AMD Radeon RX 9070 / 9070 XT assessment and benchmarks

Nvidia’s dominance over the newest technology of graphics playing cards ends at this time. AMD may need surrendered the excessive finish of the GPU market, however its new $549 Radeon RX 9070 and $599 RX 9070 XT look set to convey Nvidia again to actuality, at the least within the midrange.

After a disappointing $549 RTX 5070, a $749 RTX 5070 Ti that’s close to unattainable to purchase for something lower than $899, and a $1,999 RTX 5090 whose solely competitors is different Nvidia playing cards, AMD’s next-gen GPUs look completely timed and ship on efficiency and worth.

The RX 9070 is round 17 p.c quicker than Nvidia’s RTX 5070 in 4K with out upscaling enabled, cruising previous Nvidia’s card for a similar worth. The RX 9070 XT is as quick because the RTX 5070 Ti for $150 much less.

Pricing is vital with these playing cards, significantly as solely 10 p.c of GPU gross sales proper now are from AMD. The firm wants a giant win with its newest technology of playing cards if it needs to regain floor from Nvidia, and the RX 9070 sequence may be simply what the GPU market wants.

AMD hasn’t created reference playing cards for the RX 9070 sequence, so the top result’s designs from add-in board companions that look similar to those used for earlier generations of Radeon GPUs. The Gigabyte RX 9070 I’ve been testing is longer and bulkier than the RTX 5070.

The XFX 9070 XT I’ve been testing can also be a 3.5-slot card, so it takes up far extra space in a case than the two-slot RTX 5080 or 5090 Founders Edition and even the two.5-slot RTX 5070 Ti card I reviewed. I far desire the reference designs AMD has used up to now, and the RX 9070-series playing cards are large and hulking as compared. AMD has additionally caught to utilizing two 8-pin PCIe energy connectors with the RX 9070 sequence, as an alternative of switching to 12VHPWR. It does imply you’ll have to run two PCIe connectors to each the RX 9070 and 9070 XT, however you gained’t want to fret about PSU compatibility or the chance of a 12VHPWR connector melting.

Both the RX 9070 and 9070 XT ship with 16GB of VRAM, which is an efficient quantity at these costs. Nvidia solely has 12GB of VRAM on its $549 RTX 5070, so that you’re actually getting extra worth from a $549 RX 9070 right here — particularly in case you’re 4K gaming the place VRAM calls for are larger.

I’ve been testing AMD’s RX 9070 and 9070 XT playing cards with an AMD Ryzen 9 9800X3D processor and Asus’ 32-inch 4K OLED PG32UCDP. I’ve put the RX 9070 and 9070 XT up in opposition to Nvidia’s RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti in addition to its current RX 7900 XT and XTX GPUs.

I’ve examined quite a lot of video games at each 1440p and 4K, together with extra demanding titles like Black Myth: Wukong and benchmarking favorites like Cyberpunk 2077 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. All video games have been examined at very excessive or extremely settings, and I enabled ray tracing in some titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Metro Exodus to see what AMD’s newest GPUs can ship there.

The RX 9070 comfortably beats Nvidia’s RTX 5070 at each 4K and 1440p. It’s 17 p.c quicker at 4K and almost 20 p.c quicker at 1440p. It’s not even shut. In some video games, like Horizon Zero Dawn, the RX 9070 is greater than 30 p.c quicker, with or with out FSR enabled.

The $599 RX 9070 XT competes with Nvidia’s $749 RTX 5070 Ti, with a mean body charge distinction of lower than 1 p.c with out upscaling throughout the 9 video games we examined. The variations between these two playing cards actually come right down to the person video games, with the RX 9070 XT lower than 5 p.c behind the RTX 5070 Ti in titles like Returnal and Metro Exodus Enhanced.

The RX 9070 XT isn’t that far behind AMD’s earlier flagship, the $999 RX 7900 XTX, both. I discovered the XTX was lower than 2 p.c quicker at 4K and 1440p assessments with out upscaling enabled. That’s a small efficiency hole, contemplating the value variations between these playing cards.

I believe the RX 9070 makes probably the most sense at 1440p, and the RX 9070 XT is certainly price the additional $50 if you wish to transfer to 4K gaming. Considering the small worth hole, it’s price paying the additional $50 for higher 1440p efficiency, too.

AMD’s 9000-series GPUs are constructed on prime of the corporate’s RDNA 4 structure, which AMD says gives twice the rasterization graphics efficiency per compute unit as RDNA 2. This new structure additionally consists of enhancements to spice up ray-tracing efficiency.

In Metro Exodus Enhanced with extremely ray tracing enabled, the RX 9070 XT is almost 7 p.c quicker than the RX 7900 XTX, nevertheless it’s 4 p.c behind the RTX 5070 Ti. Nvidia nonetheless reigns supreme in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with ray tracing and upscaling enabled, although, with the RTX 5070 Ti 16 p.c forward of the RX 9070 XT.

The RDNA 4 structure additionally features a new model of AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling, which now makes use of devoted AI accelerator {hardware} to enhance body charges and picture high quality — very like Nvidia’s DLSS. FSR 4 is unique to those new RX 9070 graphics playing cards, and it really works in all video games which have FSR 3.1 built-in. All you must do is flick a change within the AMD software program, and FSR 4 might be enabled routinely in supported video games.

With FSR 4, AMD hasn’t adopted Nvidia with Multi Frame Generation, as an alternative specializing in enhancing picture high quality in upscaled video games. I examined FSR 4 in each Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.

In Black Ops 6, the advances are instantly apparent. The present FSR 3.1 implementation usually ends in a extra mushy or blurry picture, which is very noticeable in textual content on partitions or objects which might be barely additional away. FSR 4 makes the general picture look rather a lot sharper and, in some instances, even higher than the native 4K output. A police automobile has a blurry numberplate and emblem in FSR 3.1 high quality mode. But in FSR 4 high quality, it’s upscaled appropriately, and all the automobile appears to be like rather a lot sharper in consequence. Details on buildings are additionally extra clear, and even enemies look extra detailed in movement with FSR 4. And this all comes and not using a noticeable efficiency hit, which is nice.

The FSR 4 enhancements are much less apparent in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, and I struggled to note any distinction between FSR 3.1 high quality and FSR 4 high quality modes. While this would possibly counsel your mileage might fluctuate with FSR 4 high quality, I used to be in a position to make use of extremely efficiency FSR 4 and get surprisingly good visible high quality and better body charges from the sport.

Beyond gaming, the RX 9070 playing cards are each much more succesful for AI workloads. In Procyon’s AI XL (FP16) take a look at, the RX 9070 XT is greater than 40 p.c quicker than the RX 7900 XTX, nevertheless it’s round 20 p.c behind the AI efficiency of the RTX 5070. The RX 9070 can also be greater than 40 p.c quicker within the AI XL take a look at over the RX 7900 XT, however the RTX 5070 is almost 40 p.c quicker on this AI workload take a look at.

I usually take a look at video modifying capabilities with PugetBench’s DaVinci Resolve benchmark, nevertheless it will get round 20 p.c into the take a look at and crashes on AMD’s GPUs.

It’s nice to see AMD decrease energy provide necessities and energy draw on its newest Radeon GPUs. AMD recommends a 750-watt energy provide for the RX 9070 XT, for its 304 watts of complete board energy. I’ve discovered it delivers efficiency near the RX 7900 XTX whereas utilizing 40 watts much less energy at 4K. The 9070 XT averaged at 303 watts throughout my assessments, whereas the 7900 XTX averaged 346 watts.

It’s the identical story for the RX 9070. AMD recommends a 650-watt energy provide for this card, 100 watts lower than the 750-watt suggestion for the 7900 XT. In my assessments, the RX 9070 averaged 244 watts, whereas the 7900 XT averaged greater than 25 p.c extra energy draw at 307 watts. That’s a giant effectivity enchancment, and it’s solely 34 extra watts of energy draw than the RTX 5070 for a noticeable efficiency hole between these two $549 playing cards.

The RX 9070 additionally hit a most temperature of 60 levels Celsius in my open testbench, in comparison with 70C for the RX 7900 XT. The RX 9070 XT reached simply 55C in my testing, in comparison with 71C for the RX 7900 XTX. Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Founders Edition card reached 77C in the identical assessments, with MSI’s Ventus 3 RTX 5070 Ti reaching 68C.

AMD’s newest technology of Radeon GPUs are extra environment friendly and run cooler than its earlier technology, they usually additionally run cooler than Nvidia’s direct rivals. That’s a transparent win for AMD.

AMD has priced its RX 9070-series playing cards actually aggressively, significantly with the $599 RX 9070 XT being $150 cheaper than the RTX 5070 Ti. The $549 RX 9070 is identical worth as Nvidia’s RTX 5070, nevertheless it beats the 5070 in each sport I’ve examined, generally by a giant margin.

If AMD manages to have these playing cards in inventory at these costs, then it’s going to shake up the essential midrange of the GPU market.

The query is whether or not it could chip away at Nvidia’s dominance. In addition to (or due to) its 90 p.c market share, Nvidia additionally has a bonus in what number of extra video games assist DLSS than FSR. And DLSS is so well-liked that 80 p.c of RTX house owners activate it in video games. FSR 4 improves picture high quality to compete extra carefully with DLSS, however AMD nonetheless wants sport builders to implement it. Nvidia permits you to merely pressure DLSS 4 in video games, so that you don’t want to attend on builders in any respect.

The stickiness of DLSS might tempt PC avid gamers to spend a little bit extra to stick with Nvidia, and I haven’t seen sufficient from FSR 4 but to know whether or not it could compete with the upscaling enhancements Nvidia made with DLSS 4.

Nvidia’s Game Ready Drivers are additionally a bonus; the corporate works with builders to optimize drivers for video games earlier than they launch, whereas AMD has lengthy had driver points with quite a lot of video games. I haven’t run into any points whereas testing the RX 9070 sequence, however I can’t promise that would be the case when new video games are launched. While AMD says it has been working laborious on enhancing its drivers, solely time will inform.

Either means, AMD’s RX 9070-series playing cards are a transparent indication that it’s not giving all the GPU market to Nvidia. It’s prepared to compete on efficiency and worth, and that’s a successful system if AMD manages to maintain these costs below management.

Photography by Tom Warren / The Verge