Looking for help choosing between Nvidia‘s top Ampere graphics cards, the RTX 3090 and RTX 3070? This comprehensive guide contrasts the two flagships across areas like gaming fps, rendering speeds, overclocking, power efficiency, and pricing to aid your buying decision.
Overview
The RTX 3090 sits at the apex of Nvidia‘s consumer graphics lineup with uncompromising performance aimed at enthusiasts wanting ultimate 4K gaming and content creation power.
The RTX 3070 delivers exceptional value for advanced 1440p gaming by including support for ray tracing and DLSS at under half the cost.
We dive into all the nitty-gritty hardware-level differences between the two right from core specifications to real-world benchmarks so you can best weigh up what those huge price and performance deltas tangibly provide.
ZDNet Expert Source
> For the high-end buyer for whom nothing but max settings at 4K will do, the RTX 3090 is a powerhouse without peer. Everyone else will be best served by the much more affordable RTX 3070 that retains all the latest gaming features.
Side-by-Side Specifications
| Specification | Nvidia RTX 3090 | Nvidia RTX 3070 |
|---|---|---|
| GPU Architecture | Ampere | Ampere |
| Manufacturing Process | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm |
| CUDA Cores | 10496 | 5888 |
| GPU Boost Clock | 1700MHz | 1730MHz |
| Memory Configuration | 24GB GDDR6X | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bus Width | 384-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 936 GB/s | 448GB/s |
| PCIe Support | Gen 4 | Gen 4 |
| GPU Length | 313mm | 242mm |
| Slot Size | 3-slot | 2-slot |
| Board Power | 350W | 220W |
| Power Connectors | 2x 8-pin | 1x 8-pin |
| Launch Price | $1499 | $499 |
It‘s clear looking at the nuts and bolts specifications that while both leverage the same next-generation Ampere architecture, Nvidia has packed significantly more hardware into the RTX 3090. That‘s directly reflected in the 3X higher price tag as well. Let‘s analyze the gaming and creative application performance made possible by these beastly specs.
Gaming Frame Rates
We‘ve aggregated fps data for the RTX 3090 and RTX 3070 across reviews from popular benchmark sources running at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions. The games include a mix of esports titles like Fortnite and AAA singleplayer games like Red Dead Redemption 2 to offer a balanced real-world comparison point.
At 1080p, both GPUs are overkill and churn out esports gaming frame rates well over 165 FPS. The RTX 3090 extends its lead over the 3070 primarily in 4K gaming where the extra memory bandwidth, CUDA cores, and VRAM help push triple digit FPS.
They trade blows at 1440p which is the RTX 3070‘s sweet spot resolution for high refresh rate gaming. Enable ray tracing or max settings though in this Hardware Unboxed benchmark, and the RTX 3090 pulls well clear with its brute force hardware even at 2560×1440.
Content Creation Benchmarks
For creative professionals and productivity use cases, the performance delta grows even wider as demonstrated by Puget Systems tests for Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and other popular tools.
The RTX 3090 blazes through exports in Premiere Pro and filters in Photoshop at about twice the speed of the much cheaper RTX 3070. Similar scaling is shown in video encoding/CAD modeling benchmarks.
This level of content creation muscle makes sense given the 3090‘s enormously wide memory bus and pools of VRAM which aid visual computing. The 24GB frame buffer especially allows users to manipulate 8K+ batch image and video files without slowdowns, futureproofing any workflow expansions.
Acoustic Performance
Thanks to their triple axial fan coolers and vapor chambers, both cards run relatively quietly even under gaming loads based on reviews. But with its larger vapour chamber and heat sink design, the RTX 3090 maintains lower thermals allowing the fans to spin slower.
AnandTech measured just 38 dBA noise levels during gaming sessions on the RTX 3090 FE card with the fans maxing out at just 1600 RPM. Comparatively, the RTX 3070 produced 42 dBA noise with fans needing to spin faster up to 1900 RPM to shed heat from its smaller heatsink.
So if your PC sits in an open entertainment room or bedroom, the RTX 3090 with its hulking cooler provides quieter gaming than even Nvidia‘s cheaper model. Of course partner overclocked models step up cooling and acoustics further still.
Power Efficiency
The RTX 3090 requires a beefy 850W+ power supply to cope with transient 350W+ power spikes. Reviews peg real-world gaming power around 320W for the RTX 3090 FE card with moderate overclocks. More heavily OC‘d partner cards have hit 400W+ based on TechPowerUp benchmarks!
Comparatively, the more frugal RTX 3070 maxes out at 242W with stock settings based on SP-CAPS‘s testing, half that of the flagship. So that huge 100W+ difference in board power manifests in correspondingly higher electricity costs for 3090 users.
Overclocking
With GPU Boost dynamically overclocking above stock speeds out the box, manual tweaking headroom is lower on Ampere vs say Pascal. But the RTX 3090‘s beefy cooling solution and unlocked power limits let it sustain 200MHz+ higher core overclocks over the RTX 3070 according to TechYesCity.
Memory shows similar scaling with the RTX 3090 capable of 1000+ MHz modules OC‘s before loss of stability compared to ~700MHz for the 3070. More thermal headroom and PCB power phases make the 3090 shine for enthusiasts wanting to extract every last drop of performance.
The Bottom Line
The RTX 3090 is the pinnacle of Ampere graphics muscle. It leaves absolutely nothing on the table by packing 10496 CUDA cores, 24GB of next-gen memory, and unlocked power limits to push high fps 4K gaming like no single GPU before it could manage.
Creative professionals with demanding workflows around 8K+ video, 3D rendering, animation etc. can also greatly benefit from the immense GPU horsepower on tap. If you want Nvidia‘s cutting edge Ampere architecture fully unshackled, it comes at a predictably eye-watering price.
The RTX 3070 manages to deliver two-thirds the raw performance, all the same gaming features using DLSS and ray tracing, quiet acoustics, and decent 1440p overclocking headroom at well under half the cost. It‘s arguably the more savvy purchase for resolutions under 4K.
So choose based on your exact gaming resolution, graphics requirements, content creation needs, budget constraints etc. For pure unrestrained power the GeForce RTX 3090 is untouchable but unnecessary outside specific 4K gaming and creative use cases. The RTX 3070 gives superb value to most.
I hope this exhaustive feature breakdown has helped better assess how these Ampere behemoths compare! Let me know which GPU you are planning to buy in the comments below and what you think the benchmark data demonstrates regarding real-world usage.
