AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 falls proper in line behind the Radeon RX 9070 XT in its Radeon RX 9000 sequence of graphics cards. Although a reliable card in its personal proper, the $549 Radeon RX 9070 sits within the shadow of the widely better-value $599 Radeon RX 9070 XT, with the distinction in worth not large enough to make the Radeon RX 9070 stand out. In testing a Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 9070 for this overview, we discovered you can undoubtedly draw an pleasing gaming expertise from the Radeon RX 9070 at high-detail 1440p and lower-detail 4K resolutions. Nevertheless, spending an additional $50 for the Radeon RX 9070 XT, an Editors’ Selection award winner, is rather more worthwhile, as long as that card stays in inventory and the worth hole doesn’t develop.
The Navi 48 GPU: A Small Step Down From RX 9070 XT
The RX 9070 makes use of the RDNA 4 graphics architecture and the Navi 48 GPU die, similar to the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, however AMD partially disabled parts of the RX 9070’s GPU within the binning course of. The RX 9070 hasn’t misplaced a lot from a part-by-part evaluation. The variety of stream processors contained in the RX 9070 is 3,584, a 14% discount from the RX 9070 XT’s rely of 4,096. This discount comes with a lower within the variety of texture mapping items (TMUs) from 256 on the RX 9070 XT to 224 on the RX 9070, and the variety of ray accelerators equally dropped from 64 to 56.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
That’s about it by way of {hardware} modifications. Technically, the variety of AI accelerators dropped from 128 to 112, however these don’t impression gaming efficiency below regular situations. The variety of raster operation items (ROPs) was unchanged; similar for the reminiscence interface. AMD’s 16GB pool of GDDR6 reminiscence operates at 20Gbps on each playing cards.
Arguably, essentially the most notable variations between the RX 9070 XT and the RX 9070 come from their firmware. The RX 9070 XT is configured to function with a max enhance clock of two,970MHz and is rated to largely hover round 2,400MHz whereas gaming. AMD set the RX 9070’s turbo clock 15% decrease at 2,520MHz, and the anticipated gaming clock pace dropped by 14% to 2,070MHz. These reductions in {hardware} assets and clock pace additionally pushed the anticipated peak energy draw of the RX 9070 right down to 220 watts from the RX 9070 XT’s peak of 304W.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
These drops in efficiency create a sufficiently giant efficiency delta between the Radeon RX 9070 and the RX 9070 XT to maintain every card from immediately competing on efficiency, however pricing is one other matter. With the RX 9070 XT priced at $599 and the RX 9070 set at $549, that is a worth distinction of simply 9%. Hold this in thoughts once I get to the benchmarks: If the RX 9070 XT can outpace the RX 9070 by greater than 9%, which these specs counsel it ought to simply do, then the RX 9070 XT is the higher worth.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Earlier than shifting on to the assessments, it is value mentioning that the Radeon RX 9070 may have ample headroom for overclocking. The RX 9070 and the RX 9070 XT each use the Navi 48 graphics chip, however AMD clocked the RX 9070 XT a lot larger, suggesting that the RX 9070 may additionally go larger. Nevertheless, in case you are taken with overclocking, I wouldn’t trouble shopping for a better-cooled RX 9070 mannequin if it prices any further. You will not discover sufficient room between the RX 9070 and the RX 9070 XT in worth to help doing that when you possibly can simply purchase an RX 9070 XT.
Design: Two Followers, Two HDMI, Zero RGB
Sapphire manufactured the take a look at card that AMD despatched us for overview with a dual-fan thermal answer. The Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 9070 doesn’t have any RGB LEDs however makes up for this with an edgy black exterior lined in diagonal slits and purple traces. A steel backplate helps give the cardboard extra structural integrity whereas preserving the parts on the again of the cardboard’s PCB cooler.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
This card requires solely two standard eight-pin PCIe energy connectors. Show output choices embody two HDMI 2.1 ports and two DisplayPort 2.1a jacks.
Testing the Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 9070: Setup and Competitors
Our 2025 graphics card testbed contains a Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master motherboard and an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X processor with a big 360mm water cooler to check the Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 9070. We put in two 16GB sticks of DDR5 on the motherboard and configured them to function below a 6,000MHz AMD EXPO reminiscence profile. We additionally added two Essential 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSDs to the system, one devoted to video games and the opposite holding Windows 11 and all different software program. To make sure plentiful energy supply headroom, we used a 1,500-watt Corsair energy provide.
AMD’s principal Radeon RX 9070 competitors is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, which can be priced at $549. On account of comparable pricing, the RX 9070 may even must compete with the RX 9070 XT, the last-gen Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super, and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE.
Artificial Benchmarks
The Radeon RX 9070 began sturdy within the 3DMark assessments we performed. It primarily tied with the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Tremendous whereas surpassing the RTX 5070 and the RX 7900 GRE within the Port Royal take a look at. The RX 970 additionally carried out this manner within the Metal Nomad and Time Spy Excessive benchmarks.
In 3DMark’s Photo voltaic Bay and Velocity Means assessments, the RTX 5070 pulled into an in depth tie with the RX 9070. Unigine Superposition confirmed each situations, with the RTX 5070 tying with the RX 9070 in DirectX however falling behind in OpenGL.
AI Textual content Technology Benchmarks
AI efficiency may very well be a key measurement for graphics playing cards sometime, however that is still considerably questionable for the second as software program that may benefit from this {hardware} remains to be in improvement. In these explicit assessments, Nvidia unquestionably has the benefit over AMD.
No less than the AMD Radeon RX 9070 carried out effectively sufficient for an AMD card, holding an edge over the RX 7900 GRE.
Content material Creation Benchmarks
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 additionally carried out moderately effectively in content material creation duties. It primarily tied with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 and outpaced the remainder of the AMD competitors.
The Blender benchmark refused to work with the AMD Radeon RX 9070, however it will doubtless be a brief challenge that can disappear after the drivers or Blender software program are up to date.
Display Optimization Benchmarks
We restrict our DLSS, FSR, and XeSS testing to Black Fable: Wukong because of the issues surrounding testing these applied sciences towards one another. All of them lead to differing picture high quality, which makes evaluating them solely on efficiency imprecise.
Black Fable Wukong helps DLSS 3 and FSR 3, which we take a look at on Nvidia and AMD playing cards, respectively, with the super-resolution sampling set to 100%. We then rerun these assessments with body era on for all playing cards to gauge how this alters efficiency.
This take a look at notably doesn’t present DLSS 4 or FSR 4 multi-frame-generation efficiency. With DLSS 4, Nvidia adopted a brand new AI mannequin for DLSS work and AMD additionally made a number of modifications to its fourth model of FSR expertise. Of explicit word is that these applied sciences can create multiple middleman body between every conventionally generated body, although this has some trade-offs. To study extra about DLSS 4, test my article that closely examines DLSS 4 performance on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090.
On this take a look at, the RX 9070 carried out about the identical because the RTX 5070 with body era off however pulled forward of the RTX 5070 with body era on. The RX 9070 was quicker than the RX 7900 GRE in each assessments, although.
Ray-Traced Gaming Benchmarks
The Radeon RX 9070’s efficiency in fashionable video games that help ray tracing produced ups and downs. In Cyberpunk 2077, the RX 9070 was barely slower than the GeForce RTX 5070 and lagged behind the RTX 5070 in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Returnal. Nevertheless, the RTX 5070 by no means beat the RX 9070 by greater than 10% in these titles, with its benefit sometimes within the single digits.
That contrasts with the RX 9070’s wins towards the RTX 5070. The RX 9070 might not have overwhelmed the RTX 5070 in each recreation, however when the RX 9070 was quicker, it was sometimes forward by double-digit percentages. The RX 9070’s benefit different from as little as 6% in F1 2024 to as excessive as 27% in Name of Obligation: Trendy Warfare III. It was additionally quicker in Far Cry 6.
As for competing with different AMD playing cards, the last-generation Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 GRE have been sometimes behind the RX 9070. And the RX 9070 XT was sometimes quicker than the RX 9070, which is smart. I didn’t calculate the proportion variations between the RX 9070 and the RX 9070 XT throughout the board, however the RX 9070 XT was forward by not less than 18% in Name of Obligation: Trendy Warfare III at 4K and by 16% in the identical recreation at 1080p.
The RX 9070 XT’s lead over the RX 9070 in different video games seems roughly round these figures throughout the board. As these leads are higher than the 9% distinction in worth between these two GPUs, there is no query: The Radeon RX 9070 XT presents a greater worth and extra frames per greenback than the RX 9070, assuming the pricing holds.
Raster Gaming Benchmarks
Final era, AMD’s biggest power was in video games that didn’t help ray tracing as its ray-tracing {hardware} was much less potent than Nvidia’s. As a substitute, the common AMD GPU appeared to have a bit extra muscle when it got here to extra conventional gaming workloads like people who don’t help ray tracing.
This era’s state of affairs seems to have been reversed, with the GeForce RTX 5070 performing higher in Whole Struggle: Three Kingdoms than the Radeon RX 9070.
The Radeon RX 9070 pulled forward in Shadow of the Tomb Raider on the 4K decision, which reveals that it might nonetheless be quicker in older video games. The RTX 5070 appeared barely quicker on this recreation at 1440p and 1080p, however the scores have been realistically shut sufficient to be a tie at these resolutions.
Energy and Thermal Benchmarks
Utilizing a Kill-A-Watt energy meter, we measured the facility consumption of our graphics card take a look at mattress as a complete whereas working some key benchmarks on every of the graphics playing cards proven within the desk. The Radeon RX 9070 consumed a bit extra energy within the Adobe Premiere Professional take a look at than the RTX 5070, however that is made up for by the RX 9070’s larger efficiency in that take a look at.
Gaming energy consumption was additionally notably decrease on the RX 9070 than the RTX 5070. Given the RX 9070 sometimes tied with or carried out higher than the RTX 5070, this implies the RX 9070 is the extra power environment friendly of the 2. The RX 9070’s energy consumption was additionally significantly higher than the RX 9070 XT’s, which is probably going due largely to its lowered clock speeds and barely lowered shader rely.
The RX 9070 additionally stayed a lot cooler than the RTX 5070 through the testing course of; the Sapphire’s thermal answer carried out higher than Nvidia’s Founders Version cooler.
Verdict: Caught within the Pack Chief’s Shadow
For its $549 asking worth, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 offers you plenty of efficiency and realistically little to complain about. Positive, its AI efficiency lags behind Nvidia, however severely, is that why you’re shopping for a midrange graphics card? In the case of gaming, the RX 9070 is normally simply as quick because the RTX 5070 or a good bit quicker. It’s barely slower in just a few video games, however not by a significant quantity, whereas the RX 9070’s efficiency lead is extra significant and noticeable when current.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The Radeon RX 9070 goes a protracted solution to change AMD’s growing old Radeon RX 7900 GRE and Radeon RX 7900 XT, because it usually outpaces these playing cards. AMD solely has one actual challenge so far as the RX 9070 goes: You should purchase a Radeon RX 9070 XT for simply $50 extra.
AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 XT is usually higher and effectively definitely worth the added price if the 2 playing cards stay $50 aside or much less. The RX 9070 is a stable purchase, however it could be simpler to advocate if it have been priced a contact decrease, like $499. At $549, the Radeon RX 9070 is a fantastic graphics card that’s value its asking worth, however assume lengthy and laborious and be sure to can’t scrape collectively that further $50 for the Editors’ Selection-award-winning Radeon RX 9070 XT.
Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 9070
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The Backside Line
AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 graphics card serves up wonderful efficiency for its worth and simply outshines Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5070. (The marginally costlier RX 9070 XT is a greater worth, although.)
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About Michael Justin Allen Sexton
Senior Analyst
