GeForce GTX 970 vs GeForce RTX 4090
[ VERDICT ]
Winner: GeForce RTX 4090 (89/100)
GeForce RTX 4090 leads overall with a score of 89/100 compared to GeForce GTX 970 (15/100), offering superior measured performance and technical specifications.
Benchmark Performance Comparison
Normalized Lab Scores| Benchmark | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Efficiency | 10.0 Poor | 43.0 Poor WINNER |
| Gaming | 12.0 Poor | 93.0 Excellent WINNER |
Detailed Technical Specifications
3D Mark
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Fire Strike | 12101 | 72432 |
| Night Raid | 47583 | 195813 |
| Port Royal | 4353 | 26127 |
| Time Spy | 3665 | 36299 |
| Wild Life Extreme | 6976 | 85218 |
| Solar Bay | — | 187525 |
API
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| CUDA | 5.2 | 8.9 |
| DLSS | No | DLSS 3 |
| DirectX | 12 | 12 |
| DisplayPort | 1.2 | 1.4a |
| OpenCL | 3.0 | 3.0 |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | 4.6 |
| Ray Tracing | No | Yes |
| Vulkan | 1.3 | 1.3 |
Games
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| 1080p High | 43 | 255 |
| 1080p Ultra | 34 | 217 |
| 1440p Ultra | 23 | 177 |
| 4K Ultra | 12 | 106 |
| CoD: Modern Warfare III | 38322115 | 266263219151 |
| Counter-Strike 2 | 77563716 | 33923818890 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 272113- | 22620814366 |
| Far Cry 6 | 47432913 | 203179170104 |
| Forza Horizon 5 | 58332616 | 275199193155 |
| Ghost of Tsushima | 241614- | 18815213791 |
| Hogwarts Legacy | 252215- | 20016313274 |
| Margin of Error | Low | Low |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 49442714 | 302284222118 |
| The Witcher 3 | 46352211 | 292268191101 |
GeekBench 6 ML
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Backend | DirectML | DirectML |
| Depth Estimation (Q) | 12902 | 75599 |
| Face Detection (HP) | 7074 | 78111 |
| Framework | ONNX | ONNX |
| Image Classification (SP) | 1852 | 15600 |
| Image Segmentation (HP) | 3622 | 36657 |
| Image Super Resolution (Q) | 8987 | 48114 |
| Machine Translation (HP) | 1576 | 6349 |
| Object Detection (SP) | 2425 | 21186 |
| Pose Estimation (Q) | 43726 | 289639 |
| Style Transfer (SP) | 86714 | 601428 |
| Text Classification (SP) | 1446 | 4074 |
GeekBench 6 OpenCL
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| API | OpenCL | OpenCL |
| Background Blur | 77.1 img/sec | 318.9 img/sec |
| Edge Detection | 2.08 Gpixels/sec | 21 Gpixels/sec |
| Face Detection | 38.1 img/sec | 222.8 img/sec |
| Feature Matching | 0.17 Gpixels/sec | 2.38 Gpixels/sec |
| Gaussian Blur | 1.85 Gpixels/sec | 23.9 Gpixels/sec |
| Horizon Detection | 1.28 Gpixels/sec | 14.2 Gpixels/sec |
| Particle Physics | 2443 FPS | 48090.4 FPS |
| Stereo Matching | 92.9 Gpixels/sec | 1950 Gpixels/sec |
General
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Maxwell 2.0 | Ada Lovelace |
| Build | Discrete | Discrete |
| Case | Desktop | Desktop |
| GPU Codename | GM204 | AD102 |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $329 | $1599 |
| Purpose | Gaming | Gaming |
| Released | September 19, 2014 | September 20, 2022 |
| Segment | Mid-range | High-end |
| Successor | -GeForce RTX 5070 | -GeForce RTX 5090 |
| Vendor | Nvidia | Nvidia |
| Recommended CPU | — | -Intel Core i9 14900Kor above |
Graphics Processing Unit
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Base Clock | 1050 MHz | 2235 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1178 MHz | 2520 MHz |
| Compute Units (Pipelines) | 13 | 128 |
| Instructions Per Cycle | 2 IPC | 2 IPC |
| L1 Cache | 48KB per cluster | 128KB per cluster |
| L2 Cache | 2MB shared | 72MB shared |
| Ray-tracing Cores | No | 128 |
| Render Output Units (ROPs) | 56 | 176 |
| Shading Units | 1664 | 16384 |
| Tensor Cores | No | 512 |
| Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) | 104 | 512 |
Memory
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Bus | 256-bit | 384-bit |
| ECC | No | No |
| Effective Memory Speed | 7000 Mbps | 21000 Mbps |
| Memory Clock | 1753 MHz | 2625 MHz |
| Memory Size | 4 GB | 24 GB |
| Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR6X |
Passmark Graphics
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| DirectX 11 | 71 FPS | 323 FPS |
| DirectX 12 | 41 FPS | 151 FPS |
| G2D Mark | 763 | 1303 |
| GPU Compute | 4079 Ops/s | 26022 Ops/s |
Physical
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Die Size | 398 mm² | 609 mm² |
| Fabrication Process | 28 nm | 5 nm |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
| Manufacturing | TSMC | TSMC |
| TGP | 148 W | 450 W |
| Transistor Count | 5 billion | 76.3 billion |
| Transistor Density | 12.56 MTr/mm² | 125.29 MTr/mm² |
Raw Performance
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Pixel Fill Rate | 66 GPixel/s | 444 GPixel/s |
| Texture Fill Rate | 123 GTexel/s | 1290 GTexel/s |
Recent User Tests
| Specification | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Date | — | Benchmark |
| 📘 2026-04-03(afroman420IU) | — | Cinebench 2024 |
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