AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark split between these two cards is overwhelmingly one-sided, but the single NVIDIA win is striking enough to define a very specific use case. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM wins only one of the nine recorded head-to-head tests, yet that win is by a massive margin. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 3050 OEM scores 60,740 against 17,428 for the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, a 248.5% advantage for NVIDIA. This is an enormous outlier in the dataset, and it suggests that the OpenCL workload in question favors the older architecture in ways that do not translate to any other measured discipline.

Every other recorded benchmark goes to the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT. The AMD card wins the remaining eight tests, covering Vulkan, DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12, 2D graphics, 3D graphics, and GPU compute. The margins range from a modest 13.3% in Geekbench Vulkan to a commanding 70.5% in Passmark DirectX 11. For the vast majority of modern rendering workloads, the RX 9070 XT is the clear choice. The RTX 3050 OEM retains a narrow niche in OpenCL compute tasks, where its score is more than three and a half times higher than the AMD card. Outside of that specific workload, the data shows no other area where the older NVIDIA part holds an advantage.

The average benchmark scores tell a similar story, though with a twist. The RTX 3050 OEM has an average benchmark score of 15,199, while the RX 9070 XT averages 13,543. This inversion is driven entirely by the OpenCL outlier. When that single test is excluded, the AMD card dominates the aggregate. The percentile rankings confirm the oddity: the RTX 3050 OEM sits at the 57th percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 9070 XT sits at the 55th percentile, despite winning eight of nine head-to-head tests. The OpenCL result inflates the NVIDIA average and pulls its percentile above the AMD card. Users should interpret the percentile field with caution here, as it is skewed by the unusual OpenCL outcome.

For gaming and general 3D rendering, the RX 9070 XT wins decisively. For OpenCL compute workloads that resemble the specific Geekbench OpenCL test, the RTX 3050 OEM is unexpectedly superior. The choice between these two cards depends almost entirely on whether the target application relies on OpenCL or on the broader set of DirectX and Vulkan APIs.

FAQ

Q: Which card wins more benchmarks overall?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT wins 8 of the 9 recorded head-to-head tests. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM wins only 1 test, the Geekbench OpenCL benchmark.

Q: How large is the NVIDIA win in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The RTX 3050 OEM scores 60,740 compared to 17,428 for the RX 9070 XT, a 248.5% difference. This is the largest margin in either direction across all recorded tests.

Q: What is the closest benchmark between the two cards?

A: The Geekbench Vulkan test is the closest result. The RX 9070 XT scores 65,879 against 57,103 for the RTX 3050 OEM, a 13.3% advantage for AMD.

Q: How do the cards compare in DirectX 12 performance?

A: The RX 9070 XT leads in Passmark DirectX 12 with a score of 78 against 58 for the RTX 3050 OEM, a 25.6% advantage for AMD.

Q: Which card has better GPU compute performance in Passmark?

A: The RX 9070 XT scores 15,864 in Passmark GPU Compute, compared to 5,779 for the RTX 3050 OEM, a 63.6% advantage for AMD.

Q: Do the average scores match the head-to-head results?

A: No. The RTX 3050 OEM has a higher average benchmark score of 15,199 versus 13,543 for the RX 9070 XT. This is due to the extreme OpenCL outlier favoring NVIDIA, which outweighs the AMD wins in the other eight tests.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different eras and different design philosophies. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM is built on the Ampere architecture using the GA106 chip, manufactured on Samsung's 8 nm process. The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT uses the RDNA 4.0 architecture with the Navi 48 chip, fabricated by TSMC on a 4 nm node. The process difference is substantial: 8 nm versus 4 nm, and the transistor counts reflect the generational leap. The RTX 3050 OEM packs 12,000 million transistors on a 276 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 43.5 million per mm². The RX 9070 XT contains 53,900 million transistors on a 357 mm² die, achieving a density of 151.0 million per mm². That is roughly 3.5 times the transistor density, a direct consequence of the smaller process node.

The compute resources differ dramatically. The RTX 3050 OEM has 2,304 shading units, 72 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output units. It also includes 18 ray tracing cores and 72 tensor cores, reflecting the Ampere generation's dual-purpose design for both ray tracing and AI acceleration. The RX 9070 XT has 4,096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 128 ROPs, with 64 ray tracing cores. Notably, the RDNA 4.0 card has no tensor core count listed in the database, indicating that AMD does not rely on dedicated tensor hardware in the same way NVIDIA does.

The memory subsystems are also from different generations. The RTX 3050 OEM uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 9070 XT doubles the capacity to 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, with 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. That is nearly three times the memory bandwidth, which matters for high-resolution textures and compute workloads that stream large datasets.

Clock behavior differs as well. The RTX 3050 OEM has a base clock of 1515 MHz and a boost clock of 1755 MHz. The RX 9070 XT has a base clock of 1660 MHz, a game clock of 2400 MHz, and a boost clock of 2970 MHz. The AMD card runs at significantly higher frequencies, which compounds its architectural advantages. The memory clock also differs: the RTX 3050 OEM runs at 1750 MHz with 14 Gbps effective, while the RX 9070 XT runs at 2518 MHz with 20.1 Gbps effective.

Both cards support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The display outputs differ: the RTX 3050 OEM has 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the RX 9070 XT has 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1a. The bus interfaces also differ, with the RTX 3050 OEM using PCIe 4.0 x8 and the RX 9070 XT using PCIe 5.0 x16.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ on nearly every major specification field. The process node is 8 nm for NVIDIA versus 4 nm for AMD. The foundry is Samsung for the RTX 3050 OEM and TSMC for the RX 9070 XT. Transistor count is 12,000 million versus 53,900 million. Die size is 276 mm² versus 357 mm². Transistor density is 43.5M per mm² versus 151.0M per mm².

Memory capacity is 8 GB versus 16 GB. Memory bus width is 128 bit versus 256 bit. Memory bandwidth is 224.0 GB/s versus 644.6 GB/s. Shading units are 2,304 versus 4,096. TMUs are 72 versus 256. ROPs are 32 versus 128. Ray tracing cores are 18 versus 64. The RTX 3050 OEM has 72 tensor cores, while the RX 9070 XT has no tensor core count listed.

Pixel rate is 56.16 GPixel/s for NVIDIA versus 380.2 GPixel/s for AMD. Texture rate is 126.4 GTexel/s versus 760.3 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 8.087 TFLOPS versus 48.66 TFLOPS. FP16 performance follows the same ratio at 8.087 TFLOPS versus 48.66 TFLOPS, both at 1:1.

Power requirements differ substantially. The RTX 3050 OEM has a TDP of 130 W, requires a single 8-pin power connector, and suggests a 300 W power supply. The RX 9070 XT has a TDP of 304 W, requires two 8-pin power connectors, and suggests a 700 W power supply. Both are dual-slot cards. The RTX 3050 OEM measures 242 mm in length and 112 mm in height, while the RX 9070 XT has no dimensions listed in the database.

The bus interface is PCIe 4.0 x8 for NVIDIA and PCIe 5.0 x16 for AMD. Production status is end-of-life for the RTX 3050 OEM and active for the RX 9070 XT. The release dates are January 3, 2022 for NVIDIA and March 5, 2025 for AMD. The RTX 3050 OEM has no launch MSRP listed, while the RX 9070 XT has a launch MSRP of 599 USD.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The Geekbench OpenCL result is the defining outlier of this comparison. The RTX 3050 OEM scores 60,740, which is 248.5% higher than the RX 9070 XT's 17,428. This is the only test where NVIDIA wins, and it does so by the largest margin in the entire dataset. No other benchmark comes close to this gap. The result is curious because the RX 9070 XT has significantly higher raw compute specifications, including 48.66 TFLOPS of FP32 performance versus 8.087 TFLOPS for the RTX 3050 OEM. The OpenCL workload apparently does not scale with the AMD architecture in the same way it does with NVIDIA's Ampere design.

The Geekbench Vulkan result is the closest contest. The RX 9070 XT scores 65,879 against 57,103 for the RTX 3050 OEM, a 13.3% advantage. This is the only test where the AMD card wins by less than 25%. It suggests that the Vulkan workload is more balanced between the two architectures, though the newer AMD card still comes out ahead.

The Passmark DirectX suite shows consistent AMD dominance. In DirectX 9, the RX 9070 XT scores 353 versus 137, a 61.2% advantage. In DirectX 10, the score is 154 versus 61, a 60.4% advantage. In DirectX 11, the margin grows to 70.5% with scores of 292 and 86. In DirectX 12, the gap narrows to 25.6% with scores of 78 and 58. The DirectX 12 result is the smallest AMD win in the Passmark suite, though still a clear victory.

The 2D and 3D graphics tests follow the same pattern. In Passmark G2D, the RX 9070 XT scores 1,328 versus 973, a 26.7% advantage. In Passmark G3D, the RX 9070 XT scores 26,795 versus 11,857, a 55.7% advantage. The G3D result is particularly telling, as it represents the broad 3D rendering performance that matters most for gaming and graphics workloads.

The GPU compute test completes the picture. The RX 9070 XT scores 15,864 versus 5,779 for the RTX 3050 OEM, a 63.6% advantage. This is a substantial margin, though it stands in sharp contrast to the Geekbench OpenCL result, where the RTX 3050 OEM dominates. The two compute tests measure different things, and the results indicate that the RX 9070 XT excels in the Passmark compute workload while the RTX 3050 OEM excels in the Geekbench OpenCL workload.

The overall pattern is clear. The RX 9070 XT wins 8 of 9 tests, with margins ranging from 13.3% to 70.5%. The RTX 3050 OEM wins 1 test by 248.5%. The average benchmark scores and percentile rankings are skewed by that single outlier, but the head-to-head data leaves no doubt about which card performs better across the broader set of workloads. The RX 9070 XT is the superior card for DirectX, Vulkan, 2D, 3D, and Passmark compute tasks. The RTX 3050 OEM is the superior card specifically for the Geekbench OpenCL benchmark, and only that benchmark.