 MHz and boost 1695 MHz against 1257 MHz base and 1420 MHz boost for the RX 590 GME. The power envelope is dramatically different, with the RTX 4070 Mobile rated at 115 W TDP against 175 W for the AMD card. The RX 590 GME requires a 450 W suggested PSU and a 1x 8-pin power connector, while the RTX 4070 Mobile lists no PSU suggestion and no power connectors. The RX 590 GME is a 241 mm (9.5 inches) dual-slot card, while the RTX 4070 Mobile is an integrated GPU with no separate dimensions. Production status differs as well: the RX 590 GME is end-of-life, while the RTX 4070 Mobile remains active. The RX 590 GME was released in 2020-03-03, and the RTX 4070 Mobile in 2023-01-02. The RTX 4070 Mobile has a wider API feature set, including DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus 12_0 and Vulkan 1.4 versus 1.3.

Where Each One Wins

The data shows only two head-to-head benchmarks, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile wins both. In OpenCL, the 66.8% lead points to workloads that stress raw compute and shading throughput, where the RTX 4070 Mobile's 4,608 shading units and 15.62 TFLOPS FP32 peak overwhelm the RX 590 GME's 2,304 units and 6.543 TFLOPS. In Vulkan compute, the 44.2% margin is also substantial, indicating that the RTX 4070 Mobile handles general-purpose GPU tasks far better than the older AMD card.

The RX 590 GME has no direct wins recorded in the database, so there is no benchmark category where the data proves AMD superiority in a direct comparison. Its higher average benchmark score of 32,601 versus 27,435 is the only metric where the AMD part leads, though the different test mix makes that number non-comparable to the NVIDIA card directly. The RTX 4070 Mobile's Passmark results show its strengths: a Passmark G3D score of 19,587, a GPU compute score of 8,399, DirectX 11 at 179, DirectX 12 at 85, and G2D at 763. The RX 4070 Mobile has no Passmark entries recorded in the database, so no Passmark comparison exists between the two.

The RTX 4070 Mobile's 36 RT cores give it a feature advantage for ray tracing workloads, a category entirely absent from the RX 590 GME's specifications. The 144 tensor cores add AI-focused compute capabilities that the AMD card lacks. For use cases involving modern DirectX 12 Ultimate titles, the RTX 4070 Mobile is the clear choice based on API support alone. The RX 590 GME's PCIe 3.0 x16 interface and older GCN 4.0 architecture place it firmly in an earlier era of graphics hardware.

The Verdict

The benchmark data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile is the substantially faster GPU in every head-to-head test recorded. Its 66.8% OpenCL lead and 44.2% Vulkan lead over the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME establish a performance hierarchy that no other metric in the database contradicts. The RTX 4070 Mobile also brings a modern feature set, including hardware ray tracing through 36 RT cores, 144 tensor cores, DirectX 12 Ultimate support, and Vulkan 1.4, all absent from the older AMD design.

The RX 590 GME does hold one notable distinction: its 77th percentile ranking versus the RTX 4070 Mobile's 73rd, and its higher average benchmark score of 32,601 against 27,435. But those figures reflect different benchmark suites recorded for each card, and they do not appear in the head-to-head comparisons where the NVIDIA part dominates. The RX 590 GME is an end-of-life product from 2020, built on a 14 nm process with 5,700 million transistors. The RTX 4070 Mobile is an active product from 2023, built on a 5 nm process with 22,900 million transistors.

Users who need maximum compute performance in OpenCL or Vulkan workloads should choose the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile without hesitation. The data shows it is roughly twice as fast in the most demanding shared test. Users who need a card that ranks highest in overall database percentile placement or average score across a mixed suite might look at the RX 590 GME, but those metrics do not survive direct comparison. The RTX 4070 Mobile wins every head-to-head benchmark, and it offers architectural features that the RX 590 GME cannot match at any level. The verdict is straightforward: the RTX 4070 Mobile is the superior GPU by every directly comparable measurement in the database.