AMD Radeon RX 6800S vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile Comparison

# NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile vs AMD Radeon RX 6800S

The mobile GPU segment presents a direct confrontation between NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace architecture and AMD's RDNA 2.0 design. The RTX 4070 Mobile, built on the AD106 chip at TSMC's 5 nm process, faces the RX 6800S, a Navi 23 part manufactured on a 7 nm node. Both target high-performance laptops, yet the data shows a consistent and often substantial performance advantage for the NVIDIA part across every recorded benchmark.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head comparison is decisive. Across nine separate benchmark tests, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile wins all nine matchups. The largest margin comes in the compute-oriented tests. In passmark_gpu_compute, the RTX 4070 Mobile scores 8399 against the RX 6800S's 6144, a 36.7% advantage. This indicates a significant lead in general-purpose GPU compute workloads, where the NVIDIA part's driver and architecture extract more usable throughput.

The gap closes somewhat in synthetic 3D graphics. In passmark_g3d, the RTX 4070 Mobile scores 19587 versus 15908 for the RX 6800S, a 23.1% difference. The DirectX 10 and 11 tests show similar margins: 27.5% in DX10 (116 vs 91) and 28.8% in DX11 (179 vs 139). These consistent results suggest the NVIDIA part maintains a structural advantage in fixed-function geometry processing.

The OpenCL and Vulkan compute results show the same pattern. The NVIDIA card wins geekbench_opencl by 49.2% (109197 vs 73202) and geekbench_vulkan by 33.3% (108367 vs 81272). These are the largest deltas in the entire comparison, indicating the RTX 4070 Mobile's advantage is most pronounced in heterogeneous compute workloads.

Even the 2D test shows a win. In passmark_g2d, the RTX 4070 Mobile scores 7958, a 4.2% lead over the RX 6800S. The DirectX 9 legacy test shows an 11.5% advantage (260 vs 233), while DirectX 10 and 12 tests show 27.5% and 30.8% leads respectively. The 12_2 test, notably, shows the largest graphics API delta at 30.8%, with the NVIDIA part scoring 92 against AMD's 65.

The AMD Radeon RX 6800S wins zero tests. The NVIDIA part is always faster, but the gap varies: it is smallest in 2D tasks and legacy DX9, and widens considerably in compute and modern API workloads.

FAQ

Q: What is the average benchmark score of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile?

A: The database shows an average benchmark score of 27435 for the RTX 4070 Mobile. This places it at the 73rd percentile among all tested GPUs.

Q: How does the AMD Radeon RX 6800S compare to the RTX 4070 Mobile in OpenCL?

A: In the geekbench_opencl test, the RTX 4070 Mobile scores 109197, while the RX 6800S scores 73202. This is a 49.2% advantage for the NVIDIA part.

Q: Which GPU wins in the passmark_directx_11 test?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile leads with a score of 179 versus 139 for the AMD Radeon RX 6800S, a 28.8% difference.

Q: Does the RX 6800S win any benchmark against the RTX 4070 Mobile?

A: No. The recorded head-to-head results show zero benchmark wins for the AMD Radeon RX 6800S. The NVIDIA GPU wins all nine tests, with margins ranging from 4.2% in passmark_g2d to 49.2% in geekbench_opencl.

Q: What is the transistor density difference between these two GPUs?

A: The RTX 4070 Mobile (AD106) packs 22,900 million transistors on a 188 mm² die, giving a density of 121.8 million transistors per square mm. The RX 6800S (Navi 23) has 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die, a density of 46.7M per square mm. The NVIDIA chip is built on TSMC's 5nm process, while the AMD chip uses 7nm.

Q: Are these cards using the same PCIe interface?

A: Yes, both are listed as PCIe 4.0 x8 with an integrated GPU (IGP) slot width. Neither requires external power connectors.

Q: What is the DirectX feature level support?

A: The RTX 4070 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the RX 6800S supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2). Both list OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4 API support.

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark wins are a clean sweep for NVIDIA, but the margin reveals where the architecture matters most.

Compute and General-Purpose Workloads: The largest wins are in GPGPU compute. The RTX 4070 Mobile wins geekbench_opencl by 49.2% and geekbench_vulkan by 33.3%. The passmark_gpu_compute test also shows a 36.7% lead. The presence of 144 tensor cores in the AD106 and their absence in the Navi 23 is the clearest explanation: the NVIDIA chip has dedicated hardware for AI and compute tasks.

Modern DirectX 12 and 11: The DirectX 12 test (30.8% lead) and DirectX 11 (28.8% lead) show the NVIDIA card's better geometry throughput in the latest Microsoft API. The RX 6800S has a 12_2 feature level too, but NVIDIA's implementation runs the same code faster.

Legacy DirectX 9 and 2D: The smallest win, at 4.2% in passmark_g2d, is still a win. DirectX 9 shows a 11.5% gap. This shows that even in older and lighter loads, the RTX 4070 Mobile has a base clock advantage (1395 MHz vs 1800 MHz) and can still translate it to a small but measurable performance lead.

The only loss column: None. The AMD Radeon RX 6800S does not win any of the 9 comparisons in the database. This result indicates a consistent, architecture-level performance advantage for the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace design in this mobile GPU comparison.

Specification Differences

The two mobile GPUs differ in almost every fundamental manufacturing and architecture parameter.

Process and Die: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile is built on TSMC's 5 nm process (AD106). The package integrates 22,900 million transistors on a 188 mm² die. The AMD Radeon RX 6800S uses TSMC's 7 nm process with 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die. The density numbers show the difference: 121.8 million transistors per mm2 for the NVIDIA chip versus 46.7 million per mm2 for the AMD chip.

Memory: Both use 8 GB of memory. The RTX 4070 Mobile uses GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, achieving 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 6800S also uses GDDR6, also 128-bit, but its effective bandwidth is 256.0 GB/s. The clock speeds are different: the NVIDIA memory runs at 2000 MHz, the AMD memory at 2000 MHz.

Compute: The RTX 4070 Mobile has 4608 shading units, 144 tensor cores, 36 RT (ray tracing) cores, and 48 ROPs. The RX 6800S has 2048 stream processors, 128 texture mapping units, 64 ROPs, and no dedicated ray tracing or tensor hardware. The shading unit counts indicate a different design: NVIDIA uses many small cores, AMD uses a smaller number of wide vector units.

Clock Speeds: The RTX 4070 Mobile's base clock is 1395 MHz with a 1695 MHz boost. The RX 6800S runs at a much higher 1800 MHz base and 2100 MHz boost, with a 1975 MHz game clock. The AMD part has memory at 2000 MHz with 16 Gbps effective.

API and Outputs: Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. Both are portable-device dependent for display output. The NVIDIA has a TDP of 115 W, the AMD is rated at 100 W. Both are IGP (integrated) and no external power connectors required.

Architecture Differences

The architecture gap is the core explanation for the benchmark results.

NVIDIA uses the Ada Lovelace design with dedicated RT cores and tensor cores. The 36 RT cores handle ray tracing workloads, while the 144 tensor cores provide the large compute lead in AI and compute applications. This is why the OpenCL and Vulkan tests show the biggest margins: these cores directly accelerate the workloads.

AMD's RDNA 2.0 architecture is a pure rasterizing design. The 32 RT cores are not paired with dedicated tensor or ray tracing hardware. In compute tasks, the GPU relies entirely on the shader units. The 2048 shading units at a higher 1800 MHz boost clock are competitive in raw fill-rate tasks, but in the compute tests the NVIDIA's dedicated hardware and a 1695 MHz boost clock produce a lead.

The lack of RT cores also means the NVIDIA has a hardware advantage in any future ray tracing workload. The 36 RT cores in the AD106 process hardware BVH traversal, a feature the Navi 23 does not have at all.

The transistor density difference, 121.8M versus 46.7M, is a direct result of the process node difference: 5 nm versus 7 nm. TSMC's 5 nm process allows nearly three times the density, and this allows NVIDIA to pack the tensor cores and RT cores, which are the source of the largest benchmark wins.

In fixed-function throughput, the gap narrows. The pixel rate is 134.4 GPixel/s for the RTX 4070 and the same for the RX 6800S. Texture rate is similar, 268.8 GTexel/s for the NVIDIA card. The two are evenly matched in pure rasterization, where the AMD's 2100 MHz boost closes the gap.

The recorded data presents the RTX 4070 Mobile as the faster part in every test category, with the largest margins in compute and modern API performance. The RX 6800S has a higher clock, but the RTX 4070's more modern architecture and dedicated compute cores give it a decisive, consistent lead.