Should you buy an RTX 3060 gaming laptop,
or can you save some money on an older RTX 2070? I’ve compared both laptops GPUs in
17 different games at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions to show you all the differences!
These are the differences in specs between these two laptop GPUs.
The RTX 3060 came out 2 years after the 2070 and has 67% more CUDA cores with a higher boost
clock speed. The older 2070 has more total VRAM capacity, and the memory is faster too.
Nvidia’s newer 30 series also has additional features that 20 series is missing though,
like resizable BAR and dynamic boost. Performance will vary based on power limit,
and laptops with the newer 3060 have a larger possible power range available.
To do this testing I’m using my Lenovo Legion 5 for the 3060 laptop and the Eluktronics
MAX-15 for the 2070, as they both have the highest 115 watt power limits available,
though the 3060 can go higher with dynamic boost in certain scenarios.
Now older RTX 2070 laptops are only available with Intel processors. Before AMD’s Ryzen 5000,
Ryzen 4000 was only available with up to Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics. So basically because the
RTX 2070 graphics are older they’re always going to be paired with an older processor.
Unfortunately this means that some of the differences in this video might be
due to the processor differences rather than the GPUs only, it is what it is,
but at the same time I think it’s still pretty fair because if you were to actually
buy a 2070 or a 3060 you would get older or newer CPUs respectively.
To try and mitigate the processor differences we’ll focus on higher setting presets in games,
as those are generally more GPU bound.
I should also note that older processor in the 2070 system does also mean slower
memory. Again it’s not ideal when trying to focus on GPU differences,
but it is an actual platform difference that exists between these two generations.
Now the Legion 5 has a MUX switch which lets us disable optimus and
get optimal performance in games, so all testing has been done with that,
but unfortunately the Eluktronics MAX-15 does not offer this, so in order to bypass
the integrated graphics and get the same result I’ve tested it with an external screen connected.
So basically just to summarize, while not perfectly ideal, I still believe this
is a pretty fair comparison between the 2070 and 3060, so let’s start out by comparing 17 different
games at 2 resolutions, then afterwards we’ll focus on things like pricing and availability.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the games benchmark. I’ve got the 1080p results below
and 1440p results above, with the older RTX 2070 on the bottom, and newer RTX 3060 above.
The difference was below average out of the 17 games tested at 1080p with the 3060 coming in 11%
ahead of the 2070, but then at the higher 1440p resolution the 3060 was now reaching 17%
higher average FPS, despite the 2070 having more VRAM. This game recently added DLSS support,
and this is a feature that both RTX GPUs support. At 1080p the 3060 was now just
4% ahead of the 2070, so DLSS closes the gap there, then at 1440p the 3060 was still 13%
ahead, but that said above 60 FPS at high settings isn’t bad or anything from the 2070.
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested with the exact same run through the game on both laptops,
and at both resolutions this game had one of the biggest improvements on the 3060 out of
all 17 titles tested with a 38% higher average FPS. Even the 1% lows from the 3060 were higher
than the average frame rates that the 2070 was able to offer. This is another game that
offers DLSS support, so it is possible to further boost performance with both of these RTX GPUs,
but even with it enabled the 3060 was still more than 30% faster than the 2070.
Watch Dogs Legion was actually doing better on the RTX 2070 regardless of resolution,
and I believe this is due to the higher VRAM capacity, as there were warnings
when running the games benchmark about the 6 gigs available on the 3060 not being enough.
That said, this is max settings so we could probably close the gap with lower setting levels.
This game also supports DLSS, and at 1440p the 2070 is able to get an even further
lead over the 3060, though both are still of course doing better than without it enabled.
I’ve compared Control with ray tracing and DLSS, but let’s start off with neither, so just stock
standard gameplay. At 1080p even the 1% low from the 3060 was above the average FPS from the 2070,
while average FPS was 24% higher, but then at 1440p they’re very close together and basically
within margin of error, there’s no real difference here. This is another game that supports DLSS,
and unlike watch dogs just before, the gap at 1440p gets wider in favor of the 3060 this time,
but hey max settings with 60 FPS for the 1% low at this higher resolution is still going to play
well on the 2070 laptop. Here’s how things look with ray tracing enabled but no DLSS,
as I just wanted to see pure RT differences. I didn’t expect the higher 1440p resolution to
be about the same regardless of GPU, as the 3060 has newer RT cores, but here we are.
The differences in Microsoft Flight Simulator were above average out of the 17 games tested
in favor of the 3060 laptop, though I suspect even at the high setting preset some of these
gains are likely down to the differences in processors, but alas there’s always going to be a
CPU difference between these generations of GPUs. The 3060 was 26% faster than the 2070 at 1080p,
then a massive 35% faster at 1440p with a 1% low even above the 2070’s average FPS.
Call of Duty Warzone had the largest difference between these two GPUs at 1080p, with a 39% higher
average frame rate on the 3060 laptop, and 37% ahead of the 2070 at the higher 1440p resolution.
This was another where even the 1% lows from the 3060 were ahead of the 2070’s average FPS. This
game also supports DLSS, so both laptops can get a reasonable performance improvement by enabling
this simple setting. The 2070 did feel a bit stuttery with max settings at 1440p without it,
and although DLSS wasn’t a magical cure, it did make it feel noticeably smoother. DLSS is
giving a bigger boost to the 3060 though, as it’s now 47% ahead of the 2070 here.
Fortnite had about average differences between the two laptops when compared to the other 16 games
tested. Max settings 1440p was still above 60 FPS on the 2070 though, but the 3060 was
able to offer a 23% boost to average FPS, with a perhaps more important 29% boost to the 1% lows,
meaning the 3060 laptop offers a more stable experience, though more often than not I’ve
found 1% low differences to depend more on CPU than GPU. This game also has DLSS support,
and the 3060 was still a similar 20% higher in terms of average FPS at 1440p,
but the 2070 is able to achieve a nice 47% increase to average FPS by enabling this setting.
F1 2021 was tested with the highest setting preset which enables some ray tracing effects by default,
as denoted at the top of the graph. Perhaps this is why this game was one of the larger
wins for the RTX 3060, as it does have that newer RT hardware built in. The 3060 was
reaching 25% higher average FPS at 1080p, and was 31% ahead of the 2070 at 1440p.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla had below average differences with the 3060 just 14% ahead of
the 2070 at 1080p, and 18% ahead at 1440p. What I’m more interested in is comparing these results
with AMD’s upcoming RX 6600M and 6700M, as this game in particular generally has big
gains with Radeon graphics, so make sure you’re subscribed for those upcoming laptop comparisons.
Rather than talk through the rest of the 8 games individually in depth,
I’ll just blast through them so we can get into the average differences
as that’s more interesting, even if all of this testing did take many hours to complete.
A larger selection of games is important to help get a better rounded average.
Feel free to pause the video if you want a closer look at these additional games.
On average over all 17 games tested at 1080p,
the RTX 3060 laptop was reaching 19% higher average FPS compared to the
2070 laptop. Basically the 3060 was better in all games with the one exception being Watch
Dogs Legion which appears to benefit from the additional VRAM present with the 2070.
Stepping up to the higher 1440p resolution and the results are similar. The RTX 3060
laptop was now around 20% faster than the 2070 laptop when averaging out all 17 games tested,
and once more just one title was doing better with the 2070’s extra VRAM,
though Control was now close to seeing no difference between them, and that is a relatively
GPU heavy title. For the most part though, the 3060 was now further ahead in most other games.
It’s also worth mentioning that Nvidia’s new 30 series laptops also have extra features like HDMI
2.1, which might be important for you if you plan on playing 4K games at high refresh rate.
Just before we get into the price differences I’ve also
compared both GPUs in some content creator workloads - it’s not all just about gaming!
The 3060 was almost 50% faster at completing the Blender Classroom test when compared to the 2070,
while the shorter BMW test was 55% faster on the 3060.
Not too unexpected given the 3060 has many more CUDA cores, and this is a CUDA test.
V-Ray was also better on the 3060, scoring 23% higher in the CUDA test, but the ray tracing
test was scoring 65% higher on the 3060, so the RT performance definitely seems to be much better
there, which I suppose isn’t too surprising given it literally has newer generation RT hardware, but
that said as we saw in games like control earlier there were only minor differences at times.
SPECviewperf tests out various professional 3D workloads, and the 3060, shown by the purple bars,
was generally ahead in most of these tests, however the 2070 in the red bars
had a couple of wins, perhaps due to the higher VRAM, I’m not sure.
Great, so in general the 3060 does outperform the older 2070,
so what are the price differences like, and is it worth buying the 3060? Prices will of course
change over time, so refer to those links down in the description below for updates.
At the time of recording, Lenovo’s Legion 5 that I’ve tested here goes for under $1600 USD for the
3060 model, but I’ve seen it on sale for as low as $1400, and it’s also worth mentioning I’ve seen
sales of other models like HP’s Omen 15 with 3060 for as low as $1080, granted that one has a lower
100 watt power limit and won’t perform as well as the Legion 5 which is more of a best case.
As for 2070 laptops, well, just scrolling around new models they appear to be similar prices,
if not more. I’m guessing availability issues with
3060 laptops have kept the price of 2070 models high, supply and demand.
Given the 2070 mobile launched in early 2019,
you might have better luck on the second hand market, as there’s probably just more
of these machines available as they were made in a time before supply shortages.
Many 3060 laptops on the other hand are still hard to buy due to availability
issues. Honestly in terms of gaming performance I was
expecting the differences between these two laptops to be smaller than it was.
The 3060 actually surprised me there, particularly at 1440p,
I thought the extra VRAM in the 2070 might help it out more. I suppose
it’s possible that in future the margins between these two laptops could shrink,
particularly at 1440p if the 6 gigs of VRAM in the 3060 starts becoming a bottleneck in future games.
The 2070 is definitely still capable, but my main concern is that the prices of both are generally
quite similar, so unless the 2070 is available with a pretty steep discount you might as well
just try and get a 3060 laptop, as it’s both going to perform quite a bit better in games,
but it’s also going to be paired with a more modern CPU.
Based on what we’ve seen here, the 3060 might actually be a better fight for the RTX 2080,
something I definitely didn’t expect,
let me know in the comments below if that’s something you want to see.
Check out these other comparisons next if you want to see how well Nvidia’s RTX 3060 laptop compares
against others, make sure you’re subscribed for future laptop comparisons like this one,
there are a lot more on the way, and come and join me in Discord
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