NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 is a high-end desktop graphics card based on the AD104 chip using the Ada Lovelace architecture. The 4070 offers 5,888 cores and 12 GB GDDR6X graphics memory with a 192 bit memory bus and clocked at 21 Gbits. The card offers a good raytracing performance thanks to the 46 dedicated raytracing cores. For AI calculations (and DLSS 3 in games), the RTX 4070 has 184 Tensor cores.

The gaming performance is well suited for 2k/QHD gaming in most demanding games, and should be able to handle 4k gaming for lesser demanding games (or with reduced settings / DLSS activated). The raw gaming performance is comparable to an older RTX 3080 or a AMD Radeon 6800 XT. Compared to the similar named mobile GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, the desktop variant is much faster.

The AD104 chip is manufactured in the modern 5nm process at TSMC (4N with EUV) and specified with a TGP (Total Graphics Power) of 200 Watt (compared to the 450 Watt of the RTX 4090).

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile

The mobile Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 is a graphics card for high end laptops. It is based on the Pascal architecture and manufactured in 16 nm FinFET at TSMC. The GPU is using the smaller GP106 chip. Compared to the desktop version of the GTX 1060, the laptop version offers the same amount of shaders but slightly lower clock rates. The TDP is slightly less than the old GTX 970M (predecessor).

For thin and light laptops Nvidia offer a Max-Q called version of the GTX 1060 with lower TDP and also significantly lower performance. Sadly this variant im sold with the same GTX 1060 name, making it hard to judge the performance.

The performance of the mobile GTX 1060 is a few percent below a reference GTX 1060 desktop card. In our benchmark so far (no max-Q version) the mobile GTX 1060 was somewhere between -1 and -16% slower than a desktop variant. A comprehensive review of the dekstop GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition with 6 GB GDDR5 can be found here. Therefore, the card is most suited for Full HD or WQHD gaming in high to maximum details (see benchmarks below).

The GP106 chip is produced in 16nm FinFET at TSMC and offers a range of new features, like DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) and improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). A list of improvements and features can be found in our article on the Pascal architecture.

The power consumption is specified with a TGP of 80 Watt and therefore slightly below the old GTX 970M. Since summer 2017 a low power variant (Max-Q) is available for thin and light laptops with reduced performance and a lower TGP of 60 - 70 Watt.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 is a high-end desktop graphics card based on the AD103 chip using the Ada Lovelace architecture. The 4080 offers 9,728 cores and 16 GB GDDR6X graphics memory with a 256 bit memory bus and clocked at 22.4 Gbits. The card offers a very good raytracing performance thanks to the 76 dedicated raytracing cores. For AI calculations (and DLSS 3 in games), the RTX 4080 has 304 Tensor cores.

The gaming performance is well suited for 4k60 gaming in maximum detail settings and 2k gaming with higher frame rates. Even Raytracing effects can be used with DLSS in most games. Compared to the competition, the RTX 4080 is on par with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT with a noticeable advantage when raytracing is used.

The AD103 chp is manufactured in the modern 5nm process at TSMC (4N with EUV) and specified with a TGP (Total Graphics Power) of 320 Watt (compared to the 450 Watt of the RTX 4090). Nvidia is recommending a 750 Watt power supply for the RTX4080.