NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (Desktop) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU (Codename GN21-X4) is an high-end laptop GPU. It is based on the AD107 chip and uses the Ada Lovelace architecture. The RTX 4060 Laptop offers 3072 shaders and uses 8 GB GDDR6 dedicated graphics memory with a clock speed of 16 Gbps (effective) and a 128 Bit memory bus. The TGP (Total Graphics Power) can be configured between 35 and 115 Watt (+ 15-25 Watt Dynamic Boost from the CPU) leading to different performance levels. The boost clock speed ranges from 1470 MHz (at 35 Watt TGP) up to 2370 MHz (115W).

The performance in synthetical benchmarks of an average RTX 4060 is between a mobile RTX 3070 and a mobile RTX 3070 Ti. GPUs with lower power limit (e.g. 45 Watt variants) are ranking clearly lower (75% lower performance in some reviews). The average gaming performance of the RTX 4060 mobile is ideal for highest settings in 1920x1080 for demanding games. Less demanding games can easily run in QHD (like Baldurs Gate 3). See below for detailed benchmarks of our reviews. Enabling DLSS in supported games, can highly improve the framerate.

The RTX 4060 offers 80 tensor cores (4th gen) that enable DLSS 3 including frame generation for supported games. The 20 raytracing cores (4rd gen) on the other hand, will see less use as the RTX 4060 is not that powerful for demanding games to enable raytracing (other than in low resolutions).

The AD107 chip is manufactured in 5nm at TSMC (4N process).

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 is the second fastest Pascal based graphics card in mid May 2016. It is a high-end desktop graphics card. The mobile pendant is also called GeForce GTX 1070, but features more shaders and a lower core clock (see this page for details on the laptop version of the GTX 1070). Both cards are based on a cut down GP104 chip as the GTX 1080 and manufactured in 16 nm FinFET at TSMC. More details on the Pascal architecture including all features and comparisons to Maxwell, can be found here.

Compared to the GTX1080, the GTX1070 features less CUDA cores (1920 versus 2560) that are clocked a bit lower (maximum Boost 1683 versus 1733). Instead of the new GDDR5X, the GTX 1070 uses slower GDDR5 graphics memory - but still 8 GB. The TDP is also reduced from 180 Watt to 150 Watt.

The performance of the GTX 1070 is between the old GTX 980 Ti and the GTX 1080. Therefore, gaming in 4k at high details is possible with the card and also VR gaming is possible.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 is the second fastest Pascal based graphics card in mid May 2016. It comes in two variants, the desktop version (see here for the detail page) with 1920 shaders and the mobile variant with 2048 shaders and lower clock rates. Both cards are based on a cut down GP104 chip (like the GTX 1080) and are manufactured in 16 nm FinFET at TSMC.

Compared to the GTX1080, the GTX1070 features less CUDA cores (2048 versus 2560) that are clocked a bit lower (maximum Boost 1645 versus 1733). Instead of the new GDDR5X, the GTX 1070 uses slower GDDR5 graphics memory - but still 8 GB. The TDP is also reduced and rumored to be 10 Watts higher than the predecessor, the GTX 980M.

For thin and light laptops Nvidia offer a Max-Q called version of the GTX 1070 with lower TDP and also significantly lower performance. Sadly this variant im sold with the same GTX 1070 name, making it hard to judge the performance.

The performance depends on the cooling solution of the laptop. With a good fan system, the performance of the laptop version is on par with the desktop GTX 1070 (Founders Edition). Nvidia claims that partner solutions can be up to 10 percent slower however. In our benchmarks with various laptops the performance ranged from -5 to -14% slower performance compared to partner models of the GTX 1080 desktop models with slightly higher clocks.

On average the GTX 1070 is around 20 percent faster than the old mobile GeForce GTX 980 and therefore the second fastest mobile graphics card (non SLI). Therefore it is capable of WQHD and 4K gaming in high settings (see game benchmarks below).

The GP104 chip is manufactured in 16nm FinFET process at TSMC and offers a range of new features. DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP), improved H.265 video en- and decoders (for PlayReady 3.0) are only some of the improvements. See our detailed Pascal architecture article for more details.

The power consumption of the GTX 1070 is specified with 115 Watt TGP according to Nvidia and therefore slightly above the old GeForce GTX 980M. This leads to rather big and clunky gaming laptops that use the GTX 1070. The later released Max-Q version of the GTX 1070 uses only 80 - 90 Watt TGP and is therefore better suited for thin and light laptops.