Today I will compare laptops with the RTX 2060 vs GTX 1070 graphics. We’ll find out which performs better, How much difference there is, and help you decide which is better value for the price.

	Spec Sheet
GT 1070	Vs	RTX 2060
2,048	Cuda Core	1,920
1,442 MHZ	Base Clock	960 MHZ
1,645 MHZ	Boost Clock	1,200 MHZ
115W	TDP	80-90W
8 GB GDDR5	Memory	6GB GDDR6
8GBPS	Memory Speed	Up to 14GBPS
256 GB/S	Memory Bandwidth	336 GB/S

Specifications

The GTX1070 has more Cuda cores higher base and boost clock speeds and also a higher TDP. GTX 1070 also has 8GB of GDDR5 memory while RTX 2060 has 6GB of GDDR6. So less total size but the 2060 memory is faster.

I’m going to be showing results from four different laptops. 2 laptops with our RTX 2060 graphics and 2 laptops with GTX 1070 graphics.

If we’re not hitting thermal throttling, we’re reaching the power of a throttling instead. This means each laptop can perform differently based on the CPU. So to try and reduce this issue I’ve used double the data compared to usual and taken the averages which should, in theory, be more accurate. To try and reduce this further I’m only looking at the second-highest graphic settings as lower settings are more CPU bound so higher settings to allow us to better see the differences between graphics. These are also settings most people would actually be playing with this level of hardware anyway.

Game Benchmarks

In all upcoming graphs, I’ve got the GTX 1070 results in the top bar and the RTX 2060 results shown by the bottom bar.

1. Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5, which was tested with the built-in benchmark using high settings. We can see that in this game the GTX 1070 is coming out ahead with a 5% higher average FPS when compared with RTX 2060. Where the GTX 1070 was almost 13% ahead of the RTX 2060 here.

2. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Rainbow 6 Siege was tested with the built-in benchmark at high settings and while not exactly graphically intensive it’s a game that myself and others have to get a nice performance boost from Nvidia’s neutering architecture. As a result, the RTX 2060 is getting 4.6 percent higher average FPS when compared with the GTX 1070 and a larger nine percent improvement was seen to the one percent low results. Out of all games tested this was the largest improvement I saw with the RTX 2060 graphics.

3. Shadow of The Tomb Raider

The Tomb Raider was tested with the built-in benchmark with high settings in use. There was only a small improvement with the GTX 1070 here. Coming up one point two percent ahead in average FPS when compared against the RTX 2060 or more simply put just one FPS ahead.

4. Fortnite 

Fortnite was tested using the replay feature at high settings and again we can see the GTX 1070 was performing better here. This game actually saw the largest improvement between the two out of all games tested. With a 9.7 percent increased average frame rate with the GTX 1070 while the one percent low saw just a three percent improvement over the RTX 2060.

5. Doom

Doom was tested using Vulkan with high settings and the GTX 1070 was once more ahead of the RTX 2060 in this game. In terms of average FPS, the 1070 was 8.4 percent ahead of the 2060 while the one percent low difference was closer together. With the GTX 1070, 6 percent ahead here, realistically this difference like in most games isn’t really enough to even be noticeable. This game was still running very well on either option.

6. Overwatch 

Overwatch was tested in the practice range as it allows me to perform the exact same test run rather than with bots or other players which will always vary. In this test, the GTX 1070 was 9.5% ahead of the RTX 2060. Making it the game with the second-best performance on the 1070 out of all games tested. In terms of 1% lower, the 1070 was a bit further ahead now, scoring 10.5 percent above the 2060. Like other games, however, both are still able to hit above 200 FPS with ultra settings. So honestly doesn’t really make a difference here.

7. Dota 2

Dota 2 was tested using the replay feature. So this test performed the exact same task. I take an average of three runs. So each result is made of six total results. Three from the two 2060 laptops and another three from each of the two 1070 laptops. We can see there’s basically no difference in terms of average fps. 2060 was slightly ahead but as this is a more CPU demanding game. I don’t think we’re seeing a difference in graphics here. This is just an example that some games are more CPU bound, so the graphics differences don’t really matter.

8. Shadow of War

Shadow of war was tested using the built-in benchmark with very high settings and this was another of the few games tested that seemed to prefer the RTX graphics. At least with the laptops, I was testing with. In this test, the on RTX 2060 was 3.7 percent ahead of the GTX 1070 in terms of average FPS.

9. Battlefield 1

I’ve also had to test some older games with the 2060 like Battlefield 1. In this game with high settings in use, the GTX 1070 was able to achieve a 3% higher average FPS when compared with the RTX 2060 while there was a largest 7.6 percent improvement to 1% lower with the 1070.

10. Watch Dogs 2

This was tested as a fairly resource-intensive game at 1080p with very high settings. The GTX 1070 graphics which is 2% higher in terms of average frame rate while the 1% allure results were even closer together. With a slight edge towards the RTX 2060. Either way, both options are capable of above 60 FPS averages in this game.

11. Ghost Recon

Ghost recon was another resource-intensive game that was testedwith the built-in benchmark using very high settings. The average FPS from the GTX 1070 was 3 percent higher than the RTX 2060. However, there was a larger difference in 1% low performance noted. Where the 1070 was 14% higher indicating that the 1070 has fewer dips in performance in this particular test.

12. The Witcher 3

The Witcher 3 was tested with high settings. The average frame rates of both graphics were very close together. However, the RTX 2060 was just over 1 FPS better in my tests. The 1% low, on the other hand, was a different story with a much larger 11% improvement same with the GTX 1070 graphics.

Results:

In terms of improved over these 12 games tested on average, the GTX 1070 was performing just 2.65% faster when compared with the RTX 2060 in terms of average frame rate.

The amount of performance gain or loss depends on the game but in general, that was a small performance improvement with the GTX 1070 graphics. The difference doesn’t seem to be that significant. Honestly, I think when it comes down to it you could go either way when buying a laptop.

GTX 1070 or RTX 2060 should deliver a similar performance overall. Don’t forget these are just laptop results. It’s a different story when we look at the PC graphics, where I found the 2060 coming out 13% ahead of the 1070 at 1080p, 15% ahead at 1440p, and 16% ahead at 4k.

Overclocking

I really have data for one game across all four laptops when it comes to overclocking.

Far Cry 5:

Far cry 5, I’ve got the stock results in the purple bars as before but the overclocked results are in red. It’s worth noting that the booster performance isn’t a result of just overclocking the graphics. I also undervolted the CPU for best performance.

Though with anything that will help reduce CPU throttling issues and better showcase GPU performance, with that in mind I actually got the exact same for one percent lower and then only around a frame per second better with the 1070. So again the 1070 was only just slightly ahead of the 2060.

Heaven Benchmark:

I’ve also got the clock speeds from running the heaven benchmark both its stock and while overclocked. I wasn’t sure how to best graph the data but basically each color represents a different laptop. So both red bars are the same laptop with 2060 graphics, while the purple bars are the second 2060 laptop, and blue and green showed the two different 1070 laptops.

We can see that overall the 1070 are achieving higher clock speeds and while this will depend on factors such as cooling which will differ between laptops. Where the 1070 was listed with higher speeds, in terms of percentage improvements. Both the GTX 1070 and RTX 2060 were able to get about 7% higher clock speeds while overclocked.

Temperature:

Unfortunately, I’m unable to compare temperatures and power draw at this time. As I used to lately different laptops from different companies the cooling solutions are different and can’t accurately be compared against each other.

Price

Now for the final difference, the price. In general, it seems like the GTX 1070 models are cheaper. In the US, on the Asus scar 2 with 2060 is $1800, while they’ve also got a 1070 version for $1,500.

Another example is the same laptops on Amazon, RTX version costs $100 more while the GTX version is on sale. Granted the RTX one does also has a larger SSD.

In Australia, the MSI ge62 with RTX 2060 goes for 2,900 Australian dollars while the GTX 1070 model is 200 Australian dollars less.

Which graphic card should you pick in your next laptop?

The older bits still slightly better overall GTX 1070 or newer but slightly behind are RTX 2060. Of course, you’ve got the option of using invidious new ray-tracing features with the 2060 but from what I’ve seen so far these aren’t that exciting with 2060 as it’s the lowest card in the RTX lineup.

With the games we’ve currently got more power seems to be needed to run that half decently. So at the moment, I wouldn’t buy the 2060 with RTX in mind.

In terms of raw gaming performance, the 1070 was ahead in the majority of games tested but as we saw on average it really doesn’t matter too much. I’d pick whichever was the cheapest at the time in your region.

GTX 1070 may be better going forward given it has more memory that could be useful later on making a pull out further ahead of RTX 2060.

While in theory, the 2060 is more likely to get driver updates that improve performance compared to the older 1070. It really is a close battle.