GeForce GTX 970 vs GeForce RTX 3070

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce RTX 3070, which features a core clock speed of 1500 MHz and a GDDR6 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 8 nm design. It is comprised of 5888 SPUs, 184 TAUs, and 96 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
GeForce RTX 3070		220 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 970 should in theory be just a bit superior to the GeForce RTX 3070 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce RTX 3070		(Unknown) MB/sec
	Difference: 224000 (-100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3070 will be much (approximately 153%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 970. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3070		276000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 166800 (153%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce RTX 3070 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3070		144000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 76800 (114%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.