Should you buy an RTX 3060 gaming laptop,or can you save some money on an older RTX2070? Ive compared both laptops GPUs in17 different games at both 1080p and 1440presolutions to show you all the differences! These are the differences in specsbetween these two laptop GPUs.The RTX 3060 came out 2 years after the 2070and has 67% more CUDA cores with a higher boostclock speed. The older 2070 has more totalVRAM capacity, and the memory is faster too.
Nvidias newer 30 series also has additionalfeatures that 20 series is missing though,like resizable BAR and dynamic boost.Performance will vary based on power limit,and laptops with the newer 3060 have alarger possible power range available.
To do this testing Im using my Lenovo Legion5 for the 3060 laptop and the EluktronicsMAX-15 for the 2070, as they both have thehighest 115 watt power limits available,though the 3060 can go higher withdynamic boost in certain scenarios. Now older RTX 2070 laptops are only availablewith Intel processors. Before AMDs Ryzen 5000,Ryzen 4000 was only available with up to NvidiaRTX 2060 graphics.
So basically because theRTX 2070 graphics are older theyre alwaysgoing to be paired with an older processor. Unfortunately this means that some ofthe differences in this video might bedue to the processor differences ratherthan the GPUs only, it is what it is,but at the same time I think its stillpretty fair because if you were to actuallybuy a 2070 or a 3060 you would getolder or newer CPUs respectively. To try and mitigate the processor differenceswell focus on higher setting presets in games,as those are generally more GPU bound.
I should also note that older processorin the 2070 system does also mean slowermemory. Again its not ideal whentrying to focus on GPU differences,but it is an actual platform differencethat exists between these two generations.
Now the Legion 5 has a MUX switchwhich lets us disable optimus andget optimal performance in games, soall testing has been done with that,but unfortunately the Eluktronics MAX-15does not offer this, so in order to bypassthe integrated graphics and get the same resultIve tested it with an external screen connected. So basically just to summarize, whilenot perfectly ideal, I still believe thisis a pretty fair comparison between the 2070 and3060, so lets start out by comparing 17 differentgames at 2 resolutions, then afterwards wellfocus on things like pricing and availability. Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the gamesbenchmark. Ive got the 1080p results belowand 1440p results above, with the older RTX2070 on the bottom, and newer RTX 3060 above.The difference was below average out of the 17games tested at 1080p with the 3060 coming in 11%ahead of the 2070, but then at the higher1440p resolution the 3060 was now reaching 17%higher average FPS, despite the 2070 having moreVRAM.
This game recently added DLSS support,and this is a feature that both RTX GPUssupport. At 1080p the 3060 was now just4% ahead of the 2070, so DLSS closes the gapthere, then at 1440p the 3060 was still 13%ahead, but that said above 60 FPS at highsettings isnt bad or anything from the 2070. Cyberpunk 2077 was tested with the exactsame run through the game on both laptops,and at both resolutions this game had one ofthe biggest improvements on the 3060 out ofall 17 titles tested with a 38% higher averageFPS. Even the 1% lows from the 3060 were higherthan the average frame rates that the 2070was able to offer. This is another game thatoffers DLSS support, so it is possible to furtherboost performance with both of these RTX GPUs,but even with it enabled the 3060 wasstill more than 30% faster than the 2070.
Watch Dogs Legion was actually doing betteron the RTX 2070 regardless of resolution,and I believe this is due to the higherVRAM capacity, as there were warningswhen running the games benchmark about the 6gigs available on the 3060 not being enough.That said, this is max settings so we couldprobably close the gap with lower setting levels.This game also supports DLSS, and at 1440pthe 2070 is able to get an even furtherlead over the 3060, though both are still ofcourse doing better than without it enabled. Ive compared Control with ray tracing and DLSS,but lets start off with neither, so just stockstandard gameplay. At 1080p even the 1% low fromthe 3060 was above the average FPS from the 2070,while average FPS was 24% higher, but then at1440p theyre very close together and basicallywithin margin of error, theres no real differencehere.
This is another game that supports DLSS,and unlike watch dogs just before, the gap at1440p gets wider in favor of the 3060 this time,but hey max settings with 60 FPS for the 1% lowat this higher resolution is still going to playwell on the 2070 laptop.
Heres how thingslook with ray tracing enabled but no DLSS,as I just wanted to see pure RT differences.I didnt expect the higher 1440p resolution tobe about the same regardless of GPU, as the3060 has newer RT cores, but here we are. The differences in Microsoft Flight Simulatorwere above average out of the 17 games testedin favor of the 3060 laptop, though I suspecteven at the high setting preset some of thesegains are likely down to the differences inprocessors, but alas theres always going to be aCPU difference between these generations of GPUs.The 3060 was 26% faster than the 2070 at 1080p,then a massive 35% faster at 1440p with a1% low even above the 2070s average FPS.
Call of Duty Warzone had the largest differencebetween these two GPUs at 1080p, with a 39% higheraverage frame rate on the 3060 laptop, and 37%ahead of the 2070 at the higher 1440p resolution.This was another where even the 1% lows from the3060 were ahead of the 2070s average FPS. Thisgame also supports DLSS, so both laptops can geta reasonable performance improvement by enablingthis simple setting.
The 2070 did feel a bitstuttery with max settings at 1440p without it,and although DLSS wasnt a magical cure, itdid make it feel noticeably smoother. DLSS isgiving a bigger boost to the 3060 though,as its now 47% ahead of the 2070 here.
Fortnite had about average differences between thetwo laptops when compared to the other 16 gamestested. Max settings 1440p was still above60 FPS on the 2070 though, but the 3060 wasable to offer a 23% boost to average FPS, with aperhaps more important 29% boost to the 1% lows,meaning the 3060 laptop offers a more stableexperience, though more often than not Ivefound 1% low differences to depend more onCPU than GPU.
This game also has DLSS support,and the 3060 was still a similar 20%higher in terms of average FPS at 1440p,but the 2070 is able to achieve a nice 47%increase to average FPS by enabling this setting. F1 2021 was tested with the highest setting presetwhich enables some ray tracing effects by default,as denoted at the top of the graph. Perhapsthis is why this game was one of the largerwins for the RTX 3060, as it does have thatnewer RT hardware built in.
The 3060 wasreaching 25% higher average FPS at 1080p,and was 31% ahead of the 2070 at 1440p.
Assassins Creed Valhalla had below averagedifferences with the 3060 just 14% ahead ofthe 2070 at 1080p, and 18% ahead at 1440p. WhatIm more interested in is comparing these resultswith AMDs upcoming RX 6600M and 6700M, asthis game in particular generally has biggains with Radeon graphics, so make sure youresubscribed for those upcoming laptop comparisons. Rather than talk through the rest ofthe 8 games individually in depth,Ill just blast through them so wecan get into the average differencesas thats more interesting, even if all ofthis testing did take many hours to complete.A larger selection of games is importantto help get a better rounded average.
Feel free to pause the video if you wanta closer look at these additional games.
On average over all 17 games tested at 1080p,the RTX 3060 laptop was reaching 19%higher average FPS compared to the2070 laptop. Basically the 3060 was better inall games with the one exception being WatchDogs Legion which appears to benefit fromthe additional VRAM present with the 2070. Stepping up to the higher 1440p resolutionand the results are similar. The RTX 3060laptop was now around 20% faster than the 2070laptop when averaging out all 17 games tested,and once more just one title was doingbetter with the 2070s extra VRAM,though Control was now close to seeing nodifference between them, and that is a relativelyGPU heavy title.
For the most part though, the3060 was now further ahead in most other games. Its also worth mentioning that Nvidias new 30series laptops also have extra features like HDMI2.1, which might be important for you if youplan on playing 4K games at high refresh rate. Just before we get into theprice differences Ive alsocompared both GPUs in some content creatorworkloads – its not all just about gaming! The 3060 was almost 50% faster at completing theBlender Classroom test when compared to the 2070,while the shorter BMW testwas 55% faster on the 3060.
Not too unexpected given the 3060 has manymore CUDA cores, and this is a CUDA test.
V-Ray was also better on the 3060, scoring 23%higher in the CUDA test, but the ray tracingtest was scoring 65% higher on the 3060, so theRT performance definitely seems to be much betterthere, which I suppose isnt too surprising givenit literally has newer generation RT hardware, butthat said as we saw in games like control earlierthere were only minor differences at times. SPECviewperf tests out various professional 3Dworkloads, and the 3060, shown by the purple bars,was generally ahead in most of thesetests, however the 2070 in the red barshad a couple of wins, perhaps dueto the higher VRAM, Im not sure. Great, so in general the 3060does outperform the older 2070,so what are the price differences like, and isit worth buying the 3060? Prices will of coursechange over time, so refer to those linksdown in the description below for updates.
At the time of recording, Lenovos Legion 5 thatIve tested here goes for under $1600 USD for the3060 model, but Ive seen it on sale for as lowas $1400, and its also worth mentioning Ive seensales of other models like HPs Omen 15 with 3060for as low as $1080, granted that one has a lower100 watt power limit and wont perform as wellas the Legion 5 which is more of a best case.
As for 2070 laptops, well, just scrolling aroundnew models they appear to be similar prices,if not more. Im guessing availability issues with3060 laptops have kept the price of2070 models high, supply and demand. Given the 2070 mobile launched in early 2019,you might have better luck on the secondhand market, as theres probably just moreof these machines available as they weremade in a time before supply shortages. Many 3060 laptops on the other hand arestill hard to buy due to availabilityissues.
Honestly in termsof gaming performance I wasexpecting the differences between thesetwo laptops to be smaller than it was. The 3060 actually surprised methere, particularly at 1440p,I thought the extra VRAM in the 2070might help it out more. I supposeits possible that in future the marginsbetween these two laptops could shrink,particularly at 1440p if the 6 gigs of VRAM in the3060 starts becoming a bottleneck in future games.
The 2070 is definitely still capable, but my mainconcern is that the prices of both are generallyquite similar, so unless the 2070 is availablewith a pretty steep discount you might as welljust try and get a 3060 laptop, as its bothgoing to perform quite a bit better in games,but its also going to bepaired with a more modern CPU.
Based on what weve seen here, the 3060 mightactually be a better fight for the RTX 2080,something I definitely didnt expect,let me know in the comments belowif thats something you want to see.
Check out these other comparisons next if you wantto see how well Nvidias RTX 3060 laptop comparesagainst others, make sure youre subscribedfor future laptop comparisons like this one,there are a lot more on the way,and come and join me in Discordand get behind the scenes videos bysupporting the channel on Patreon.
Read More: Lenovo Legion 5 vs Dell G15 – It’s SO Close!
