The AMD Radeon RX 9070 enters the market at a peculiar time for graphics cards. With Nvidia's latest generation just launched, the Radeon RX 9070, priced at $549, directly competes with the underwhelming GeForce RTX 5070. In this head-to-head, AMD's new offering emerges as the clear winner, making it the go-to choice for 1440p gaming enthusiasts. However, the decision isn't as straightforward as it seems, primarily due to AMD's own pricing strategy. The Radeon RX 9070 is only $50 less than the superior Radeon RX 9070 XT. While the 9070 is about 8% slower and 9% cheaper than the 9070 XT, the small price difference might push buyers towards the XT for its better performance. Nonetheless, when choosing between these two AMD options, Team Red's prospects look promising.
Purchasing Guide
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is set to launch on March 6, starting at $549. However, expect various models to be priced higher. For the best value, aim to purchase a model as close to the starting price as possible, especially considering its proximity to the Radeon RX 9070 XT's price point.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 – Photos
4 Images
Specs and Features
Like its sibling, the Radeon RX 9070 XT, the RX 9070 leverages the new RDNA 4 graphics architecture. This advancement significantly boosts performance, allowing the 9070 to outshine the previous generation's Radeon RX 7900 GRE, despite having 30% fewer compute units.
The Radeon RX 9070 boasts 56 Compute Units, each equipped with 64 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), totaling 3,584 shaders. Each compute unit also features one Ray Accelerator and two AI Accelerators, summing up to 56 and 112, respectively. These enhancements enable the card to excel in ray tracing and introduce AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 4, marking the debut of AI upscaling on AMD GPUs.
Similar to the 9070 XT, the RX 9070 comes with 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit bus, sufficient for 1440p gaming for years to come. Although GDDR7, as used by Nvidia, would have been preferable, it likely would have increased the price.
AMD suggests a minimum 550W power supply for the RX 9070, which has a 220W power budget. My tests showed a peak consumption of 249W, suggesting a 600W PSU for safety.
Notably, AMD isn't releasing a reference design for the RX 9070, leaving production to third-party manufacturers. I tested the Gigabyte Radeon RX 9070 Gaming OC 16G, a triple-slot card with a slight factory overclock.
FSR4
Since the rise of DLSS in 2018, AI upscaling has been a game-changer for performance and image quality, predominantly on Nvidia GPUs. FSR 4 changes this narrative by bringing AI upscaling to AMD cards for the first time. It uses previous frames and in-game data to upscale lower resolution images to native resolution, improving upon FSR 3's temporal upscaling by reducing artifacts like ghosting.
However, FSR 4 incurs a slight performance hit compared to FSR 3. For example, in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 at 1440p on the Extreme preset, FSR 3 achieves 165 fps, while FSR 4 drops to 159 fps. Similarly, in Monster Hunter Wilds at 4K with ray tracing, the RX 9070 gets 81 fps with FSR 3 and 76 fps with FSR 4.
The Adrenalin software allows users to toggle between FSR 3 and FSR 4, choosing between better image quality or slightly higher performance. For single-player games, I'd opt for FSR 4, but for fast-paced online games like Marvel Rivals, FSR 3 might be preferable.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT & 9070 – Benchmarks
11 Images
Performance
Priced at $549, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 outperforms the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 in most scenarios. At 1440p, it's on average 12% faster than the RTX 5070 and 22% faster than its predecessor, the RX 7900 GRE, despite having 30% fewer cores.
I tested a factory overclocked version of the RX 9070, the Gigabyte Radeon RX 9070 Gaming OC, which boosts to 2,700Mhz, potentially increasing performance by about 4-5%.
All tests were conducted using the latest public drivers at the time of writing: Nvidia's Game Ready driver 572.60 and AMD's Adrenalin 24.12.1, with review drivers for the RX 9070, 9070 XT, and RTX 5070.
In 3DMark, the RX 9070 scores 5,828 points in the Speed Way test with ray tracing, nearly matching the RTX 5070's 5,845. Without ray tracing in Steel Nomad, the RX 9070 leads with 6,050 points to the RTX 5070's 5,034, a 20% advantage.
Test System
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- Motherboard: Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Hero
- RAM: 32GB G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo @ 6,000MHz
- SSD: 4TB Samsung 990 Pro
- CPU Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360
In Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 at 1440p with FSR 3 set to Balanced, the RX 9070 achieves 165 fps, surpassing the RTX 5070's 131 fps and the RX 7900 GRE's 143 fps by 26% and 15%, respectively.
Cyberpunk 2077, traditionally favoring Nvidia, sees the RX 9070 outperform the RTX 5070 by 3% at 1440p with Ray Tracing Ultra, a significant achievement for AMD.
In Metro Exodus, without upscaling, the RX 9070 averages 71 fps, 11% higher than the RTX 5070's 64 fps.
Red Dead Redemption 2, using Vulkan, shows the RX 9070 leading with 142 fps at 1440p, 23% ahead of the RTX 5070's 115 fps.
Total War: Warhammer 3 sees a close race at 1440p, with the RX 9070 at 135 fps and the RTX 5070 at 134 fps.
In Assassin's Creed Mirage, the RX 9070 achieves 193 fps at 1440p with the Ultra preset and FSR set to Balanced, 18% ahead of the RTX 5070's 163 fps.
Black Myth Wukong, another Nvidia-favored title, results in a near tie, with the RX 9070 at 67 fps and the RTX 5070 at 66 fps at 1440p.
Forza Horizon 5 sees the RX 9070 averaging 185 fps at 1440p, 12% and 25% higher than the RTX 5070's 168 fps and the RX 7900 GRE's 152 fps, respectively.
The Radeon RX 9070's launch timing against the RTX 5070 plays to AMD's advantage. Both cards are priced at $549, but the RX 9070's superior performance and 16GB of VRAM make it a more future-proof and valuable choice, despite the RTX 5070's GDDR7 memory.
