NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 vs NVIDIA TITAN Xp Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark split between these two NVIDIA cards is emphatically one-sided in volume, but the single win for the TITAN Xp is so large that it changes the practical story. Out of ten head-to-head tests, the GeForce RTX 3070 takes nine victories, while the TITAN Xp claims exactly one. That one win, however, is in Geekbench Vulkan, where the TITAN Xp scores 87,180 against the RTX 3070’s 21,022, a delta of 314.7% in favor of the older card. No other test comes close to that margin in either direction.

For the RTX 3070, the wins are spread across every other category: DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12, OpenCL, 3DMark Steel Nomad, Passmark G2D, G3D, and GPU Compute. The margins range from a modest 8.5% in DirectX 9 to a substantial 35.7% in OpenCL. The RTX 3070’s strongest relative advantage appears in compute-oriented workloads, with OpenCL and GPU Compute both showing double-digit leads. In traditional rasterization tests, the lead is more contained, typically between 15% and 20%.

The TITAN Xp’s single Vulkan win is not a fluke in the data. It reflects a fundamental difference in how the two architectures handle that API, and it is the only test where the older Pascal card demonstrates clear superiority. For users focused on Vulkan-based applications, the TITAN Xp is the better choice. For everything else, the RTX 3070 dominates.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different manufacturing generations and design philosophies. The TITAN Xp uses the GP102 chip on TSMC’s 16 nm process, with 11,800 million transistors on a 471 mm² die. The RTX 3070 uses the GA104 chip on Samsung’s 8 nm process, packing 17,400 million transistors into a smaller 392 mm² die. This gives the RTX 3070 a transistor density of 44.4M per mm² versus the TITAN Xp’s 25.1M per mm², a clear sign of the newer fabrication node’s advantage.

Memory configurations also diverge sharply. The TITAN Xp offers 12 GB of GDDR5X on a 384-bit bus, yielding 547.6 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 3070 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a narrower 256-bit bus, producing 448.0 GB/s. The TITAN Xp wins on both capacity and bandwidth, which matters for large datasets and high-resolution textures. The RTX 3070 compensates with a higher memory clock: 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) versus the TITAN Xp’s 1426 MHz (11.4 Gbps effective), but the wider bus of the Pascal card still delivers more total throughput.

Compute resources tell a different story. The RTX 3070 has 5,888 shading units, 184 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. The TITAN Xp has 3,840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. The RTX 3070 has more shaders and more ROPs, but fewer TMUs. In raw FP32 throughput, the RTX 3070 reaches 20.31 TFLOPS against the TITAN Xp’s 12.15 TFLOPS. The RTX 3070 also carries 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores, features entirely absent from the Pascal-based TITAN Xp. The TITAN Xp’s FP16 rate is a minuscule 189.8 GFLOPS (1:64 ratio), while the RTX 3070 achieves 20.31 TFLOPS with a 1:1 ratio, making it vastly more capable for mixed-precision work.

Clock speeds favor the RTX 3070 as well: base 1500 MHz and boost 1725 MHz versus the TITAN Xp’s 1405 MHz base and 1582 MHz boost. Power draw is lower on the RTX 3070 at 220 W versus 250 W, and it requires a 550 W PSU instead of 600 W. The RTX 3070 also uses a single 12-pin connector, while the TITAN Xp needs one 6-pin and one 8-pin. Interface support differs: PCIe 4.0 x16 on the RTX 3070 versus PCIe 3.0 x16 on the TITAN Xp. Display outputs are similar, with the RTX 3070 adding HDMI 2.1 while the TITAN Xp sticks with HDMI 2.0, both offering three DisplayPort 1.4a connections.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test shows the RTX 3070 at 3,162 versus the TITAN Xp’s 2,372, a 25% lead. This is a modern DirectX 12 workload, and the Ampere architecture’s newer feature set and higher shader count give it a clear edge. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 3070 scores 112,821 against 72,585, a 35.7% advantage, the largest margin of any RTX 3070 win. That test stresses general compute, where the RTX 3070’s 20.31 TFLOPS of FP32 and balanced FP16 capability pay off.

The Geekbench Vulkan result flips the script entirely. The TITAN Xp scores 87,180, while the RTX 3070 manages only 21,022. The delta is 314.7% in favor of the TITAN Xp. This is an outlier in the dataset, and it suggests that the Pascal architecture’s Vulkan driver implementation or hardware scheduling is far more efficient for this particular workload. No other test shows a gap anywhere near this magnitude, so it should be treated as a workload-specific phenomenon rather than a general trend.

In Passmark’s DirectX suite, the RTX 3070 wins all four versions. DirectX 9: 247 versus 226, an 8.5% lead. DirectX 10: 150 versus 119, a 20.7% lead. DirectX 11: 182 versus 152, a 16.5% lead. DirectX 12: 85 versus 69, an 18.8% lead. The RTX 3070’s advantage grows as the API becomes more modern, which aligns with its DirectX 12 Ultimate support versus the TITAN Xp’s DirectX 12 (12_1).

Passmark G2D, a 2D graphics test, shows the RTX 3070 at 1,001 versus 883, an 11.8% lead. Passmark G3D, the overall 3D performance metric, has the RTX 3070 at 22,214 versus 18,750, a 15.6% advantage. Passmark GPU Compute puts the RTX 3070 at 11,195 versus 9,430, a 15.8% lead. Across these aggregate metrics, the RTX 3070 maintains a consistent double-digit edge.

The average benchmark scores reinforce this. The TITAN Xp’s average is 19,177, while the RTX 3070’s is 17,208. Interestingly, the TITAN Xp has a higher average score despite losing nine of ten head-to-head tests. This is because the Vulkan result is so extreme that it lifts the TITAN Xp’s overall mean. The percentile rankings reflect this: the TITAN Xp sits at the 64th percentile of all GPUs, while the RTX 3070 is at the 61st. So while the RTX 3070 wins more individual tests, the TITAN Xp’s single massive win gives it a better overall standing in the database.

The Verdict

The data presents a clear choice for most users. The RTX 3070 wins nine of ten benchmarks, with leads ranging from 8.5% to 35.7% across DirectX, OpenCL, and compute workloads. It also offers modern features like RT cores and tensor cores, a much higher FP32 throughput of 20.31 TFLOPS, and a lower power draw of 220 W. For gaming, general compute, and any DirectX-based application, the RTX 3070 is the stronger card.

The TITAN Xp is the pick only for one specific scenario: Vulkan-heavy workloads. Its 314.7% lead in Geekbench Vulkan is not just a win, it is a complete reversal of the expected order. If the primary application relies on Vulkan and the 12 GB memory capacity or 547.6 GB/s bandwidth is critical, the TITAN Xp deserves consideration. Its higher average benchmark score of 19,177 versus 17,208 also indicates that, in aggregate, it performs better across the full test suite.

For a buyer choosing between these two, the RTX 3070 is the rational default. It wins the vast majority of tests, supports newer APIs, and consumes less power. The TITAN Xp is a specialist tool, and the data supports using it only when Vulkan performance is the dominant requirement.

FAQ

Q: Which card wins more benchmarks?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 wins 9 out of 10 head-to-head tests. The NVIDIA TITAN Xp wins 1 test.

Q: What is the biggest performance gap between the two cards?

A: The largest gap is in Geekbench Vulkan, where the TITAN Xp scores 87,180 versus the RTX 3070’s 21,022, a delta of 314.7% in favor of the TITAN Xp.

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

A: In Passmark DirectX 12, the RTX 3070 scores 85 versus the TITAN Xp’s 69, an 18.8% lead. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, the RTX 3070 scores 3,162 versus 2,372, a 25% lead.

Q: Does the TITAN Xp have more memory bandwidth?

A: Yes. The TITAN Xp has 547.6 GB/s of bandwidth from 12 GB of GDDR5X on a 384-bit bus. The RTX 3070 has 448.0 GB/s from 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus.

Q: Which card has higher FP32 compute?

A: The RTX 3070 has 20.31 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The TITAN Xp has 12.15 TFLOPS.

Q: What is the average benchmark score for each card?

A: The TITAN Xp has an average benchmark score of 19,177, placing it at the 64th percentile of all GPUs. The RTX 3070 has an average of 17,208, at the 61st percentile.