AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 XT is the most exciting GPU to launch in years

It’s a terrible time to be a PC gamer. Prices have skyrocketed since before the worldwide lockdowns, and one has to cast one’s thoughts back almost a decade to when graphics cards launched at reasonable prices. Even flagship GPUs could be installed in many systems, though whether you should was an entirely different question. Fast-forward to 2025, we’re at yet another crossroad.

Nvidia turned left, launching new GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards with an emphasis on software and AI developments. Prices are as obscene as they have been, and Nvidia has had a plethora of issues since its launch. Intel took a sharp right with two 1440p GPUs costing less than $300 in an attempt to get anyone to purchase one. AMD has — thankfully — decided to head straight.

Launching the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT, AMD completely changed the way it names its graphics cards. Gone are the days of 5000, 6000, and 7000, and we’re now seeing a homogenized effort to make it easier for gamers to compare SKUs between AMD and Nvidia. These two GPUs are going up against Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti, though they are considerably cheaper and potentially better.

Having used both the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT extensively for a solid week, I’ve come to the conclusion that AMD has successfully launched two fantastic cards for 1440p and 4K gaming. The new RDNA 4 architecture is excellent for rasterized performance, and FSR 4 seems to be quite the upgrade over previous-gen FSR implementations. AMD needed to offer something special to compete against Nvidia, which is a step in the right direction.

About this review: AMD provided XDA with an RX 9070 XT samples for this review but had no input to its contents outside of pre-launch driver support.

ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Steel Legend

The Radeon RX 9070 XT is one of AMD’s first GPUs powered by RDNA 4, capable of smooth 4K gaming with powerful internals and more advanced upscaling and frame generation technologies. It’s the graphics card to buy for 4K gaming.

Pros & Cons

• Excellent 4K performance
• Vastly improved ray tracing and upscaling
• FSR 4 can more than double FPS
• Butter-smooth 4K gaming for less than $600

• FSR 4 support is somewhat limited
• Still not quite as good as Nvidia for RT
• Nvidia still holds ground on AI

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT pricing and availability

Graphics cards are the least affordable PC part gamers can buy for their system. Want the latest flagship Nvidia GPU? That’ll be $2,000 at least, please. Thankfully, Intel is looking to claw some market share, which saw a super-aggressive launch for the B-series, offering 1440p gaming for less than $300. AMD typically followed Nvidia’s pricing, undercutting its main rival slightly, but the company did a 180 this generation.

The RX 9070 costs $549, and the RX 9070 XT sits at just $599. That’s $600 for a 4K graphics card with machine learning (ML) upscaling and all the latest bells and whistles with RNDA 4. Promising frame rates in the three digits for many games at high settings is not a bad deal for PC gamers. This GPU effectively replaces the RX 7900 series yet manages to cost a full $400 less than the RX 7900 XTX alone.

AMD faces some stiff competition in the $500 segment with the RTX 5070 having just released, but we’ll be closely looking at these two GPUs, and AMD is most certainly coming out ahead. Throw in the latest AI-based upscaling using hardware, and Team Red is finally on a more level playing field with Nvidia. Make no mistake that unlike the RTX 5070, which is positioned as a 1440p GPU, the RX 9070 and 9070 XT are designed for 4K.

• RX 9070 XT
  

  Shader Units

  128

  Ray Accelerators/Cores

  64

  AI Accelerators/Cores

  64

  Stream Processors

  4096

  Base Clock Speed

  1660 MHz

  Boost Clock Speed

  2970 MHz

  Memory Clock Speed

  2518 MHz

  Memory Capacity

  16 GB GDDR6

  Memory Bus

  256-bit

  Memory Bandwidth

  644.6 GB/s

  Power Draw

  304 W

  Architecture

  RDNA 4

  Process

  5 nm

  Price

  $599

  Expand

• RX 9070
  

  Shader Units

  128

  Ray Accelerators/Cores

  56

  AI Accelerators/Cores

  112

  Stream Processors

  3,584

  Base Clock Speed

  1330 MHz

  Boost Clock Speed

  2520 MHz

  Memory Clock Speed

  2518 MHz

  Memory Capacity

  16 GB GDDR6

  Memory Bus

  256-bit

  Memory Bandwidth

  644.6 GB/s

  Power Draw

  220 W

  Architecture

  RDNA 4

  Process

  5 nm

  Price

  $549

  Expand

AMD’s RX 9070 XT is the best $600 4K GPU

Finally, PC gamers have some good news

There was a lot riding on AMD’s newest generation of graphics cards. Intel worked some magic with its B580 GPU, and Nvidia’s DLSS continues to perform wonderfully with ray tracing. AMD’s existing FSR implementation left a lot to be desired. So much so that I prefer to play games without it enabled, sacrificing visual fidelity slightly with no ray tracing and other settings configured accordingly.

That’s not the case with FSR 4 and these latest GPUs. The RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT are powered by RDNA 4, AMD’s most recent GPU architecture. RDNA 4 brings a new compute unit for improved gaming performance, significant generational uplifts in ray tracing and AI acceleration (through new cores and FSR 4), boost clocks approaching 3.0 GHz, a new media engine for improved streaming and recording quality, and a hefty amount of GDDR6 VRAM.

Unlike Nvidia, which focused on AI performance yet managed to fall short with its RTX 5070 besting an RTX 4090 claims, AMD went all-out with raster and compute workload improvements. This provided significant uplifts in performance and efficiency, something AMD expects to continue into the future, even with new rendering techniques making their way into gaming. We’ve got countless upgrades over RDNA 3, which enabled AMD to increase performance with fewer compute units.

The most vital part of RDNA 4 is the third-gen RT Accelerators – essentially AMD’s version of Nvidia Tensor Cores. Ray tracing is more commonplace in today’s gaming world, and this trend will only see more games support, if not outright require, the technology to be enabled for the best experience. Having more advanced RT Accelerators allows the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT to spread their wings and run some serious numbers. AMD states RDNA 4 has an uplift of two times that of RDNA 3, and I believe them.

A big push with the RX 90 series is machine learning (ML) for upscaling. A cluster of second-gen AI Accelerators, which handle all the AI model processing. Compared to RDNA 3, we’re seeing up to eight times the uplift with full support for FP8, something that was missing with previous-gen graphics cards. With the enhanced media engine and improved Adrenalin software and driver support, the RX 90 series has all the necessary tools for epic 4K gaming.

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AMD was right: The best 4K gaming for $600

This is the one to buy

The RX 7900 series was okay at 4K gaming. It wasn’t super smooth, but it handled the latest games at the time well. Issues arose when one attempted to configure ray tracing, which would send FPS into the floor. FSR 3 and all other available tech at the time helped, but it was nowhere near as good as DLSS on Nvidia GPUs. Putting the new RX 90 series to the test, I was excited to see how they performed at 4K with RT enabled.

To cut a long story short, the RX 9070 XT is brilliant. Native 4K performance with rasterization is excellent compared to the RX 7900 series, which cost a fair bit more than what these GPUs are retailing at — though the RX 7900 GRE did launch at a low price in select markets. To put the RX 9070 XT to the test, I used a high-end configuration on one of the test benches, so we can be sure the GPUs are running as expected by AMD.

I tested the RX 9070 XT at 1440p and 2160p to get an idea of how it performed at the more popular resolutions. You won’t be buying one of these for FHD gaming, and if you are considering a GPU for such a scenario, the Intel B-series is a solid pick. I tested both GPUs with a variety of games, some used with our existing GPU tests and others recommended by AMD, to see how FSR 4 performs.

Although Nvidia’s gen-on-gen performance uplift has been lackluster at best, AMD had plenty of room to grow, and the RX 9070 XT is an absolute powerhouse compared to existing AMD GPUs. AMD’s RX 9070 isn’t far behind, being based on the same architecture with fewer compute units, Ray Accelerators, AI Accelerators, and Stream Processors.

Ray tracing performance also saw a considerable boost, as did general gaming. Cyberpunk 2077 has become the new go-to game for testing RT performance, and the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT didn’t disappoint. Results should improve as games start to add FSR 4 support, but in terms of raw power, AMD is looking mighty against Nvidia. Firing up FSR 3 in supported titles with frame generation did improve things, but your mileage may vary, and you may run into minor visual artifacts, depending on the game.

Holding out against the RTX 5070 and performing well against older 7900 series shows how capable these new Radeon GPUs are with lower TDPs, lower prices, and more efficient platforms. AMD’s right to focus on the rasterization gains with RDNA 4, which is a welcome sight against Nvidia’s FG and AI push.

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Testing FSR 4 and AMD’s frame-gen tech

Fake frames or fake flames?

Activating the features in games can prove challenging since not many titles support it, and you’ll be relying on the Adrenalin software to showcase support. There are a few changes to make to get the most out of FSR, too. You’ll need to play around with both in-game and Adrenalin software settings to achieve the sweet spot, but once you’re there, the results are positive. FSR 4 can be enabled on top of FSR 3.1, switching over to ML-based algorithms.

I attempted to get FSR 4 working on SMITE and Kingdom Come Deliverance II, two completely different games. A fast-paced MOBA such as SMITE requires low latency and stable FPS to be competitive in combat, whereas KCD II is a (mostly) laid-back role-playing game with an emphasis on story, environments, and gameplay. The results in SMITE were nothing short of astounding, going from 150 FPS at native 4K to a whopping 398 with FSR 4. Like DLSS 4 frame generation, you’ll need a decently high FPS to make the most of AMD’s AI implementation.

FSR3 wasn’t too effective at improving performance without causing latency or graphical issues, but from what I’ve been able to see with the RX 90 series, these are largely addressed with RDNA 4. SMITE was responsive with FSR 4 and FG enabled, and I didn’t notice any artifacts with the UI elements, character models, ability animations, or environment. The gameplay was smooth, fluid, and comparable to native 4K. I’ll need to spend more time testing it in other titles, but so far, it seems positive.

I did experience trouble getting FSR 4 to work with KCD II, even though AMD stated support would be introduced and Adrenalin detected support through the game. FSR 3 was fine, but when attempting to move up to FSR 4, both the game and driver would crash. Considering FSR 3 with FG offered a sizable boost to frame rates, I would expect another 50% or so. I’ll update this review should a driver/game update address this. AMD and game developers need to work on adding FSR 3.1 support in the coming weeks to ensure both GPUs can run as expected, should you wish to utilize frame-gen tech with the latest iteration of FSR.

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You won’t even know it’s running

Silent as a mouse

We received the ASRock Steel Legend RX 9070 and 9070 XT graphics cards from AMD for testing, and both ran almost silently. The RX 9070 XT hit 305 W according to various measuring tools, with a temperature reading of just 56 degrees Celcius (81C for the memory) and fan speed of just 1,500 RPM. Even on an open-air test bench, you could barely hear the three fans spinning. They both share the same build and design, rocking a thick heatsink and three powerful blowers.

All that heft is managed with a large backplate and reinforced metal frame. There’s a silent mode for when the graphics card is barely working, and numerous large heatpipes direct heat away from the GPU and other vital components when pushed hard. It’s impressive how effective these cooler designs have become with the latest technology from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia. Even at 4K with all the bells and whistles enabled, the card still runs cool.

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Should you buy the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT?

You should buy the RX 9070 XT if:

• You want to send a message to Nvidia.
• You want an excellent 4K GPU.
• You don’t wish to spend more than $600 on a single PC part.
• You are upgrading from an RTX 40 or RX 70 series (or older).

You shouldn’t buy the RX 9070 XT if:

• You primarily play at 1080p, as this thing is overkill.
• You don’t want a fantastic GPU at a reasonable price.
• You do a lot of AI work or upscaling — Nvidia is still king.

Yes, you should buy this GPU. Review complete. Okay, I’ll elaborate slightly. You should buy one of the RX 9070 XT if you’re upgrading from essentially anything other than an RTX 4080 Ti or RTX 4090. The RX 9070 series is that good. The latest AI and RT cores from AMD have considerably more guts to them, making easy work of heavier workloads, such as ray tracing and advanced graphics configurations. The RX 9070 does get overshadowed by its XT sibling, however, making this the go-to for me with its $50 MSRP increase.

For that $50, you’re getting a well-rounded GPU with more compute cores, stream processors, and AI and RT cores, resulting in higher frame rates and a better overall experience at 4K with advanced graphic options enabled. I always recommend spending as much as you can on the GPU to save upgrading earlier, and although the 9070 is a solid 4K GPU, I would buy the 9070 XT if your budget can stretch that little bit further. This thing is absolutely brilliant at rasterized loads, ray tracing, and even some upscaling with the latest version of FSR.

Either way, AMD and Intel have won this early 2025 graphics card launch window. The Intel Arc B580 is a masterpiece in 1440p performance and pricing, and AMD has stepped up the challenge of offering an excellent yet well-priced 4K GPU in the wake of Nvidia’s floundering RTX 50 series launch.

ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Steel Legend