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AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: Two-minute overview
AMD had one job to do with the launch of its RDNA 4 graphics playing cards, spearheaded by the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, and that was to not get run over by Blackwell too badly this era.
With the RX 9070 XT, not solely did AMD handle to carry its personal towards the GeForce RTX monolith, it completely positions Group Purple to make the most of the rising discontent amongst avid gamers upset over Nvidia‘s newest GPUs with one of many best graphics cards I’ve ever examined.
The RX 9070 XT is with out query probably the most highly effective shopper graphics card AMD’s put out, beating the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX general and coming inside inches of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 in 4K and 1440p gaming efficiency.
It does so with an MSRP of simply $599 (about £510 / AU$870), which is considerably decrease than these two card’s MSRP, a lot much less their asking worth on-line proper now. This issues as a result of AMD historically hasn’t confronted the sort of scalping and worth inflation that Nvidia’s GPUs expertise (it does occur, clearly, however not practically to the identical extent as with Nvidia’s RTX playing cards).
Meaning, in the end, that avid gamers who take a look at the GPU market and discover empty cabinets, extraordinarily distorted costs, and uninspiring efficiency for the value they’re being requested to pay have another that may probably keep inside attain, even when worth inflation retains it above AMD’s MSRP.
The RX 9070 XT’s efficiency comes at a little bit of a price although, such because the 309W most energy draw I noticed throughout my testing, however at this tier of efficiency, this really is not that unhealthy.
This card additionally is not too nice on the subject of non-raster artistic efficiency and AI compute, however nobody is trying to purchase this card for its artistic or AI efficiency, as Nvidia already has these classes on lock. No, this can be a card for avid gamers on the market, and for that, you simply will not discover a higher one at this worth. Even when the value does get hit with inflation, it will nonetheless probably be means decrease than what you’d should pay for an RX 7900 XTX or RTX 4080 (assuming you could find them at this level) making the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT a gaming GPU that everybody can respect and perhaps even purchase.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: Value & availability
- How a lot is it? MSRP is $599 (about £510 / AU$870)
- When are you able to get it? The RX 9070 XT goes on sale March 6, 2025
- The place is it accessible? The RX 9070 XT will probably be accessible within the US, UK, and Australia at launch
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is accessible as of March 6, 2025, beginning at $599 (about £510 / AU$870) for reference-spec third-party playing cards from producers like Asus, Sapphire, Gigabyte, and others, with OC variations and people with added accoutrements like fancy cooling and RGB lighting probably promoting for larger than MSRP.
At this worth, the RX 9070 XT is available in about $150 cheaper than the RTX 5070 Ti, and about $50 costlier than the RTX 5070 and the AMD Radeon RX 9070, which additionally launches alongside the RX 9070 XT. This worth additionally places the RX 9070 XT on par with the MSRP of the RTX 4070 Tremendous, although this card is getting more durable to search out these days.
Whereas I am going to dig into efficiency in a bit, given the MSRP (and the cheap hope that this card will probably be findable at MSRP in some capability) the RX 9070 XT’s worth proposition is second solely to the RTX 5070 Ti’s, when you’re going by its MSRP. Since worth inflation on the RTX 5070 Ti will persist for a while not less than, in lots of instances you will probably discover the RX 9070 XT presents higher efficiency per worth paid of any fanatic card in the marketplace proper now.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: Specs
- PCIe 5.0, however nonetheless simply GDDR6
- Hefty energy draw
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
RX 9070 XT |
RX 9070 |
RX 7900 XTX |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Course of Node |
TSMC N4P |
TSMC N4P |
TSMC N5/N6 |
|
Transistor Depend (Billion) |
53.9 |
53.9 |
57.7 |
|
Compute Items |
64 |
56 |
96 |
|
Shaders |
4,096 |
3,584 |
6,144 |
|
RT Cores |
64 |
56 |
96 |
|
Tensor Cores |
128 |
112 |
Row 5 – Cell 3 |
|
Render Output Items |
128 |
128 |
192 |
|
Cache (MB) |
64 |
64 |
96 |
|
Base Clock (MHz) |
1,660 |
1,330 |
1,929 |
|
Enhance Clock (MHz) |
2,400 |
2,520 |
2,498 |
|
Reminiscence Clock (MHz) |
2,518 |
2,518 |
2,500 |
|
Reminiscence Kind |
GDDR6 |
GDDR6 |
GDDR6 |
|
Reminiscence Pool (GB) |
16 |
16 |
24 |
|
Reminiscence Interface (bits) |
256 |
256 |
384 |
|
Efficient Reminiscence Velocity (Gbps) |
20.1 |
20.1 |
20 |
|
Reminiscence Bandwidth (GB/s) |
644.6 |
644.6 |
960 |
|
PCIe Interface |
5.0 x16 |
5.0 x16 |
4.0 x16 |
|
TGP (W) |
304 |
220 |
355 |
|
Really useful PSU (W) |
700 |
550 |
750 |
|
Energy Connector |
2 x 8-pin |
2 x 8-pin |
2 x 8-pin |
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the primary RDNA 4 card to hit the market, and so its price digging into its structure for a bit.
The brand new structure is constructed on TSMC’s N4P node, the identical as Nvidia Blackwell, and in a transfer away from AMD’s MCM push with the final era, the RDNA 4 GPU is a monolithic die.
As there is no direct predecessor for this card (or for the RX 9070, for that matter), there’s not a lot that we are able to apples-to-apples evaluate the RX 9070 XT towards, however I’ll attempt, placing the RX 9070 XT roughly between the RX 7800 XT and the RX 7900 GRE if it had a last-gen equal.
The Navi 48 GPU within the RX 9070 XT sports activities 64 compute models, breaking down into 64 ray accelerators, 128 AI accelerators, and 64MB of L3 cache. Its cores are clocked at 1,600MHz to start out, however can run as quick as 2,970MHz, simply shy of the 3GHz mark.
It makes use of the identical GDDR6 reminiscence because the last-gen AMD playing cards, with a 256-bit bus and a 644.6GB/s reminiscence bandwidth, which is certainly useful in pushing out 4K frames rapidly.
The TGP of the RX 9070 XT is 304W, which is an efficient bit larger than the RX 7900 GRE, although for that additional energy, you do get a commensurate bump up in efficiency.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: Design
- No AMD reference card
- Excessive TGP means larger coolers and extra cables
There is no AMD reference card for the Radeon RX 9070 XT, however the unit I received to check was the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 9070 XT, which I think about is fairly indicative of what we are able to anticipate from the designs of the assorted third-party playing cards.
The 304W TGP all however ensures that any model of this card you discover will probably be a triple-fan cooler over a reasonably hefty heatsink, so it is not going to be a terrific choice for small type issue instances.
Likewise, that TGP simply places it over the road the place it wants a 3rd 8-pin PCIe energy connector, one thing that you could be or could not have accessible in your rig, so preserve that in thoughts. In the event you do have three spare energy connectors, there is no query that cable administration will nearly actually be a problem as properly.
After that, it is actually nearly aesthetics, because the RX 9070 XT (thus far) does not have something like the twin pass-through cooling resolution of the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, so it is actually as much as private style.
As for the cardboard I reviewed, the Sapphire Pulse shroud and cooling setup on the RX 9070 XT was fairly plain, so far as desktop GPUs go, however when you’re in search of a non-flashy search for your PC, it is a great-looking card.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: Efficiency
- Close to-RTX 4080 ranges of gaming efficiency, even with ray tracing
- Non-raster artistic and AI efficiency lags behind Nvidia, as anticipated
- Possible the very best worth you are going to discover wherever close to this worth level
A notice on my knowledge
The charts proven beneath supply the latest knowledge I’ve for the playing cards examined for this overview. They might change over time as extra card outcomes are added and playing cards are retested. The ‘common of all playing cards examined’ contains playing cards not proven in these charts for readability functions.
Merely put, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the gaming graphics card that we have been clamoring for this complete era. Whereas it reveals some robust efficiency in synthetics and raster-heavy artistic duties, gaming is the place this card actually shines, managing to return inside 7% general of the RTX 4080 and getting inside 4% of the RTX 4080’s general gaming efficiency. For a card launching at half the value of the RTX 4080’s launch worth, this can be a improbable exhibiting.
The RX 9070 XT is squaring up towards the RTX 5070 Ti, nevertheless, and right here the RTX 5070 Ti does handle to tug properly forward of the RX 9070 XT, nevertheless it’s a lot nearer than I believed it might be beginning out.
On the synthetics aspect, the RX 9070 XT excels at rasterization workloads like 3DMark Metal Nomad, whereas the RTX 5070 Ti wins out in ray-traced workloads like 3DMark Velocity Method, as anticipated, however AMD’s third era ray accelerators have positively come a great distance in catching up with Nvidia’s extra subtle {hardware}.
Additionally, as anticipated, on the subject of artistic workloads, the RX 9070 XT performs very properly in raster-based duties like picture modifying, and worse at 3D modeling in Blender, which is closely reliant on Nvidia’s CUDA instruction set, giving Nvidia an all however everlasting benefit there.
In video modifying, the RX 9070 XT likewise lags behind, although it is nonetheless shut sufficient to Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Ti that video editors will not discover a lot distinction, even when the distinction is there on paper.
Gaming efficiency is what we’re on about although, and right here the sub-$600 GPU holds its personal towards heavy hitters just like the RTX 4080, RTX 5070 Ti, and Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
In 1440p gaming, the RX 9070 XT is about 8.4% quicker than the RTX 4070 Ti and RX 7900 XTX, slightly below 4% slower than the RTX 4080, and about 7% slower than the RTX 5070 Ti.
This robust efficiency carries over into 4K gaming as properly, because of the RX 9070 XT’s 16GB VRAM. Right here, it is about 15.5% quicker than the RTX 4070 Ti and about 2.5% quicker than the RX 7900 XTX. Towards the RTX 4080, the RX 9070 XT is simply 3.5% slower, whereas it comes inside 8% of the RTX 5070 Ti’s 4K gaming efficiency.
When all is alleged and accomplished, the RX 9070 XT does not fairly overpower one of many best Nvidia graphics cards of the last-gen (and positively does not topple the RTX 5070 Ti), however given its efficiency class, it is energy draw, its warmth output (which wasn’t practically as unhealthy as the ability draw may point out), and most of all, it is worth, the RX 9070 XT is definitely the very best worth of any graphics card taking part in at 4K.
And given Nvidia’s place with avid gamers proper now, AMD has an actual likelihood to win over some converts with this graphics card, and anybody in search of an impressive 4K GPU completely wants to think about it earlier than making their subsequent improve.
Do you have to purchase the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT?
|
Class |
Notes |
Rating |
|---|---|---|
|
Worth |
With an MSRP of $600 and a decrease probability of scalping and worth inflation, the RX 9070 XT presents a compelling various to larger priced 4K playing cards. |
5 / 5 |
|
Specs |
Whereas it lacks the quicker GDDR7 VRAM of the Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, the RX 9070 XT works wonders with what it has. |
4 / 5 |
|
Design |
Given the warmth dissipation required by its specs, any RX 9070 XT goes to be a chonky card, however the remaining is within the eye of the beholder. |
4 / 5 |
|
Efficiency |
With near-RTX 4080 ranges of efficiency at a critically low launch worth for a 4K card, this card is definitely the most effective performance-to-price propositions of this era. |
5 / 5 |
|
Ultimate rating |
Given the uneven rollout of Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs, |
4.5 / 5 |
Purchase the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT if…
Do not buy it if…
How I examined the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
- I spent a couple of week with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
- I used my full GPU testing suite to research the cardboard’s efficiency
- I examined the cardboard in on a regular basis, gaming, artistic, and AI workload utilization
Take a look at System Specs
Listed here are the specs on the system I used for testing:
Motherboard: ASRock Z790i Lightning WiFi
CPU: Intel Core i9-14900K
CPU Cooler: Gigabyte Auros Waterforce II 360 ICE
RAM: Corsair Dominator DDR5-6600 (2 x 16GB)
SSD: Essential T705
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower PF3 1050W Platinum
Case: Praxis Wetbench
I spent a couple of week with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, which was spent benchmarking, utilizing, and digging into the cardboard’s {hardware} to return to my evaluation.
I used trade commonplace benchmark instruments like 3DMark, Cyberpunk 2077, and Pugetbench for Creators to get comparable outcomes with different competing graphics playing cards, all of whereas have been examined utilizing the identical testbench setup listed on the proper.
I’ve reviewed greater than 30 graphics playing cards within the final three years, and so I’ve received the expertise and perception that can assist you discover the very best graphics card in your wants and price range.
- Initially reviewed March 2025