GeForce RTX 4070 vs ATI Radeon HD 3850

Place in the ranking	1104	20
Place by popularity	not in top-100	32
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	0.04	60.25
Power efficiency	0.93	23.99
Architecture	TeraScale (2005−2013)	Ada Lovelace (2022−2024)
GPU code name	RV670	AD104
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	19 November 2007 (17 years ago)	12 April 2023 (1 year ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$179	$599

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

RTX 4070 has 150525% better value for money than ATI HD 3850.

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	320	5888
Core clock speed	668 MHz	1920 MHz
Boost clock speed	no data	2475 MHz
Number of transistors	666 million	35,800 million
Manufacturing process technology	55 nm	5 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	75 Watt	200 Watt
Texture fill rate	10.69	455.4
Floating-point processing power	0.4275 TFLOPS	29.15 TFLOPS
ROPs	16	64
TMUs	16	184
Tensor Cores	no data	184
Ray Tracing Cores	no data	46

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).

Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 4.0 x16
Length	208 mm	240 mm
Width	1-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1x 6-pin	1x 16-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 type	GDDR3	GDDR6X
Maximum RAM amount	1 GB	12 GB
Memory bus width	256 Bit	192 Bit
Memory clock speed	830 MHz	1313 MHz
Memory bandwidth	53.12 GB/s	504.2 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	2x DVI, 1x S-Video	1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
HDMI	-	+

API compatibility

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

DirectX	10.1 (10_1)	12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model	4.1	6.7
OpenGL	3.3	4.6
OpenCL	N/A	3.0
Vulkan	N/A	1.3
CUDA	-	8.9

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

ATI HD 3850 1.02

RTX 4070 69.92
+6755%

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

ATI HD 3850 392

RTX 4070 26934
+6771%

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

Full HD	3−4 −7200%	219 +7200%
1440p	1−2 −12300%	124 +12300%
4K	1−2 −7500%	76 +7500%

Cost per frame, $

1080p	59.67	2.74
1440p	179.00	4.83
4K	179.00	7.88

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

216

+0%

216

+0%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	140−150 +0%	140−150 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	120−130 +0%	120−130 +0%
Battlefield 5	220−230 +0%	220−230 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	110−120 +0%	110−120 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	174 +0%	174 +0%
Far Cry 5	110−120 +0%	110−120 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	170−180 +0%	170−180 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	230−240 +0%	230−240 +0%
Hitman 3	120−130 +0%	120−130 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	250−260 +0%	250−260 +0%
Metro Exodus	150−160 +0%	150−160 +0%
Red Dead Redemption 2	120−130 +0%	120−130 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	290−300 +0%	290−300 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	150−160 +0%	150−160 +0%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	140−150 +0%	140−150 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	120−130 +0%	120−130 +0%
Battlefield 5	220−230 +0%	220−230 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	110−120 +0%	110−120 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	143 +0%	143 +0%
Far Cry 5	110−120 +0%	110−120 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	170−180 +0%	170−180 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	230−240 +0%	230−240 +0%
Hitman 3	120−130 +0%	120−130 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	250−260 +0%	250−260 +0%
Metro Exodus	150−160 +0%	150−160 +0%
Red Dead Redemption 2	120−130 +0%	120−130 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	376 +0%	376 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	150−160 +0%	150−160 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	150−160 +0%	150−160 +0%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	140−150 +0%	140−150 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	120−130 +0%	120−130 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	110−120 +0%	110−120 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	128 +0%	128 +0%
Far Cry 5	110−120 +0%	110−120 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	230−240 +0%	230−240 +0%
Hitman 3	120−130 +0%	120−130 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	293 +0%	293 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	322 +0%	322 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	170 +0%	170 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	124 +0%	124 +0%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

120−130

+0%

120−130

+0%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5	160−170 +0%	160−170 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	110−120 +0%	110−120 +0%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	80−85 +0%	80−85 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	85−90 +0%	85−90 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	80−85 +0%	80−85 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	81 +0%	81 +0%
Far Cry 5	80−85 +0%	80−85 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	270−280 +0%	270−280 +0%
Hitman 3	100−110 +0%	100−110 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	222 +0%	222 +0%
Metro Exodus	143 +0%	143 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	222 +0%	222 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	120−130 +0%	120−130 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	230−240 +0%	230−240 +0%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

110−120

+0%

110−120

+0%

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5	85−90 +0%	85−90 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	65−70 +0%	65−70 +0%
Hitman 3	60−65 +0%	60−65 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	220−230 +0%	220−230 +0%
Metro Exodus	110−120 +0%	110−120 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	115 +0%	115 +0%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	55−60 +0%	55−60 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	55−60 +0%	55−60 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	50−55 +0%	50−55 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	36 +0%	36 +0%
Far Cry 5	50−55 +0%	50−55 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	120−130 +0%	120−130 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	121 +0%	121 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	50 +0%	50 +0%

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

75−80

+0%

75−80

+0%

This is how ATI HD 3850 and RTX 4070 compete in popular games:

RTX 4070 is 7200% faster in 1080p
RTX 4070 is 12300% faster in 1440p
RTX 4070 is 7500% faster in 4K

All in all, in popular games:

there's a draw in 72 tests (100%)

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	1.02	69.92
Recency	19 November 2007	12 April 2023
Maximum RAM amount	1 GB	12 GB
Chip lithography	55 nm	5 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	75 Watt	200 Watt

ATI HD 3850 has 166.7% lower power consumption.

RTX 4070, on the other hand, has a 6754.9% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 15 years, a 1100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 1000% more advanced lithography process.

The GeForce RTX 4070 is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon HD 3850 in performance tests.

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