AMD's New GPUs: A Fresh Challenge to Nvidia

AMD has just launched two new graphics cards, the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT. These cards are priced at $549 and $599 respectively, and they are set to give Nvidia a run for its money in the midrange market. The RX 9070 is around 17 percent faster than Nvidia’s RTX 5070 in 4K without upscaling enabled. The RX 9070 XT is as fast as the RTX 5070 Ti for $150 less. This is a big deal because Nvidia’s cards have been dominating the market. The RX 9070 series is a good deal for gamers who want high performance without breaking the bank. AMD hasn’t created reference cards for the RX 9070 series, so the end result is designs from add-in board partners that look very similar to the ones used for previous generations of Radeon GPUs. The Gigabyte RX 9070 is longer and bulkier than the RTX 5070. The XFX 9070 XT is also a 3. 5-slot card, so it takes up far more space in a case than the two-slot RTX 5080 or 5090 Founders Edition or even the 2. 5-slot RTX 5070 Ti card. AMD has also stuck to using two 8-pin PCIe power connectors with the RX 9070 series, instead of switching to 12VHPWR. It does mean you’ll need to run two PCIe connectors to both the RX 9070 and 9070 XT, but you won’t need to worry about PSU compatibility or the risk of a 12VHPWR connector melting. Both the RX 9070 and 9070 XT ship with 16GB of VRAM, which is a good amount at these prices. Nvidia only has 12GB of VRAM on its $549 RTX 5070, so you’re certainly getting more value from a $549 RX 9070 here — especially if you’re looking at 4K gaming where VRAM demands are higher. The RX 9070 comfortably beats Nvidia’s RTX 5070 at both 4K and 1440p. It’s 17 percent faster at 4K and nearly 20 percent faster at 1440p. The RX 9070 XT competes with Nvidia’s $749 RTX 5070 Ti, with an average frame rate difference of less than 1 percent without upscaling across the nine games we tested. The differences between these two cards really come down to the individual games, with the RX 9070 XT less than 5 percent behind the RTX 5070 Ti in titles like Returnal and Metro Exodus Enhanced. The RX 9070 XT isn’t that far behind AMD’s previous flagship, the $999 RX 7900 XTX, either. I found the XTX was less than 2 percent faster at 4K and 1440p tests without upscaling enabled. That’s a small performance gap, considering the price differences between these cards. AMD’s 9000-series GPUs are built on top of the company’s RDNA 4 architecture, which AMD says offers twice the rasterization graphics performance per compute unit as RDNA 2. This new architecture also includes improvements to boost ray-tracing performance. In Metro Exodus Enhanced with ultra ray tracing enabled, the RX 9070 XT is nearly 7 percent faster than the RX 7900 XTX, but it’s 4 percent behind the RTX 5070 Ti. Nvidia still reigns supreme in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with ray tracing and upscaling enabled, though, with the RTX 5070 Ti 16 percent ahead of the RX 9070 XT. The RDNA 4 architecture also includes a new version of AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling, which now uses dedicated AI accelerator hardware to improve frame rates and image quality — much like Nvidia’s DLSS. FSR 4 is exclusive to these new RX 9070 graphics cards, and it works in all games that have FSR 3. 1 integrated. All you have to do is flick a switch in the AMD software, and FSR 4 will be enabled automatically in supported games. With FSR 4, AMD hasn’t followed Nvidia with Multi Frame Generation, instead focusing on improving image quality in upscaled games. I tested FSR 4 in both Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. The FSR 4 changes are more obvious in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. In Black Ops 6, the advances are immediately obvious. The current FSR 3. 1 implementation often results in a more soft or blurry image, which is especially noticeable in text on walls or objects that are slightly further away. FSR 4 makes the overall image look a lot sharper and, in some cases, even better than the native 4K output. A police car has a blurry numberplate and logo in FSR 3. 1 quality mode. But in FSR 4 quality, it’s upscaled correctly, and the entire car looks a lot sharper as a result. Details on buildings are also more clear, and even enemies look more detailed in motion with FSR 4. And this all comes without a noticeable performance hit, which is great. The FSR 4 improvements are less obvious in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, and I struggled to notice any difference between FSR 3. 1 quality and FSR 4 quality modes. While this might suggest your mileage may vary with FSR 4 quality, I was able to use ultra performance FSR 4 and get surprisingly good visual quality and higher frame rates from the game. Beyond gaming, the RX 9070 cards are both a lot more capable for AI workloads. In Procyon’s AI XL (FP16) test, the RX 9070 XT is more than 40 percent faster than the RX 7900 XTX, but it’s around 20 percent behind the AI performance of the RTX 5070. The RX 9070 is also more than 40 percent faster in the AI XL test over the RX 7900 XT, but the RTX 5070 is nearly 40 percent faster in this AI workload test. It’s great to see AMD lower power supply requirements and power draw on its latest Radeon GPUs. AMD recommends a 750-watt power supply for the RX 9070 XT, for its 304 watts of total board power. I’ve found it delivers performance close to the RX 7900 XTX while using 40 watts less power at 4K. The 9070 XT averaged at 303 watts during my tests, while the 7900 XTX averaged 346 watts. It’s the same story for the RX 9070. AMD recommends a 650-watt power supply for this card, 100 watts less than the 750-watt recommendation for the 7900 XT. In my tests, the RX 9070 averaged 244 watts, while the 7900 XT averaged more than 25 percent more power draw at 307 watts. That’s a big efficiency improvement, and it’s only 34 more watts of power draw than the RTX 5070 for a noticeable performance gap between these two $549 cards. The RX 9070 also hit a maximum temperature of 60 degrees Celsius in my open testbench, compared to 70C for the RX 7900 XT. The RX 9070 XT reached just 55C in my testing, compared to 71C for the RX 7900 XTX. Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Founders Edition card reached 77C in the same tests, with MSI’s Ventus 3 RTX 5070 Ti reaching 68C. AMD’s latest generation of Radeon GPUs are more efficient and run cooler than its previous generation, and they also run cooler than Nvidia’s direct competitors. That’s a clear win for AMD. AMD has priced its RX 9070-series cards really aggressively, particularly with the $599 RX 9070 XT being $150 cheaper than the RTX 5070 Ti. The $549 RX 9070 is the same price as Nvidia’s RTX 5070, but it beats the 5070 in every game I’ve tested, sometimes by a big margin. If AMD manages to have these cards in stock at these prices, then it’s going to shake up the important midrange of the GPU market. The question is whether it can chip away at Nvidia’s dominance. In addition to (or because of) its 90 percent market share, Nvidia also has an advantage in how many more games support DLSS than FSR. And DLSS is so popular that 80 percent of RTX owners activate it in games. FSR 4 improves image quality to compete more closely with DLSS, but AMD still needs game developers to implement it. Nvidia lets you simply force DLSS 4 in games, so you don’t need to wait on developers at all. The stickiness of DLSS could tempt PC gamers to spend a little more to stay with Nvidia, and I haven’t seen enough from FSR 4 yet to know whether it can compete with the upscaling improvements Nvidia made with DLSS 4. Nvidia’s Game Ready Drivers are also an advantage; the company works with developers to optimize drivers for games before they launch, whereas AMD has long had driver issues with a variety of games. I haven’t run into any issues while testing the RX 9070 series, but I can’t promise that will be the case when new games are released. While AMD says it has been working hard on improving its drivers, only time will tell. Either way, AMD’s RX 9070-series cards are a clear indication that it’s not giving the entire GPU market to Nvidia. It’s willing to compete on performance and price, and that’s a winning formula if AMD manages to keep those prices under control.