NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile Comparison

FAQ

Q: How large is the performance gap between the RTX 5070 Mobile and RTX 5090 Mobile in average benchmark score?

A: The RTX 5090 Mobile records an average benchmark score of 45,152, while the RTX 5070 Mobile averages 29,928. That places the RTX 5090 Mobile roughly 51% higher in aggregate database performance, and it wins all nine head-to-head benchmark comparisons.

Q: What is the percentile ranking difference between the two GPUs?

A: The RTX 5070 Mobile sits at the 75th percentile among all GPUs in the database, while the RTX 5090 Mobile ranks at the 84th percentile. The RTX 5090 Mobile's nearest rival is the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT with a delta of -0.5%, while the RTX 5070 Mobile's closest competitor is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti at -0.1%.

Q: How do the memory configurations differ?

A: The RTX 5070 Mobile uses 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus with 384.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 5090 Mobile uses 24 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus with 896.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 5090 Mobile therefore provides triple the capacity and more than double the bandwidth.

Q: What are the FP32 compute throughput figures for each GPU?

A: The RTX 5070 Mobile delivers 13.13 TFLOPS FP32, while the RTX 5090 Mobile delivers 31.80 TFLOPS FP32. Both GPUs achieve a 1:1 FP16 to FP32 ratio, meaning half-precision throughput matches single-precision on both chips.

Q: Which GPU has the higher boost clock?

A: The RTX 5090 Mobile boosts to 1515 MHz with a base clock of 990 MHz. The RTX 5070 Mobile boosts to 1425 MHz with a base clock of 907 MHz. The RTX 5090 Mobile runs 90 MHz higher at boost and 83 MHz higher at base.

Q: What are the transistor counts and die sizes of the two chips?

A: The RTX 5070 Mobile uses the GB206 chip with 21,900 million transistors on a 181 mm² die. The RTX 5090 Mobile uses the GB203 chip with 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die. Both are fabricated on TSMC 5 nm process nodes, with nearly identical transistor densities (121.0M/mm² versus 120.6M/mm²).

Where Each One Wins

The head-to-head benchmark results are entirely one-sided. The RTX 5090 Mobile wins all nine recorded comparisons, with no test favoring the RTX 5070 Mobile. The largest margins appear in compute-oriented workloads: Geekbench OpenCL shows a 39.4% advantage for the RTX 5090 Mobile, Geekbench Vulkan shows a 41% advantage, and PassMark GPU Compute shows a 38.2% advantage. These three tests measure raw shader and compute throughput, where the RTX 5090 Mobile's 10,496 shading units versus 4,608 on the RTX 5070 Mobile produce decisive leads.

The smallest margin is in PassMark G2D, where the RTX 5090 Mobile leads by 15.2%. This 2D graphics test is less dependent on raw compute resources and more sensitive to memory bandwidth and rasterization overhead. The RTX 5090 Mobile still wins, but the relatively modest gap suggests that 2D workloads do not scale as strongly with core counts.

In DirectX API-specific tests, the RTX 5090 Mobile leads by 29.5% in DirectX 10, 28.6% in DirectX 11, 32.6% in DirectX 12, and 34% in DirectX 9. The consistency across API generations indicates that the advantage is architectural rather than driver-optimization-specific. The PassMark G3D test shows a 32.2% lead for the RTX 5090 Mobile, closely matching the DirectX 12 margin.

The RTX 5070 Mobile's niche is efficiency rather than raw performance. It draws 50 W TDP versus 95 W on the RTX 5090 Mobile, making it the appropriate choice for thinner, lower-power chassis where the RTX 5090 Mobile's thermal requirements would be prohibitive. The RTX 5070 Mobile also uses the smaller 181 mm² die, which reduces manufacturing cost per wafer and enables more compact laptop designs. For workloads that fit within 8 GB of memory, such as 1080p gaming or light creative tasks, the RTX 5070 Mobile delivers usable performance at half the power envelope.

Architecture Differences

Both GPUs share the Blackwell 2.0 architecture and belong to the GeForce 50 Mobile generation, but they use different silicon. The RTX 5070 Mobile is built on the GB206 chip, while the RTX 5090 Mobile uses the GB203 chip. Both chips are manufactured by TSMC on a 5 nm process, and their transistor densities are nearly identical: 121.0M/mm² for GB206 versus 120.6M/mm² for GB203. This indicates that the two dies are produced on the same process with similar layout density, and the performance difference comes from die size rather than process refinement.

The GB206 chip integrates 21,900 million transistors across 181 mm², while the GB203 chip integrates 45,600 million transistors across 378 mm². The larger die more than doubles the transistor budget, enabling substantially higher core counts. The RTX 5070 Mobile provides 4,608 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, 48 raster output units, 36 ray tracing cores, and 144 tensor cores. The RTX 5090 Mobile provides 10,496 shading units, 328 texture mapping units, 112 raster output units, 82 ray tracing cores, and 328 tensor cores.

The core count ratios are not perfectly uniform. The RTX 5090 Mobile has 2.28 times the shading units, 2.28 times the TMUs, 2.33 times the ROPs, 2.28 times the ray tracing cores, and 2.28 times the tensor cores relative to the RTX 5070 Mobile. The ROP count scales slightly higher than the other units, which contributes to the RTX 5090 Mobile's pixel rate advantage of 169.7 GPixel/s versus 68.40 GPixel/s.

Memory architecture differs significantly. Both use GDDR7, but the RTX 5070 Mobile has a 128-bit bus with 8 GB capacity, while the RTX 5090 Mobile has a 256-bit bus with 24 GB capacity. The memory clock also differs: 1500 MHz (24 Gbps effective) on the RTX 5070 Mobile versus 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) on the RTX 5090 Mobile. The combination of wider bus and faster memory yields 896.0 GB/s bandwidth on the RTX 5090 Mobile versus 384.0 GB/s on the RTX 5070 Mobile.

Both GPUs support PCIe 5.0 x16 interfaces, DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. Display outputs are marked as portable device dependent on both, and neither uses external power connectors. Both are classified as integrated graphics processors in terms of slot width, meaning they are soldered onto the motherboard rather than installed as discrete expansion cards.

Specification Differences

The RTX 5090 Mobile leads in every major specification category. Clock speeds: 990 MHz base and 1515 MHz boost versus 907 MHz base and 1425 MHz boost on the RTX 5070 Mobile. Memory: 24 GB versus 8 GB, 256-bit versus 128-bit bus, 896.0 GB/s versus 384.0 GB/s bandwidth, and 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) versus 1500 MHz (24 Gbps effective) memory clock.

Compute resources: 10,496 versus 4,608 shading units, 328 versus 144 TMUs, 112 versus 48 ROPs, 82 versus 36 ray tracing cores, and 328 versus 144 tensor cores. Pixel rate: 169.7 GPixel/s versus 68.40 GPixel/s. Texture rate: 496.9 GTexel/s versus 205.2 GTexel/s. FP32 and FP16 throughput: 31.80 TFLOPS versus 13.13 TFLOPS, both at 1:1 ratio.

Power and physical characteristics: 95 W TDP versus 50 W TDP. The RTX 5090 Mobile uses the GB203 chip with 45,600 million transistors and 378 mm² die area; the RTX 5070 Mobile uses GB206 with 21,900 million transistors and 181 mm² die area. Transistor density is effectively identical at 120.6M/mm² versus 121.0M/mm².

Release dates differ by less than a month: the RTX 5090 Mobile launched on 2025-03-26, while the RTX 5070 Mobile launched on 2025-04-14. Both are listed as active production status, both have no successor, and both list GeForce 40 Mobile as their predecessor. Neither GPU has a launch MSRP recorded in the database. The shared specifications include the Blackwell 2.0 architecture, TSMC 5 nm process, GDDR7 memory type, PCIe 5.0 x16 interface, IGP slot width, no power connectors, portable device dependent display outputs, and identical API support across DirectX, OpenGL, and Vulkan.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records nine head-to-head comparisons, and the RTX 5090 Mobile wins every one. The most decisive victory is in Geekbench Vulkan, where the RTX 5090 Mobile scores 198,405 against 116,960 for the RTX 5070 Mobile, a 41% advantage. Geekbench OpenCL shows a similar pattern: 201,834 versus 122,238, a 39.4% margin. These two tests exercise general compute through different API frontends, and their close margins suggest that the performance gap is consistent regardless of whether the workload uses Vulkan's compute queues or OpenCL's execution model.

PassMark GPU Compute shows 13,401 for the RTX 5090 Mobile versus 8,279 for the RTX 5070 Mobile, a 38.2% difference. This test isolates raw compute throughput without graphics pipeline overhead, and the result aligns closely with the FP32 TFLOPS ratio. The RTX 5090 Mobile's 31.80 TFLOPS is 2.42 times the RTX 5070 Mobile's 13.13 TFLOPS, but the benchmark gap is smaller at 38.2%, indicating that memory bandwidth or scheduling overhead partially limits compute scaling.

The DirectX API tests show margins between 28.6% and 34%. DirectX 9: 324 versus 214, a 34% lead. DirectX 12: 138 versus 93, a 32.6% lead. DirectX 11: 269 versus 192, a 28.6% lead. DirectX 10: 183 versus 129, a 29.5% lead. The DirectX 9 margin being the largest among API tests is notable, as older APIs typically bottleneck on driver overhead rather than raw throughput. The RTX 5090 Mobile's higher ROP count and pixel rate contribute to its strength in this legacy path.

PassMark G3D, the aggregate 3D graphics score, shows 30,034 for the RTX 5090 Mobile versus 20,355 for the RTX 5070 Mobile, a 32.2% margin. This sits between the DirectX 12 and DirectX 11 margins, consistent with G3D being a weighted composite of multiple graphics workloads. The smallest gap appears in PassMark G2D: 1,057 versus 896, a 15.2% advantage. This 2D test relies primarily on memory bandwidth and rasterization efficiency, where the RTX 5090 Mobile's 896.0 GB/s bandwidth provides a substantial but less dramatic advantage than its compute resources.

The RTX 5070 Mobile's nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, which scores 29,945 against the RTX 5070 Mobile's 29,928, a delta of -0.1%. The RTX 2080 Ti trails by 0.5%, while the AMD Radeon RX 6800 leads by 0.6% and the RX 6700 leads by 1.7%. The RTX 5090 Mobile's nearest rival is the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT at 45,384, a delta of -0.5%. The NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti trails by 0.8%, the Intel Arc A730M trails by 1%, and the RTX 5880 Ada Generation trails by 1.8%. These rival comparisons place the RTX 5070 Mobile in the upper-midrange segment and the RTX 5090 Mobile in the high-end segment, with the average score gap between them of 15,224 points representing a full performance tier of separation.