AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT vs. RTX 3070: Which is the better GPU for gaming?

The AMD RX 7700 XT is a newly launched 1440p gaming video card that primarily competes with the RTX 4060 Ti with a competitive $450 price tag. With 12 GB of VRAM and a price tag midway between the 8 GB and 16 GB variants of the 4060 Ti, it is one of the most interesting offerings in the mid-range.

That said, given how few RTX 4060 Ti GPUs were sold, a better point of comparison is the older RTX 30 series cards. They have been sufficiently discounted these days and are readily available in the used market for a fraction of their launch MSRP.

One such card is the RTX 3070. Upon launch, it sold like hotcakes and continues to deliver top-notch performance in the latest and most demanding video games.

In this article, we will compare the RTX 3070 with the newly launched RX 7700 XT and try to determine the performance difference between these graphics cards.

---

The AMD RX 7700 XT and the RTX 3070 fight neck-to-neck

Specs

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is based on the latest RDNA 3 architecture from Team Red. It departs from the monolithic design of the last-gen 6700 XT in favor of a chiplet architecture for better cost and power efficiency. AMD is targeting premium 1440p gaming performance with this new graphics card.

Compared to this, the RTX 3070 is a wildly different GPU based on Nvidia's Ampere technology. It has already been replaced by the new 4070, which brings much better performance, support for the latest technologies like DLSS 3, and improved efficiency.

Since these two GPUs have little in common, comparing their on-paper specs will be difficult. However, a brief look at what the two GPUs bring to the table is as follows:

	AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT	Nvidia RTX 3070
Graphics processor	Navi 32	GA104
Shading units/CUDA cores	3456	5888
TMUs	216	184
ROPs	96	96
Compute Units	54	N/A
Tensor cores	N/A	184
RT cores	54	46
Base clock	1700 MHz	1500 MHz
Boost clock	2544 MHz	1725 MHz
Memory size	12 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6
TDP	245W	220W
Price	$450	$499

The new RX 7700 XT, surprisingly, is less power efficient than the last-gen RTX 3070. It also features 12 GB of VRAM, up from the limited 8 GB buffer of the last-gen Nvidia GPU. With a slightly cheaper price tag, this GPU is an option worth considering.

---

Performance difference

The performance difference between the RX 7700 XT and the RTX 3070 isn't particularly large. However, it gets significant in higher resolutions like 1440p and 4K. This is mainly because of the VRAM advantage the new AMD GPU has.

YouTuber Mark PC conducted in-depth tests in the latest and most demanding video games with the two graphics cards installed in his system. His observations were a mixed bag. In more graphically demanding DirectX 12 titles, the new Radeon RX 7700 XT has a significant advantage over the last-gen 3070. However, the trend reverses in games running on Vulkan or older APIs.

The framerates in various games recorded by Mark PC are as follows:

	AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT	Nvidia RTX 3070
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	80	64
Watch Dogs Legion	79	68
Cyberpunk 2077	86	80
Doom Eternal	165	206
Red Dead Redemption 2	126	126

Therefore, decide based on which games you want to play. If you are mostly into the latest single-player and resource-demanding titles, the new RX 7700 XT is the better choice. However, if you mostly play older games like League of Legends, World of Warcraft, and others, the 3070 might be the better option.

Additionally, if you want to future-proof your rig, opt for the newer 7700 XT for longer driver support and the extra VRAM.