AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT beats the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 in 9 of 10 recorded benchmarks, and in most of them it is not close. The recorded data shows the newer RDNA 3.0 card delivering anywhere from a modest single-digit edge in legacy DirectX 10 to more than double the score in modern DirectX 12 and GPU compute workloads. The RTX 2070's single win comes in Geekbench Vulkan, where it leads by a substantial margin, but that outlier does not change the overall picture: this is a decisive generational victory for the RX 7700 XT, tempered only by its higher power draw and the RTX 2070's wider memory bus.

FAQ

Q: Is the RX 7700 XT faster than the RTX 2070 overall?

A: Yes, decisively. The RX 7700 XT wins 9 of 10 head-to-head benchmarks and holds an average benchmark score of 22549 versus 18789 for the RTX 2070. It sits in the 67th percentile of all GPUs in the database, while the RTX 2070 sits in the 63rd.

Q: Where does the RTX 2070 win?

A: Only in Geekbench Vulkan, where it scores 82521 against the RX 7700 XT's 46443, a lead of 43.7 percent. It loses every other recorded test.

Q: How big is the RX 7700 XT's lead in modern gaming tests?

A: In 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12) the RX 7700 XT scores 3316 versus 1569, a 111.3 percent advantage. In PassMark G3D it leads 22547 to 16094, a 40.1 percent gap.

Q: Which card uses less power?

A: The RTX 2070, with a TDP of 175 W and a single 8-pin connector, versus 245 W and two 8-pin connectors for the RX 7700 XT. The suggested PSU is 450 W for the RTX 2070 and 550 W for the RX 7700 XT.

Q: How much memory does each card have?

A: The RX 7700 XT has 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus with 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 2070 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, so the older card actually has slightly more raw bandwidth despite less capacity.

Q: Are both cards still in production?

A: No. The RX 7700 XT is listed as Active, while the RTX 2070 is End-of-life. The RTX 2070 launched on October 16, 2018; the RX 7700 XT launched on September 5, 2023.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 7700 XT owns nearly every meaningful category in the recorded data. For modern rasterization-heavy gaming, its 3DMark Steel Nomad result of 3316 versus 1569 is the headline number: a 111.3 percent advantage in a DirectX 12 test that reflects contemporary game engines. Legacy DirectX 11 gaming also tilts heavily toward AMD, with PassMark DX11 scores of 232 versus 129, a 79.8 percent gap. Even in the oldest API tested, DirectX 9, the RX 7700 XT leads 294 to 211 (39.3 percent), and in DirectX 10 it edges ahead 119 to 111 (7.2 percent). Older titles run faster on the newer card, just by a narrower margin.

Compute work is equally one-sided. Geekbench OpenCL scores 138383 for the RX 7700 XT against 79966 for the RTX 2070, a 73.1 percent advantage, and PassMark GPU Compute more than doubles the older card's result at 12912 versus 6411, a 101.4 percent lead. Two-dimensional performance follows the same pattern, with PassMark G2D at 1161 versus 819, a 41.8 percent gap.

The RTX 2070's lone territory is the Vulkan API path in Geekbench, where it scores 82521 against 46443. That 43.7 percent win is genuine and repeatable in the recorded data, so workloads built specifically around Vulkan on this benchmark suite favor the Turing card. It is also the more power-efficient card on paper, drawing 175 W versus 245 W, and it is physically smaller at 229 mm long versus 267 mm. Its 256-bit bus delivers marginally higher memory bandwidth, 448.0 GB/s versus 432.0 GB/s, though from a smaller 8 GB pool.

Architecture Differences

These cards sit two architectural generations and one process-node leap apart. The RX 7700 XT is built on TSMC's 5 nm process using the Navi 32 chip under the RDNA 3.0 architecture, codenamed "Wheat Nas," part of the Radeon RX 7000 series and the Navi III generation. The RTX 2070 uses the TU106 chip on TSMC's 12 nm process under the Turing architecture, part of the GeForce 20 series.

The process advantage translates directly into density. The RX 7700 XT packs 28,100 million transistors into a 346 mm² die, a density of 81.2M transistors per mm². The RTX 2070 carries 10,800 million transistors across a larger 445 mm² die at 24.3M per mm². The newer card delivers more than 2.5 times the transistor count on a smaller piece of silicon, and that scale advantage is what shows up as doubled compute throughput.

The feature sets diverge in kind, not just degree. The RTX 2070 includes 288 tensor cores alongside its 36 RT cores; the RX 7700 XT lists no tensor cores and instead fields 54 RT cores. In raw shading hardware the RX 7700 XT has 3456 shading units, 216 TMUs and 96 ROPs, versus 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs and 64 ROPs for the RTX 2070. Clock behavior also differs sharply: the RDNA 3.0 card boosts to 2544 MHz with a 2171 MHz game clock, while the Turing card tops out at a 1620 MHz boost, with base clocks nearly identical at 1435 MHz versus 1410 MHz. Memory runs at 18 Gbps effective on the RX 7700 XT versus 14 Gbps effective on the RTX 2070.

Both cards support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, so the API support surface is identical in the database. The bus differs: PCIe 4.0 x16 for the RX 7700 XT versus PCIe 3.0 x16 for the RTX 2070.

Specification Differences

The fields where the two cards differ, per the database:

• Process node: 5 nm (RX 7700 XT) versus 12 nm (RTX 2070)
• Transistors: 28,100 million versus 10,800 million
• Die size: 346 mm² versus 445 mm²
• Shading units: 3456 versus 2304
• TMUs: 216 versus 144
• ROPs: 96 versus 64
• RT cores: 54 versus 36
• Tensor cores: none listed versus 288
• Boost clock: 2544 MHz versus 1620 MHz; game clock 2171 MHz versus not listed
• Memory: 12 GB on a 192-bit bus at 432.0 GB/s versus 8 GB on a 256-bit bus at 448.0 GB/s
• Pixel rate: 244.2 GPixel/s versus 103.7 GPixel/s
• Texture rate: 549.5 GTexel/s versus 233.3 GTexel/s
• FP32: 35.17 TFLOPS versus 7.465 TFLOPS; FP16 runs 1:1 on AMD at 35.17 TFLOPS versus 2:1 on NVIDIA at 14.93 TFLOPS
• TDP: 245 W versus 175 W; power connectors 2x 8-pin versus 1x 8-pin; suggested PSU 550 W versus 450 W
• Bus interface: PCIe 4.0 x16 versus PCIe 3.0 x16
• Display outputs: 1x HDMI 2.1a, 2x DisplayPort 2.1, 1x USB Type-C versus 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, 2x DisplayPort 1.4a, 1x USB Type-C
• Dimensions: 267 x 135 x 50 mm versus 229 x 113 x 35 mm
• Status: Active versus End-of-life
• Launch MSRP: 449 USD versus 499 USD

Both are dual-slot cards with GDDR6 memory, TSMC fabrication, and identical DirectX, OpenGL and Vulkan API support.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The RX 7700 XT's biggest wins come where it matters most. In 3DMark Steel Nomad, the flagship DirectX 12 test in this comparison, the score is 3316 to 1569, an 111.3 percent advantage that signals more than double the performance in modern game rendering. PassMark GPU Compute shows the same doubling: 12912 versus 6411, a 101.4 percent lead for AMD.

The middle tier of results is still lopsided. Geekbench OpenCL goes to AMD 138383 to 79966, up 73.1 percent. PassMark DirectX 11 favors the RX 7700 XT 232 to 129, up 79.8 percent. PassMark G3D, the general 3D graphics score, lands at 22547 versus 16094, a 40.1 percent gap, and PassMark G2D reads 1161 versus 819, up 41.8 percent. DirectX 9 goes to AMD 294 to 211, up 39.3 percent, and DirectX 12 favors AMD 79 to 60, up 31.7 percent. The closest result of the nine AMD wins is PassMark DirectX 10, 119 to 111, a 7.2 percent edge that shows legacy API overhead narrowing, but never erasing, the gap.

NVIDIA's win is the Vulkan outlier: 82521 to 46443 in Geekbench Vulkan, a 43.7 percent lead for the RTX 2070. That is the only recorded test where the Turing card finishes ahead, and it stands out precisely because every other API path in the suite favors the RDNA 3.0 card. The final tally is 9 wins to 1.

The Verdict

The data makes this a clear call for almost everyone. Gamers targeting modern DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 titles should pick the RX 7700 XT: a 111.3 percent advantage in Steel Nomad, roughly 80 percent in DX11, and 12 GB of memory against 8 GB all point the same direction. Compute users get an even stronger signal, with OpenCL up 73.1 percent and PassMark GPU Compute up 101.4 percent. The RX 7700 XT also carries a higher database percentile, 67 versus 63, and trades blows with far newer rivals such as the RTX 5060 Mobile (within 0.5 percent) and RTX 4060 Mobile (within 0.8 percent), while the RTX 2070's nearest rivals include the Tesla K80 and RTX 2000 Ada Generation.

The RTX 2070 case is narrow but real. If a workload maps specifically to Vulkan on Geekbench, it wins by 43.7 percent. If power or physical constraints dominate, it draws 245 W less the difference, at 175 W TDP, needs a single 8-pin connector against two, fits a 450 W PSU instead of 550 W, and is shorter at 229 mm versus 267 mm. Its 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth on a 256-bit bus marginally exceeds the RX 7700 XT's 432.0 GB/s, though from 8 GB rather than 12 GB of memory. On raw benchmark evidence, 9 wins to 1 settles it: the RX 7700 XT is the stronger card for gaming and compute, and the RTX 2070 survives only on efficiency, size, and one Vulkan result.