is it worth paying more money for an rtx
3070 gaming laptop or should you save
the cash and get a cheaper rtx 3060.
i've compared both in 17 games at two
resolutions to find out here are the
differences in specs between these two
laptop gpus the higher tier rtx 370 has
33 more cuda cores 33 more vram and the
memory is faster too though the max
boost clock on the 360 is higher the
3070 has a higher possible maximum power
limit but this will vary between laptops
to do this testing i'm using my lenovo
legion 5 for the rtx 3060 and the xmg
neo 15 for the rtx 37e both laptops have
an 8 core ryzen 7 5800h processor a mux
switch to disable optimus to get best
performance and most importantly they
both run their gpus at the maximum power
limit specified by nvidia with 15 watts
extra due to dynamic boost i've also
tested both with the exact same physical
kit of memory installed 16 gigs of ddr4
3200 cl22x8 memory and dual channel
there might be some small differences
between these two laptops due to things
like cpu power limit and laptop cooling
solution but we're focusing on higher
setting presets in games which are
generally more gpu bound to help
mitigate this plus 1440p has been tested
too which is more gpu heavy compared to
1080p so let's compare those 17 games at
two different resolutions then
afterwards we'll check out pricing and
availability power draw and content
creator workloads cyberpunk 2077 was
tested in the same part of the game on
both laptops i've got the 1080p results
below and 1440p results above with the
lower tier rtx 3060 below and higher
tier rtx 3070 on top this game saw one
of the smallest differences out of all
17 titles tested not a great start for
the more expensive 3070 which was
reaching 10 percent higher average fps
at 1080p and just eight percent higher
at 1440p granted this was the smallest
difference at this resolution this game
also offers dlss support and as both are
rtx gpus they can both take advantage of
this feature to get a performance boost
the 3070 now has a slightly larger 12
lead over the 3060 at 1440p but
strangely the 3060 system was ahead in
one percent lows at 1080p something that
we'll see in more upcoming games but
only with dlss enabled watchdog's legion
is on the other end of the spectrum and
has the biggest difference out of all 17
games tested even the one percent lows
from the 3070 are ahead of the average
fps the 3060 laptop is able to produce
the 3070 was reaching 52 percent higher
average fps at 1080p while it was a
massive 71 percent higher at 1440p this
game's benchmark was warning that six
gigs of vram wasn't enough at maximum
settings the eight gigs on the 3070 was
barely enough so that seems to be why
the difference is so big this game also
offers dlss support so we can get a
further performance boost by turning it
on at 1080p the 3060s average fps was at
least no longer behind the 3070s one
percent low but the gap is otherwise
still quite large red dead redemption 2
on the other hand had much smaller
differences which were more in line with
the 17 game average at 1080p the 3070
was around 17 faster in terms of average
fps and then this increases to about 20
at the higher 1440p resolution this game
recently added dlss support and both
machines were able to get a similar
performance increase by turning this on
i've compared control with ray tracing
and dlss but let's start off with
neither so just stock standard gameplay
this game is typically quite gpu heavy
though at 1080p the 3070 was just 17
ahead of the 3060. an above average
result but not by much the difference is
much larger at the higher 1440p
resolution though with the 3070 now 45
percent ahead the second biggest
difference at this resolution only
behind watchdog's legion possibly due to
the extra vram this game gets a massive
performance increase by turning on dlss
at 1440p the 3060 is now 107 higher than
itself with dlss off while the 3070 was
62 percent higher than itself with dlss
off so clearly a much larger improvement
for the 3060. dlss allows it to close
the gap but the 3070 was still 14 faster
than the 3060 here i've also tested both
with ray tracing on and while enabling
dlss would of course increase
performance here i wanted to see the
differences in just straight up ray
tracing at 1440p the 3070 was 54 ahead
of the 3060. so a bigger gap compared to
the 45 difference noted at stock which
seems to confirm the 3070 is a fair bit
better at tracing those rays call of
duty warzone on the other hand had below
average differences compared to other
games the 3070 was 11 percent faster
than the 3060 at 1080p in terms of
average fps and then 15 faster at the
higher 1440p resolution this game also
offers dlss support and it seems to
close the gap between the 3060 and 3070.
at 1080p the 37e is now just four
percent higher in terms of average fps
and the one percent low looks about the
same on the graph but was technically
one fps higher and while i'd say that's
margin of error it matches what we saw
in some of the other games when enabling
dlss assassin's creed valhalla was an
above average result for the 37e but
that's not to say the 3060 was running
the game poorly or anything i've spent
over a hundred hours in this game now
and i don't think you need a super high
frame rate to enjoy it that said the
3070 was reaching 18 percent higher
average fps compared to the 3060 at
1080p and then 19 higher at 1440p the
differences in microsoft flight
simulator were below average the 3070
was just nine percent higher than the
3060 in average fps though the 1 lows
were about the same on both and then 17
percent higher at 1440p as an esports
title you could argue that higher frame
rate is more important in fortnight
compared to most other games that i've
covered at 1080p the 3070 was reaching
18 percent higher average fps compared
to the 3060 then 19 higher at 1440p like
most other games the 3060 is still
offering decent performance considering
where it max settings here it's not as
if it's unplayable the 37e is just
better this is another game with dlss
support so the 3060 can surpass 100 fps
even for the one percent low now even at
1440p max settings with this simple
change though the 3070 was around 15
faster when comparing average frame rate
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 despite the
additional rt cores in the 3070 we're
looking at fairly average differences
here with the 3070 15 ahead of the 360
at 1080p and 17 ahead of 1440p instead
of talking through the rest of the eight
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
16 percent higher average fps compared
to the 3060 laptop the 3070 was ahead in
all games as expected but the margins
could vary significantly depending on
the game there was basically no
practical difference seen in shadow of
the tomb raider while watchdog's legion
at the top has huge improvements with
the extra vram in the 30 70. stepping up
to the higher 1440p resolution the 3070
pulls further ahead with a 21 average
improvement now many gaming laptops with
these two gpus are starting to feature
1440p screens now so the differences
here might be more relevant to you
depending on the screen configuration
you're looking at or if you plan on
using an external monitor worst case
cyberpunk was just eight percent higher
with the 37e but then again watchdogs
and control are basically outliers here
for the most part i think the six gigs
of vram in the rtx 3060 is enough in
most modern games even at the higher
1440p resolution but that said i think
some of those outlier games could be
giving us a bit of a preview of what to
expect a few years from now if we had
the extra vram as games will continue to
get more demanding over time just before
we get into the price differences i've
gotta compare both gpus and some content
creator workloads it's not all just
about gaming the 3070 completed the
longer classroom test in blender 54
faster than the 3060 and the shorter bmw
test 38 faster this is a cuda test so
i'd expect the cuda core difference to
matter more here v-ray was also much
better with the 30-70 scoring 58 higher
in the cuda test i've also run the ray
tracing test which was 35 percent higher
on the 30-70 which makes sense
considering the 30-70 has 33 percent
more rt course though we didn't see
anywhere near that much of a difference
in the games with rt spec view perf
tests out various professional 3d
workloads and the 3070 shown by the
purple bars was ahead in all of these
tests though the margins could vary a
fair bit depending on the specific task
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 42 percent more power
though in this game at 1440p it was also
offering a 45 boost to average frame
rate given control was more of an
outlier in the fps tests i'd expect most
other games to require more power
compared to their fps improvements on
the 37e great so the rtx 3070 laptop
outperforms the 3060 laptop surprising
no one but how much more expensive is a
3070 and is it worth it 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 the
lenovo legion 5 is available with rtx
3060 graphics for 1555 us dollars though
i have seen it on sale for closer to
1400 so keep an eye out on those links
for sales lenovo wants 240 dollars more
to upgrade to the 3070 which is about 15
percent more money in this case but this
will be less in terms of a percentage if
you're buying a more expensive model
this doesn't sound too bad fifteen
percent more money for fifteen percent
more performance in games at 1080p kind
of adds up if you want the extra 15
performance then pay 15 more money not
great not terrible now that said for a
machine that you're probably gonna use
for three plus years i think it might
make more sense just to get the 3070 if
you can afford it and that is mainly
because you get the extra two gigs of
vram but as we've seen the 3060 laptop
still holds up incredibly well today i'm
a little concerned to see if it's six
gigs of theorem starts to be a limit in
two three four five years i don't know
i've got no way of seeing the future
maybe by the time the six gigs of vram
starts being a limit you'd be looking
for a laptop upgrade anyway i don't know
it's hard to predict but basically i
don't think the 3060 is going anywhere
anytime soon but if you are getting a
laptop that has a higher resolution
screen i'd probably just go the 3070
just in case again you get a similar
performance boost for the amount of
money spent at least in the examples
featured in this video check out these
videos next if you want to see how the
rtx 3060 and 3070 compare against older
laptop gpus maybe you can save some
money getting a last gen option make
sure you're subscribed for future laptop
comparisons like this one and come and
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