With the launch of Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series GPUs out of the way, it’s now AMD’s chance to shine, as it just revealed its new high-end desktop GPUs sporting next-gen RDNA 4 architecture — and it aims to bring “4K gaming at a 1440p price.”
AMD has announced its new Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs, aiming to bridge the gap between an RX 7900 XTX/XT and an RX 7900 GRE.
Along with its RDNA 4 bringing faster graphics performance and third-gen AMD ray tracing, HYPR-RX Fluif Motion Frames 2.1 boosting frame rates, and FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 giving supported games the 4K treatment with smoother visuals, these gaming graphics cards are looking to be a hit.
Launching on Thursday, March 6, AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and AMD Radeon RX 9070 GPUs aim to make high-end gaming more accessible with more affordable pricing (no official prices yet, though). There will be models from Acer, Asus, Gigabyte and more.
For a deeper dive on what these new AMD Radeon desktop GPUs deliver, read on.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and AMD Radeon RX 9070: Specs
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
AMD Radeon RX 9070 |
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT |
|
AMD RDNA 4 Compute Units |
56 |
64 |
|
Peak AI TOPS |
1165 |
1557 |
|
Max Boost (GHz) |
2.52 |
2.97 |
|
Video Memory |
16GB |
16GB |
|
Total Board Power (TBP) |
220W |
304W |
|
Connectivity |
PCIe 5.0 x16 |
PCIe 5.0 x16 |
|
Display |
DisplayPort 2.1a / HDMI 2.1b |
DisplayPort 2.1a / HDMI 2.1b |
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and AMD Radeon RX 9070: What you need to know
Both Radeon RX 9070-series graphics cards offer great performance gains over previous AMD GPUs, including some Nvidia RTX 30-series cards. Plus, the key goal here is to offer gamers the chance to play the latest PC games at 4K Ultra settings at a more affordable price.
You can catch the live reveal here:
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT sets a new standard
The Radeon RX 9070 XT is AMD’s heavy hitter out of its latest offerings, and it comes with significant spec boosts. That includes 64 RDNA 4 Compute Units (CUs), which may not sound like much compared to the RX 7900 XT (84 CUs) or the RX 7900 GRE (80 CUs), but the real highlight here is having RDNA 4 instead of the previous RDNA 3.
So, what gains can we expect? AMD claims that it offers 51% faster gaming performance than a Radeon RX 6900 XT, and 26% gains over an RTX 3090 at 4K Max settings.
Compared to the RX 7900 GRE in 4K settings, you can expect 42% improvements in over 30 tested AAA games using an RX 9070 XT. Even with ray tracing turned on at 4K Ultra in the likes of Cyberpunk 2077, there’s a 66% increase in performance. That’s not all, as 1440p ultra settings is also seeing an average of 38% improvments.
The RX 9070 XT utlizes its RDNA 4 architecture to offer big boosts in a variety of supported games. As mentioned, HYPR-RX delivers an uplift in 4K high settings to frame rates, boasting up to 2.9x frames per second (fps) in games like Star Citizen, resulting in 170 fps with HYPR-RX switch on.
Then there’s AMD FidelityFX Super Reslution 4 (FSR 4), bringing high-quality gaming with low latency in supported titles. For example, playing Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 at 4K Native on a RX 9070 XT offers an average of 53 fps, but 4K with AMD FSR 4 offers a 3.4x increase in performance mode, delivering a 182 fps average.
These features will be in available in 30 PC games at launch, including God of War Ragnarök, Black Ops 6, The Last Of Us Part II and more, with an additional 75+ games throughout 2025.
4K gaming for less? AMD Radeon RX 9070 delivers
AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 is the smaller sibling, but it still packs quite the punch. Even with its 56 RDNA 4 CUs, you can expect the same GDDR6 16GB video memory as the XT model, 220W TBP and up to 2.52 GHz max speeds.
As the company claims, the RX 9070 comes with 38% performance gains over a Radeon RX 6800 XT at 4K Max settings, and over 26% improvements over an RTX 3080.
Over the RX 7900 GRE in 4K settings, the Radeon RX 9070 delivers an average 21% boost in gaming performance, along with a 33% boost in Cyberpunk 2077 with 4K ray tracing. As for its 1440p Ultra settings performance, expect a 20% rise, along with the same 33% improvements with ray tracing switch on.
RDNA 4 boosts are key
As mentioned, RDNA 4 supercharges PC games with the might of HYPER-RX and FSR 4. So, in games like Black Ops 6, you’ll find a 3x boost in frames rates — from 73 fps all the way up to 222 fps. It isn’t unlike Nvidia’s DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation, but it relies on games supporting the AI features rather than the might of the GPUs themselves.
To get into the nitty gritty for a bit, RDNA 4 delivers 4K gaming with its third-gen ray tracing (offering double ray intersection rates, along with accelerated ray traversal and shading), optimized cache system (64MB third-gen Infinity cache with 8MG L2 cache) and third-gen Matrix acceleration.
With support for DisplayPort 2.1a and HDMI 2.1b, it means games can look as glorious on display just as the GPUs intended.
Final thoughts
There’s still a lot to learn about AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs, especially how they perform compared to other graphics cards on the market (hint: RTX 50-series GPUs). But, with the right price, these graphics cards could go far for those after high-end gaming in their PCs that don’t want to spend a fortune.
With a launch date set for March 6, we’ll know soon enough just how far AMD’s GPUs have come over the years, and how well RDNA 4 handles in AAA PC games. In the meantime, if you’re looking to get into building a gaming PC, we’ve got you covered.
