AMD Radeon RX 9070 review: A powerful gaming GPU that’s nearly the right price

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 doesn’t have a simple activity forward of it, and that’s primarily because of its worth. At $549 it has the identical MSRP because the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, and the brand new AMD GPU largely wins out on this battle. However this graphics card’s greater downside isn’t Nvidia a lot as AMD itself, with the considerably extra highly effective 9070 XT costing simply $50 extra.

On the time of writing, there have been additionally inventory issues, regardless of stories pointing to a a lot greater provide of this new AMD graphics card than the RTX 5070. In a market sector that’s now trying uncomfortably cramped, in case you’re seeking to purchase one of the best graphics card in your price range, is it value contemplating the Radeon RX 9070 if costs settle all the way down to a extra cheap degree?

To seek out out, I’ve run a number of video games at numerous totally different settings on the ASRock Metal Legend OC Radeon RX 9070 card we had been despatched for testing. Our benchmarks embody demanding new titles similar to Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle, to veteran high-speed classics similar to Doom Everlasting, whereas taking a look at ray tracing and the brand new AMD FSR 4 decision upscaling tech.

Specs

The Radeon RX 9070 is principally the identical as its greater sibling, the 9070 XT, however with a number of elements of the GPU disabled, and a decrease clock pace. The remainder is all the identical – you continue to get 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM working at 20Gbps, and it’s connected to a 256-bit reminiscence interface. Comparatively, whereas the RTX 5070 makes use of the newest high-speed GDDR7 reminiscence, it’s connected to a narrower 192-bit bus than the 9070 so, truly, the entire reminiscence bandwidth of the 5070 is just slightly larger, at 672GB/s, in comparison with 644.6GB/s on the 9070.

In case that each one sounds a bit baffling, the TLDR right here is that the reminiscence system on the 9070 is sort of as quick because the one on one RTX 5070, regardless of the latter utilizing quicker (and costlier) reminiscence chips. Importantly, the Radeon RX 9070 additionally has 16GB of VRAM, in contrast with simply 12GB on the RTX 5070, which is a lot better for future proofing. We’re already seeing video games pushing the boundaries of 12GB playing cards, even at simply 1080p, and that scenario is just going to worsen over the approaching years.

In the meantime, the GPU is similar Navi 48 chip discovered within the 9070 XT, however AMD has disabled eight compute models on it. These are the elemental constructing blocks of AMD GPUs, and so they every include a number of of the tiny stream processors that work collectively to render your video games, and so they additionally every include one among AMD’s new RT cores for ray tracing. Consequently, you get eight fewer RT cores on the 9070 in comparison with the 9070 XT, and 512 fewer stream processors, for a complete of three,584.

The clock pace of the 9070 has additionally been decreased considerably in comparison with the 9070 XT, with the 9070 having a prime enhance clock of two.52GHz, whereas the 9070 XT can enhance all the best way as much as 2.97GHz. The latter has a considerable influence on energy draw, with AMD saying the 9070 has a complete board energy of 220W, in comparison with 304W on the 9070 XT, and there’s a stark distinction in our personal energy draw exams for the 2 GPUs, as we’ll see later. There’s no 16-pin energy connector on 9070 playing cards both, not like some 9070 XT playing cards, with solely two commonplace eight-pin sockets required.

Options

One of many major promoting factors of the Radeon RX 9070 in comparison with its AMD predecessors is its AI efficiency. You’ll discover 112 of AMD’s new AI cores within the 9070, that are required to course of the corporate’s new FSR 4 decision upscaling tech, in addition to different AI functions. The previous is doubtlessly an enormous deal for players, because it reveals AMD lastly catching up with Nvidia on the planet of decision upscaling, utilizing machine studying and AI {hardware} to do the work.

Decision upscaling is the place your GPU renders recreation parts similar to your HUD, menus, and textual content at your display’s full native decision, however renders the 3D recreation world at a decrease decision earlier than blowing the ensuing 2D picture as much as the complete decision of your display. This may enhance efficiency significantly, with one of the best upscaling tech analyzing the scene and utilizing AI to make it look as very like your display’s native decision as attainable.

AMD has beforehand been at an obstacle right here, because the picture high quality of its FSR 3 upscaling tech regarded considerably worse than Nvidia DLSS Tremendous Decision, with exaggerated blurriness and nasty digital noise and artifacts showing.

FSR 4 modifications all that, and it seems to be improbable. As you may see within the Marvel Rivals screenshots under, the noise and blurriness of FSR 3 has all gone with FSR 4, with the tip outcome trying similar to Nvidia’s very newest model of DLSS that makes use of a brand new transformer mannequin. Take a look at the sharpness of the wires and the patterns on the lanterns, and you’ll see that FSR 4 seems to be a lot sharper. Notice, the 1080p native picture under doesn’t have any anti-aliasing, which is why edges look so jagged.

In our exams we’ve additionally discovered that, whereas FSR 4 is a tiny bit slower than FSR 3 in the case of body charges with like-for-like settings, it seems to be so a lot better that it’s completely value taking this small efficiency hit. FSR 4 on the Efficiency setting nonetheless seems to be higher than FSR 3 on the High quality setting, so you might as effectively use the previous.

The one downer is that it’s presently solely supported in a small variety of video games – 30 to be exact, however it’s designed to be a drop-in API alternative for video games that already assist FSR 3.1, so hopefully recreation assist will develop within the close to future.

How we take a look at

To check the gaming efficiency of the AMD Radeon RX 9070, I’m working a number of benchmarks utilizing actual video games, slightly than artificial benchmarks. Every take a look at is run thrice, recorded with Nvidia FrameView, and I report the imply common of the outcomes, discarding any apparent anomalies. I report two figures for body charges – firstly, the typical, which supplies you an thought of the final body fee you’ll obtain. Secondly, I report the 1% low, which is a median of the bottom one p.c of outcomes recorded in the course of the benchmark.

The latter is a extra dependable indicator of efficiency than the minimal, because it removes outliers, similar to moments the place a Home windows system occasion that’s unrelated to the efficiency of the GPU causes the sport to stutter. In different phrases, the 1% low is what you may anticipate the precise minimal body fee to be in these video games.

I’ve examined our ASRock Metal Legend pattern at its default overclocked settings, which raises the enhance clock to 2.7GHz. As such, keep in mind {that a} inventory pace card shall be slightly slower than the outcomes listed under, often with round a 2fps efficiency distinction.

GPU take a look at system specs:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• CPU cooler: Corsair H100X RGB Elite
• Reminiscence: 32GB 6,000MHz G.Ability TridentZ RGB, CL28
• Motherboard: MSI MAG X870E Carbon WiFi
• SSD: 2TB WD Black SN850X
• PSU: Corsair RM1000X Shift

Benchmarks

Name of Responsibility Black Ops 6

I’m going to start out with one of many all-out wins for the Radeon RX 9070, which is Name of Responsibility Black Ops 6. The Black Ops 6 system necessities are high-quality to run the sport on a low-spec system from a number of years in the past, however the prime Excessive preset is admittedly demanding, and is an efficient indicator of uncooked rendering efficiency. There’s no ray tracing on this recreation – on the prime settings, you’re actually stressing a GPU’s pure rasterization efficiency, and the Radeon RX 9070 has this in spades.

At 2,560 x 1,440, for instance, with none assist from FSR upscaling or body gen, the 9070 averages a strong 140fps, in comparison with simply 97fps for the RTX 5070. It’s even faster than the RTX 4080 on this take a look at, and solely a smidgen away from the RTX 4080 Tremendous – a terrific outcome for a GPU on this worth bracket. The 9070 XT is considerably faster on this recreation for not way more cash, although, even beating the RTX 5080 with its common body fee of 162fps.

Step as much as 4K, and the Radeon RX 9070 averages a still-decent 89fps with a 1% low of 67fps, whereas the RTX 5070 is just working at 65fps with a 1% low of 48fps. This recreation additionally has the good thing about supporting AMD’s newest FSR 4 tech, which improves efficiency whereas nonetheless trying improbable. Partaking the Efficiency mode, for instance, nonetheless seems to be good, and bumped up the 4K common body fee to 109fps on the RX 9070.

As a last take a look at, I ran the Radeon RX 9070 with FSR 4 on the High quality setting, and with FSR body gen enabled, at 4K. At these settings, the sport continues to be responsive and appears good, and the Radeon RX 9070 averages 141fps. Comparatively, the RTX 5070 with the equal DLSS settings solely averages 89fps, and it had seen glitching across the HUD parts. Briefly, this recreation is a straight win for the Radeon RX 9070.

F1 24

One other good showcase for the Radeon RX 9070’s skills is F1 24, which allows ray tracing on the Extremely Excessive settings by default, and reveals how far AMD’s progressed in the case of ray tracing efficiency. At 1080p utilizing these settings, the Radeon RX 9070 averages a strong 130fps, whereas the RTX 5070 is effectively behind on 111fps, exhibiting that AMD can beat the competitors in the case of ray tracing now as effectively.

Even with none assist from FSR, the Radeon RX 9070 averages 101fps on this recreation at 1440p on the Extremely Excessive settings, whereas the RTX 5070 lags behind on 89fps. This recreation additionally reveals up the additional energy you get from paying the additional for the 9070 XT, although, with the marginally costlier GPU even beating the RTX 4080 Tremendous with a median of 121fps.

Equally, at 4K, the Radeon RX 9070 is once more forward of the RTX 5070, averaging 60fps in comparison with 53fps. Once more, although the 9070 XT is the higher GPU right here, with a strong 1% low of 60fps and common of 73fps. After all, you can even enhance efficiency on this recreation by enabling FSR upscaling and body gen, however there’s no assist for FSR 4, and these outcomes include the caveat that FSR 3 seems to be horrible on this recreation, with nasty ghosting and noise across the edges of the spinning tyres, for instance.

With FSR 3 on the standard setting, and body gen engaged, the Radeon RX 9070 produces an outstanding body fee of 168fps at 4K in F1 24, which on the face of it makes a mockery of the RTX 5070’s 94fps with the equal DLSS settings. Nevertheless, it’s not a straight win, because the picture high quality on the RTX 5070 is a lot better.

Cyberpunk 2077

Subsequent up is that this era’s Crysis, the sport that continues to push GPUs to their restrict a number of years after its launch: Cyberpunk 2077. AMD’s GPUs have traditionally struggled with the ray tracing on this recreation in comparison with Nvidia, so I used to be to see how the corporate’s newly designed RT cores deal with its calls for now.

To seek out out, I ran the sport on the straight Extremely ray tracing preset, with no FSR enabled. At these settings, the Radeon RX 9070 averages 72fps with a 1% low of 57fps at 1080p, which is just 1fps away from the RTX 5070. AMD’s new GPU can’t beat the RTX 5070 right here, however it principally matches it. Comparatively, the extra highly effective 9070 XT once more pulls away at 86fps, exhibiting why it’s value the additional cash in case you can afford it.

Shifting as much as 1440p tells the identical story, with simply 1fps separating the Radeon RX 9070 from the RTX 5070 on the 1% low, however each GPUs have unplayable common body charges of 45fps on this take a look at. Once more, the 9070 XT is a good means forward of each playing cards, with a median of 55fps.

The large take a look at for the Radeon RX 9070 right here, although, is path tracing. Even AMD’s high-end GPUs have beforehand struggled to deal with the calls for of this complicated ray tracing tech, particularly in comparison with Nvidia’s GPUs, so I hoped the brand new 9070 would shut the hole. The excellent news is that the Radeon RX 9070 can really do it now.

You’ll must allow FSR body gen and upscaling, and there’s sadly no assist for FSR 4 so the sport doesn’t look nearly as good as on an Nvidia card with DLSS 4 both, however with these settings the Radeon RX 9070 averages 120fps at 1080p with path tracing. In the meantime, the RTX 5070 is barely faster at 127fps utilizing related DLSS settings, exhibiting it has a bonus in the case of path tracing.

The RTX 5070 can pull its trump card right here, although, as it may well use multi body gen to easy the body fee even additional to an enormous 235fps. The Radeon RX 9070 can do path tracing, which is certainly progress, however the RTX 5070 is the higher possibility right here, particularly in video games that assist multi body gen.

Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle

One other actually hardcore ray tracing take a look at is Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle. This live-action puzzler requires ray tracing at each single graphics preset, and it even has a Full RT part to allow path tracing options in case your GPU is highly effective sufficient to run it. To begin, I ran this recreation on the Extremely settings at 1080p, to see how the AMD Radeon RX 9070 coped with it.

Whereas the 9070 XT can deal with this recreation very well, the 9070 is a good bit behind, and that is once more an space the place the RTX 5070 is a superior alternative. At 1440p, for instance, the Radeon RX 9070 averages 92fps, which continues to be a terrific outcome on this title, however the RTX 5070 averages 100fps, whereas the 9070 XT climbs even additional to 105fps.

Upping the ante to 4K reveals the Radeon RX 9070 dropping to a median of 59fps, which is effectively forward of the 45fps from the last-gen Radeon RX 7800 XT, however once more behind the 64fps of the RTX 5070 and 67fps of the 9070 XT.

I used to be to see if the brand new 9070 may deal with any of the Full RT settings with path tracing on this recreation. These settings had been beforehand unavailable to AMD GPUs, however they’ve now been opened up on the brand new playing cards. The RTX 5070 couldn’t deal with these settings in any respect in our exams, as the sport desires greater than 12GB of reminiscence, leading to efficiency plummeting to 5fps, and the sport often crashing to the desktop.

The Radeon RX 9070 copes slightly higher right here, because of its 16GB of VRAM, however the recreation continues to be unplayable. With the Supreme graphics preset chosen, Full RT maxed out, FSR 3 upscaling set to high quality, and FSR body gen enabled, the 9070 averages 47fps at 1080p, with a 1% low of 23fps. The lighting seems to be superb, however the recreation is so stuttery that it’s unplayable, because the beginning body fee is so low.

To make issues worse, FSR body gen doesn’t work effectively within the recreation in the mean time, with the body fee leaping very abruptly between highs and lows because it struggles to maintain up. I attempted dropping the graphics preset to Extremely, and the Full RT settings to Medium, once more with the identical FSR settings, however the recreation was nonetheless unplayable, regardless of reporting a median of 93fps, as FSR body gen was so juddery – AMD GPUs merely can’t run this recreation effectively with path tracing proper now.

Doom Everlasting

Lastly, Doom Everlasting is one other good take a look at of uncooked rendering efficiency, and it scales very well into a whole bunch of frames per second as extra GPU energy is added. Operating at 1440p with the Extremely Nightmare settings, and no ray tracing, the Radeon RX 9070 averages a large 447fps, pulling forward of the (nonetheless absurdly excessive) 423fps of the RTX 5070. Once more, although, the 9070 XT’s 500fps common reveals how way more energy is on the market from this GPU’s greater sibling.

Transfer as much as 4K, and the Radeon RX 9070 continues to be averaging a large 260fps, in comparison with 226fps on the RTX 5070, whereas the 9070 XT climbs past 300fps. By way of rasterization energy, the Radeon RX 9070 is a good GPU, however once more you may see why it’s value spending slightly extra cash on the 9070 XT.

Allow ray tracing on this recreation and the 9070 pulls off the identical feat it managed in F1 24, which is pulling forward of the RTX 5070, exhibiting the massive strides AMD has taken in the case of bettering ray tracing efficiency. At 1440p, the Radeon RX 9070 averages a terrific 289fps with ray tracing enabled, in comparison with 265fps for the RTX 5070.

Even 4K is ok for the Radeon RX 9070 on this recreation with ray tracing enabled, the place it averages 163fps, with a 1% low of 108fps. Comparatively, the RTX 5070 averages 144fps on this recreation. The 9070 XT is even additional forward once more, although, with a 192fps common.

Energy draw

Whereas the excessive energy draw of the Radeon RX 9070 XT got here as a little bit of a shock to me after I checked out my wattage meter, I’m happy to say that the Radeon RX 9070 is way more energy environment friendly. That’s primarily because of the a lot decrease clock pace of this GPU, but additionally partly all the way down to the truth that it has a number of the GPU’s elements disabled.

With the Radeon RX 9070 put in, our take a look at rig pulled 395W from the mains at full load, and that’s with our ASRock Metal Legend pattern working at its overclocked pace too. That’s a large 130W lower than with the ASRock Taichi 9070 XT OC working at its overclocked pace, and 92W lower than the 9070 XT working at inventory pace. It’s slightly larger than the 369W drawn by our overclocked Asus RTX 5070 pattern, however the distinction right here isn’t large enough to be a priority.

Value

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 worth is ostensibly $549.99, matching the MSRP of the RTX 5070. If truth be told, nonetheless, provide shortages have made it costlier, as have worth hikes shortly after the preliminary launch – realistically, you’re extra prone to be spending at the least $649.99 on one among these playing cards. That damages its enchantment, and is unhealthy for players, however the truth that the identical points have affected the RTX 5070 and 9070 XT, whereas provide of last-gen GPUs is steadily disappearing, means the Radeon RX 9070 is principally no much less aggressive because of this.

We advise ignoring scalpers on Ebay if you wish to purchase this GPU, and as a substitute signing as much as a notification system or pre-order at a real tech retailer, so you should purchase a graphics card for as near the MSRP as attainable. It’s prone to take a number of months earlier than provide can sustain with demand.

Alternate options

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

The Radeon RX 9070’s major competitor isn’t a lot the Nvidia RTX 5070 as its personal stablemate, the Radeon 9070 XT. At MSRP, there’s solely $50 separating the 2 GPUs, and even at present pricing there’s nonetheless not an infinite distinction between costs of the 2 playing cards.

For those who’re spending this a lot cash on a GPU, you’ll get higher worth from the 9070 XT, which is considerably extra highly effective for under slightly more cash. It attracts quite a lot of energy, although, so that you’ll want to ensure your PSU is as much as the job. Learn our full AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT evaluate.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070

With even much less inventory than the Radeon RX 9070, the RTX 5070 is already at an obstacle, and it’s additionally slower than the 9070 in the case of uncooked rendering energy, whereas its 12GB of VRAM weakens its future proofing.

There are strong causes to think about this card, although, together with the widespread recreation assist for Nvidia’s DLSS tech, with this card supporting the complete DLSS 4 suite, together with multi body gen, which makes use of AI to insert as much as three AI-generated frames between those rendered by your GPU. This may work very well in case your recreation already has a good body fee and your display has a excessive refresh fee, leading to easy motion. Learn our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 evaluate.

Verdict

It’s nice to see AMD correctly squaring as much as Nvidia once more, and the Radeon RX 9070 reveals AMD enjoying an enormous recreation of catch up in ray tracing efficiency. Its new FSR 4 upscaling tech is improbable as effectively. By way of gaming rendering energy, the Radeon RX 9070 can also be clearly quicker than the RTX 5070. The $549.99 MSRP for each these GPUs could also be largely fictional now, however they’re nonetheless going up in opposition to one another, and the Radeon RX 9070 is mostly extra highly effective, whereas additionally providing extra VRAM.

Not like the 9070 XT, nonetheless, it’s not a clear win for the 9070. Whereas the 9070 can match and even beat the RTX 5070 in some ray tracing exams, the latter is faster at path tracing, and its assist for multi body gen could make for actually easy body charges in the fitting circumstances too. The truth that FSR 4 is just supported in a handful of video games proper now additionally makes the RTX 5070 look extra interesting in quite a lot of video games, because the picture high quality of DLSS seems to be a lot better than FSR 3, particularly with the brand new DLSS 4 transformer mannequin.

The principle downside for the 9070, although, isn’t a lot the RTX 5070, however AMD’s personal 9070 XT. The distinction between the GPUs won’t be $50 when inventory is brief, however it’s a proportionally related worth distinction, and the 9070 XT is considerably extra highly effective. For those who can afford to stretch your price range, we’d completely suggest shopping for the 9070 XT over both the 9070 or RTX 5070.

The Radeon RX 9070 is a strong mid-range gaming GPU, if you’ll find it in inventory, however it must be cheaper (each in actual phrases and in MSRP) to make it actually value contemplating over the 9070 XT.

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