GeForce RTX 3070 vs 256 SDR

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Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the rankingnot rated41
Place by popularitynot in top-10038
Cost-effectiveness evaluationno data59.07
Power efficiencyno data18.36
ArchitectureCelsius (1999−2005)Ampere (2020−2024)
GPU code nameNV10 A3GA104
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date11 October 1999 (25 years ago)1 September 2020 (4 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)no data$499

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA coresno data5888
Core clock speed120 MHz1500 MHz
Boost clock speedno data1725 MHz
Number of transistors17 million17,400 million
Manufacturing process technology220 nm8 nm
Power consumption (TDP)no data220 Watt
Texture fill rate0.48317.4
Floating-point processing powerno data20.31 TFLOPS
ROPs496
TMUs4184
Tensor Coresno data184
Ray Tracing Coresno data46

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

InterfaceAGP 4xPCIe 4.0 x16
Lengthno data242 mm
Width1-slot2-slot
Supplementary power connectorsNone1x 12-pin

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory typeSDRGDDR6
Maximum RAM amount32 MB8 GB
Memory bus width64 Bit256 Bit
Memory clock speed143 MHz1750 MHz
Memory bandwidth1.144 GB/s448.0 GB/s
Shared memoryno data-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors1x VGA1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort
HDMI-+

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX7.012 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Modelno data6.5
OpenGL1.24.6
OpenCLN/A2.0
VulkanN/A1.2
CUDA-8.5

Pros & cons summary


Recency 11 October 1999 1 September 2020
Maximum RAM amount 32 MB 8 GB
Chip lithography 220 nm 8 nm

RTX 3070 has an age advantage of 20 years, a 25500% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 2650% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between GeForce 256 SDR and GeForce RTX 3070. We've got no test results to judge.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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NVIDIA GeForce 256 SDR
GeForce 256 SDR
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
GeForce RTX 3070

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


3.4 81 vote

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4.3 11043 votes

Rate GeForce RTX 3070 on a scale of 1 to 5:

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Questions & comments

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