NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile is decisively superior to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780, winning both head-to-head benchmarks by overwhelming margins. The RTX 3070 Mobile leads by 306.5% in Geekbench OpenCL and by 254% in Geekbench Vulkan, making it the clear choice for any modern workload. While the GTX 780 holds a slight edge in overall percentile ranking (64th vs. 65th is effectively a tie), its older Kepler architecture and lower raw compute power place it firmly in a previous performance generation.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The data from the two shared benchmark tests leaves no ambiguity about the performance gap. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 3070 Mobile scores 92,939 points against the GTX 780's 22,863 points. This represents a delta of 306.5% in favor of the mobile part, meaning the RTX 3070 Mobile delivers roughly four times the compute performance in this test. The gap is stark and speaks to the fundamental architectural and process-node advantages of the newer GPU.

The Geekbench Vulkan test shows a similar, though slightly less extreme, pattern. The RTX 3070 Mobile posts 86,768 points, while the GTX 780 manages 24,514 points. The delta here is 254% in favor of the RTX 3070 Mobile. Vulkan is a lower-level API that can often narrow gaps between architectures, but even here, the RTX 3070 Mobile's modern design wins by a factor of more than 3.5. These results indicate that the RTX 3070 Mobile is not just faster in raw compute (OpenCL), but also in real-world gaming and graphics workloads that leverage Vulkan.

Looking at the broader benchmark averages, the RTX 3070 Mobile holds an average score of 20,534 across all its tested workloads, while the GTX 780 averages 19,164. This is a 7.1% advantage for the RTX 3070 Mobile in aggregate performance. However, the head-to-head data shows the margin is much larger in the tests both cards share. The average scores are pulled closer by the GTX 780's inclusion of a Geekbench Metal score (10,114), a test the RTX 3070 Mobile does not have, which drags its average down. Based on the shared tests, the RTX 3070 Mobile is the unequivocal winner with 2 wins and 0 losses.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in the Geekbench OpenCL benchmark?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile is significantly faster, scoring 92,939 points compared to the GTX 780's 22,863 points, a 306.5% lead.

Q: Does the GTX 780 win any shared benchmark against the RTX 3070 Mobile?

A: No. In the two head-to-head tests (Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan), the RTX 3070 Mobile wins both. The GTX 780 has zero wins in the comparison.

Q: How do their average benchmark scores compare?

A: The RTX 3070 Mobile has a higher average benchmark score of 20,534, while the GTX 780 averages 19,164. However, this gap is narrower than the head-to-head results due to the GTX 780 having a Geekbench Metal score that the RTX 3070 Mobile lacks.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The RTX 3070 Mobile has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth. The GTX 780 has 3 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus with 288.4 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Is the RTX 3070 Mobile a desktop or mobile part?

A: It is a mobile GPU, as indicated by its name and its "GeForce 30 Mobile" generation. The GTX 780 is a desktop card, evidenced by its dual-slot design and power connectors.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is immense, spanning two distinct generations of NVIDIA design. The RTX 3070 Mobile is built on the Ampere architecture using the GA104 chip, fabricated on an 8 nm process by Samsung. This is a massive leap from the GTX 780, which uses the Kepler architecture on the GK110 chip, fabricated on a 28 nm process by TSMC. The process node difference alone allows the RTX 3070 Mobile to pack 17,400 million transistors into a 392 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 44.4M per mm². In contrast, the GTX 780 has 7,080 million transistors on a much larger 561 mm² die, with a density of just 12.6M per mm².

The RTX 3070 Mobile's feature set is fundamentally more advanced. It includes 40 dedicated ray tracing cores and 160 tensor cores, features that are entirely absent from the GTX 780, which has null values for both. This means the RTX 3070 Mobile is capable of hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-driven tasks like DLSS, while the GTX 780 cannot. The RTX 3070 Mobile also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), whereas the GTX 780 is limited to DirectX 12 (11_0). Both cards support OpenGL 4.6, but the RTX 3070 Mobile supports Vulkan 1.4, while the GTX 780 is limited to Vulkan 1.2.175.

The shading and compute resources also reflect the generational leap. The RTX 3070 Mobile has 5,120 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, compared to the GTX 780's 2,304 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. While the GTX 780 has more TMUs, the RTX 3070 Mobile's much higher clock speeds and shader count lead to its superior performance. This is confirmed by the pixel rate (124.8 GPixel/s vs. 43.30 GPixel/s) and texture rate (249.6 GTexel/s vs. 173.2 GTexel/s) figures.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every core specification, reflecting their different market positions and release eras. The RTX 3070 Mobile has a base clock of 1110 MHz and a boost clock of 1560 MHz, while the GTX 780 runs at a base of 863 MHz and a boost of 902 MHz. Memory speeds also differ, with the RTX 3070 Mobile using 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) GDDR6, versus the GTX 780's 1502 MHz (6 Gbps effective) GDDR5.

The TDP is a major differentiator, with the RTX 3070 Mobile rated at 115 W and the GTX 780 at 250 W. This makes the mobile part significantly more power-efficient, a critical factor for its intended use. The GTX 780 requires a 600 W suggested PSU and has 1x 6-pin and 1x 8-pin power connectors, while the RTX 3070 Mobile uses no power connectors, as it is portable device dependent. The bus interface also differs: the RTX 3070 Mobile uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the GTX 780 uses PCIe 3.0 x16.

The GTX 780 has a dual-slot design with dimensions of 267 mm in length, 111 mm in height, and 38 mm in width, and features display outputs of 2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 1x DisplayPort 1.2. The RTX 3070 Mobile's display outputs are simply listed as "Portable Device Dependent." The GTX 780 has a launch MSRP of 649 USD, a figure that reflects its desktop flagship status at release, while the RTX 3070 Mobile has no launch MSRP listed.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile is the superior GPU. Its 306.5% lead in OpenCL and 254% lead in Vulkan over the GTX 780 are not incremental improvements; they represent a generational shift in performance. The RTX 3070 Mobile should be the choice for anyone prioritizing modern compute performance, hardware ray tracing, and AI features. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory also provides a significant capacity and bandwidth advantage over the GTX 780's 3 GB of GDDR5, making it better suited for modern high-resolution textures and demanding workloads.

The GTX 780, despite its higher launch MSRP and desktop-class power draw, is a legacy part. Its performance, while once flagship-level, is now firmly in the entry-level or mid-range tier. Its only advantage is its 64th percentile ranking versus the RTX 3070 Mobile's 65th, which is practically a tie. However, this does not translate to wins in any shared benchmark. For a user with a GTX 780, the RTX 3070 Mobile represents a massive upgrade in every measurable metric.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 3070 Mobile wins in every scenario where both GPUs are tested. It is the clear victor in compute-heavy tasks like OpenCL and in modern graphics APIs like Vulkan. Its higher FP32 performance (15.97 TFLOPS vs. 4.156 TFLOPS) makes it vastly better for general-purpose GPU compute, content creation, and any workload that leverages CUDA cores. The presence of tensor cores gives it a unique edge in AI-accelerated applications and features like DLSS, which the GTX 780 cannot use.

The GTX 780's only area of "win" is not a performance metric but a historical one. It holds a slightly higher percentile ranking (64th) relative to all GPUs compared to the RTX 3070 Mobile (65th), though this is within a rounding error. This indicates that the RTX 3070 Mobile is marginally more capable than the GTX 780 relative to the entire GPU landscape, but the difference is negligible. The GTX 780 also has a higher TMU count (192 vs. 160), but this does not translate to a performance win in any benchmark. Ultimately, the RTX 3070 Mobile wins in all practical applications, from gaming to professional compute, making the GTX 780 an obsolete choice for any new build or upgrade.