GeForce RTX 3050 Max-Q vs GTX 970

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking	215	not rated
Place by popularity	57	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	13.78	no data
Power efficiency	11.58	no data
Architecture	Maxwell 2.0 (2014−2019)	Ampere (2020−2024)
GPU code name	GM204	GA107
Market segment	Desktop	Laptop
Release date	19 September 2014 (10 years ago)	11 May 2021 (3 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$329	no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

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 cores	1664	2048
Core clock speed	1050 MHz	712 MHz
Boost clock speed	1178 MHz	1057 MHz
Number of transistors	5,200 million	no data
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	8 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	148 Watt	35 Watt
Maximum GPU temperature	98 °C	no data
Texture fill rate	122.5	67.65
Floating-point processing power	3.92 TFLOPS	4.329 TFLOPS
ROPs	56	32
TMUs	104	64
Tensor Cores	no data	64
Ray Tracing Cores	no data	16

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).

Bus support	PCI Express 3.0	no data
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 4.0 x8
Length	267 mm	no data
Height	4.376" (11.1 cm)	no data
Width	2-slot	no data
Recommended system power (PSU)	500 Watt	no data
Supplementary power connectors	2x 6-pin	None
SLI options	+	-

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 type	GDDR5	GDDR6
Maximum RAM amount	4 GB	4 GB
Memory bus width	256 Bit	128 Bit
Memory clock speed	7.0 GB/s	1375 MHz
Memory bandwidth	224 GB/s	176.0 GB/s
Shared memory	-	-

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 Connectors	Dual Link DVI-I, HDMI 2.0, 3x DisplayPort 1.2	No outputs
Multi monitor support	4 displays	no data
HDMI	+	-
HDCP	+	-
Maximum VGA resolution	2048x1536	no data
G-SYNC support	+	-
Audio input for HDMI	Internal	no data

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

GameStream	+	-
GeForce ShadowPlay	+	-
GPU Boost	2.0	no data
GameWorks	+	-

API compatibility

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

DirectX	12 (12_1)	12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model	6.4	6.6
OpenGL	4.4	4.6
OpenCL	1.2	3.0
Vulkan	1.1.126	1.3
CUDA	+	8.6

Pros & cons summary

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Recency	19 September 2014	11 May 2021
Chip lithography	28 nm	8 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	148 Watt	35 Watt

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