NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GDDR6 vs NVIDIA Quadro 3000M Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GDDR6 and the NVIDIA Quadro 3000M sit at opposite ends of the GPU timeline: a 5 nm Ada Lovelace desktop card against a 40 nm Fermi-era mobile workstation module. The database records both as end-of-life products, but the gulf between them in raw capability is enormous. The RTX 4070 GDDR6 posts an average benchmark score of 4335 and sits in the 25th percentile of all recorded GPUs, while the Quadro 3000M averages 3718 at the 22nd percentile. Those percentile positions look close, which makes the underlying spec comparison all the more important for understanding what each card actually delivers.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

There are no direct head-to-head benchmark runs recorded between these two parts, and their scores come from different test suites: the RTX 4070 GDDR6 was measured in 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12) with a score of 4334.5, while the Quadro 3000M was measured in Geekbench OpenCL with a score of 3718. Because the tests differ, the two numbers are not directly comparable, and the database flags zero wins for either side.

What the results do show is each card's standing against its own nearest competition. In the 3DMark Steel Nomad test, the RTX 4070 GDDR6 lands within a tight cluster of legacy mobile and integrated parts: it trails the NVIDIA GeForce 930M by 1.2 percent (4388 vs 4335), trails the Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200 by 0.6 percent (4360 vs 4335), leads the AMD FirePro W2100 by 0.9 percent (4335 vs 4295), and leads the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M by 1.2 percent (4335 vs 4282). In this synthetic contest the card is effectively neck-and-neck with that grouping.

The Quadro 3000M's Geekbench OpenCL result paints a similar picture of parity with entry-level mobile GPUs of later generations. It exactly matches the NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M at a delta of 0 percent (3717 vs 3718), sits 0.6 percent behind the GeForce GT 635M (3740), leads the GeForce 825M by 0.6 percent (3694), and leads the AMD Radeon HD 6770 by 1.9 percent (3649). For a Fermi-based mobile workstation module, matching a GT 740M in OpenCL compute is the headline result.

The raw throughput numbers, however, are not close. The RTX 4070 GDDR6 delivers 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 compute against the Quadro 3000M's 432.0 GFLOPS. It renders 158.4 GPixel/s versus 4.500 GPixel/s, and it fills 455.4 GTexel/s versus 18.00 GTexel/s. Memory bandwidth is 480.0 GB/s against 80.00 GB/s. Every one of those figures points the same direction: in any workload that scales with hardware capability rather than driver optimization for a specific API, the Ada Lovelace card is in a different class entirely.

The Verdict

The data makes this a straightforward call depending on the use case. For any modern graphics workload, the RTX 4070 GDDR6 is the only realistic option of the two. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (feature level 12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, carries 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores for ray tracing and AI acceleration, and pairs 12 GB of GDDR6 with a 192-bit bus. The Quadro 3000M tops out at DirectX 12 with feature level 11_0, has no Vulkan support listed, and includes no RT or tensor cores at all. It was built for OpenGL workstation software of its era, and its OpenGL 4.6 support matches the newer card on paper.

The Quadro 3000M's case rests on form factor and power. It is an MXM module with a 75 W TDP and no power connectors, designed to slot into a portable workstation where display outputs are device-dependent. The RTX 4070 GDDR6 is a dual-slot desktop card measuring 240 mm long, 110 mm tall, and 40 mm wide, drawing 200 W through a single 16-pin connector with a suggested 550 W PSU. If the machine is a laptop with an MXM-B (3.0) slot, the desktop card is simply not a candidate.

Both products are end-of-life, so neither represents a current purchase path. Between them, the recorded data supports the RTX 4070 GDDR6 for performance and the Quadro 3000M only where the MXM form factor is the deciding constraint.

FAQ

Q: How do the two cards compare in memory capacity and bandwidth?

A: The RTX 4070 GDDR6 has 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus with 480.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Quadro 3000M has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 80.00 GB/s of bandwidth. The older card actually has the wider bus, but the newer memory type and much higher effective speed give the Ada card six times the bandwidth.

Q: Which card is faster in compute?

A: The RTX 4070 GDDR6, by a wide margin. It delivers 29.15 TFLOPS FP32 versus 432.0 GFLOPS FP32 on the Quadro 3000M, backed by 5888 shading units versus 240, 184 TMUs versus 40, and 64 ROPs versus 32.

Q: Do both cards support ray tracing?

A: Only the RTX 4070 GDDR6. It has 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores. The Quadro 3000M, being a Fermi-based part, has neither.

Q: What process technology does each use?

A: Both are fabbed by TSMC, but on very different nodes: 5 nm for the RTX 4070 GDDR6 and 40 nm for the Quadro 3000M. That shows in transistor density, 121.8M per mm² versus 5.9M per mm².

Q: Can the Quadro 3000M run modern DirectX 12 games?

A: Only partially. It reports DirectX 12 support at feature level 11_0, which is below the 12_2 feature level of the RTX 4070 GDDR6, and it has no listed Vulkan support.

Q: What power delivery does each card need?

A: The RTX 4070 GDDR6 has a 200 W TDP, one 16-pin power connector, and a suggested 550 W PSU. The Quadro 3000M has a 75 W TDP, draws all power through its MXM slot, and lists no suggested PSU.

Specification Differences

• Chip: AD104 (RTX 4070 GDDR6) versus GF104 (Quadro 3000M)
• Architecture: Ada Lovelace versus Fermi
• Process node: 5 nm versus 40 nm, both on TSMC
• Transistors: 35,800 million versus 1,950 million
• Die size: 294 mm² versus 332 mm²
• Transistor density: 121.8M/mm² versus 5.9M/mm²
• Clocks: 1920 MHz base and 2475 MHz boost on the RTX 4070 GDDR6; no base or boost clocks recorded for the Quadro 3000M, whose memory runs at 625 MHz (2.5 Gbps effective) against 2500 MHz (20 Gbps effective)
• Memory: 12 GB GDDR6, 192-bit, 480.0 GB/s versus 2 GB GDDR5, 256-bit, 80.00 GB/s
• Shading units: 5888 versus 240
• TMUs: 184 versus 40
• ROPs: 64 versus 32
• RT cores: 46 versus none
• Tensor cores: 184 versus none
• Pixel rate: 158.4 GPixel/s versus 4.500 GPixel/s
• Texture rate: 455.4 GTexel/s versus 18.00 GTexel/s
• FP32: 29.15 TFLOPS versus 432.0 GFLOPS
• FP16: 29.15 TFLOPS (1:1) versus not supported
• TDP: 200 W versus 75 W
• Form factor: dual-slot desktop card (240 mm x 110 mm x 40 mm) versus MXM module
• Power connectors: 1x 16-pin versus none
• Bus interface: PCIe 4.0 x16 versus MXM-B (3.0)
• Display outputs: 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a versus portable-device-dependent
• API support: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4 versus DirectX 12 (11_0), no listed Vulkan
• Release dates: 2024 versus 2011
• Launch MSRP: 599 USD for the RTX 4070 GDDR6; none recorded for the Quadro 3000M

Architecture Differences

These two GPUs embody three distinct architectural generations of NVIDIA silicon. The Quadro 3000M belongs to the Fermi family, specifically the Quadro Fermi-M (x000M) generation, and succeeded the Quadro FX Mobile line before handing off to Quadro Kepler-M. The RTX 4070 GDDR6 belongs to the GeForce 40 series, following GeForce 30 and preceding GeForce 50.

The Fermi part was a mobile workstation design in every respect. Its GF104 chip, built on TSMC's 40 nm process, packs 1,950 million transistors across 332 mm², a density of just 5.9M transistors per mm². Its GDDR5 memory runs at 2.5 Gbps effective over a 256-bit bus, and it communicates over the MXM-B (3.0) interface with no dedicated power connector.

The Ada Lovelace card is a fundamentally different design philosophy. Its AD104 die uses TSMC's 5 nm node to fit 35,800 million transistors into a smaller 294 mm² footprint, a density of 121.8M transistors per mm², roughly twenty times that of the Fermi chip. It adds dedicated hardware the older architecture simply lacks: 46 RT cores for ray tracing and 184 tensor cores for matrix workloads. FP16 operations run at full 1:1 rate with FP32, a capability the Quadro 3000M does not list at all.

Feature support diverges along the same lines. The RTX 4070 GDDR6 targets modern APIs with DirectX 12 Ultimate at feature level 12_2 and Vulkan 1.4, alongside OpenGL 4.6. The Quadro 3000M also reports OpenGL 4.6, which mattered for professional applications of its era, but its DirectX support stops at feature level 11_0 and Vulkan is absent from its record. The two cards share a foundry and a manufacturer, and little else: one is a PCIe 4.0 x16 desktop part built for contemporary rendering pipelines, the other a socketed mobile module built for portable workstation duty more than a decade earlier.