ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi OC 16 GB Graphics Card Review – 3.1 GHz RDNA 4 With Fantastic Cooling & Gaming Performance

The Wccftech Test Bench

AMD's RDNA 4 lineup promised to deliver great gaming performance, a great set of features, and great value. The company has achieved these objectives with the 9070 and 9060 series, which is a big turnaround for Team Red. The sales have been strong, and today, we look at one of the strongest models based on the RX 9070 XT.

So, for today's review, we will be trying out the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi OC, which has an MSRP of $849.99 US. This is a $350 US premium over the $599.99 MSRP, which is expected given the supply and demand for the RDNA 4 lineup. This puts the card in the same price range as the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, so that should be the direct competition to the 9070 XT at the moment.

AMD Radeon GPU Segment/Tier Prices

Graphics Segment	2014-2016	2016-2017	2017-2018	2018-2019	2020-2021	2021-2022	2022-2024	2025
Ultra Enthusiast Tier	Radeon R9 295X2	Radeon Pro Duo	N/A	N/A	Radeon RX 6900 XT	Radeon RX 6950 XT	Radeon RX 7900 XTX Radeon RX 7900 XT	N/A
Price	$1499 US	$1499 US	N/A	N/A	$999 US	$1099 US	$999 US $899 US	N/A
Enthusiast Tier	Radeon R9 290X	Radeon R9 Fury X Radeon R9 Fury	Radeon RX Vega 64	Radeon VII	Radeon RX 6800 XT Radeon RX 6800	N/A	Radeon RX 7800 XT	Radeon RX 9070 XT Radeon RX 9070
Price	$549 US	$649 US $549 US	$499 US	$699 US	$649 US $579 US	N/A	$499 US	$599 US $549 US
High-End Tier	Radeon R9 290	Radeon R9 390X	Radeon RX Vega 56	Radeon RX 5700 XT	Radeon RX 6700 XT	Radeon RX 6750 XT	Radeon RX 7700 XT	N/A
Price	$399 US	$399 US	$399 US	$399 US	$479 US	$549 US	$449 US	N/A
Mainstream Tier	Radeon R9 280X Radeon R9 280	Radeon R9 390 Radeon R9 380	Radeon RX 480	Radeon RX 5700 Radeon RX 5600 XT	Radeon RX 6600 XT	Radeon RX 6650 XT	Radeon RX 7600 XT Radeon RX 7600	Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB
Price	$299 US $279 US	$329 US $229 US	$229 US	$349 US $299 US	$379 US	$399 US	$329 US $269 US	$349 US $299 US
Mid-Tier Performance	Radeon R9 270X Radeon R9 270	Radeon R9 370X Radeon R9 370	Radeon RX 470	Radeon RX 5500 XT	N/A	Radeon RX 6500 XT	N/A	N/A
Price	$199 US $179 US	$199 US $179 US	$179 US	$169 US	N/A	$199 US	N/A	N/A
Entry-Tier	Radeon R7 260X Radeon R7 260	Radeon R7 360	Radeon RX 460	N/A	N/A	Radeon RX 6400	N/A	N/A
Price	$139 US $109 US	$109 US	$99 US	N/A	N/A	$159 US	N/A	N/A

The first two cards within the AMD RDNA 4 lineup were the Radeon RX 9070 XT and the RX 9070. These cards are positioned against the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 series products from NVIDIA.

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 to 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.

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

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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 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

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For the Radeon RX 9070, AMD claims a 21% average gain at 4K and a 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.

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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.

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Then we have FSR 4 support, which is being extended to over 60 game titles today. With FSR 4's frame-generation, leveraging machine learning, AI upscaling, and frame-gen, the new tech will boost FSP in games by up to 3.4x. A lot of good things are being said about FSR 4, which has now come close to NVIDIA's DLSS 4 in terms of image quality.

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DLSS 4 still holds the upper hand with its MFG modes that enable up to 4x frame-gen, but the Red team has some cool tricks planned in the future FSR updates, such as the "Redstone" release which is expected in the second half of 2025 & will deliver various improvements including Neural Radiance Caching, ML Ray Regeneration for accurate and faster ray tracing, ML Super Resolution and ML Frame Generation.

The Pricing & Availability

In terms of pricing, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT retails 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 retails 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 began 6th of March, and several AIB models were available from partners such as ACER, ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte, PowerColor, Sapphire, XFX, Yeston, and Vastarmor.

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AMD Radeon RX 9000 "RDNA 4" GPU Specs:

GPU	Radeon RX 9070 XT	Radeon RX 9070	Radeon RX 9070 GRE 16 GB	Radeon RX 9070 GRE 12 GB	Radeon RX 9060 XT	Radeon RX 9060	Radeon RX 9050?
Architecture	RDNA 4	RDNA 4	RDNA 4	RDNA 4	RDNA 4	RDNA 4	RDNA 4
GPU SKU	Navi 48	Navi 48	Navi 48	Navi 48	Navi 44	Navi 44	Navi 44
Process Node	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm
Transistor Count	53.9 Billion	53.9 Billion	53.9 Billion	53.9 Billion	29.7 Billion	29.7 Billion	29.7 Billion
Die Size	357mm2	357mm2	357mm2	357mm2	199mm2	199mm2	TBD
Compute Units	64	56	TBD	48	32	28	TBD
Ray Accelerators	64	56	TBD	48	32	28	TBD
AI Accelerators	128	112	TBD	96	64	56	TBD
Stream Processors	4096	3584	TBD	3072	2048	1792	TBD
Game Clock	2400 MHz	2070 MHz	TBD	2220 MHz	2530 MHz	TBD	TBD
Boost Clock	2970 MHz	2540 MHz	TBD	2790 MHz	3130 MHz	2990 MHz	TBD
Peak FP32	48.7 TFLOPs	36.1 TFLOPs	TBD	34.3 TFLOPs	25.6 TFLOPs	21.4 TFLOPS	TBD
Peak FP16	97.3 TFLOPs	72.3 TFLOPs	TBD	68.6 TFLOPs	51.3 TFLOPs	42.9 TFLOPS	TBD
Peak INT8	779 TOPS (Sparsity)	578 TOPS (Sparsity)	TBD	549 TOPS (Sparsity)	410 TOPS (Sparsity)	343 TOPS	TBD
Peak INT4	1557 TOPS (Sparsity)	1156 TOPS (Sparsity)	TBD	1097 TOPS (Sparsity)	821 TOPS (Sparsity)	686 TOPS	TBD
ROPS	128	128	TBD	96	64	64	TBD
Infinity Cache	64 MB	64 MB	64 MB?	48 MB	32 MB	32 MB	TBD
Memory	16 GB GDDR6	16 GB GDDR6	16 GB GDDR6	12 GB GDDR6	8/16 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6	TBD
Memory Speed	20 Gbps	20 Gbps	18 Gbps?	18 Gbps	20 Gbps	18 Gbps	TBD
Bus Interface	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	192-bit	128-bit	128-bit	TBD
PCIe Interface	PCIe 5.0 x16	PCIe 5.0 x16	PCIe 5.0 x16	PCIe 5.0 x16	PCIe 5.0 x16	PCIe 5.0 x16	TBD
TBP	304W	220W	TBD	220W	150-182W	TBD	TBD
Price	$599 US	$549 US	TBD	4199 RMB	$299/$349 US	TBD	TBD
Launch	6th March, 2025	6th March, 2025	Sep-Oct 2025	8th May, 2025	2025	TBD	TBD

AMD's RDNA 4 architecture has been highly anticipated since the launch of the previous RDNA 3 and its upgraded RDNA 3.5 variation. While the RDNA 4 architecture isn't going to see any ultra-enthusiast SKUs, it does come with brand-new changes that should elevate gaming performance since it is designed primarily for gaming audiences.

As such, AMD has brought the following new changes to RDNA 4:

• Heavily optimized for high-end gaming workloads
• Improved Rasterization & Compute Efficiency
• A step change in ray tracing performance
• Comprehensive high-performance ML support
• Enhanced Bandwidth efficiency for all workloads
• Multimedia improvements for gamers and creators

Compared to RDNA 2, the RDNA 4 GPUs see almost a 2x uplift in rasterization, close to 2.5x uplift in raytracing, and a 3.5x uplift in ML (FP16 dense matrix) workloads per compute unit. So next, we dive into the building blocks of the RDNA 4 architectural block diagram to see how the entire chip comes together.

RDNA 4's New Core IPs

The core building block of the RDNA 4 GPU architecture is the Compute Engine.

The new Compute Units come with Dual SIMD32 Vector Units and Enhanced Matrix Operations, which include:

• 2x-16b & 4x-8b/4b dense matrix rates
• 4:2 Structured Sparsity for +2x rate
• New 8-bit Float Data Types
• Matrix load with w/transpose

RDNA 4 also carries new shading improvements, with RDNA 4 shades allocating registers dynamically. They can request registers from the pool when needed. They can release registers back to the pool when they complete that work, and the software manages the conditions when there's a wait time for an allocation. This results in better handling of memory latency while the overall efficiency of the shared core can increase significantly.

On the scalar unit side, you get new Float32 operations, while scheduling updates include Split & Named barriers, Accelerated spill/fill operations, and improved instruction prefetch.

Then we have the 3rd Generation Ray tracing units offering doubled ray intersection rates, improved BVH compression, accelerated ray traversal and shading, and Oriented Bounding Boxes. These new ray tracing cores offer one of the biggest performance increases on the chip. Each Ray accelerator has also been improved with:

• 2x box & triangle intersection units
• Hardware instance transforms
• Improved RT stack management
• BVH8 and improved node compression
• Oriented Bounding Boxes

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These new ray tracing upgrades also result in much lower memory requirements for BVH. On average, RDNA 4 reduces the memory requirements to less than 60% versus RDNA 3, thanks to the 8-wide design.

But that's not it. AMD has also implemented a new solution to reduce traversal costs by encoding a rotation with each box to more tightly bound the contained geometry, while aligning the box to the geometry can help remove much of the space, and the ray direction is transformed on entry to the box to match the encoded rotation. This results in fewer traversal steps, a reduction in peak cost by eliminating traversal hotspots, and an improvement in traversal performance by 10%.

The result of these changes is that RDNA 4 CUs offer 2x ray traversal performance compared to RDNA 3 at equal clock rates and bandwidth.

There's also an improved Command Processor, which features enhanced packet accelerators. The Cache is also seeing an upgrade, which is now more balanced with up to 64 MB of 3rd Gen Infinity Cache, 8 MB of L2 cache, and 2MB Aggregate CU cache. On the memory side, the RDNA 4 GPU architecture retains GDDR6 support but has been upgraded to faster speeds of up to 20.00 Gbps with up to 16 GB capacity alongside a 256-bit bus interface. RDNA 4 also employs enhanced memory compression techniques to lessen the stress on the available bandwidth.

For AI, AMD is leveraging its 3rd Generation Matrix Acceleration engine, which comes with improved Tensor Dense Rates, New 8b float data types, Structured Sparsity support, and ML-based upscaling or Super Resolution.

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Compared to RDNA 3, the RDNA 4 CUs offer a 2x boost in image generation performance (SDXL 1.5) in a normalized scenario with FP16.

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The Media Engine moves to a dual-width design with updated Encode/Decode engines, up to 25% quality improvement in AVC, H.264, H.265, double the AV1 throughput, and is optimized for low-latency streaming. Finally, there's the updated Radiance Display Engine, which now supports DisplayPort 2.1a, HDMI 2.1b outputs, and an updated scaling and sharpening engine.

The RDNA 4 Block Diagram

Next, we move to the RDNA 4 block diagram, which represents the full Navi 48 GPU SKU. RDNA 4 GPUs are fabricated on the TSMC 4nm process node and feature up to 53.9 Billion Transistors, and the SKU measures 356.5 mm2. The chip is also fully compliant with PCIe Gen5. The Navi 44 is the smallest chip in the lineup so far and packs a total of 29.7 billion transistors in a die area of 199mm2.

Now it's time to break apart the RDNA 4 chip. The Navi 48 GPU (Radeon RX 9070 XT) is composed of four shader engines, and each of those houses several "Dual Compute Units", not WGPs. Each Dual Compute Unit features two Compute units, and there are a total of 8 DCUs or 16 CUs per Shader Engine. That's a total of 32 DCUs or 64 CUs on the chip itself for a total of 4096 stream processors or shader units.

Each DCU has two Ray Accelerator engines for a total of 16 RAs per Shader Engine or 64 RAs in total, while each DCU also packs 4 Matrix Acceleration Engines for a total of 32 MAs per Shader Engine and 128 MAs in total. Each Shader Engine also packs four RB+ blocks, a rasterizer engine & a Prim Unit block. There are four sections of 3rd Gen Infinity Caches and four 4x16-bit memory controllers on the outskirts of the chip.

The L2 caches are right in the middle of the GPU, which also includes two Geometry processors, two ACE units, and one each, HWS & DMA. The chip is connected using Infinity Fabric.

The Path Tracing Future Ahead For AMD

Raytracing is often seen as an outdated term in the PC gaming space. Sure, it's one form of tracing rays to make scenes look more realistic and has only started to gain traction in the console space, but the competition is often seen using a different type of ray tracer, called Path Tracing. While Ray Tracing uses a single primary ray to cast reflections, shadows, and refractions on a source, path tracing uses all possible paths of light and is a more expensive technique.

NVIDIA's Path Tracing expertise can be seen in games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Alan Wake II, which are regarded as some of the most graphics-demanding titles, and also look stunning. It was made possible to use Path Tracing through new techniques such as upscaling and frame-gen, but the Green team also invested in a brand-new technology called ray reconstruction, which helps achieve path tracing more efficiently by removing the in-engine denoisers and using AI/ML to help re-evaluate and reconstruct the image.

It looks like AMD is also following that approach with its own Neural Supersampling and Denoising technique for RDNA 4's Path Tracing capabilities.

Taking FSR To The Next Level

It's been a great year for FSR 4 with almost 60 titles added to the list since its first introduction and more on the way. While the FidelityFX game list expands thanks to continued and timely delivery of newer SDKs, it looks like AMD has silently been working on a major update for FSR, which is called FSR Redstone.

Today at Computex, AMD is finally taking the lid off FSR Redstone, which will introduce three new features: Neural Radiance Cache, Machine Learning Ray Regeneration, and Machine Learning Frame Generation. These new technologies are expected to be added to the FSR feature set in the Redstone update by 2H 2025 and will not just improve overall performance but also improve visual fidelity.

So the first part of FSR Radiance is straight up NRC or Neural Radiance Cache, which checks how light bounces in the scene to help predict and store indirect lighting. This is similar to NVIDIA's Neural Radiance Cache, which most recently saw an updated version implemented within Portal RTX.

Next is FSR Redstone "Ray Regeneration," which is the direct competition to NVIDIA's DLSS "Ray Reconstruction". With Ray Regeneration, a trained neural network is used to regenerate pixels that can not be accurately path-traced.

Ray Regeneration uses machine learning to predict and filter grainy noise in real time. NVIDIA's methodology is to use its own RR solution to replace denoisers built within game engines. We have seen Ray Reconstruction bring more performance, so that might also be the case with Ray Regeneration.

AMD is further enhancing the "Super Resolution" upscaling capabilities with FSR Redstone. This is achieved with an enhanced ML model, and finally, we have machine learning-assisted frame-gen & which takes the visual fidelity to the next level.

Just like AMD's FSR 4, FSR Redstone will only be compatible with RDNA 4 GPUs at launch, but future updates might bring some features down to older RDNA architectures. With that said, we can't wait till AMD shares more information on FSR Redstone in the coming months.

Upgraded Media & Display Capabilities

We can't end this deep dive without talking about the Media and Display Engines. So, to start it off, we first have the new Media Engines, which offer enhanced game streaming and recording through:

• 25% gain in H.264 low-latency encode quality
• 11% HEVC encode quality improvement
• AV1 encoding efficiency improved with B Frames
• Encoding performance boost of up to 30% at 720p
• Optimized for FFMPEG, OBS & Handbrake
• VCN low power video playback (50% performance uplift for AV1 & VP9)

The Display Experiences have also improved with enhanced FreeSync Power Optimization modes that deliver lower idle power in most 2-display configs, a hardware flip queue support for offloading video frame scheduling to the GPU and saving CPU power for video playback, while Radeon Image Sharpening 2 delivers high-quality images and scenes and works across all APIs through a single toggle.

The ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi OC graphics card comes inside a large cardboard box. The front of the package has a large "Taichi" brand logo along with the "OC Edition" logo in the bottom left corner.

The front of the packaging lists that this is a 16 GB model, making it easy for customers to check the VRAM capacity.

The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The back also lists various AMD technologies and puts a major emphasis on "Ultra-Fast Gaming". The sides of the box greet us with the large Radeon branding. There's also the mention of 16 GB GDDR6 (RX 9070 XT) memory available on the card.

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Outside of the box, the graphics card is held firmly by foam packaging. The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover, which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. The card comes with a manual, a 3x8-pin to 16-pin adapter cable, and a Taichi-branded graphics card support bracket.

After the package is taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. The new Taichi design looks super premium.

ASRock is making use of its latest Taichi design. The company has been fine-tuning its graphics card offerings for a while now, and is also working on a white variant of this particular model, which we had spotted at Computex 2025. The card measures 330 x 140 x 61 mm and weighs in at 1554 grams. The card features a 3-slot height.

The cooling shroud extends to the back of the PCB, and you are getting a triple-fan cooling solution.

The back of the card features a solid metal backplate that looks stunning. The backplate offers a lot more functionality than just looks, which I will get back to in a bit.

The Taichi series has always been the most premium offering within ASRock's lineup, both graphics cards and motherboards. The 9070 XT Taichi OC is no exception, offering a design that will look amazing in any PC build.

The Taichi graphics cards come with a triple-fan cooling solution and several accent plates, such as the one with the "Taichi" logo above. This features RGB illumination and looks great, as you'll see below.

The card features multiple LED zones that light up the three fans and the "Taichi" logo on the side.

Coming to the fans, the card features the latest Taichi 3x cooling system. These fans feature 13 blades in 92mm frames. These fans come with a polished surface and an inner striped-ring structure, which helps to channel air more effectively.

ASRock's new fan system has the 0dB technology, which ensures that the fans don't spin at lower temperatures, avoiding unwanted noise output.

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I am back to talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate that the card uses. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The brushed black finish, along with the Gold textures on the backplate, gives a unique aesthetic. There's also a switch that lets you turn on or off the RGB LEDs, along with a dual-BIOS switch that can be used to switch between the "Performance" and "Quiet" modes.

The graphics card also comes with a compact PCB design, which means that the shroud, heatsink, and backplate are all extended beyond the PCB. The entire third fan blows air through the heatsink and blows it out from the cutouts that are situated at the very end of the backplate. There are cutouts in the screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card.

With the outside of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of the graphics card.

The first thing to catch my eye is the large fin stack that's part of the heatsink.

The card features an air-deflecting fin design that guides the airflow to go through the fins quickly and regularly. These fins form a V-shaped pattern, which is used to vent out the air.

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ASRock also uses an ultra-fit heatpipe design with a total of eight heatpipes that make contact with the copper base. The main baseplate also makes contact with the VRAM modules and uses a Nickel-plated copper base. The company is also using a high-density metal welding process to improve heat dissipation.

I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme, which includes three DisplayPort 2.1a & a single HDMI 2.1 port.

The ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Steel Legend OC 16 GB comes with a single 16-pin connector to feed its 300W+ power rating.

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The PCB itself has a 16-phase SPS design. The card has a maximum frequency of 3100 MHz, a 130 MHz increase over the stock clocks. As for the GPU itself, ASRock is using Honeywell PTM7950 Phase-change thermal pad.

ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi OC RGB Lighting Gallery:

ASRock uses its Polychrome Sync RGB Lighting technology to power up the Taichi series and comes with four LED zones, which include three fans and the side accent plate.

The following is what the graphics card looks like when lit up.

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We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used by AMD, Intel & NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 11. All tested games were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD GPUs.

WCCFTECH GPU Test Bench (2025):

CPU	Intel Core i9-13900K @ Default
Motherboard	MSI MEG Z790 ACE
Video Cards	GALAX RTX 5080 HOF Gaming White MSI GeForce RTX 5080 EXPERT OC ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi OC PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Stealth OC GALAX GeForce RTX 5070 1-Click OC MSI GeForce RTX 5070 Gaming Trio OC Colorful GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Battle NX MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Vanguard SOC MSI GeForce RTX 5080 SUPRIM SOC GALAX GeForce RTX 5080 1-Click OC White MSI GeForce RTX 5090 SUPRIM SOC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 FE Palit GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER GamingPro OC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 FE Colorful GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER BattleAx NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER FE ASRock Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming ASUS GeForce RTX 4070 Ti TUF Gaming NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 FE NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti FE MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Gaming X ASUS RX 7900 XTX TUF Gaming OC ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XT Phantom Gaming
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB (2 X 16GB) CL38 7200 Mbps
Storage	Teamgroup T-Force A440 Pro 2 TB Gen 4
Power Supply	MSI MEG Ai1300P 1300W PSU
OS	Windows 11 64-bit (24H2)
Drivers	AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 25.6.3 NVIDIA GeForce 576.52 WHQL Intel 6913 WHQL

WCCFTECH GPU Test Bench (2025):

• All games were tested at 3840x2160 (4K) resolution.
• Image Quality and graphics configurations are provided with each game description.
• The "reference" cards are the stock configs except where mentioned otherwise.

Speed Way

Developed with input from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and other leading technology companies, Speed Way is an ideal benchmark for comparing the DirectX 12 Ultimate performance of the latest graphics cards. 3DMark Speed Way’s engine is assembled to demonstrate what the latest DirectX API brings to ray-traced gaming, using DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and ray-traced reflections, coupled with new performance optimizations like Mesh Shaders.

Firestrike

Firestrike is running the DX11 API and is still a good measure of GPU scaling performance. In this test, we ran the Extreme and Ultra versions of Firestrike, which run at 1440p and 4K, and recorded the Graphics Score only since the Physics and combined scores are not pertinent to this review.

Time Spy

Time Spy is running the DX12 API, and we used it in the same manner as Firestrike Extreme, where we only recorded the Graphics Score, as the Physics score records the CPU performance and isn't important to the testing we are doing here.

Port Royal

Port Royal is another great tool in the 3DMark suite, but this one is 100% targeting Ray Tracing performance. It loads up ray-traced shadows, reflections, and global illumination to tax the performance of the graphics cards that either have hardware-based or software-based ray-tracing support.

Doom Eternal

DOOM Eternal brings hell to Earth with the Vulkan-powered IDTech 7.  We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay consistent.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Developed by Rockstar San Diego, Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most visually stunning open-world games I've played to date. It is backed up by a rich story set about the protagonist, Arthur Morgan. The game is based on the RAGE engine, which features an insane amount of graphics fidelity but also requires much power to run maxed out. For this test, we set the graphics settings to Ultra with AA turned disabled.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory, and brutal FPS action ever! The game again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won World War II, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy, too. Powering the new title is, once again, id Tech 6, which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained its glorious FPS roots and is slaying with every new title.

Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake 2 sets you up in a horror thriller between two dimensions and lets you play better two different protagonists, Alan himself and Saga, who once again have to find a way to fix the darkness that erupted in Bright Falls.

Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. The story occurs in Night City, an open world in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. The game uses CD Projekt Red's in-house Red Engine, one of the most visually breathtaking and graphics-intensive engines designed to date.

Atomic Heart

Atomic Heart is set in an alternate universe where the Soviet Union achieved incredible technological breakthroughs thanks to Dr. Sechenov, who invented a liquid programmable module called Polymer that links robots in a so-called Kollektiv network.

Battlefield V

Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best-looking Battlefield titles to date.

Baldur's Gate III

2023's GOTY is well-deserved of its title. The creation from Larian Studios is a turn-based RPG with gorgeous interiors and exteriors shown through a bird-eye top-to-bottom view. You can sink countless hours into the game, and if you're a fan of the D&D playstyle, then this epic is just for you.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. The story occurs in Night City, an open world in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. The game uses CD Projekt Red's in-house Red Engine, which is one of the most visually breathtaking and graphics-intensive engines designed to date.

Dead Space (Remake)

Remaking Dead Space was a bold choice, but I would say that the team at EA Motive nailed every bit and piece of this horror classic. The remake makes the USG Ishimura twice as scarily beautiful. The gore, endless corridors of terror, and the void of space all look incredible while the game remains true to its core, to the original Dead Space formula. Modern cards can run the game well, but can also be demanding if you crank the settings to the max with ray tracing enabled.

Death Stranding

Sam Porter Bridges has delivered one of PS4's most anticipated games to the PC community and opened a new world of possibilities. This was the first game to feature the Decima Engine on PC and unarguably did it the best. Death Stranding may not feature ray tracing effects, but it does showcase that DLSS can be used effectively even when RT isn't around. We tested this one just like in our launch coverage with DLSS enabled.

Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series.  The latest DX12-powered entry is beautifully crafted, amazingly well executed, and a great showcase of DX12 games.  We use the benchmark run while having all the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.

Halo Infinite (DX12 Highest)

Next up, we have the latest entry in the Halo franchise, Halo: Infinite, which uses the brand new Slipspace engine (although there are rumors it will be ditched in the future for Unreal Engine) based on the DX12 API. The game rocks some incredible environments for Master Chief to visit on the Halo ring.

Hitman III (DX12 Highest Settings)

Hitman III is the highly acclaimed sequel to the 2016 Hitman & 2018 Hitman II, a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game again lets you play as Agent 47. The game runs on the IO Interactive Glacier 2 engine, which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while using the DirectX 12 API.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus continues Artyom's journey through Russia's nuclear wasteland and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.

Resident Evil Village

Resident Evil Village is the latest in the horror franchise that was wonderfully rekindled with RE7 and onto the RE2 Remake. But now the RE Engine is back and better than ever with Ray Traced Reflections and Lighting that makes the world just come to life, unironically. The game was tested in the center of the village itself with all graphical settings maxed out and with raytracing enabled.

Resident Evil IV Remake

The remake of the beloved and highly acclaimed Resident Evil IV is here, boasting the latest RE engine, which adds stunning visuals and even better ray tracing effects. The game looks just as incredible as it plays.

Starfield

Bethesda's latest RPG epic is set in space and takes place across a vast universe, filled with lots of planets to explore. Based on the latest iteration of the Creation Engine, Starfield offers a great amount of visual fidelity, whether you are exploring an abandoned base or just roaming a planet on which you have just set foot.

FSR 4 Performance

Crysis Remastered (DXVK RT)

Crysis is back with a vengeance to reclaim its title of the graphics crown. The remastered version of the game uses DX11 API but has Vulkan extensions on top, which enable Vulkan Ray tracing. That's also something that the original game didn't offer. DXVK, along with improved textures and visual effects, leads to higher performance demand, making us question once again, "Can It Run Crysis?"

Doom Eternal

DOOM Eternal brings hell to Earth with the Vulkan-powered IDTech 7.  We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay as consistent as possible.

Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake 2 sets you up in a horror thriller that takes place between two dimensions and lets you play better two different protagonists, Alan himself and Saga, who once again have to find a way to fix the darkness that erupted in Bright Falls.

Note - FSR Frame-Gen mod applied across all GPUs. DLSS 3.5 has been applied to RTX 50/40 GPUs.

Battlefield V

Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best-looking Battlefield titles to date.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. The story occurs in Night City, an open world in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. The game uses CD Projekt Red's in-house Red Engine, which is one of the most visually breathtaking and graphics-intensive engines designed to date.

Dead Space (Remake)

Remaking Dead Space was a bold choice, but I would say that the team at EA Motive nailed every bit and piece of this horror classic. The remake makes the USG Ishimura twice as scarily beautiful. The gore, the endless corridors of terror, the void of space, all of it looks incredible while the game remains true to its core, to the original Dead Space formula. Modern cards can run the game well, but it can also be demanding if you crank the settings to the max with ray tracing enabled.

Hogwarts Legacy

Hogwarts Legacy, as the name suggests, is set in the world of Hogwarts and retains its landscape true to the books and the movies. The game looks visually stunning, although it can be a total hog when running at the highest settings with all visual candy enabled.

Shadow of The Tomb Raider

The sequel to Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, is visually enhanced with an updated Foundation Engine that delivers realistic facial animations and the most gorgeous environments ever seen in a Tomb Raider Game. The game is a technical marvel and shows the power of its graphics engine in the latest title.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus continues Artyom's journey through Russia's nuclear wasteland and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.

Resident Evil Village

Resident Evil Village is the latest in the horror franchise that was wonderfully rekindled with RE7 and onto the RE2 Remake. But now the RE Engine is back and better than ever with Ray Traced Reflections and Lighting that makes the world just come to life, unironically. The game was tested in the center of the village itself with all graphical settings maxed out and with raytracing enabled.

Resident Evil IV Remake

The remake of the beloved and highly acclaimed Resident Evil IV is here, boasting the latest RE engine, which adds stunning visuals and even better ray tracing effects. The game looks just as incredible as it plays.

Stray (That Cat Game)

Stray is a 2022 adventure game developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive. The story follows a stray cat who falls into a walled city populated by robots, machines, and mutant bacteria, and sets out to return to the surface with the help of a drone companion, B-12. The game uses Unreal Engine 4, but DX12 Ray tracing can be enabled by adding the "-dx12" extension to the game.

No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. All of the graphics cards that we tested were running their default 'Performance' BIOS, and the results are below:

I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card, which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plug into their custom cards. The default TDP for the RTX 5060 Ti is rated at 180W.

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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