AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Comparison

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER records an average benchmark score of 43223, while the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 trails at 37507. That is a difference of roughly 15% in favor of the NVIDIA card.

Q: How do the two cards compare in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test?

A: The RTX 4070 SUPER scores 4627, versus 1501 for the RX Vega 56. The NVIDIA card leads by 208.3% in this head-to-head comparison.

Q: What is the transistor count and process node for each?

A: The RTX 4070 SUPER uses 35,800 million transistors on a 5 nm TSMC process, while the RX Vega 56 uses 12,500 million transistors on a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process.

Q: Do both cards support ray tracing?

A: No. The RTX 4070 SUPER includes 56 dedicated ray tracing cores, while the RX Vega 56 has no ray tracing cores listed in the database.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The RTX 4070 SUPER has 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 192-bit bus with 504.2 GB/s bandwidth. The RX Vega 56 has 8 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus with 409.6 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card is newer?

A: The RTX 4070 SUPER was released on 2024-01-16, while the RX Vega 56 was released on 2017-08-13. Both are now marked as end-of-life in the database.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different architectural generations and design philosophies. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using the AD104 chip, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It packs 35,800 million transistors into a 294 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 121.8 million transistors per square millimeter. The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 uses the older GCN 5.0 architecture with the Vega 10 chip, produced on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. It contains 12,500 million transistors spread across a much larger 495 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of only 25.3 million per square millimeter.

The feature sets diverge sharply. The RTX 4070 SUPER includes 56 ray tracing cores and 224 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-based workloads. The RX Vega 56 has neither ray tracing cores nor tensor cores. This is a fundamental capability gap, not just a performance gap.

The compute resources also differ. The RTX 4070 SUPER has 7168 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 80 render output units. The RX Vega 56 has 3584 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units. The shading unit count is exactly double on the NVIDIA card, while the TMU count is identical at 224.

API support shows a similar split. The RTX 4070 SUPER supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the RX Vega 56 supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3. Both cards list OpenGL 4.6 support.

The power delivery and connectivity also reflect their eras. The RTX 4070 SUPER uses a single 16-pin power connector with a 220 W TDP, while the RX Vega 56 requires two 8-pin connectors with a 210 W TDP. Both recommend a 550 W power supply. The RTX 4070 SUPER runs on PCIe 4.0 x16, whereas the RX Vega 56 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. The NVIDIA card has a 5 nm process advantage that allows higher clock speeds and greater efficiency within a similar power envelope.

Where Each One Wins

The recorded data shows a clear overall winner, but the RX Vega 56 has its own areas of relevance. The RTX 4070 SUPER wins the only direct head-to-head benchmark recorded, the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, by a decisive margin. It also produces substantially higher scores in compute-oriented workloads: its Passmark GPU Compute score is 17108, and its Geekbench OpenCL score reaches 172795. The RX Vega 56 does not have comparable compute entries in the database beyond a Geekbench Metal score of 73512, which cannot be directly matched to the NVIDIA card's OpenCL result.

For legacy DirectX performance, the RTX 4070 SUPER shows strong results across the board: Passmark DirectX 9 at 344, DirectX 11 at 273, DirectX 10 at 167, and DirectX 12 at 110. The RX Vega 56 has no recorded Passmark DirectX entries in the database, so the NVIDIA card's dominance in those legacy tests is unopposed.

Where the RX Vega 56 retains a niche is in its HBM2 memory architecture. The 2048-bit memory bus is far wider than the 192-bit bus on the RTX 4070 SUPER, and it still delivers 409.6 GB/s of bandwidth against 504.2 GB/s for the newer card. That bandwidth figure is closer than the compute gap, and for memory-bound legacy workloads, the Vega architecture's wide bus can remain relevant. The RX Vega 56 also carries a lower launch MSRP of 399 USD (the RTX 4060 SUPER's launch MSRP is 599 USD, stated once here for reference).

The percentile rankings tell the story of overall positioning. The RTX 4070 SUPER sits at the 83rd percentile among all GPUs, while the RX Vega 56 sits at the 81st percentile. Despite being seven years older, the Vega card is not far off in percentile placement, which speaks to how competitive the Vega architecture was at its debut.

Specification Differences

The specification tables show several fields where the two cards differ. The RTX 4070 SUPER has double the shading units (7168 vs 3584) and more ROPs (80 vs 64). The RTX 4070 SUPER has 56 ray tracing cores and 224 tensor cores, while the RX Vega 56 has none of either. The TMU count is identical at 224 for both cards.

Clock speeds favor the NVIDIA card substantially. The RTX 4070 SUPER has a base clock of 1980 MHz and a boost clock of 2475 MHz, versus 1156 MHz base and 1471 MHz boost for the RX Vega 56. Memory clocks also differ: 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective) for the RTX 4070 SUPER versus 800 MHz (1600 Mbps effective) for the RX Vega 56.

The memory subsystems diverge in every field. The RTX 4070 SUPER has 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 192-bit bus with 504.2 GB/s bandwidth. The RX Vega 56 has 8 GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit bus with 409.6 GB/s bandwidth. The Vega card's bus width is over ten times wider, but the newer memory technology on the NVIDIA card still delivers higher total bandwidth.

Rasterization rates differ accordingly. The RTX 4070 SUPER achieves 198.0 GPixel/s and 554.4 GTexel/s. The RX Vega 56 achieves 94.14 GPixel/s and 329.5 GTexel/s. Both of those figures are roughly half or less on the AMD card.

Compute throughput shows a similar pattern. The RTX 4070 SUPER delivers 35.48 TFLOPS FP32 and 35.48 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1 ratio). The RX Vega 56 delivers 10.54 TFLOPS FP32 and 21.09 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 ratio). The NVIDIA card more than triples the FP32 throughput.

Physical dimensions and display outputs differ modestly. The RTX 4070 SUPER measures 267 mm long, 112 mm high, and 42 mm wide. The RX Vega 56 measures 280 mm long, 111 mm high, and 40 mm wide. Both are dual-slot cards. The RTX 4070 SUPER has 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, while the RX Vega 56 has 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The power connectors differ: 1x 16-pin for NVIDIA, 2x 8-pin for AMD.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only directly comparable benchmark in the database is 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, and it is a rout. The RTX 4070 SUPER scores 4627 while the RX Vega 56 scores 1501. That is a delta of 208.3% in favor of the NVIDIA card. In practical terms, the RTX 4070 SUPER delivers more than three times the performance of the RX Vega 56 in this modern DX12 workload. This is not a close contest; it is a generational gap made worse by architectural differences.

Beyond the head-to-head, the average benchmark scores reinforce the same conclusion. The RTX 4070 SUPER averages 43223 across its recorded benchmarks, which places it at the 83rd percentile among all GPUs. The RX Vega 56 averages 37507 and sits at the 81st percentile. The 15% average score gap is smaller than the Steel Nomad gap, which suggests the RX Vega 56 performs relatively better in some older or compute-oriented workloads that contribute to its average, but it still loses overall.

The nearest rivals listed for each card add context. The RTX 4070 SUPER's nearest competitors are the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 24 GB (43262 average, -0.1% delta), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile (43268, -0.1%), the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 (43301, -0.2%), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile (43667, -1%). The RX Vega 56's nearest competitors are the NVIDIA Tesla P4 (37628, -0.3%), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (37648, -0.4%), the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 (37157, +0.9%), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (38135, -1.6%). Interestingly, the desktop RTX 4070 non-SUPER is a near neighbor to the RX Vega 56 in average score, while the RTX 4070 SUPER sits far above both.

The Passmark results for the RTX 4070 SUPER show consistent strength: G3D at 29995, GPU Compute at 17108, G2D at 1184, DirectX 9 at 344, DirectX 11 at 273, DirectX 10 at 167, and DirectX 12 at 110. The Geekbench scores for the NVIDIA card are also strong, with Vulkan at 205624 and OpenCL at 172795. The RX Vega 56 has only two recorded benchmark entries: 3DMark Steel Nomad at 1501 and Geekbench Metal at 73512. The absence of matching benchmark entries for the AMD card limits direct comparison, but where the data overlaps, the RTX 4070 SUPER wins decisively.

The Verdict

The data supports only one primary recommendation for modern gaming and compute workloads: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER. It wins the sole head-to-head benchmark by 208.3%, has a higher average benchmark score (43223 vs 37507), and offers capabilities the RX Vega 56 simply lacks, including ray tracing cores, tensor cores, and DirectX 12 Ultimate support. The 5 nm process node, 35.48 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, and 12 GB GDDR6X memory make it the more future-proof choice for current and upcoming titles.

The RX Vega 56 is best suited for users with legacy workloads that favor its wide 2048-bit HBM2 memory bus, or for those who already own one and are not ready to upgrade. Its 81st percentile placement shows it remains a capable card for its age, but its 14 nm process, 10.54 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, and lack of ray tracing hardware place it firmly behind the RTX 4070 SUPER in every recorded comparison. For anyone choosing between these two today, the RTX 4070 SUPER is the clear pick based on benchmark data alone.