Nvidia couldn't have launched the RTX 5070 at a worse time. The graphics card was doomed before it left the factory, thanks largely to the marketing from the company. Billed as a $549 GPU with the performance of an RTX 40980, we were all elated that perhaps Nvidia had changed course and was now looking to provide some tangible value for gamers. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and the RTX 5070 could barely be considered a generational improvement, let alone one with RTX 4090 performance.

Enter AMD with its considerably smaller market share holding and the Radeon RX 9070 series, consisting of the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070. The latter costs the same as the RTX 5070 and thus should be considered a direct competitor, yet AMD's card has significant gains on the specifications sheet. We're looking at more (and newer) cores with RDNA 4 over previous-gen Radeon GPUs, more VRAM, and less of an emphasis on upscaling and frame generation. AMD launched a solid GPU with solid GPU specs and performance.

After testing the RX 9070 against its XT sibling, referencing our RTX 5070 and other GPU review results, it's safe to say this is one fantastic $549 GPU. While it does get overshadowed by the RX 9070 XT due to its bump in performance that warrants the additional $50 cost, this is still a compelling choice if you're unable to locate XT stock or simply don't wish to spend more than $550 on a graphics card. With the RX 9070, you'll have no trouble enjoying countless games at 4K, some with RT enabled.

About this review: AMD provided XDA with an RX 9070 sample for this review but had no input to its contents outside of pre-launch driver support.

AMD Radeon RX 9070 pricing and availability

The AMD Radeon RX 7090 launched for $549 into a heavily congested segment. We've got the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, which has just 12GB of VRAM, and some other viable options from the previous generation AMD and Nvidia series. These MSRPs mean very little, however, with the sheer level of demand from just about everyone, including scalpers. Thankfully, $549 is a far cry from the $2,000 Nvidia asks for its flagship RTX 5090 GPU, and it means gamers are getting more bang for their buck.

It costs $549, so long as you can get hold of one at this price. The RX 9070 is a 4K graphics card with machine learning (ML) upscaling, improved ray tracing performance, and all the latest bells and whistles with RNDA 4. Promising frame rates in the three digits for many games at high settings is not a bad deal for PC gamers. This GPU effectively replaces part of the RX 7900 series yet manages to cost a full $400 less than the RX 7900 XTX alone.

• RX 9070

  Shader Units

  128

  Ray Accelerators/Cores

  56

  AI Accelerators/Cores

  112

  Stream Processors

  3,584

  Base Clock Speed

  1330 MHz

  Boost Clock Speed

  2520 MHz

  Memory Clock Speed

  2518 MHz

  Memory Capacity

  16 GB GDDR6

  Memory Bus

  256-bit

  Memory Bandwidth

  644.6 GB/s

  Power Draw

  220 W

  Architecture

  RDNA 4

  Process

  5 nm

  Price

  $549

  The Radeon RX 9070 is one of AMD's first GPUs powered by RDNA 4, capable of smooth 4K gaming with powerful internals and more advanced upscaling and frame generation technologies. It's a great graphics card to buy for 4K gaming.

• RX 9070 XT

  Shader Units

  128

  Ray Accelerators/Cores

  64

  AI Accelerators/Cores

  64

  Stream Processors

  4096

  Base Clock Speed

  1660 MHz

  Boost Clock Speed

  2970 MHz

  Memory Clock Speed

  2518 MHz

  Memory Capacity

  16 GB GDDR6

  Memory Bus

  256-bit

  Memory Bandwidth

  644.6 GB/s

  Power Draw

  304 W

  Architecture

  RDNA 4

  Process

  5 nm

  Price

  $599

Absolutely decimates the RTX 5070

AMD has a clear winner here

Nvidia's CES announcement for GeForce RTX GPUs was ... unique, to say the least. It had nothing gamers wanted, aside from the rather bold promise of RTX 4090 performance for $549 — and no, I won't stop repeating this claim until this review is over. AMD did the opposite. The company focused on raw compute performance uplifts over RDNA 3 with FSR 4 as a bonus for those who do wish to generate new frames and utilize all available upscaling features to improve FPS.

AMD's existing FSR implementation was okay at best, but it was far behind Nvidia's DLSS. I barely activated the feature, and I don't know of many who played (and enjoyed) all their favorite games with FSR enabled. That's not the same with FSR 4 and RDNA 4. AMD has switched to machine learning for its new upscaling algorithms to improve not only performance and FPS but also visual quality with fewer artifacts and ghosting, both of which were common with earlier versions of FSR.

The company focused on raw compute performance uplifts over RDNA 3.

As well as FSR 4, RDNA 4 introduced generational uplifts in ray tracing and AI acceleration, a new media engine for streaming and recording, increased clock speeds approaching 3.0 GHz, and a hefty amount of GDDR6 VRAM — the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 has just 12 GB. For the RX 9070 (and its XT sibling), AMD went all-out with raster and compute workload improvements. This provided significant uplifts in performance and efficiency, something AMD expects to continue, even with new rendering techniques making their way into gaming.

RT performance has always been a bug bear for AMD, with Nvidia's cards handling RT workloads better even without DLSS and FSR factored in. That's no longer the case at this price point, with the RX 9070 keeping up with, if not outright beating, the RTX 5070. Sound familiar? Look what happened to Intel when AMD was allowed to catch up.

It's all in the numbers

AMD put on a good show

I was a fan of the RX 7900 series, though the XT and GRE made less sense than the XTX. Still, all three were decent at 1440p and lighter 4K workloads. They just weren't worth the asking price, which is why the GRE was such an outlier with its significant discount over the XT and XTX. Enter the RX 9070 with its $549, and it's not too far behind the previous generation. I was excited to see how AMD's new cards performed at UHD with and without RT to see how big the gains were with RDNA 4, and it's considerable.

Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K is just short of 60 FPS. That's 20% higher than the RTX 5070.

I used the same test bench setup as the RX 9070 XT review to ensure everything matched for consistency. The RX 9070 was tested at 1440p and 2160p to get an idea of how they performed at the more popular resolutions with a variety of games, some used with our existing GPU tests and others recommended by AMD, to see how FSR 4 performs.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a great test for graphics cards. The game makes full use of all available VRAM, especially when everything is cranked up high with ray tracing enabled. We used a few passes to see how the RX 9070 compared against the XT, the RTX 5070, RX 7900 GRE, and RX 7900 XTX. The results speak for themselves. For (hopefully) $549, you're buying a GPU that can handle Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K just short of 60 FPS. That's 20% higher than the RTX 5070, and it edges just slightly past the Nvidia card with ray tracing.

It's not too far behind the RX 9070 XT either, and it utterly demolishes the older RX 7900 GRE. It's also clear to see how much of an improvement RDNA 4 is when the $549 GPU essentially matches the RX 7900 XTX, which launched for $999. Enabling FSR helped smooth things out with RT, though I expect things to improve as FSR support is added to more games. With the RX 7900 GRE as a baseline, let's see how the 9070 performed in some other games at QHD and UHD.

Once again, the RX 9070 has a solid showing with performance that bests the outgoing RX 7900 GRE in most tests. DOOM Eternal was an anomaly for the 9070 series at QHD and UHD without RT enabled, as the 7900 GRE managed to keep up. Again, there's not too much to differentiate the RX 9070 and the XT, though it's clear to see the higher TDP, more cores, and slightly faster clock speed help across the board.

Need more time with FSR 4

But you won't hear this thing run

As expected, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 drew around 220W total, approximately 84W less than the RX 9070 XT. AMD supplied us with the ASRock Steel Legend RX 9070 for this review. It has three beefy fans, a huge heatsink, plenty of heatpipes, and good contact with all the important parts of the PCB. Temperatures were well within normal operating ranges. Reading just 54 degrees Celcius (80C for memory), you could comfortably play games for hours using this thing.

The fans barely spun up from their zero RPM mode when playing games and running benchmarks. Even cranking everything up to 11 with ray tracing and all other overheads, the RX 9070 barely budged from 1500 RPM after settling down. FSR 4 is one way AMD hopes to extract more performance out of these GPUs, and we'll continue working with new game support to see how it fares with the two GPUs. I'll circle back with results, including screenshots and video, to showcase how it performs in more tests.

Should you buy the AMD Radeon RX 9070?

You should buy the RX 9070 if:

• You want a capable 1440p/4K GPU at a reasonable price.
• You no longer wish to participate in Nvidia's price game.
• You don't wish to spend more than $550 on a single PC part.
• You are upgrading from an RTX 30 or RX 60 series (or older).

You shouldn't buy the RX 9070 if:

• You primarily play at 1080p, as Intel has better offerings.
• You don't want a fantastic GPU at a reasonable price.
• You need better AI and upscaling.
• You have an extra $50 for the RX 9070 XT.

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is an interesting position. On one hand, this thing offers far better value than the RTX 5070 it's positioned against. But then there's the RX 9070 XT, making AMD its own worst enemy. I would always recommend spending the extra $50 for the better GPU. The XT version can boost higher, has more cores to work with, and handles heavier workloads (such as ray tracing) without bogging down too much. FSR 4 support is available across the board here, so upscaling and other magic tricks will help FPS.

If it's raw performance without special features, AMD's RX 9070 series is the way to go.

But AI-powered features won't win the race, which Nvidia is experiencing with its RTX 50 series. The RTX 5070 was expected to be far better than it ended up being, largely due to the RTX 4090 performance claims. The RTX 5070 could be an RTX 4090 if you rely solely on DLSS, MFG, and everything else Nvidia can throw at the pipeline to speed things up and create more fake frames than The Onion has fake news. It all comes down to what you want from your graphics card. If it's raw performance without special features, AMD's RX 9070 series is the way to go.

Do you go with the RX 9070 or RX 9070 XT? That depends on your budget and whether you can purchase one at MSRP. As for the RX 9070 series launch, bravo, AMD. You managed to take advantage of the opportunity and listened to what gamers wanted. I'm excited to see what comes next.