These are the Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070
The time has finally come: after only a teaser of the new Radeon graphics cards was shown at CES in January, AMD has now finally unveiled the specifications. The new cards go on sale on 6 March and the pricing is aggressive.
The new Radeon graphics cards RX 9070 XT and 9070 appear to be a bargain by today's standards: they cost USD 599 and USD 549 respectively (before tax). The market will show how things actually turn out. However, should the cards be available in Switzerland for a comparable amount, they would certainly be worth a look. This is because the XT version would then be significantly cheaper than an RTX 5070 Ti, with which it competes.
The cards in detail
The two new cards are the first to be based on the RDNA4 architecture. They use the Navi-48 GPU and offer 16 gigabytes of GDDR6 memory. They differ in terms of configuration.
The Radeon RX 9070 XT has 64 compute units (CU), i.e. 4096 shader units, while the Radeon RX 9070 has 56 CUs with 3584 shaders. The boost clock is 2970 MHz and 2520 MHz respectively. The total board power of the RX 9070 XT is 304 watts, while the smaller one is content with 220 watts.
The cards are connected via PCIe 5.0 x16. The monitor connections support the HDMI 2.1b and DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR13.5 standards.
Does not compete with the top models from Nvidia
It has long been clear that AMD is not attacking Nvidia's currently most powerful graphics cards with the new line-up. The RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 are said to be ahead, especially in terms of performance per dollar.
What does that mean in figures? So far there are only figures from AMD itself, so you should take them with a grain of salt. Reviews of the new cards will go online the day before they go on sale, i.e. on 5 March.
The RX 9070 XT, the flagship model of the new GPU generation, is said to deliver an average of 42 per cent more FPS than the Radeon RX 7900 GRE. This value applies to an average of classic rasteriser games and ray tracing. For the latter, the average performance increase is likely to be 53 per cent and for the former 37 per cent.
The RX 9070, on the other hand, should still offer an average of 21 per cent more FPS than the RX 7900 GRE. 19 per cent more in rasteriser games and 26 per cent in ray tracing.
Compared to the competition from Nvidia in the form of the RTX 5070 Ti, the RX 9070 XT is said to be two per cent slower on average at 2160p resolution and Ultra settings.
FSR 4 with AI
Like Nvidia with DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation, AMD is touting the new cards with the AI feature FSR 4 Super Resolution. This is no longer based on a compute algorithm, but on a neural network, i.e. AI.
However, this also means that FSR 4 is reserved for the new GPU generation for the time being. Any game that already supports FSR 3.1 should theoretically be able to play FSR 4 without any further adjustments.
AMD is doing it right to go beyond the price
The comparison of AMD with the RX 9700 GRE is deliberate, as it is not the flagship of the previous generation. If I convert these figures to the flagship RX 7900 XTX, I find that the RX 9070 XT is about five per cent behind it in rasteriser games and ten per cent ahead in ray tracing. AMD's comparisons with the RTX 5070 Ti are about right, although the AMD card is probably behind in ray tracing as usual.
The RX 9070 is around two per cent behind the RX 7900 XT, the second-fastest model of the previous generation, according to AMD's figures.
This means that AMD's new cards are only on a par with the former top models from its own company, but at a significantly lower price - if the cards are available at RRP and the promised performance is actually true. If this is the case, AMD will offer Nvidia some serious competition, at least in the 70-series segment. But only the coming weeks will tell.
Header image: AMD
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Kevin Hofer
Senior Editor
kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.chFrom big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.
