AMD’s RDNA 4 graphics cards, including the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070, launch on March 6, but the review embargo lifted today.
It’s the first look at real-world performance following AMD’s official RDNA 4 presentation in which Team Red showed off some intriguing performance numbers that put the RX 9070 XT roughly in line with the RTX 5070 Ti at 4K Ultra settings.
AMD’s claims are one thing, but how do the flagship RX 9070 XT and more affordable RX 9070 actually fare now that they’re in a select few gaming PCs?
I pulled quotes from some of the top reviews around the web in order to give you a better idea of what to expect from the new RDNA 4 hardware.
Let’s start with the RX 9070 XT before getting into RX 9070 impressions (with some overlap).
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT review roundup
- TechRadar (90%): “AMD kicks off its latest generation of graphics cards with a stunning release in the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, delivering RTX 4080-levels of gaming performance at half that card’s launch MSRP. While not perfect and not really a card for creative workers or AI research, for the gamers out there who have been…disappointed…by Nvidia’s most recent RTX 50 series cards, the RX 9070 XT is nothing short of the graphics card everyone’s been asking for—and you might even be able to find it in stock and within spitting distance of its MSRP.”
- The Verge: “The RX 9070 is around 17 percent faster than Nvidia’s RTX 5070 in 4K without upscaling enabled, cruising past Nvidia’s card for the same price. The RX 9070 XT is as fast as the RTX 5070 Ti for $150 less.”
- TechSpot (85%): “As things stand, the Radeon RX 9070 XT is a strong offering that we expect will sell extremely well at $600. However, whether that price holds long-term is questionable. We’ve also heard from multiple sources that supply is excellent. If that’s the case, then AMD may end up selling more 9070 XT units than Nvidia has sold 5090, 5080, 5070, and 5070 Ti units combined – which would be crazy, and on that bombshell, we’ll end this review right here.”
- Eurogamer: “Across all games tested at all resolutions, I have the RTX 5070 Ti having an 8 percent RT advantage over the 9070 XT – but the AMD card comes ahead in the value stakes as the 5070 Ti’s MSRP is 25 percent higher. Meanwhile, the tables turn with the non-XT vs 5070 comparison, with AMD holding a 5.5 percent RT advantage over Nvidia. Aggregating raster and RT results together – again across all resolutions – 5070 Ti beats 9070 XT by just three percent, while the 9070 non-XT bests the 5070 by nine percent.”
- Guru3D: “The Radeon RX 9070 XT is a high-end graphics card, part of the RDNA 4 architecture. It competes closely with Nvidia’s RTX 4080 Super and 5070 Ti, offering impressive performance in both synthetic benchmarks and gaming scenarios. With its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and a base clock speed of 2520 MHz, and a boost clock of 3060 MHz (ASUS card) AMD made this a powerful solution for gamers.”
- PCWorld (80%): “The Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT are the new 1440p gaming champions. I’d definitely opt for those over the $549 GeForce RTX 5070, which is just a stagnant sidegrade over its predecessor.”
- Engadget (85%): “AMD’s Radeon 9070 XT is a solid midrange GPU with excellent support for 1440p gaming and a bit of 4K. It has better ray tracing support than before, it’s faster than the plain Radeon 9070 and it finally has AI upscaling to compete with NVIDIA’s DLSS.”
- IGN (100%): “PC Gaming has been in a decadent spiral since 2020, and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is a reminder that it doesn’t have to be that way. This graphics card has no problem maxing out any game you throw at it at 4K, even with ray tracing enabled, and does so at a price that makes the competition look downright greedy. I can’t predict the future, so only time will tell if the launch price holds up. What I do know is we need more graphics cards like the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT.”
- PCGamesN (90%): “The Radeon RX 9070 XT is a mid-range GPU triumph. It might not have multi frame gen, but that hardly seems to matter when a GPU is this powerful at its starting point. Across nearly all of our tests, the 9070 XT is significantly quicker than the RTX 5070, even in games with ray tracing enabled, and it has loads of shader power at its disposal as well. The fact that this GPU even beats the RTX 5080 in some tests is simply incredible for the price.”
- TweakTown (94%): “When it comes to the Radeon RX 9070 XT, the $599 price point, alongside the performance of the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, makes it the GPU to get in 2025. You would have had to pay close to 40% more for this level of performance a year ago. The real kicker, though, is that ray-tracing performance is right up there. The only thing missing is the widespread adoption of FSR 4 and AMD’s delivery of Path Tracing technologies in an actual game we can play.”
- Gamers Nexus: “The 9070 XT and the 5070 Ti go back and forth a lot depending on the game, especially in rasterization; ray tracing, NVIDIA still holds an advantage. […] At 4K rasterized without RT, for the recap, the 9070 XT and the 5070 Ti are often within 6% of each other on either side. […] There’s instances where the 9070 XT is getting really close to the 4080 Super.”
- Hardware Unboxed: “Overall, what’s on offer here in the current market is very good and worthy of recommendation. […] It’s offering almost 30% better value; you’d be mad not to buy it. But the other conclusion being, if the 5070 Ti manages to drop down to the MSRP, then the 9070 XT becomes 20% cheaper to purchase, and in terms of cost-per-frame it’s just 15% better value.”
- Linus Tech Tips: “[…] The 9070 XT is a winner. If AMD can keep this thing in stock and you have $600 to spend on a gaming GPU, you are going to love this thing. NVIDIA needs to respond now or AMD might actually take some real market share for a change.”
AMD Radeon RX 9070 review roundup
- CGMagazine: “The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is a solid mid-range GPU for 1440p gaming. It offers some nice improvements over the previous generation’s RX 7900 and is priced quite competitively. It offers some solid performance and could even be used as a 4K gaming card if you are comfortable being reliant on frame generation.”
- Engadget (82%): “AMD’s Radeon 9070 is a solid midrange GPU with excellent support for 1440p gaming and a bit of 4K. It has better ray tracing support than before, and it finally has AI upscaling to compete with NVIDIA’s DLSS.”
- IgorsLab: “The overclocked Radeon RX 9070 XT offers performance on a par with the RX 7900 XTX in many games and is therefore in direct competition with a non-overclocked RTX 5070 Ti. The RX 9070 is around ten percent behind, but remains an interesting choice in WQHD and UHD for users who value sufficient VRAM and solid raster performance. However, the power consumption is noticeably higher than that of NVIDIA’s direct competitors, especially under load. In combination with FSR 4, the frame rate in supported games improves considerably, even if DLSS 4 still offers an advantage in terms of image quality and efficiency.”
- Hardware Canucks: “Likely the most worrying thing for NVIDIA is how strong AMD has suddenly become in ray tracing. […] The RX 9070 series is a leap forward versus the previous generation, and if they can deliver what’s been promised for FSR 4 as being a good competitor for DLSS 4, well, things could get very interesting in the future.”
RDNA 4 isn’t perfect, but the RX 9070 XT is still my next GPU
Ahead of AMD’s March 1 GPU reveal, I wrote about a few ways that Team Red could screw up the RDNA 4 launch.
Thankfully, most of those concerns were put to rest with the performance numbers shared by AMD, and the roster of third-party RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 reviews that went live today confirms my plans to put an RX 9070 XT into my gaming PC.
The RX 9070 XT isn’t perfect. I’m still concerned that the RX 9070’s $549 MSRP and RX 9070 XT’s $599 MSRP won’t actually be available on launch day.
Sure, there are plenty of cards that deserve a higher price due to exclusive hardware improvements, but there also deserves to be a solid amount of RDNA 4 GPUs available at MSRP.
The last thing I want to see is AMD’s pricing inflate like we’ve seen from NVIDIA over the past few weeks.
With the RX 9070 XT coming close to the RTX 5070 Ti and even the RX 7900 XTX in plenty of benchmarks, I care less about efficiency, which remains in favor of NVIDIA.
AMD, by all means, seems to have made some massive improvements to ray tracing and FSR 4, which were two lacking points in previous generations.
AMD claims it has plenty of stock to sell on March 6, but the demand following all of the positive reviews will no doubt put a big dent in availability.
I’m keeping an eye on the best places to shop for the RX 9000 GPUs on launch day, and I urge you to check out the guide for a bit of help. Good luck!
