The GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is a popular mid-to-high-end graphics card, with overall performance on par with the previous generation’s GeForce RTX 3090.
According to previous reviews, its performance lags behind AMD’s RX 7900 XT, but the difference is not significant. Here, we will downgrade AMD’s opponent to the Radeon RX 6900 XT and compare the gaming performance of the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER with the Radeon RX 6900 XT.
Although the Radeon RX 6900 XT is a “previous generation” product, it is still a formidable contender, with several key parameters significantly surpassing the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, such as bus width, memory capacity, bandwidth, and texture units.
Therefore, it’s hard to determine who the winner is between the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER and the Radeon RX 6900 XT. This article will reveal the answer through a gaming performance comparison.
1. Parameter comparison between RTX 4070 SUPER and RX 6900 XT
The GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER was released on January 8, 2024. It uses the AD104-350 GPU based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, manufactured with TSMC’s 5nm process. It features 7168 CUDA cores, 224 texture units, 80 raster units, 56 ray tracing units, 56 streaming multiprocessors, and 224 tensor cores. The L2 cache is 48MB.
The standard clock speed is 1980 MHz, with a boost clock of up to 2475 MHz. It comes with 12GB of GDDR6X memory, a 192-bit memory interface, a memory speed of 21 Gbps, and a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. The FP32 floating point performance is 35.48 TFLOPS, power consumption is 220W, and the suggested retail price is $599.
The Radeon RX 6900 XT was released on October 28, 2020. It uses the Navi 21 GPU based on the RDNA 2 architecture, manufactured with TSMC’s 7nm process. It features 5120 stream processors, 128 raster units, 320 texture units, 80 compute units, 80 ray tracing units, an L2 cache of 4MB, and an L3 cache of 128MB.
The standard clock speed is 1825 MHz, with a boost clock of up to 2250 MHz. It comes with 16GB of GDDR6 memory, a 256-bit memory interface, a memory speed of 16 Gbps, and a memory bandwidth of 512 GB/s. The FP32 floating point performance is 23.04 TFLOPS, power consumption is 300W, and the suggested retail price is $999.
2. Test Platform Configuration
The main configuration is as follows:
- Processor: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
- Motherboard: ASUS TUF GAMING B550 PLUS
- Memory: 16GB DDR4 3600MHz
- Storage: Kingston A400 SSD 120GB plus Seagate 2TB HDD
- Operating System: Windows 10
3. Game Benchmark Test
The following tests will be conducted on seven games, all using 4K resolution mode. In the series of images below, the left side represents the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform, and the right side represents the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform.
① The first game is “God of War.”
The average frame rate on the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform is 74 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 66 FPS, frame time of 12.5ms, CPU usage of 24%, power consumption of 52W, temperature of 55 degrees, memory usage of 9.9GB, GPU usage of 99%, VRAM usage of 8.4GB, power consumption of 280W, and temperature of 61 degrees.
The average frame rate on the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 64 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 55 FPS, frame time of 14.3ms, CPU usage of 19%, power consumption of 51W, temperature of 54 degrees, memory usage of 10.1GB, GPU usage of 98%, VRAM usage of 7.5GB, power consumption of 217W, and temperature of 60 degrees.
In this game, the CPU usage of the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 5% lower than its competitor, memory usage is 0.2GB higher, GPU usage is almost equal, and VRAM usage is 0.9GB lower.
In terms of average frame rate, the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 10 FPS lower than the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform, the minimum instantaneous frame rate is 11 FPS lower, frame time is nearly 2ms higher, and overall performance is significantly inferior, but with 63W lower power consumption and similar temperature.
② The second game is “Red Dead Redemption 2.”
The average frame rate on the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform is 68 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 33 FPS, frame time of 4.8ms, CPU usage of 19%, power consumption of 51W, temperature of 57 degrees, memory usage of 11.9GB, GPU usage of 96%, VRAM usage of 13.3GB, power consumption of 282W, and temperature of 61 degrees.
The average frame rate on the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 66 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 53 FPS, frame time of 16.9ms, CPU usage of 20%, power consumption of 50W, temperature of 58 degrees, memory usage of 10.8GB, GPU usage of 97%, VRAM usage of 7.5GB, power consumption of 207W, and temperature of 59 degrees.
In this game, the CPU usage of the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 1% higher than its competitor, memory usage is 1.1GB lower, GPU usage is almost equal, and VRAM usage is 5.8GB lower.
In terms of average frame rate, the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 2 FPS lower than the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform, the minimum instantaneous frame rate is 20 FPS higher, frame time is nearly 12ms higher, and overall performance is slightly inferior, but with 75W lower power consumption and 2 degrees lower temperature.
③ The third game is “Cyberpunk 2077.”
The average frame rate on the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform is 44 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 36 FPS, frame time of 22.1ms, CPU usage of 38%, power consumption of 60W, temperature of 59 degrees, memory usage of 9.1GB, GPU usage of 98%, VRAM usage of 8.6GB, power consumption of 280W, and temperature of 60 degrees.
The average frame rate on the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 42 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 34 FPS, frame time of 24.2ms, CPU usage of 41%, power consumption of 63W, temperature of 61 degrees, memory usage of 9.5GB, GPU usage of 99%, VRAM usage of 9.0GB, power consumption of 220W, and temperature of 61 degrees.
In this game, the CPU usage of the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 3% higher than its competitor, memory usage is 0.4GB higher, GPU usage is almost equal, and VRAM usage is 0.4GB higher.
In terms of average frame rate, the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 2 FPS lower than the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform, the minimum instantaneous frame rate is also 2 FPS lower, frame time is nearly 2ms higher, and overall performance is slightly inferior but very close to a tie, with 60W lower power consumption and similar temperature.
④ The fourth game is “Shadow of the Tomb Raider.”
The average frame rate on the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform is 95 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 77 FPS, frame time of 12.4ms, CPU usage of 31%, power consumption of 54W, temperature of 56 degrees, memory usage of 8.7GB, GPU usage of 99%, VRAM usage of 9.0GB, power consumption of 281W, and temperature of 62 degrees.
The average frame rate on the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 94 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 78 FPS, frame time of 11.8ms, CPU usage of 28%, power consumption of 54W, temperature of 53 degrees, memory usage of 9.4GB, GPU usage of 98%, VRAM usage of 8.4GB, power consumption of 209W, and temperature of 60 degrees.
In this game, the CPU usage of the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 3% lower than its competitor, memory usage is 0.7GB higher, GPU usage is almost equal, and VRAM usage is 0.6GB lower.
In terms of average frame rate, the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 1 FPS lower than the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform, the minimum instantaneous frame rate is 1 FPS higher, the frame time difference is negligible, and overall performance is nearly equal, with 72W lower power consumption and 2 degrees lower temperature.
⑤ The fifth game is “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.”
The average frame rate on the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform is 68 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 49 FPS, frame time of 15.4ms, CPU usage of 22%, power consumption of 55W, temperature of 55 degrees, memory usage of 9.9GB, GPU usage of 97%, VRAM usage of 9.8GB, power consumption of 264W, and temperature of 59 degrees.
The average frame rate on the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 66 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 49 FPS, frame time of 16.9ms, CPU usage of 23%, power consumption of 53W, temperature of 56 degrees, memory usage of 10.0GB, GPU usage of 98%, VRAM usage of 9.1GB, power consumption of 192W, and temperature of 58 degrees.
In this game, the CPU usage of the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 1% higher than its competitor, memory usage is 0.1GB higher, GPU usage is almost equal, and VRAM usage is 0.7GB lower, with all metrics being quite close.
In terms of average frame rate, the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 2 FPS lower than the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform, with equal minimum instantaneous frame rates and frame time nearly 2ms higher, resulting in a tie overall, but with 72W lower power consumption and similar temperature.
⑥ The sixth game is “Hogwarts Legacy.”
The average frame rate on the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform is 65 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 51 FPS, frame time of 17.4ms, CPU usage of 19%, power consumption of 50W, temperature of 55 degrees, memory usage of 10.6GB, GPU usage of 98%, VRAM usage of 9.1GB, power consumption of 280W, and temperature of 61 degrees.
The average frame rate on the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 54 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 37 FPS, frame time of 17.0ms, CPU usage of 18%, power consumption of 52W, temperature of 53 degrees, memory usage of 12.0GB, GPU usage of 99%, VRAM usage of 9.5GB, power consumption of 211W, and temperature of 60 degrees.
In this game, the CPU usage of the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 1% lower than its competitor, memory usage is 1.4GB higher, GPU usage is almost equal, and VRAM usage is 0.4GB higher.
In terms of average frame rate, the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 11 FPS lower than the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate 14 FPS lower, and a frame time nearly equal, resulting in a noticeable difference in overall performance, but with 69W lower power consumption and similar temperature.
⑦ The seventh game is “The Last of Us Part I.”
The average frame rate on the Radeon RX 6900 XT platform is 53 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 46 FPS, frame time of 21.1ms, CPU usage of 43%, power consumption of 59W, temperature of 59 degrees, memory usage of 10.1GB, GPU usage of 99%, VRAM usage of 14.5GB, power consumption of 283W, and temperature of 62 degrees.
The average frame rate on the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 53 FPS, with a minimum instantaneous frame rate of 45 FPS, frame time of 20.8ms, CPU usage of 39%, power consumption of 58W, temperature of 55 degrees, memory usage of 14.6GB, GPU usage of 98%, VRAM usage of 11.9GB, power consumption of 206W, and temperature of 59 degrees.
In this game, the CPU usage of the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform is 4% lower than its competitor, memory usage is 4.5GB higher, GPU usage is almost equal, and VRAM usage is 2.6GB lower.
In terms of average frame rate and minimum instantaneous frame rate, both platforms are equal, with nearly equal frame time, resulting in a tie overall. The GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER platform has a 77W lower power consumption and 3 degrees lower temperature.
4. Comparison Conclusion
Overall, in terms of final game performance, the Radeon RX 6900 XT and GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER are very close, essentially resulting in a tie.
However, the Radeon RX 6900 XT slightly edges out the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER in overall performance. With similar GPU usage, it demonstrates higher CPU utilization (performance) compared to the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER. Its memory usage is generally equal to or slightly lower than its competitor. However, the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER has a significant power consumption advantage.
Given these considerations, how should one choose between the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER and the Radeon RX 6900 XT? This decision primarily depends on two factors: purpose and budget.
If your primary use is gaming and you have a tight budget, aiming for the best value for money, it is recommended to choose the Radeon RX 6900 XT. Its actual market price is much lower. However, if you mainly intend to use it as a productivity tool, then the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is the better choice.
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