AMD has a compelling new strategy to thrive in the midrange of the graphics card market—and it begins with the launch of the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT. At a $599 MSRP for starting models, this graphics card is far from a budget offering, but it’s even further from competing with elite high-end cards like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 in terms of price or performance. The RX 9070 XT is launching on Mar. 6 alongside AMD’s $549-MSRP Radeon RX 9070; we tested a Sapphire-branded version of each to see just what these cards are capable of. What we found: In its current place in the market, the Radeon RX 9070 XT is a powerful force to be reckoned with, especially for serious 1440p and light 4K gaming, earning it our Editors’ Choice award in the category. Now, can AMD’s card partners keep it in stock, and close to the suggested selling price? That is the real question.
One editors’ note before we begin: This is a wildly busy time in the consumer GPU world. Because the midrange Radeon RX 9070, Radeon RX 9070 XT, and GeForce RTX 5070 are all launching within a day of one another this week, we’ll be stepping out our reviews of these three cards singly over the next several days. But rest assured: All three GPUs have been thoroughly tested, and all have been factored into the charts and discussion here.
The RDNA 4 Architecture, and AMD’s New Strategy
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is based on AMD’s new RDNA 4 architecture, and a new graphics chip referred to internally by AMD as “Navi 48.” With RDNA 4, AMD seems to have focused on improving the shortcomings of its existing RDNA 3 architecture by working to improve ray tracing and AI performance.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
These changes could go a long way toward helping AMD’s graphics cards compete. AMD is ceding the ultra-high-end segment of the graphics card market, which is dominated by the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (starting price: $1,999) and, to a lesser extent, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 ($999), to refocus on the rest of the field below $1,000.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Now, one can’t assume that AMD would be unable to compete with the likes of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 or the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 if the chip maker wanted to. There has been no evidence to suggest that AMD couldn’t, just that AMD isn’t, and this is likely a smart strategy. To compete with those Nvidia GPUs with AMD’s current graphics technology, AMD would need to make larger graphics chips than the Navi 48 that powers the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT.
Why that matters: Creating larger graphics chips means you will also have to create fewer graphics chips, given the same number of wafers in play. All computer chips are produced on round silicon wafers using various manufacturing processes. AMD is using TSMC’s N4P 4nm manufacturing process to create its RDNA 4 GPUs, and that’s what it would have to use to create a larger GPU die, as well.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
If AMD were cutting larger graphics chips out of these wafers, yields would be lower, as the silicon wafer wouldn’t be any larger. (All else being equal, it’s a simple issue of surface area.) By forgoing the creation of a large GPU die to compete with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, AMD may be able to produce more graphics chips for the less expensive segments of the market.
Navi 48 and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
With Navi 48 and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, we can see the clear effects of this strategy. As it is, the Navi 48 GPU die is large, with 53.9 billion transistors and a surface area of 357mm2. That’s relatively close to the size of the GB203 chip that powers Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5080, which is just 6% larger, at 378mm2. At the same time, however, that’s tiny compared with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090’s beastly GB202 graphics chip, at nearly twice the size (750mm2).
Effectively, this means that (assuming yields are constant, a whole other factor) AMD is able to create roughly three Navi 48 GPU dies for every pair of GB202 and GB203 that Nvidia creates. That 3:2 ratio may not seem like much, but when you think of it at the scale of mass production, it starts to add up. It’s likely a key reason AMD is able to offer the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT at $599, whereas Nvidia charges $999 for the similarly sized RTX 5080.
Mind you, the Navi 48 GPU die is no slouch. The graphics chip contains 4,096 stream processors, 256 texture mapping units (TMUs), 128 raster operation processors (ROPs), 128 AI accelerators, and 64 ray accelerators. This is markedly less than the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, AMD’s last-gen flagship card, has in all areas. But as you’ll see when we get to the benchmarks, that doesn’t necessarily result in less performance.
One thing that helps the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT against the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is a higher clock speed. The RX 9070 XT can boost its clock to almost 3GHz, while the Radeon RX 7900 XTX tops out at 2.5GHz. During heavy use, neither card is expected to maintain these speeds for long, but AMD suggested that the RX 9070 XT’s clock speed should hover close to 2.4GHz sustained, while the RX 7900 XTX lags behind, at 1.9GHz.
That said, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX’s memory bandwidth (384-bit/960GBps) and memory capacity (24GB) are undeniable advantages. The Radeon RX 9070 XT ships with a 256-bit memory interface and 16GB of GDDR6, which gives it 640GBps of bandwidth. That should be sufficient to avoid any major bottlenecks, but it is still less than some competing options.
A Look at Our Test Card: Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
AMD is not selling AMD-branded “reference” cards with its two RX 9070 offerings; all Radeon RX 9070 cards will be partner designs from the likes of Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte, PowerColor, Sapphire, XFX, and others. The model of the RX 9070 XT that AMD sent us to review was created by Sapphire as the Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT. This is a relatively large triple-slot model that has three fans set over a beefy radiator. The card doesn’t have any fan LEDs or light-up trim but makes up for that by featuring a partial-coverage metal backplate and robust cooling for the card’s power circuitry.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
In something of a break from recent tradition, the rear I/O panel on this card has two DisplayPort 2.1a ports and two HDMI ports. For the last few years, most graphics cards we’ve seen ship with three DisplayPorts ports and a single HDMI. Though having more DisplayPorts is arguably the better option for a few reasons (one being that you can switch from HDMI to DisplayPort with a simple cable adapter), this configuration has its advantages.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
One is that you don’t need that aforementioned adapter if you have two monitors that only have HDMI ports. It’s also more convenient should the (usually solo) HDMI port on your graphics card get damaged, which I have seen happen more often than you would expect. But it’ll all really down to the monitors you have, or expect to buy.
This card also uses two 8-pin PCI Express power connectors, instead of the proprietary 12VHPWR connector that Nvidia is now using on all of its Founders Edition graphics cards.
Test Setup and Competition
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT was tested on our recently rebuilt graphics card testbed. It is built around an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X processor on a Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master motherboard. To forestall any thermal issues from the CPU, the processor was cooled by a large, triple-fan 360mm water cooler, and we used two 16GB sticks of DDR5 operating under a 6,000MHz AMD EXPO memory profile.
For storage, we’ve opted for two Crucial PCIe 4.0 SSDs with a capacity of 2TB each, one dedicated to holding our test games and the other hosting Windows 11 and all other software. This system is powered by a Corsair 1,500-watt power supply.
Given the new, and until now untested, nature of the RDNA 4 architecture, it’s difficult to specify which graphics cards will compete best with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT based on performance without the actual numbers. Based on the MSRP pricing, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is likely to compete most closely with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5070 ($549 starting MSRP) and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti ($749). The lesser Radeon RX 9070 will also stand as a competitor to the Radeon RX 9070 XT, as the two cards are only $50 apart in pricing. They may be siblings, but they’ll compete directly for market share.
Synthetic Graphics Tests
Synthetic test results are not direct story-tellers about real-world use, but they serve as a yardstick of how each card compares in these specific tests. In UL’s 3DMark, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT performed about as expected. The RX 9070 XT’s score in 3DMark’s Port Royal ray-tracing test was smack-dab between the RTX 5070 and the RTX 5070 Ti, though much closer to the latter. The same relative result bubbled up in 3DMark Solar Bay, and the results from 3DMark Speed Way were similar, but with the RX 9070 XT scoring closer to the RTX 5070.
In a few 3DMark tests, the RX 9070 XT actually got the upper hand against the RTX 5070 Ti (Steel Nomad, Time Spy Extreme), which suggests in some situations, the RX 9070 XT could be the faster of the two cards. The RX 9070 XT also scored higher in the screen optimization tests, but these results aren’t truly directly comparable, as the RX 9070 XT was using FSR and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti was using DLSS. (Those tests are mostly useful for comparing same brand to same brand.) Last, in Unigine’s Superposition test, the RX 9070 XT scored between the RTX 5070 Ti and the RTX 5070 when using DirectX, but it outperformed both under OpenGL.
AI Text Generation Tests
Measuring AI performance is challenging, as AI work is implemented and carried out in myriad different ways, and different frameworks can have a big effect on performance. We’ve been using UL’s Procyon AI Text Generation Test to gather information on AI performance; the test measures token throughput and first-token generation times with four common large language models (LLMs). The results suggest that the AI hardware inside of the Radeon RX 9070 XT is significantly slower than the AI performance of any competing Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series GPU, given the same test parameters, and the equivalent RTX 40-series cards, too.
In this test, the RX 9070 XT also performed behind the RX 7900 XTX. The Radeon RX 9070 XT came closest to matching the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 when using the Llama 2 AI model, where it was able to produce more tokens per second than the RTX 5070, but it took significantly longer to produce the first token. We wouldn’t take this as a blanket judgment on the card’s AI performance, but with these particular LLMs and the test settings, Nvidia comes out on top.
Content Creation Tests
We can’t fully evaluate the content creation performance of the Radeon RX 9070 XT at this time. Its performance in the Adobe Premiere Pro test was a little worse than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, but still on a competitive level.
Typically, we would also test the Radeon RX 9070 XT using Blender’s benchmark utility on its GPU settings, but the test wouldn’t run to completion in our test sessions before launch. Neither would it run with the step-down RX 9070 card. This is likely a temporary issue that we will need to check back on at a later date.
Screen Optimization Game Testing
Comparing performance when using screen optimization technologies such as DLSS, FSR, and XeSS is an imprecise practice, as it doesn’t take into consideration differences in image quality that can result from using these technologies, which can vary from game to game. As such, it’s best to compare AMD graphics cards against other AMD graphics cards in this test using Black Myth Wukong, and the same for Nvidia cards against Nvidia cards. The “frame generation” referred to here is the respective technology (DLSS or FSR) inserting AI-generated frames between actual rendered frames to boost frame rate and perceived smoothness. This can have a dramatic effect, but the game needs to support it.
Though we can clearly see that the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT was faster than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 in this game with frame generation off, and the RX 9070 XT was faster than the RTX 5070 Ti with frame generation on, we can’t quite declare it an unequivocal win for AMD, as image quality may vary.
Against the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, however, the Radeon RX 9070 XT was marginally faster. This is interesting to see, given the Radeon RX 7900 XTX’s advantage in terms of resource count.
Ray Traced Gaming Tests
When not using DLSS or FSR, image quality between competing graphics cards should be essentially identical, putting all of the cards on an even playing field. Here, with mainstream ray traced games, we saw some more concrete wins for the Radeon RX 9070 XT.
The RX 9070 XT held a small but decisive advantage over Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5070 in many of these games. How much better the RX 9070 XT was than the RTX 5070 ranged from 4% at the least in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, up to 50% in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III at the most.
The Radeon RX 9070 XT was competitive with the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti in F1 2024, but neither really had the upper hand in this game. It held a bit more of a lead in Far Cry 6, and a relatively strong lead over the RTX 5070 Ti in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. The RTX 5070 Ti was faster than the RX 9070 XT in Cyberpunk 2077, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and Returnal, though, making this a very mixed scenario where neither card holds a solid win. (Just bear in mind the $150 premium of the RTX 5070 Ti’s MSRP.)
Oddly enough, we see a similar shakeout when comparing the Radeon RX 9070 XT to the Radeon RX 7900 XTX flagship. The RX 7900 XTX didn’t ring up drastically faster than the RX 9070 XT in any of these games, but it held a solid lead in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and a small lead in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. The Radeon RX 9070 XT made up for this by performing faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XTX in Cyberpunk 2077 and F1 2024, but we again have rather mixed results. Still: $899 MSRP flagship card versus a $599 midrange challenger. Impressive job by the challenger.
Traditional Raster Gaming (No Ray Tracing) Tests
The Radeon RX 7900 XTX’s advantages over the RX 9070 XT are more pronounced in games that don’t support ray tracing, such as Total War: Three Kingdoms and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. One of AMD’s key focuses in its new RDNA 4 architecture was improving ray tracing performance, a weakness under RDNA 3. That’s reflected in the RX 9070 XT results above in games that support ray tracing versus the RX 7900 XTX. Below, without that advantage and with its lower core count, the RX 9070 XT trails the RX 7900 XTX.
This isn’t ideal, but arguably I would view it as not a serious issue. Performance in these non-ray-traced games was still competitive. In 2025, this is also a bit of a niche win for the RX 7900 XTX, as most new AAA games from major game developers support ray tracing, and having better performance with ray tracing active is far more important.
Though the RX 9070 XT can’t keep up with the RX 7900 XTX in these games, it held its own against the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, ringing up a solid performance lead at all resolutions.
Power and Thermals
During the testing process, we used a Kill-A-Watt wall meter to collect power consumption data for our graphics card testbed as a whole. This does not give us an exact power usage figure for the tested graphics cards by themselves, but as only the graphics card gets changed between tests, it indicates how much power these cards consume in relation to each other.
In the Adobe Premiere Pro test, the Radeon RX 9070 XT was power-hungrier than the GeForce RTX 5070 and consumed about as much power as the RTX 5070 Ti. Both Nvidia cards performed better than the RX 9070 XT in these specific tests, giving them the edge in terms of efficiency when it comes to content creation work. The RX 9070 XT did improve upon the RX 7900 XTX, however, consuming less power while performing similarly in this test.
As for gaming, it’s hard to say where the RX 9070 XT stands in terms of energy efficiency against the RTX 5070 and the RTX 5070 Ti due to the large swings in frame-rate performance we observed from one game to the next. The RX 9070 XT’s power draw was similar to the RTX 5070 Ti’s, so which card was more energy efficient ultimately depends on which game you are playing and which card is performing better in that title. The RTX 5070 used a bit less power than the RX 9070 XT overall, but it was also a bit slower. I’d argue the RX 9070 XT comes out ahead in that specific comparison.
Thermals were a much different story. The Radeon RX 9070 XT stayed much cooler in our tests than either the RTX 5070 or the RTX 5070 Ti, and it clearly gains a win here. The large thermal solution that Sapphire installed on the Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT likely has something to do with this, but the RTX 5070 Ti (tested as an Asus Prime card) also had a large triple-fan thermal solution and still ran far hotter during our tests. This data indicates the Radeon RX 9070 XT is simply a cooler-running graphics chip than the closest competing Nvidia solutions.
Verdict: Topping the GPU Midrange on Value
Taken as a whole, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is an impressive offering likely to have a positive impact on the graphics card market, assuming AMD can keep its card partners fed with GPUs. It may not be the best current-gen graphics card out there in terms of absolute performance, with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 clearly being faster. But you don’t have to be the best to beat the competition or to win your game.
At $599, the RX 9070 XT costs just $50 more than the GeForce RTX 5070, and it was always faster in our test games. It may not be faster in content creation or AI tasks, but the lion’s share of shoppers won’t be buying midrange cards like these for either of those tasks. People who tend to care about GPU-accelerated content creation performance and machine learning/AI grunt want the best they can get, and they will be more tempted to buy something in the RTX 5080’s class…or to save up until they can afford such a card.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
From a pure gaming standpoint, the Radeon RX 9070 XT is, no doubt, a better performer and a better value for gamers than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070. Versus the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, the RX 9070 XT has a tougher go of it, though I would still give the Radeon card the nod here on value. Which of these cards is faster varies from game to game, which makes it a bit of a gamble to pick one over the other based on that alone. But the Radeon RX 9070 XT’s MSRP being $150 lower than the RTX 5070 Ti’s seals the deal, in my eyes.
We’ll see if AMD’s strategy of focusing on this segment of the graphics card industry enables the company and its partners to keep Radeon RX 9070 XT cards in stock more consistently than Nvidia’s managed so far with its GeForce RTX 50-series cards. I say this not to take sides between the two GPU giants, but merely in the hope that 2025’s full slate of cards from all makers won’t be perpetually out of stock, which has so far been the case. After all, inflated prices and a just-buy-what-you-can-find market make it hard for shoppers to gauge what’s an actual deal, and what’s a dud. Assuming you can get it at the list price, the Radeon RX 9070 XT easily earns our Editors’ Choice award.
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For as long as I can remember, I’ve had love of all things tech, spurred on, in part, by a love of gaming. I began working on computers owned by immediate family members and relatives when I was around 10 years old. I’ve always sought to learn as much as possible about anything PC, leading to a well-rounded grasp on all things tech today. In my role at PCMag, I greatly enjoy the opportunity to share what I know.
I wrote for the well-known tech site Tom’s Hardware for three years before I joined PCMag in 2018. In that time, I’ve reviewed desktops, PC cases, and motherboards as a freelancer, while also producing deals content for the site and its sibling ExtremeTech. Now, as a full-time PCMag analyst, I’m focusing on reviewing processors and graphics cards while dabbling in all other things PC-related.
Read Michael Justin Allen’s full bio
