AMD’s associate manufacturers will start promoting RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics playing cards on March sixth. Priced at a respective $550 and $600, these GPUs mark the start of the RX 9000 Sequence and undercut NVIDIA’s similarly-spec’d RTX 5070 Ti.

The gross sales pitch from AMD is straightforward and interesting—4K gaming at a 1440p worth. These graphics playing cards are designed for avid gamers, not buyers or AI-obsessed tech companies. And, with costs below $700, they’re way more accessible than lots of the gadgets in NVIDIA’s portfolio.

AMD expects to promote the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT to all kinds of PC avid gamers, together with newcomers, fanatics, and long-haulers who’ve kept away from upgrading because of the trade’s present price-performance shortcomings.

The $550 RX 9070 options 56 CUs and a most clock pace of two.52GHz, plus 16GB of DDR6 VRAM. For an additional $50, the RX 9070 XT bumps the clock pace as much as 2.97GHz and packs 64 CUs, although it presents the identical quantity of VRAM as the usual RX 9070. (Using GDDR6 is attention-grabbing, as NVIDIA’s RTX 50-series GPUs use GDDR7. Nevertheless, AMD’s beneficiant use of VRAM seems to counteract this discrepancy.)

Each playing cards make the improve to PCIe 5.0 with DisplayPort 2.1a and HDMI 2.1b connectivity. After all, the costlier card eats up extra energy—AMD’s RX 9070 XT has a TBP of 304 watts, whereas the usual RX 9070 chews up simply 220 watts.

These uncooked specs are bolstered by the RDNA 4 structure, which gives elevated effectivity, clock speeds, and register allocation per CU. RDNA 4 additionally doubles ray tracing throughput and gives 8x sooner AI efficiency by way of the usage of next-gen accelerators.

“The RX 9000 Sequence, powered by the brand new AMD RDNA™ 4 structure, presents avid gamers and creators a robust mix of efficiency, visuals, and worth. These superior graphics playing cards redefine extremely quick, high-resolution gaming with third-generation raytracing know-how enabling lifelike lighting, shadows, and reflections to ship immersive gaming experiences whereas integrating a set of AMD options to maximise {hardware} utilization.”

AMD says that the RX 9070 XT will supply efficiency corresponding to NVIDIA’s RTX 5070 Ti, a $750 graphics card that’s virtually perpetually out of inventory. It is also a considerable improve from the earlier RX 7900 GRE, providing 42% sooner efficiency at 4K. The usual RX 9070, in the meantime, presents 21% sooner 4K efficiency than the RX 7900 GRE. Naturally, each RX 9000 Sequence playing cards will exceed the ray tracing cabailities of previous-gen choices.

Whereas NVIDIA continues to double-down on the AI growth, AMD is trying to style itself as a real shopper model. The brand new RX 9000 Sequence playing cards supply some AI capabilities, clearly, and so they can drive generative processes, however AMD’s announcement video and press release are plainly tailor-made for avid gamers who really feel uncared for in immediately’s laptop {hardware} market. It is a breath of contemporary air.

I ought to make clear that I have never examined the RX 9000 GPUs. Actual-world efficiency might fall in need of early expectations, and AMD has traditionally lagged behind NVIDIA in relation to ray tracing—I assume that it will stay true within the present era.

The RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT launch on March 6. Notably, AMD won’t manufacture or promote first-party variations of those GPUs. Associate manufacturers like ASRock, ASUS, and Gigabyte are anticipated to comply with AMD’s advised pricing and are already transport the graphics playing cards to retailers in an effort to forestall provide shortages.

Supply: AMD