NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
Side-by-side benchmark comparison, specs, pricing, and value analysis.
Benchmark Comparison
Gaming figures are average frames per second, measured by Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy. Geometric mean of 15 games, ultra settings, no upscaling. Ray tracing figures are DXR-enabled at 1440p. A dash means the card was not tested at that resolution. Productivity and Steel Nomad are synthetic scores on their own scales and are not comparable to the fps columns.
Specifications
| Spec | GeForce RTX 2080 | GeForce RTX 3070 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 8GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 448 GB/s | 448 GB/s |
| Shaders | 2944 | 5888 |
| Boost Clock | 1710 MHz | 1725 MHz |
| TDP | 215W | 220W |
| Architecture | Turing | Ampere |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 1,745 | 3,168 |
| Best Price | $699 | $499 |
| Value Score | 18/100 | 39/100 |
Verdict
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is the clear winner — it offers both better performance and better value.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070: Which Should You Buy?
This is not a close race. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 delivers 77.7 fps at 1440p ultra to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080's 63.2 fps, a 23% gap. Only pick the slower card if it is dramatically cheaper or you need it for a lower resolution.
Pricing settles it: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is both faster and 40% cheaper at $499 versus $699. There is no scenario in this pairing where the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 is the better buy at these prices.
Two things beyond raw speed: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is 2 years newer (2020 versus 2018), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.