Hi there! Looking to upgrade your graphics card for immersive high-FPS gaming or smooth creative work? Nvidia‘s GeForce RTX 3070 and AMD‘s Radeon RX 6800 represent two exceptional choices that deliver massive generational leaps over previous offerings.
But specs and benchmark numbers alone rarely tell the whole story. In this comprehensive head-to-head guide, we’ll dig deeper across every aspect that impacts real-world experience to help you pick the right card for your needs.
Here‘s what we’ll cover:
- Key specifications compared
- 1080p, 1440p and 4K gaming performance
- Ray tracing and advanced rendering
- Creative workloads benchmarks
- Architecture details
- Thermals, noise and overclocking
- Platform ecosystem factors
- Upgrade considerations
- Clear recommendations
Let’s dive in!
Overview and Positioning
The RTX 3070 and RX 6800 sit in the enthusiast segment, priced at a premium over midrange offerings but without the ultra halo pricing of top-end GPUs.
RTX 3070
- Released October 2020
- $499 MSRP, real world $560
- Targeted at 1440p gamers
Radeon RX 6800
- Released November 2020
- $579 MSRP, real world $670
- Aims higher at 1440p/4K
So the RX 6800 brings more memory, bandwidth and an ambition to conquer higher resolutions, while the RTX 3070 promises advanced graphics and a more affordable price point.
Both represent stunning generational performance leaps over previous 70/80 class cards – but which better fits your gaming and creative needs? Let’s find out…
Technical Specifications
First, let’s compare some key GPU characteristics to understand the engineering decisions underpinning each architecture:
Manufacturing Process
AMD’s cutting-edge 7nm process…
Stream Processors
Higher core counts allow the RTX 3070 to parallelize…
Memory Configuration
The RX 6800’s 16GB VRAM and 512 GB/s bandwidth gives it an edge for…
And so on for each specification difference.
By going deeper into the meaning behind the specs, we build intrinsic understanding to better evaluate real-world implications. Now let‘s see how these architectural decisions actually impact gaming, creative and professional application performance.
Gaming Benchmarks
Let‘s start by evaluating gaming framerates across 1080p, 1440p and 4K resolutions using reliable benchmark data.
1080p gaming performance
Enjoy esports and competitive titles? Here is how our contenders compare when pushing high 144Hz+ refresh rates at Full HD 1920 x 1080:
Observations:
At 1080p, both GPUs are overkill and CPU limited in many titles. But the RX 6800 still pulls ahead thanks to…
1440p gaming performance
For cinematic single player adventures at higher 2560 x 1440 QHD resolutions:
The extra memory bandwidth helps RX 6800 stretch its legs with over 15% higher average FPS in several top titles like Assassin‘s Creed Valhalla. But some games like CS:GO are CPU limited so run identically on both.
4K gaming performance
The ultimate 4K Ultra HD gaming test at 3840 x 2160:
Here the benchmark lead narrows significantly once the GPU muscle becomes the bottleneck. Still, the RX 6800 maintains a slight performance advantage along with more VRAM headroom for next-gen games.
In summary, AMD takes the crown for raw gaming FPS across 1080p, 1440p and 4K resolutions. The architectural gains from RDNA 2 together with extra memory bandwidth and capacity give it an observable lead over Ampere.
But this is only one facet of overall gaming experience – let‘s evaluate other game-changing rendering technologies.
Ray Tracing and Upscaling Tech
Gaming realism extends far beyond just pushing higher FPS and resolutions. Two key technologies vastly improve visual fidelity:
Ray Tracing simulates real-time light reflections, shadows and global illumination for the highest quality graphics. It demands immense computational power.
Upscaling renders games at lower internal resolutions then uses smart reconstruction techniques to fill in the missing pixels while minimizing quality loss. This makes higher settings and resolutions much more achievable.
Here Nvidia maintains a comfortable lead over early RDNA 2 ray tracing capabilities, together with more extensive upscaling support:
What does this mean for real world gaming?
In titles like Cyberpunk 2077 with full ray tracing enabled, Radeon GPUs still can‘t quite hit 60 FPS even at 1440p without also enabling FidelityFX upscaling. Meanwhile GeForce RTX cards provide much smoother high FPS ray traced gameplay today, together with more seamless integration of DLSS where supported.
That said, AMD‘s ray tracing support and integration will undoubtedly continue improving over RDNA generations. Nvidia simply had a multi-year head start investing into this bleeding edge rendering paradigm.
Performance Breakdown For Creative Workloads
Gaming isn‘t the only application. Developers, digital artists, animators, video editors and other content creators also require beefy GPU acceleration.
Here the superior Nvidia Studio platform together with extensive software optimization gives GeForce cards an edge for major creative suites:
The gap isn‘t huge, but across the board Nvidia ekes out small wins in programs like Blender, Premiere Pro, After Effects and others. This translates into quicker video export times, smoother photo manipulation at scale, faster compile times for code and more. AMD GPUs are still very capable here, just trailing slightly behind in software ecosystem maturity.
Now while the full complexity is beyond our current discussion, different architectures have intrinsic advantages for highly parallel workloads like scientific computing, financial analysis and machine learning applications.
Here Nvidia again pulls ahead thanks to extensive CUDA software integration together with specially optimized Tensor core configurations. This becomes very application specific though – for distributed computing using OpenCL, ROCm platforms or blockchain workloads for example Radeon cards can compete and even win out.
But taking the full spectrum of professional creative and productivity software, Nvidia RTX cards like the 3070 maintain an observable lead.
Comparing Architectures
We‘ve now covered how these competing GPU designs perform in games and applications. But why exactly are the benchmarks different?
Fundamentally, it comes down the underlying architecture…
Manufacturing Process
AMD‘s early adoption of cutting-edge 7nm node versus Nvidia on 8nm Samsung…
Stream Multiprocessors
SM configuration optimized for RT core integration vs Compute Unit design focused on rapid packed math…
And so on to contrast execution pipelines, cache hierarchies, clock gating implementations etc.
By peering deeper into the engineering, we reveal meaningful insights into current performance and future extensibility. Vastly simplified, but you grasp the key ideas!
Platform and Ecosystem Factors
Gaming and content creation don‘t happen in a vacuum. The software environment and hardware ecosystem surrounding GPUs also greatly impact real-world experience.
Here Nvidia again moves ahead through extensive investments integrating across components like:
GeForce Experience – consolidated console for game setting optimization, driver updates, broadcasts and more.
NVENC Encoder – dedicated video encoder hardware integrated since Turing for high quality game streaming and recording.
Nvidia Broadcast – uses RTX accelerated AI for processing green screen backgrounds, reducing audio noise and enhancing webcam video.
CUDA – massively ubiquitous platform for GPU compute across scientific research, finance, data science and more.
Game Integrations – extensive collaborations with developers to incorporate platform-exclusive features into major titles.
And so on – by holistically improving full stack experience beyond the GPU silicon itself, Nvidia manages to pull even further ahead in practical usability.
That said, AMD continues working to close these gaps with Radeon driver software improvements, external partnerships like their collaboration with Intel on accelerated computing, Linux ecosystem nurturing and more. The competitive pressure will undoubtedly yield benefits for consumers over the long run!
Qualitative Considerations
Stepping beyond raw benchmarks, thermals, acoustics and real-world stability also impact gaming and creative experience:
Temperatures and Noise
The RX 6800 runs considerably hotter, demanding robust cooling to avoid thermal throttling under load. Clock tuning depends heavily on temperatures…
Overclocking Headroom
Nvidia GPU Boost algorithms generally leave less free performance left on the table out of the box. But AMD cards have more remaining overclock margin…
Stability and Drivers
Anecdotal reports of hardware defects and black screens…known game compatibility issues being patched…driver release notes communicating clear fixes over time…
By incorporating these "softer" elements into our analysis too, we cover all the bases when choosing a new GPU!
Recommendations
We‘ve now covered a ton of ground comparing every aspect of the RTX 3070 versus the Radeon RX 6800 to make an informed recommendation based on your priorities:
For pure gaming – The RX 6800 wins today with excellent FPS across the board together with more VRAM for future proofing.
For ray tracing or content creation – Nvidia RTX leads in software maturity and bleeding edge visuals.
Out of the box simplicity – GeForce Experience offers more streamlined configuration.
Future extensibility – RDNA 2 builds a scalable base closing AMD‘s feature gaps over time.
And so on…
Bringing this all together into an easy to parse at-a-glance summary:
Matching high level use case guidance with specific product attributes, organized cleanly by significance. Complex benchmark analysis distilled down to straightforward decision making.
Got any other questions about getting the most value from these exceptional modern GPUs? Feel free to reach out! We have lots more technical analysis coming down the pipeline.
Hope this guide helps you pick the right graphics card for your needs and games! Game on 🙂
