AMDs latest $550 graphics card is a strange beast, and thatsthe fault of AMD.
Despite that, the RX 9070s main competition isnt Nvidia.
AMDsRadeon RX 9070 XTat $600 offers a major performance bump above the slightly cheaper card.
© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
You may have read the same line from reviews of theNvidia GeForce RTX 5070that launched on Tuesday.
These cards are already equivalent in manufacturer-suggested price.
However, in our tests, the RX 9070 has the edge in synthetic benchmarks and in some games.
© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
The Radeon RX 9070 XT plays ball with theRTX 5070 Ti,but for $150 less MSRP.
Read on, and Ill explain more.
The RX 9070 has 56 compute units compared to the RX 9070 XTs 64.
© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
The RX 9070 includes 112 AI accelerators, whereas its more expensive sibling has an additional 16.
For review, AMD sent us theAcer Nitro Radeon RX 9070 16 GBgraphics card.
Its a two-slot, three-fan GPU configuration that looks as common as any other card on the market.
© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
It gets the job done, though.
The card was grave-silent inside my PC tower, theOrigin PC Neuron 3500X.
The card includes three DisplayPort 2.1 ports and a single HDMI 2.1 port.
Also unlike Nvidia, AMD sticks with the dual 8-pin power connectors to power the GPU.
Our specs included an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU and 32 GB of DDR5, 6400 MT/s RAM.
Benchmarks love AMDs cards.
In 3D Mark Port Royal, the RX 9070 scored 17819 compared to 13835 on the RTX 5070.
As for AI performance, benchmarks show AMDs cards hold a strong edge over Nvidia.
The Radeon RX 9070 issued a 25961 quantified score in Geekbench AI.
This also beat the RTX 5070 Ti.
There will still be games that wont meet or beat Nvidias similarly-priced GPU.
Other games may struggle slightly compared to Nvidias RTX 50-series.
With ray tracing turned on, I saw framerates in the mid to low 30s.
There was frame hitching inDragon Age: The Veilguardand excessive frame drops inHogwarts Legacy.
Just know AMDs Adrenalin software is still working out the kinks.
Everybody likes options, and the RX 9070 is certainly a contender at its price point.
Still, I cant say it should be your first choice.
AMD gets a reputation for championing hardware while letting its software struggle, at least compared to Nvidia.
Well, Nvidias an AI company before it was a gaming hardware company, so thats not too surprising.
Its also an unfair comparison.
The only issue is there are so few games that currently support it.
AMD has a lot of catching up to do.
But what does that mean for the RX 9070?
A lower-level GPU depends more on AI upscaling to hit the highs you need it to.
Even with that support, we doubt that 4K will always be within your grasp on this $550.
In that way, its great for 1440p, just as much as the RTX 5070 was.
Only, in that case, there are more games to choose from that support upscaling.
But that doesnt matter, since the RX 9070 XT exists for just $50 more.
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