AMD has officially launched its Radeon RX 9070 XT & RX 9070 GPUs, aiming at the gaming segment at $599 & $549 US, respectively.
AMD Brings Two High-Performance RDNA 4 Graphics Cards To Gamers - The Radeon RX 9070 XT & RX 9070
So today is finally the day. AMD is unveiling its next-generation Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards based on the brand-new RDNA 4 architecture. The first two cards within this lineup are the Radeon RX 9070 XT and the RX 9070.
After looking at the launch lineup, you might be wondering what happened to higher-end SKUs such as the 9080 (RX 7900 successor). Well, the company decided it was prime time that it would focus on getting things right where the majority of the gaming audiences spend their money & unlike NVIDIA, which can invest in all segments, including the ultra-enthusiast GPU market, AMD chose the high-end and mainstream segments. So, as of right now, AMD's strategy is to build up market share and RDNA 4's positioning is said to kick-start their winning streak.
So, with that out of the way, let's start by taking a look at the specifications of the Radeon RX 9070 XT & RX 9070 graphics cards before diving into the official performance figures.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT - The Almost 3 GHz RDNA 4
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU features the full Navi 48 (XT) SKU with a total of 64 compute units or 3584 cores. In addition to the CUs, it features 128 ROPS, 56 ray tracing accelerators, and 112 hardware AI accelerators. The reference GPU is clocked at up to 2520 MHz. The total board power is maintained at 220W, which is around 17% higher than Radeon RX 7900 GRE & RX 7800 XT GPUs.
On the memory front, the card comes with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory operating at 20 Gbps across a 256-bit wide bus interface. This provides the card with 640 GB/s of total bandwidth, but there's also 64 MB of 3rd Gen Infinity Cache, which should also deliver higher available bandwidth to the GPU. It also features PCIe 5.0 x16 functionality and the reference design is shown powered by two 8-pin power connectors though this model won't be available for sale.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 - The More Efficient RDNA 4
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 GPU features a cut-down Navi 48 (XL) SKU with a total of 56 compute units or 4096 cores. In addition to the CUs, it features 128 ROPS, 56 ray tracing accelerators, and 128 hardware AI accelerators. The reference GPU is clocked at up to 2970 MHz so we can expect over 3 GHz factory overclocks. The TBP is maintained at 220W, which is 25W lower than the Radeon RX 7700 XT.
On the memory front, the card comes with the same 16 GB of GDDR6 memory operating at 20 Gbps across a 256-bit wide bus interface. This provides the card with 640 GB/s of total bandwidth, but there's also 64 MB of 3rd Gen Infinity Cache, which should also deliver higher available bandwidth to the GPU. It also features PCIe 5.0 x16 functionality.
AMD Radeon RX 9000 GPU Lineup (Preliminary):
| Graphics Card | GPU | Cores | Clock (Max) | Memory | TBP | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Radeon RX 9070 XTX? | Navi 48 @ 4nm | 4096 | TBD | 32 GB GDDR6 (256-bit) | TBD | TBD |
| Radeon RX 9070 XT | Navi 48 @ 4nm | 4096 | 2970 MHz | 16 GB GDDR6 (256-bit) | 304W | $599 |
| Radeon RX 9070 | Navi 48 @ 4nm | 3584 | 2520 MHz | 16 GB GDDR6 (256-bit) | 220W | $549 |
| Radeon RX 9060 XT | Navi 44 @ 4nm | TBD | TBD | 8 GB GDDR6 (128-bit?) | TBD | TBD |
| Radeon RX 9060 | Navi 44 @ 4nm | TBD | TBD | 8 GB GDDR6 (128-bit?) | TBD | TBD |
RDNA 4's Gaming Performance (Official)
AMD is also sharing the first official performance figures for the Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 GPUs, which are as follows:
- Radeon RX 9070 XT vs RX 6900 XT (4K Max) -> +51% Faster AVG
- Radeon RX 9070 XT vs RX 7900 GRE (4K Max) -> +42% Faster AVG
- Radeon RX 9070 XT vs RTX 3090 (4K Max) -> +26% Faster AVG
- Radeon RX 9070 XT vs RX 7900 GRE (1440P Max) -> +38% Faster AVG
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is said to deliver an average 42% gain on average at 4K Max and 38% gain on average at 1440P Max against the Radeon RX 7900 GRE. The gains can be as much as up to 44% in native rasterized titles and up to 68% in native ray tracing games. The company also uses an RX 6900 XT and RTX 3090 comparison at their respective $999 and $1499 US price points, though it would have been better to compare them against 7900 XTX or RTX 4090 GPUs since these two are also priced the same.
- Radeon RX 9070 vs RX 6800 XT (4K Max) -> +38% Faster AVG
- Radeon RX 9070 vs RX 7900 GRE (4K Max) -> +21% Faster AVG
- Radeon RX 9070 vs RTX 3080 (4K Max) -> +26% Faster AVG
- Radeon RX 9070 vs RX 7900 GRE (1440P Max) -> +20% Faster AVG
For the Radeon RX 9070, AMD claims a 21% average gain at 4K and 20% average gain at 1440p vs the 7900 GRE. The RX 9070 offers up to 28% gains in native rasterized and up to 34% gains in native raytracing performance versus the same 7900 GRE. The RX 9070 is also compared to older cards such as the RX 6800 XT and RTX 3080. The 9070 sits at 38% faster than the 6800 XT and 26% faster than the RTX 3080, but once again, these cards should be replaced by newer options such as the RTX 4070 Ti and the RX 7900 XT, which are now selling at the same price points.
FSR 4 & HYPR-RX Performance Delivers More Gaming Smoothness
AMD is also sharing HYPR-RX figures which can offer almost 3x performance gains versus the native render using the latest upscaling and Frame Gen technologies in games such as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 and Star Citizen.
In Space Marine 2 at 4K, FSR 4 offers a boost of up to 3.4x which pushes the FPS from an average of 53 at the native renderer to an average of 182 FPS (Performance mode).
There are a lot of FSR 4 & HYPR-RX performance figures shared by the Red team and the main point is to showcase the FPS boost to over 150-200 on average versus just 60–90 FPS at native resolutions.
For AI enthusiasts, AMD's Radeon RX 9000 GPUs offer a big uplift versus the RDNA 3 lineup. In AI, you get an average uplift of 55% while content creation sees a nice uplift of 16.25%. Gen AI perf is also dramatically boosted up to 4.1x using the ONNX runtime and memory usage is also reduced significantly.
The Pricing & Availability
In terms of pricing, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT will retail for $599 US, which puts it between the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti (at MSRP). This is $100 US higher than the $499 US store price of the RX 7900 GRE at the moment and the RX 9070 will retail for $549 US, which is the same price as the RTX 5070, but the RDNA 4 offering comes with more VRAM (16 GB vs 12 GB) and should be great competition.
Availability of both cards is expected on the 6th of March and several AIB models will be available from partners such as ACER, ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte, PowerColor, Sapphire, XFX, Yeston and Vastarmor.
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