Should you get AMD’s new RX 6700M or Nvidia’s RTX 3070 graphics in your next gaming laptop?
I’ve compared both in 17 games at 1080p and 1440p resolutions to find out all the
differences!
Here are the differences in specs between these two laptop GPUs.
The RTX 3070 has 8 gigs of GDDR6 memory while the RX 6700M has 10 gigs, but Nvidia’s memory
has more bandwidth and a larger memory bus.
CUDA cores and stream processors aren’t directly comparable, but the 6700M has a higher
power limit, at least at maximum.
AMD’s spec sheet lists the RX 6700M as up to 135 watts, while Nvidia’s spec sheet
lists the 3070 as up to 125 watts.
So basically either laptop might perform better or worse depending on its power limit.
In certain scenarios though, Nvidia’s dynamic boost can actually increase the 3070 up to
140 watts in this machine, and AMD also shifts power between the CPU and GPU with SmartShift,
which is similar to Nvidia’s dynamic boost.
To do this testing I’m using the Neo 15 from XMG, a Tongfang chassis with a full powered
3070, as well as the Delta 15 from MSI for the RX 6700M.
Both laptops have 8 core Ryzen 7 5800H processors, and both were tested with the exact same physical
kit of memory, 16 gigs of DDR4-3200 CL22 x8 single rank memory in dual channel.
Unfortunately I don’t believe the Delta 15 has a full powered RX 6700M.
I measured it in a GPU stress test at about 120 watts and then it quickly lowered to around
115 watts and then with the processor also active it lowered to about 95 watts, and this
would make sense given the Delta 15 is a thinner design.
Now it kind of sounds like it’s not fair to compare this 6700M because it’s not full
powered, but at the same time this is the only 6700M laptop that’s currently available,
so it’s the only way to do this test at all.
Maybe that’ll change in future but this is all we’ve got right now.
Both laptops were tested with an external screen connected to bypass the integrated
graphics, so there’s no optimus bottlenecks or anything like that.
Alright so let’s start off by comparing both laptops in 17 different games at 1080p
and 1440p resolutions, then afterwards we’ll check out things like pricing and availability,
power draw and content creator workloads.
Let’s start out with Red Dead Redemption 2, which was tested with the game’s benchmark.
I’ve got the 1080p results down the bottom and the 1440p results at the top, with the
RX 6700M results below the RTX 3070 results.
The 6700M is off to a good start here, doing slightly better than the 3070 at both resolutions,
though at just a 2 to 3 FPS difference it’s probably not something you’re likely to
notice in practice.
This game recently added DLSS support, so I’ve tested that too with the 3070.
Unfortunately there’s no FSR support for this game as of yet, so the 6700M can’t
also get a further boost.
Even with DLSS boosting the 3070 they’re still basically equivalent at 1080p, but then
at 1440p the 3070 with DLSS enabled was around 7% faster than the 6700M.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was also tested with the game’s benchmark, and this is a
title that I’ve found to favor Radeon graphics in the past.
The 6700M was just one frame ahead of the 3070 at the lower 1080p resolution, but the
3070 was slightly ahead when it came to the 1% low, but it’s a small difference in any
case.
The 3070 was a couple of FPS higher at the higher 1440p resolution though, but the 6700M
was still able to give us about 60 FPS here.
Control on the other hand tends to favor Nvidia graphics, and the RTX 3070 was ahead this
time.
At 1080p the 3070 was reaching 23% higher average FPS compared to the 6700M, the 2nd
biggest difference out of all 17 games tested, and then this increases to a 28% lead at the
higher 1440p resolution, the biggest win for the 3070 out of all tested games.
Even the 1% low from the 3070 was ahead of the average FPS from the 6700M.
This is another game with DLSS support, and that’s offering a massive boost for the
3070, as unfortunately this is another game without FSR support, so no gains for our 6700M
laptop.
The 3070 was now reaching 79% higher average FPS at 1080p, or 108% higher average FPS at
1440p, crazy stuff.
I’ve also tested both with ray tracing enabled to see the differences there.
The 3070 could of course also use DLSS here to get a further boost, but I wanted to compare
just pure RT differences.
The 3070 was reaching 44% higher average FPS compared to the 6700M at 1080p and about 50%
higher at 1440p, so it would appear that the 3070 has an edge when it comes to ray tracing
in this title.
The RTX 3070 also had a clear lead in Cyberpunk 2077, reaching 14% higher average FPS at 1080p
and 16% higher at 1440p, so above average gains compared to the 17 titles covered, but
not as big compared to Control previously.
This is another game with DLSS support, and by enabling that the 3070 is able to get a
massive boost to performance.
At 1080p the 3070 is now 51% ahead of the 6700M, or 78% ahead at 1440p, with a 1% low
that’s higher than even the 6700M’s average FPS.
Again there’s not yet FSR support for this game.
I was interested to see how Watch Dogs Legion would be handled, as the game’s benchmark
mentions that the 8 gigs of VRAM present in the 3070 are only just enough to get by at
max settings.
Despite the 10 gigs of VRAM available to the 6700M though, the 3070 was still reaching
11% higher average FPS at both resolutions, though interestingly the 1% low on the 6700M
was ahead of Nvidia at the higher resolution where more VRAM might help out.
This game has DLSS support too, so that’s an easy way for the Nvidia GPU to get a further
performance boost, no FSR here for the 6700M to enjoy.
The differences in Call of Duty Warzone were much closer together.
Just a 1 to 2 FPS difference between the 3070 and 6700M regardless of the resolution, though
the 6700M was a little ahead when it came to the 1% lows, particularly at 1080p, so
perhaps a little more stable experience there.
This is yet another game that offers DLSS though, and by enabling this the 3070 is now
able to leap in front and do much better.
At 1080p the 1% lows are now about the same, but the average FPS of the 3070 is 13% ahead
of the 6700M, or 28% ahead at 1440p.
That said, near 100 FPS on the 6700M at 1440p max settings was still playing just fine during
testing.
The differences in Microsoft Flight Simulator were above average when compared to the other
16 games tested in favor of the 3070.
The 1% lows from the 6700M were ahead of the 3070 at 1080p, however the 3070 was reaching
14% higher average frame rate.
The gap increases at 1440p, where the 3070’s 1% low is now close to the average frame rate
from the 6700M.
The 3070 was reaching 27% higher average FPS at this higher resolution, the second biggest
difference at 1440p out of all games tested.
As an eSports title, you could argue that higher frame rate is more important in Fortnite
compared to most other games that I’ve covered.
This one typically does better on Nvidia hardware, and I’m guessing that’s the case here
as the 3070 was 26% ahead of the 6700M at 1080p, the biggest difference out of all 17
games at this resolution.
Even the 1% low from the 3070 was ahead of the average frame rate the 6700M could offer
at 1440p, granted it’s not like 80 FPS at this higher resolution is unusable or anything.
That said, like many other games Fortnite also has DLSS support, so the 3070 can get
quite a significant improvement 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.
This could in part be why the 3070 had above average gains here when compared to other
games tested, and sure I could have disabled the ray tracing settings, but this is a clear
example of games that are starting to implement them into default setting presets, so I chose
to keep it.
Instead of talking 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 3070 laptop was reaching about 10%
higher average FPS compared to the RX 6700M laptop.
MSI’s Delta 15 with RX 6700M graphics was ahead in three games at the bottom of the
graph, while a few others only saw minor gains in favor of the 3070.
Best case though, some of the games that are known to heavily favor Nvidia like Fortnite
and Control are up the top with more than a 20% higher average frame rate.
Stepping up to the higher 1440p resolution and the RTX 3070 was now around 14% faster
than the RX 6700M on average.
I was curious if the 6700M might instead have a bigger improvement here due to the higher
10 gig VRAM capacity, but generally speaking that does not appear to be the case.
In these 17 games the 6700M was only ahead in one, Red Dead Redemption 2 at the bottom
of the graph, but of course this isn’t factoring in anything else like DLSS.
I’ve also compared the 6 games that offer DLSS to see how that helps within supported
titles.
We’ll just look at 1440p, as honestly I think that makes most sense with a higher
end GPU like this.
The 3070 with DLSS enabled was more than 50% faster than the 6700M, though as we can see
results can vary significantly depending on the specific game.
The DLSS results could be boosted further in most games as I chose to test with quality
settings where possible.
Now you might be asking where the FSR results are.
The fact is, these 17 games are just what I’ve been testing for months now, years
in case of some of them, but FSR just isn’t available in any of them yet.
FSR is still relatively new, and it’s only made an appearance in some newer games.
No offence to anyone that plays them but most of them are titles I’ve just never even
heard of.
Should I have picked some arbitrary games that do support FSR and included them in this
comparison?
Maybe, but I don’t think so.
I didn’t pick any of these games because they had DLSS, they just happened to have
DLSS, and that’s simply because it’s been out for longer and it’s present in more
games.
That’s just a legitimate advantage that the 3070 has today regardless of whether or
not you like it.
Hopefully we get more popular titles with FSR in the future.
As for the VRAM difference, the 8 gigs in the 3070 clearly seems to be enough today,
even at the higher 1440p resolution.
The 10 gigs in the 6700M might start closing the gap years from now, but it’s really
hard to predict.
Personally, I wouldn’t be making a purchasing decision based purely on that.
By the time the differences between 8 gigs and 10 gigs of VRAM start making a difference
you might be looking for a laptop GPU upgrade anyway.
Generally speaking, the RTX 3070 was beating the RX 6700M.
This might change in future if we do see a laptop that has the full power 6700M, but
even if we get that considering the MSI Delta 15 wasn’t too far behind the full power
limit I don’t think it’s going to be enough to give it the win over the 3070.
But yeah it might close the gap and make these two even closer together.
Based on these results it might make more sense to compare the 6700M against Nvidia’s
RTX 3060, let me know in the comments below if that’s something you want to see.
Just before we get into the price differences I’ve also compared both laptops in some
content creator workloads and we’ll look at power draw.
SPECviewperf tests out various professional 3D workloads, and the 3070, shown by the purple
bars, was ahead in most of these tests.
I’ve generally found Radeon graphics to be behind here, so not sure if it’s an optimization
thing or what, but it does depend on the test, the 6700M was ahead in some.
I’ve compared the total system power draw from the wall with both laptops running Control
at 4K max settings with an external screen.
The 3070 machine was drawing about 6% more power, though in this game at 1440p it was
also offering a 28% boost to average frame rate.
In this one game, the 3070 appears to be more power efficient, but this would change based
on the game.
I’ve used control for measuring power draw for years, but yeah if Radeon graphics are
known to not do as well as Nvidia I should probably change that.
Alright so generally speaking, the RTX 3070 is outperforming the RX 6700M, but that’s
not to say the 6700M is bad or anything.
As we’ve seen it was running all these modern games at higher setting levels 1080p and 1440p
perfectly fine.
I didn’t have any driver crashes or anything and both were stable in all the games I tested.
So what about the price difference?
Prices of both will of course change over time, so refer to those links in the description
below for updates.
At the time of recording, MSI’s Delta 15, the only gaming laptop currently available
with RX 6700M graphics, goes for $1600 USD in the US, granted this is currently on sale.
Generally speaking, 3070 laptops are more expensive than this.
Cheaper 3070 laptops might not have the full wattage power limit, so performance would
be lower.
The XMG Neo 15 I’ve tested is around 2200 Euro, so definitely not cheap.
Right now alternatives like the Legion 5 Pro are about $2000 USD to get the 3070, though
I’ve seen it cheaper and close to the $1600 price point of the 6700M.
Prices are just all over the place this year.
Look at the end of the day I think it all comes down to the price difference.
Right now full powered RTX 3070 laptops are around $2000 USD or 25% more money compared
to the 6700M in the Delta 15.
Is it worth paying 25% more money for a 14% increase in games on average?
Maybe not.
If the prices are closer together though then the 3070 would definitely be more attractive
as it generally performs better in most of the workloads tested.
Of course there’s way more to buying a laptop than just the GPU that’s inside.
Check out my full review video of the MSI Delta 15 over here next to get all of the
details about.
I cover everything like thermals, battery life and how hard it is to upgrade there.
Otherwise find out if Nvidia’s RTX 3070 is worth paying more for compared to the cheaper
RTX 3060 here, and come and join me and the community in Discord and get behind the scenes
videos by supporting the channel on Patreon.