Nvidia who? AMD's Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs blow away the RTX 5070

Price When Reviewed

$599

Nvidia fumbled the ball with its $549 GeForce RTX 5070, and AMD’s new Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT are primed to grab benefit.

The RTX 5070, hitting retailer cabinets at the moment, is an efficient 1440p graphics card however a stagnant generational sidegrade at finest. Enter the $549 Radeon RX 9070 and $599 Radeon RX 9070 XT, launching tomorrow. Both playing cards are quicker than the RTX 5070, with the 9070 XT going toe-to-toe with the $750 RTX 5070 Ti in lots of video games, and every consists of an ample 16GB of VRAM. The RTX 5070 is caught with a disappointing 12GB. Even ray tracing, lengthy an AMD weak spot, improved dramatically!

Bottom line? AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 collection is the brand new 1440p gaming champion. If you go for an RTX 5070 as a substitute to get in on Nvidia’s DLSS 4 greatness, you’re making some main sacrifices in different areas.

We’ve spent the previous week testing the XFX Swift Triple Fan Gaming Edition and Asus TUF Gaming OC fashions of each of those playing cards. The Asus card is a closely juiced customized mannequin that sports activities an additional third energy connector in comparison with different fashions – all the higher to overclock with. Here are the important thing issues it is advisable to know earlier than shopping for an AMD Radeon RX 9070 or 9070 XT.

AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT efficiency benchmarks

Our benchmarks above embrace outcomes from each the aforementioned XFX and Asus 9070 playing cards, albeit solely at 1440p decision. We skipped 4K testing to have the ability to embrace a number of Radeon 9070 fashions in these graphs.

The Radeon RX 9070 playing cards kill it.

Even although AMD’s new GPUs stay properly behind Nvidia’s in complicated ray tracing eventualities – efficiency is nice in lighter RT masses, nevertheless – the $549 Radeon RX 9070 is flat-out quicker than the $549 RTX 5070 while you common out the mixed outcomes from all video games in our suite. All informed, the Radeon 9070 runs about 8 % quicker than the RTX 5070 at 1440p. If you omit Black Myth Wukong – a really strenuous sport with full, complicated ray tracing, and an outlier the place all Radeon GPUs noticeably falter – the Radeon RX 9070 is 11 % quicker than the RTX 5070. Wukong is the one sport the place the 9070 falls behind the 5070’s efficiency.

But wait! While that’s spectacular, the $599 Radeon RX 9070 XT blows each the RTX 5070 in addition to the vanilla 9070 out of the water for simply $50 extra.

AMD

Across our suite, the Radeon 9070 XT runs 15 % quicker than the RTX 5070 on common, and 7 % quicker than the vanilla Radeon 9070. Excluding Black Myth Wukong, the 9070 XT runs 19 % quicker than the RTX 5070 – and it comes with 16GB of onboard reminiscence, in comparison with the RTX 5070’s paltry 12GB. This is a significant, main win for AMD.

So main, actually, that the Radeon RX 9070 XT punches above its weight class to problem the $750 RTX 5070 Ti. The 5070 Ti is simply 6 % quicker than the Radeon 9070, and that plummets to 3 % if you happen to omit Black Myth.

Sweet holy moley. Did I point out that the RTX 5070 Ti prices $150 greater than the Radeon RX 9070 XT? That means you get 3 to 6 % extra efficiency for a 25 % soar in value – making the RTX 5070 Ti a horrible worth proposition until you actually need DLSS 4 or higher AI and creation chops.

AMD targeted closely on bettering ray tracing efficiency in RDNA 4, the next-generation graphics architecture powering the Radeon 9000-series. It exhibits in our benchmarks.

Ray tracing efficiency was a significant Achilles’ Heel for prior Radeon generations. No extra – largely. The Radeon 9070 collection performs neck-and-neck with the RTX 5070 in video games with reasonable to heavy ranges of ray tracing. In F1 24 and Returnal, each AMD GPUs truly run quicker than the RTX 5070. That’s nothing I ever thought I’d be saying about these new Radeon GPUs.

Adam Patrick Murray spent a number of days evaluating the 9070’s ray tracing efficiency in his small form-factor rig, enjoying RT video games first on final technology’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX flagship, then the 9070. He’s nonetheless wrapping up closing observations for a video – extra on that quickly – however typically, he experiences massive leaps ahead in ray tracing efficiency on the 9070 XT.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows although. Once video games begin layering on a number of ray tracing results and extra strenuous RT options, comparable to path tracing, AMD’s GPUs fall behind Nvidia’s. The RTX 5070 is markedly quicker than the Radeon 9070s in Black Myth Wukong in addition to Cyberpunk 2077’s grueling RT Overdrive mode. If complicated ray tracing issues to you, Nvidia’s playing cards could also be a greater choice.

16GB of reminiscence FTW

So the Radeon RX 9070 collection stomps the RTX 5070’s efficiency in all however probably the most strenuous ray traced video games at 1440p. But right here’s one other consideration: The reminiscence configuration of AMD’s choices is extra future-proof and constructed to run 4K as properly. In reality, AMD marketed the Radeon 9070 collection as “4K gaming at a 1440p price,” twisting a knife into Nvidia’s ribs.

That’s as a result of Nvidia outfitted the RTX 5070 with simply 12GB of reminiscence, paired with a puny 192-bit bus. (Think of a reminiscence bus like a highway; the larger the bus, the extra lanes within the highway, letting extra visitors transfer extra swiftly.) A configuration like that limits the 5070’s potential to 1440p gaming alone; whereas many video games can run at 4K on the RTX 5070, you shouldn’t purchase that GPU with 4K gaming in thoughts.

The Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT, in the meantime, each embrace an ample 16GB and a wider 256-bit bus. That means two crucial issues.

One, whereas our testing targeted on 1440p decision, these playing cards – particularly the 9070 XT – actually are constructed to deal with 4K gaming, even when they’re tuned for prime 1440p efficiency.

And two, the 16GB of reminiscence makes it way more future-proof in an period the place video games gobble up ever-increasing quantities of reminiscence, particularly with ray tracing and body technology lively. The 12GB GeForce RTX 5070 already runs into points at most settings in a handful of video games, like the brand new Indiana Jones sport, due to reminiscence capability points.

FSR 4 and Hypr-RX amplify efficiency

AMD

Nvidia positioned the fate of the RTX 50-series in DLSS 4’s hands, and extra particularly, its glorious new Multi Frame Generation function. MFG makes use of AI to insert as much as three generated frames between each conventional rendered body. It doesn’t actually enhance efficiency as a lot because the uncooked body charges could lead you to consider, however MFG delivers such a surprising enchancment in visible smoothness and uncooked body pacing that it’s actually transformative.

AMD has no function to match that straight – nevertheless it does have some performance-boosting software program methods up its sleeve.

First is FSR 4. Prior FSR generations leveraged conventional GPU {hardware} to upscale photographs; FSR 4 as a substitute leans on new, vastly improved AI accelerators constructed into the RDNA 4 structure to deal with upscaling as a substitute, in DLSS-like style. We haven’t had a lot time to play with FSR 4 but, however the picture high quality increase over FSR 3.1 is tangible. AMD says FSR 4 can be obtainable in over 30 video games at launch, with 75+ video games anticipated to combine the expertise by the tip of the yr.

The downside? We’ve had a horrible time reliably activating FSR 4 in video games, needing to leap via hoops each in-game and in-driver, just for it to fall half the time. It’s an inauspicious begin for FSR 4. My bud Adam Patrick Murray particulars his FSR 4 trials within the video above.

Then there’s Hypr-RX, an excellent function with a cringe identify.

AMD

Hypr-RX is AMD’s identify for a one-click function that prompts a bunch of separate Radeon options to supercharge efficiency in nearly all trendy video games. AMD helps driver-level FSR, Frame Generation (AMD Fluid Motion Frames), and anti-lag applied sciences, amongst others. That means builders don’t must actively code in help for the options, like they do with DLSS and FSR – it simply works. Flipping on Hypr-RX can ship body charges completely skyrocketing in virtually any sport you throw at it.

It’s not as seamless as DLSS 4’s Multi-Frame Gen. Since these are driver-level instruments, AMD’s FSR equal lacks developer integration, and picture high quality can generally take a success – blurry interface components and a normal softness in picture high quality being the largest offenses. You’ll additionally need to make sure that the sport is operating at a stable body fee earlier than activating AMD’s body gen (Hypr-RX’s upscaling often takes care of that, particularly on the highly effective 9070 GPUs). But if you happen to can tolerate some picture softness, Hypr-RX is a killer answer that places the efficiency pedal to the metallic universally. It’s a implausible, versatile software.

Nvidia reigns supreme in content material and AI workloads

We solely ran a few non-gaming benchmarks – one targeted on Adobe Premiere Pro efficiency through the implausible PugetBench benchmark, and Procyon’s AI textual content technology benchmark, which assaults GPUs with quite a lot of massive language mannequin checks.

The RTX 5070 completely stomped the Radeon RX 9070 collection in each of those. If you employ your graphics card for work in addition to play, Nvidia stays the superior choice regardless of AMD’s gaming and reminiscence capability dominance.

There aren’t any Radeon RX 9070 reference playing cards

AMD

Nvidia’s Founders Edition fashions are often among the many finest GeForce choices round. You gained’t discover an AMD equal this technology. All Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT fashions come from AMD companions like XFX, Sapphire, and Asus. AMD won’t be releasing a reference “Made by AMD” model of those GPUs.

That stated, the Radeon RX 9070 collection makes use of a pair of 8-pin energy connectors as normal. Some customized fashions could go for an Nvidia-esque 12-pin connector as a substitute, whereas overclocked fashions just like the Asus TUF generally add a further 8-pin connector so as to add in energy supply and overclocking. The overwhelming majority of Radeon 9070s will follow a pair of 8-pins, however verify to verify your chosen GPU meets your energy provide specs before you purchase.

Should you purchase AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT?

Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry

The Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT are the brand new 1440p gaming champions. I’d positively go for these over the $549 GeForce RTX 5070, which is only a stagnant sidegrade over its predecessor.

Don’t get me fallacious: I like DLSS 4’s Multi-Frame Generation and take into account it actually transformative. The visible smoothness it gives have to be seen to be believed. But the $549 Radeon RX 9070 slings frames a mean of 11 % quicker than the 5070 if you happen to take away outlier Black Myth Wukong. Paired with a full 16GB of reminiscence and a large bus that really permits for 4K gaming, the Radeon RX 9070 appears like an all-around extra compelling choice for the worth, particularly now that ray tracing isn’t the Achilles’ Heel it as soon as was for AMD.

But actually, the $599 Radeon RX 9070 XT is the graphics card you need if you happen to can snag one. It options the identical beefed-up 16GB reminiscence configuration, however spits out frames a whopping 19 % quicker than the RTX 5070 for simply $50 extra. In reality, it punches nearer to the $750 GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. Nvidia’s card is simply 3 to 6 % quicker than the 9070 XT regardless of costing 25 % extra.

So yeah: AMD has a pair of winners on its fingers with the Radeon 9070 collection.

Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry

It’s not fairly an ideal touchdown although. We discovered AMD’s much-hyped new FSR 4 function irritating to (attempt to) use in actual life; unhealthy 1 % low occasions in Returnal are a little bit of a bummer; Nvidia maintains the lead in content material and AI creation; we suffered some driver crashes on all examined 9070 GPUs; and whereas Hypr-RX may be very cool, Radeon nonetheless has no reply for DLSS 4 Multi Frame Gen. But the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT provide such a compelling mixture of efficiency, worth, and reminiscence capability that it’s value accepting these true, legitimate, regarding quibbles and hope AMD will get its software program act collectively.

Unlike the RTX 5070, AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 collection pushes gaming efficiency ahead. I hope AMD made a bunch of them.