ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi OC
March, 2025Type
Graphics CardPrice
$849.99 USConclusion - Superb Performance, Fantastic Cooling, Spectacular Design
AMD took a very different approach with its RDNA 4 lineup, and made it clear from the start that they will be focusing on mainstream gamers rather than aiming for ultra-enthusiast or enthusiast throne. The result is very clear that this approach worked in AMD's favor, as both the 9070 XT and 9060 XT have been met with positive consumer response since their launch.
Big RDNA 4 Packs A Strong Punch
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is a strong offering in the high-performance range. It isn't the enthusiast-killer, but it does well with what it has to offer. The bigger Navi 48 GPU with a 3.1 GHz clock speed can easily outperform the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti in several titles and even matches the RTX 5080 in some, and that's a huge leap in performance from a product that should essentially be positioned in the 80-class segment.
While raster performance is great, the ray tracing performance has also seen a major bump with the RX 9070 XT easily tackling the RTX 5070 Ti and staying ahead of the RTX 5070 across all titles. It is only when Path Tracing is used, which is now NVIDIA's dominant domain, that the RDNA 4 architecture shows its weakness, but despite that, the company is focused more on enhancing RT/PT performance in future generations, and RDNA 4 is proving to be on the right path.
A small concern would come in the form of efficiency, which takes a hit with RDNA 4. The RX 9070 XT consumes more power than an RTX 5080 in gaming, typically around 50W more. Efficiency has been a leading point for AMD, but that has been lost in the process. Even still, the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT did a superb job in cooling this high-wattage card, delivering sub-60C temps on the GPU.
FSR 4 May Not Have MFG, But It Looks Just As Good As DLSS 4 Now
FSR 4 is entering its refinement stage now. While DLSS 4 has better support in number of titles, and also has games out there that support various next-gen technologies such as Neural Radiance Cache, MFG, and Ray Reconstruction, AMD is getting there and with FSR 4 Redstone landing later this year, the company is going to offer even better image quality and frame-generation support to gamers that are part of its ecosystem.
The only major drawback is that AMD still feels like it's catching up to DLSS 4, as the innovations coming in FSR 4 redstone are already being implemented by NVIDIA partnered developers who leverage DLSS 4. So, while AMD has 60+ FSR 4 titles this month, NVIDIA has many more, and the numbers are in favor of NVIDIA. The company is also looking to further enhance DLSS 4 in the coming months, so it won't be that simple to tackle NVIDIA in the AI realm unless Aly starts thinking out of the box and becomes the first to introduce a major game-changing technology for its FidelityFX suite that makes gamers switch from the Green Team.
Things we liked about the ASRock Radeon RX 9060 XT Taichi OC 16 GB:
- Faster than the RTX 5070 Ti in many titles & even crosses the RTX 5080 in some
- Great Perf/$ if available at MSRP
- FSR 4 + Redstone support is great
- Ray Tracing performance is now competitive
- 16 GB VRAM is sufficient for 4K/1440p gaming
- Low noise output with 0 dB operation
- Massive 3.1 GHz factory overclocked out of the box
- Very good temperatures & low noise output
- Stunning cooler design with lots of RGB illumination
- DP2.1a & HDMI 2.1 support
- PCIe Express 5.0 technology
AMD's partners are also putting out some great designs, such as the Steel Legend OC from ASRock, which offers a massive +130 MHz overclock out of the box, along with a triple-fan cooling solution that looks and works brilliantly. The card features a single 16-pin connector for which ASRock provides an adapter, plus there's also a support bracket added in the package.
Things that can improve:
- Pricing for 9070 XT remains high, several hundred $ above MSRP
- Lower power rating
- GDDR6 memory runs hot
- FSR 4 doesn't offer MFG support
- FSR 4 Redstone support is still months away
With the Radeon RX 9070 XT, AMD has a solid option for high-end gamers with an ample 16 GB memory and performance that beats the RTX 5070 Ti with ease. The things I enjoyed the most were the ray tracing performance uplifts, which are impressive indeed within a single generation, and FSR 4 + Frame-Gen work better than ever. With the new Redstone updates and continuous improvements on the driver side, the Radeon ecosystem is in a far better position than it was a few years ago with the Radeon RX 7000 series. This gives AMD a chance to tackle NVIDIA more strongly in the coming generations, especially the UDNA lineup, which is expected to bring back enthusiast products.
Meanwhile, the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi OC is superb, which is priced in line with some of the other high-end 9070 XT options. It offers a powerful cooler that will keep the card running cool while maintaining a 3 GHz+ clock speed, and looks absolutely awesome with its iconic Taichi theme glittered in ARGB LEDs. We just hope that the pricing for the 9070 XT series normalizes, which should further make the 9070 XT cards an even more compelling option for gamers.
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About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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