AMD Radeon RX 9070: In-Depth Review

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 enters the market at a pivotal moment for graphics cards, following closely on the heels of Nvidia's latest generation. Priced at $549, it directly competes with the underwhelming GeForce RTX 5070, and AMD's new offering emerges as a clear winner in this head-to-head. This makes the Radeon RX 9070 an excellent choice for gamers targeting 1440p gaming.

However, the decision isn't straightforward 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 approximately 8% slower and 9% cheaper than the 9070 XT, the small price difference might push buyers towards the XT for its better performance. Nonetheless, AMD's competitive positioning within its own lineup still presents a strong case for Team Red.

Purchasing Guide

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is set to launch on March 6, starting at $549. Be aware that higher-priced models will be available. For the best value, aim to purchase a model as close to the starting price as possible, especially given its proximity in price to the Radeon RX 9070 XT.

AMD Radeon RX 9070 – Photos

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Specs and Features

Built on the new RDNA 4 architecture, the Radeon RX 9070 mirrors the RX 9070 XT in many ways. This architecture significantly boosts performance, allowing the 9070 to outshine the previous generation's Radeon RX 7900 GRE, despite having 30% fewer compute units.

The RX 9070 boasts 56 Compute Units, each equipped with 64 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), totaling 3,584 shaders. Each compute unit also includes one Ray Accelerator and two AI Accelerators, summing up to 56 and 112, respectively. These enhancements make the RX 9070 competitive in ray tracing and introduce AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 4, marking the debut of AI upscaling on AMD GPUs.

Like its XT counterpart, the RX 9070 comes with 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit bus, sufficient for 1440p gaming for years to come. Although GDDR7 would have been a welcome upgrade, it would likely have increased the price.

AMD suggests a minimum 550W power supply for the RX 9070, which has a 220W power budget. My testing 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 by bringing AI upscaling to AMD GPUs, using previous frames and in-game data to upscale lower resolution images to native resolution. Unlike FSR 3's temporal upscaling, FSR 4's AI model reduces artifacts like ghosting, though it incurs a slight performance hit.

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 toggling between FSR 3 and FSR 4, letting users choose between better image quality or slightly higher performance.

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT & 9070 – Benchmarks

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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 the RX 7900 GRE, despite having 30% fewer cores. My testing used a factory overclocked version of the RX 9070, the Gigabyte Radeon RX 9070 Gaming OC, with a reported boost clock of 2,700Mhz, which should increase frame rates 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 points. Without ray tracing in Steel Nomad, the RX 9070 leads with 6,050 points to the RTX 5070's 5,034.

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, compared to 131 fps for the RTX 5070 and 143 fps for the RX 7900 GRE. In Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p with Ray Tracing Ultra, the RX 9070 edges out the RTX 5070 by 3%.

Metro Exodus, tested without upscaling, sees the RX 9070 averaging 71 fps, 11% higher than the RTX 5070's 64 fps. Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1440p with max settings yields 142 fps for the RX 9070, a 23% lead over the RTX 5070's 115 fps.

In Total War: Warhammer 3, the RX 9070 and RTX 5070 are neck and neck at 1440p, with 135 fps and 134 fps, respectively. Assassin's Creed Mirage at 1440p with the Ultra preset and FSR set to Balanced shows the RX 9070 at 193 fps, an 18% lead over the RTX 5070's 163 fps.

Black Myth Wukong at 1440p with the Cinematic preset results in a close race, with the RX 9070 at 67 fps and the RTX 5070 at 66 fps. Forza Horizon 5 at 1440p sees the RX 9070 averaging 185 fps, compared to 168 fps for the RTX 5070 and 152 fps for the RX 7900 GRE.

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 better long-term investment, even if it uses slightly slower GDDR6 memory. With its competitive edge in performance and value, the Radeon RX 9070 is a compelling choice for gamers.