NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile represent two distinct generations of laptop graphics, yet their benchmark results show a surprisingly close contest. The newer Ada Lovelace part wins 4 of the 9 head-to-head tests, while the older Ampere flagship wins 5, but the margins in each direction are often narrow. The data reveals a generational efficiency shift rather than a clear knockout victory.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most decisive win for the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile comes in the legacy DirectX 10 test, where it scores 131 against the RTX 4070 Mobile’s 116, a margin of 11.5%. This is the largest delta in either direction across the entire benchmark suite. The older architecture’s raw shading power shows through here, as the 3080 Ti Mobile carries 7424 shading units compared to the 4070 Mobile’s 4608.

The RTX 4070 Mobile strikes back hardest in the DirectX 9 test, posting 223 versus 201 for the 3080 Ti Mobile — a 10.9% advantage. This is followed closely by its win in DirectX 11, where it scores 179 against 164, a 9.1% lead. These results suggest the Ada Lovelace architecture handles older API workloads with greater efficiency, likely due to its newer instruction scheduling and cache hierarchy.

In the more modern compute and graphics workloads, the results tighten considerably. The Geekbench OpenCL test favors the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile at 117866 versus 109197, a 7.4% difference. However, the Geekbench Vulkan test flips the result: the RTX 4070 Mobile scores 108367 against 107502, a slim 0.8% edge. This near-tie in Vulkan indicates that both GPUs are well-matched in contemporary gaming APIs.

The PassMark G3D test, which is often a strong proxy for overall gaming performance, goes to the RTX 4070 Mobile by a slim 1.6% margin (19587 vs 19288). The DirectX 12 test also goes to the 3080 Ti Mobile, but only by 3.4% (88 vs 85). The compute-focused tests are almost identical: the 3080 Ti Mobile wins PassMark GPU Compute with 8471 against 8399, a 0.8% gap, while the 2D test shows the 3080 Ti Mobile ahead at 818 versus 763, a 6.7% margin.

The average benchmark scores tell a similar story. The RTX 4070 Mobile has an average score of 27435, placing it in the 73rd percentile of all GPUs. The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile averages 25740, sitting in the 71st percentile. This 6.2% difference in average score is smaller than the individual test deltas might suggest, because the wins are distributed across different workload types.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile demonstrates its strengths in raw compute throughput and older API compatibility. Its wins in DirectX 10 and OpenCL point to a GPU that can push large numbers of parallel threads without relying on newer architectural optimizations. The 7.4% lead in OpenCL is particularly notable, as this test often reflects general-purpose compute workloads like rendering and scientific simulations. The 3080 Ti Mobile also edges ahead in DirectX 12, suggesting that its larger memory bus and higher bandwidth (512.0 GB/s vs 256.0 GB/s) provide a tangible advantage in memory-heavy modern titles.

The RTX 4070 Mobile wins in the legacy DirectX 9 and DirectX 11 tests, along with a narrow victory in the G3D aggregate. This pattern indicates that the Ada Lovelace architecture extracts more performance per clock in driver-optimized legacy paths. The 10.9% lead in DirectX 9 is the largest margin for either GPU in any test, demonstrating that the newer architecture does not sacrifice backward compatibility for efficiency. The 1.6% win in G3D, which aggregates multiple DirectX tests, suggests that the 4070 Mobile is the better-rounded gaming GPU despite having fewer shading units and lower theoretical FP32 throughput.

For users prioritizing compute tasks like OpenCL-based rendering or physics simulations, the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile is the stronger pick based on the 7.4% lead in that test. For users running older game titles or DirectX 11-based applications, the RTX 4070 Mobile’s 9.1% advantage makes it the more consistent performer. The Vulkan near-tie (0.8% delta) means that users of modern cross-platform engines will see virtually identical performance from either GPU.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs are built on fundamentally different architectures and process nodes. The RTX 4070 Mobile uses the AD106 chip on TSMC’s 5 nm process, while the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile uses the GA103 chip on Samsung’s 8 nm node. This process difference is stark: the 4070 Mobile packs 22,900 million transistors into a 188 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 121.8M per mm². The 3080 Ti Mobile has 22,000 million transistors spread across a massive 496 mm² die, with a density of just 44.4M per mm². The newer node allows the 4070 Mobile to fit nearly three times more transistors per square millimeter.

Memory configuration is another major differentiator. The RTX 4070 Mobile ships with 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile doubles this to 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 512.0 GB/s. This doubling of both capacity and bandwidth gives the 3080 Ti Mobile a significant advantage in memory-bound workloads, which is reflected in its wins in OpenCL and DirectX 12.

The compute resources are heavily lopsided in favor of the 3080 Ti Mobile. It has 7424 shading units, 232 TMUs, 96 ROPs, 58 RT cores, and 232 tensor cores. The 4070 Mobile counters with 4608 shading units, 144 TMUs, 48 ROPs, 36 RT cores, and 144 tensor cores. The 3080 Ti Mobile also has higher peak rates: 18.71 TFLOPS FP32 versus 15.62 TFLOPS, 292.3 GTexel/s versus 244.1 GTexel/s, and 121.0 GPixel/s versus 81.36 GPixel/s.

Despite having fewer resources, the 4070 Mobile achieves parity or wins in several tests due to its higher clock speeds. The 4070 Mobile runs at a base of 1395 MHz and boosts to 1695 MHz, while the 3080 Ti Mobile is much slower at 810 MHz base and 1260 MHz boost. Both have the same 2000 MHz memory clock with 16 Gbps effective speed. The 4070 Mobile also uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, whereas the 3080 Ti Mobile uses the wider x16 interface, though the benchmark data does not show this as a decisive factor.

Both GPUs share the same API support: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The 4070 Mobile is listed as active production with a release date of January 2023, while the 3080 Ti Mobile is end-of-life with a release date of January 2022. The 4070 Mobile’s predecessor is the GeForce 30 Mobile series, and its successor is the GeForce 50 Mobile series; the 3080 Ti Mobile’s predecessor is the GeForce 20 Mobile series with no listed successor.

The Verdict

The benchmark data shows that the RTX 4070 Mobile is the better choice for most gaming scenarios, despite having less raw hardware. Its wins in DirectX 9, 11, and the G3D aggregate, combined with the near-tie in Vulkan, indicate that it extracts higher real-world gaming performance from its smaller configuration. The 73rd percentile ranking versus 71st for the 3080 Ti Mobile confirms this overall standing. The 4070 Mobile’s 10.9% lead in DirectX 9 and 9.1% lead in DirectX 11 are the kind of margins that matter in actual game titles, many of which still use these APIs.

The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile is the pick for compute-heavy users who prioritize OpenCL performance. Its 7.4% lead in that test, plus its 6.7% advantage in 2D workloads, makes it the superior choice for rendering tasks and general-purpose GPU computing. The doubling of VRAM to 16 GB and the doubled 512.0 GB/s bandwidth also make it a better fit for users who need to hold large datasets in GPU memory, even though the benchmark scores do not isolate capacity as a factor.

For a mobile gaming laptop, the RTX 4070 Mobile is the more balanced performer. It wins the most important aggregate gaming test (G3D), matches the 3080 Ti Mobile in Vulkan, and dominates legacy DirectX paths. Its 5 nm process and 115 W TDP, identical to the 3080 Ti Mobile, suggest it delivers this performance at a lower thermal cost per frame, though the data does not include temperature or power measurements. The 3080 Ti Mobile remains a viable option for users who need more VRAM and compute throughput, but the 4070 Mobile’s efficiency and gaming consistency give it the edge in the majority of use cases.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile has an average benchmark score of 27435, while the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile averages 25740. The 4070 Mobile also ranks higher in the 73rd percentile of all GPUs versus the 71st percentile for the 3080 Ti Mobile.

Q: How much faster is the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile in OpenCL compute?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile scores 117866 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 7.4% higher than the RTX 4070 Mobile’s 109197. This is the largest compute-related margin in the head-to-head tests.

Q: What is the biggest performance gap in any single test?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile leads by 11.5% in PassMark DirectX 10, scoring 131 versus 116 for the RTX 4070 Mobile. The RTX 4070 Mobile’s largest lead is 10.9% in PassMark DirectX 9, with 223 versus 201.

Q: Do both GPUs support the same graphics APIs?

A: Yes, both the RTX 4070 Mobile and RTX 3080 Ti Mobile support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. They also both use GDDR6 memory with a 2000 MHz clock and 16 Gbps effective speed.

Q: How do the memory configurations differ?

A: The RTX 4070 Mobile has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus with 512.0 GB/s bandwidth, which is double the capacity and double the bandwidth.

Q: Which GPU has more shading units and higher FP32 throughput?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti Mobile has 7424 shading units and 18.71 TFLOPS FP32, while the RTX 4070 Mobile has 4608 shading units and 15.62 TFLOPS FP32. Despite this, the RTX 4070 Mobile wins the PassMark G3D test by 1.6%.