NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (85W) vs GeForce RTX 2060 (115W) – despite its 35% bigger TGP, the RTX 2060 can’t even touch the 85W GPU

As you may already know, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and some other Ampere mobile GPUs are already available on the market. The performance increase over the last generation (Turing) is clearly visible and the Ampere video cards are already rocking in the top spots in our charts.

But hey, the Turing GPUs are still here and you can expect some decent price decrease when the new ones (Ampere) flood the market. One of the main advantages of the new-gen GPUs is their efficiency. With lesser TGP they can leave in the dust some of the Turing monsters from the last year.

So, when it comes to the GeForce RTX 3070, this one is available in three different TGP levels and for today’s article, we are going to check the performance of the smaller one (85W) against the most powerful version of the GeForce RTX 2060 – the one that has a 115W TGP.

Will the huge TGP matter the most when it’s combined with higher frequencies or the higher ROP count and more CUDA cores can’t be beaten that easily? Let’s go and find out the answer.

You can also check our dedicated article about All laptops with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 / 3070 Max-Q.

Contents


Specs overview

At least on paper, the GeForce RTX 3070 (85W) is a little beast. It’s an Ampere GPU that uses a GA104 chip. It has 5120 CUDA cores, 80 ROPs, and the core is clocked at 780 MHz/1290 Mhz. The GPU has 8GB of GDDR6 video memory and a 256-bit bus. All that power is fitted in a modest 85W TGP.

The GeForce RTX 2060 (115W) is trying to compensate the lack of pure power with higher frequencies and a huge TGP – for a mid-range Turing GPU 115W (the same as RTX 2070) is a lot. Despite that, this graphics solution is a modest product (at least in 2021). It has a TU106 chip, 1920 CUDAs, 48 ROPs, and the clock frequencies are 1005 Mhz/1560 MHz. The memory is just 6GB and it has a 192-bit bus.

 GeForce RTX 3070 [85W]GeForce RTX 2060 [115W]
ArchitectureAmpereTuring
GPU chipGA104TU106
Shader units5120 (+167%)1920
ROPs80 (+67%)48
Base Clock (MHz)7801005 (+29%)
Boost clock (MHz)12901560 (+21%)
Memory clock (MHz)1500up to 1750 (+17%)
Memory size (MB)8192 (+33%)6144
Memory typeGDDR6GDDR6
Memory bus width (bit)256 (+33%)192
TGP (Total Graphics Power)85W115W (+35%)
DirectX version12.112.1
Technology8nm12nm
RTX capabilitiesYes Yes
Release date01.202101.2020
Detailed specsLinkLink

Synthetic benchmarks

Results are from the 3DMark: Time Spy (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)


Gaming tests

rise-of-the-tomb-raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016)Full HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, Very High (Check settings)Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
GeForce RTX 3070 [85W]137 fps89 fps (+17%)60 fps (+22%)
GeForce RTX 2060 [115W]139 fps (+1%)76 fps49 fps

 

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon WildlandsFull HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Very High (Check settings)Full HD, Ultra (Check settings)
GeForce RTX 3070 [85W]94 fps (+8%)83 fps (+8%)58 fps (+12%)
GeForce RTX 2060 [115W]87 fps77 fps52 fps

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)Full HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Highest (Check settings)
GeForce RTX 3070 [85W]96 fps (+13%)96 fps (+17%)73 fps (+24%)
GeForce RTX 2060 [115W]85 fps82 fps59 fps

Verdict

As you can see from the gaming tests above, the GeForce RTX 3070 (85W) just smokes the GeForce RTX 2060 (115W). Sure, the latter has a 35% bigger TGP and much higher clocks but at the end of the day, you can’t beat so many CUDA cores with frequencies. In addition, the RTX 2060 (115W) has a 192-bit bus (vs 256-bit) and just 6GB video memory.

In addition, the GeForce RTX 3070 (85W) can smash a lot of other Turing GPUs as well – no matter the fact that it has a fairly modest TGP, it has a monstrous amount of CUDA cores, ROPs, and a 256-bit memory bus.

You can also check our dedicated article about All laptops with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 / 3070 Max-Q.

All laptops equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 [85W]

All laptops equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 [115W]

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