AMD’s partner brands will begin selling RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics cards on March 6th. Priced at a respective $550 and $600, these GPUs mark the beginning of the RX 9000 Series and undercut NVIDIA’s similarly-spec’d RTX 5070 Ti.
The sales pitch from AMD is simple and appealing—4K gaming at a 1440p price. These graphics cards are designed for gamers, not investors or AI-obsessed tech corporations. And, with prices under $700, they are far more accessible than many of the items in NVIDIA’s portfolio.
AMD expects to sell the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT to a wide variety of PC gamers, including newcomers, enthusiasts, and long-haulers who have refrained from upgrading due to the industry’s current price-performance shortcomings.
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The $550 RX 9070 features 56 CUs and a maximum clock speed of 2.52GHz, plus 16GB of DDR6 VRAM. For an extra $50, the RX 9070 XT bumps the clock speed up to 2.97GHz and packs 64 CUs, though it offers the same amount of VRAM as the standard RX 9070. (The use of GDDR6 is interesting, as NVIDIA’s RTX 50-series GPUs use GDDR7. However, AMD’s generous use of VRAM appears to counteract this discrepancy.)
Both cards make the upgrade to PCIe 5.0 with DisplayPort 2.1a and HDMI 2.1b connectivity. Of course, the more expensive card eats up more power—AMD’s RX 9070 XT has a TBP of 304 watts, while the standard RX 9070 chews up just 220 watts.
These raw specs are bolstered by the RDNA 4 architecture, which provides increased efficiency, clock speeds, and register allocation per CU. RDNA 4 also doubles ray tracing throughput and provides 8x faster AI performance through the use of next-gen accelerators.
“The RX 9000 Series, powered by the new AMD RDNA™ 4 architecture, offers gamers and creators a powerful blend of performance, visuals, and value. These advanced graphics cards redefine incredibly fast, high-resolution gaming with third-generation raytracing technology enabling realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections to deliver immersive gaming experiences while integrating a suite of AMD features to maximize hardware utilization.”
AMD says that the RX 9070 XT will offer performance comparable to NVIDIA’s RTX 5070 Ti, a $750 graphics card that is almost perpetually out of stock. It’s also a substantial upgrade from the previous RX 7900 GRE, offering 42% faster performance at 4K. The standard RX 9070, meanwhile, offers 21% faster 4K performance than the RX 7900 GRE. Naturally, both RX 9000 Series cards will exceed the ray tracing cabailities of previous-gen offerings.
While NVIDIA continues to double-down on the AI boom, AMD is attempting to fashion itself as a true consumer brand. The new RX 9000 Series cards offer some AI capabilities, obviously, and they can drive generative processes, but AMD’s announcement video and press release are plainly tailored for gamers who feel neglected in today’s computer hardware market. It’s a breath of fresh air.
I should clarify that I haven’t tested the RX 9000 GPUs. Real-world performance may fall short of early expectations, and AMD has historically lagged behind NVIDIA when it comes to ray tracing—I assume that this will remain true in the current generation.
The RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT launch on March 6. Notably, AMD will not manufacture or sell first-party versions of these GPUs. Partner brands like ASRock, ASUS, and Gigabyte are expected to follow AMD’s suggested pricing and are already shipping the graphics cards to retailers in an effort to prevent supply shortages.
Source: AMD
