AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: Two-minute assessment

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 in opposition to the GeForce RTX monolith, it completely positions Group Pink to reap the benefits of the rising discontent amongst avid gamers upset over Nvidia’s newest GPUs with among the best graphics playing 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 value on-line proper now. This issues as a result of AMD historically hasn’t confronted the form of scalping and value inflation that Nvidia’s GPUs expertise (it does occur, clearly, however not practically to the identical extent as with Nvidia’s RTX playing cards).

Which means, in the end, that avid gamers who have 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 can doubtless keep inside attain, even when value inflation retains it above AMD’s MSRP.

The RX 9070 XT’s efficiency comes at a little bit of a value although, such because the 309W most energy draw I noticed throughout my testing, however at this tier of efficiency, this really is not that dangerous.

This card additionally is not too nice on the subject of non-raster inventive efficiency and AI compute, however nobody is trying to purchase this card for its inventive 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 value. Even when the value does get hit with inflation, it will nonetheless doubtless be approach decrease than what you’d need to pay for an RX 7900 XTX or RTX 4080 (assuming you will discover 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 obtainable? The RX 9070 XT will likely be obtainable within the US, UK, and Australia at launch

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is obtainable 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 doubtless promoting for greater than MSRP.

At this value, the RX 9070 XT is available in about $150 cheaper than the RTX 5070 Ti, and about $50 dearer than the RTX 5070 and the AMD Radeon RX 9070, which additionally launches alongside the RX 9070 XT. This value additionally places the RX 9070 XT on par with the MSRP of the RTX 4070 Tremendous, although this card is getting tougher to seek 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 likely be findable at MSRP in some capability) the RX 9070 XT’s worth proposition is second solely to the RTX 5070 Ti’s, should you’re going by its MSRP. Since value inflation on the RTX 5070 Ti will persist for a while no less than, in lots of circumstances you will doubtless discover the RX 9070 XT provides higher efficiency per value paid of any fanatic card available on the market proper now.

• Worth: 5 / 5

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: Specs

• PCIe 5.0, however nonetheless simply GDDR6
• Hefty energy draw

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the primary RDNA 4 card to hit the market, and so its value 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 will apples-to-apples evaluate the RX 9070 XT in opposition to, however I’ll strive, 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 items, 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 unquestionably useful in pushing out 4K frames shortly.

The TGP of the RX 9070 XT is 304W, which is an efficient bit greater than the RX 7900 GRE, although for that further energy, you do get a commensurate bump up in efficiency.

• Specs: 4 / 5

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: Design

• No AMD reference card
• Excessive TGP means larger coolers and extra cables

There isn’t any AMD reference card for the Radeon RX 9070 XT, however the unit I bought to check was the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 9070 XT, which I think about is fairly indicative of what we will count on from the designs of the varied third-party playing cards.

The 304W TGP all however ensures that any model of this card you discover will likely be a triple-fan cooler over a fairly hefty heatsink, so it is not going to be a fantastic choice for small kind issue circumstances.

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 obtainable 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 virtually actually be a problem as effectively.

After that, it is actually nearly aesthetics, because the RX 9070 XT (thus far) does not have something like the twin pass-through cooling answer 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 should you’re in search of a non-flashy search for your PC, it is a great-looking card.

• Design: 4 / 5

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: Efficiency

• Close to-RTX 4080 ranges of gaming efficiency, even with ray tracing
• Non-raster inventive and AI efficiency lags behind Nvidia, as anticipated
• Possible the perfect worth you are going to discover anyplace close to this value level

Merely put, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the gaming graphics card that we have been clamoring for this complete era. Whereas it exhibits some sturdy efficiency in synthetics and raster-heavy inventive 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 value, this can be a improbable exhibiting.

The RX 9070 XT is squaring up in opposition to the RTX 5070 Ti, nonetheless, and right here the RTX 5070 Ti does handle to tug effectively forward of the RX 9070 XT, however it’s a lot nearer than I believed it could be beginning out.

On the synthetics facet, 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 Pace Means, as anticipated, however AMD’s third era ray accelerators have undoubtedly come a great distance in catching up with Nvidia’s extra subtle {hardware}.

Additionally, as anticipated, on the subject of inventive workloads, the RX 9070 XT performs very effectively 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 in opposition to 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% sooner than the RTX 4070 Ti and RX 7900 XTX, just below 4% slower than the RTX 4080, and about 7% slower than the RTX 5070 Ti.

This sturdy efficiency carries over into 4K gaming as effectively, due to the RX 9070 XT’s 16GB VRAM. Right here, it is about 15.5% sooner than the RTX 4070 Ti and about 2.5% sooner than the RX 7900 XTX. In opposition to 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 claimed and executed, the RX 9070 XT does not fairly overpower among the best Nvidia graphics playing cards of the last-gen (and undoubtedly does not topple the RTX 5070 Ti), however given its efficiency class, it is energy draw, its warmth output (which wasn’t practically as dangerous as the ability draw may point out), and most of all, it is value, the RX 9070 XT is well the perfect worth of any graphics card enjoying 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 excellent 4K GPU completely wants to think about it earlier than making their subsequent improve.

• Efficiency: 5 / 5

Must you purchase the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT?

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, inventive, and AI workload utilization

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 business 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 precise.

I’ve reviewed greater than 30 graphics playing cards within the final three years, and so I’ve bought the expertise and perception that can assist you discover the perfect graphics card to your wants and price range.

• Initially reviewed March 2025