Here we are (at last)! AMD has officially launched its AMD RX 9070 and AMD RX 9070 XT graphics cards. While we had been waiting for the announcements to be made at CES 2025, it is finally on February 28 that we learn officially of the launch of these two models. Please note that AMD will not be offering reference cards, so only graphics cards from the Reds’ partners will be on the market. Below is a link to the press conference:
Official prices: 9070 XT $599 / 9070 $549
We’ve had AMD’s official prices for a few minutes now, and they confirm the leaks from China. We’re looking at $549 for the RX 9070 and $599 for the RX 9070 XT. It remains to be seen how the conversion will work in Europe, since these US prices are exclusive of VAT. Logically, then, we could be looking at versions of the 9070 XT starting at €719 incl. VAT… We’ll have to wait until March 6 for these confirmations.
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 series:
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 series graphics cards are built on the new AMD RDNA 4 architecture with new ray tracing and AI accelerators as well as support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 4, more traditionally known as, AMD FSR 4. This should offer improvements in image quality over AMD FSR 3.1 upscaling.
AMD seems to have determined that $700 was the maximum price gamers were willing to pay for an upgrade. This is therefore a major factor that AMD has taken into account in order to offer these first two models in the AMD Radeon RTX 9070 series. The slide below shows where the RX 9070 series will be positioned in terms of price, but it doesn’t say anything about performance.
If the performance of these two new cards is anything to go by, they could well be a direct competitor to the NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti, priced at $749 with an MSRP in Europe of €884.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 16GB :
Let’s start with the RX 9070 model, which has a NAVI 48 chip, 56 processing units, a boost frequency of 2.52 GHz, a total of 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and a TDP of 220 watts. It also boasts a PCIe 5.0 port, DisplayPort 2.1a and HDMI 2.1b.
AMD compares the performance of this new RX 9070 with various graphics cards. On the slide above, the RX 9070 is claimed to perform more than 38% better than the RTX 6800 XT and more than 26% better than the RTX 3080 in 4K definition. That’s all well and good, but we’d have preferred to see comparisons with more recent models.
In the other two slides provided to us, the performance of the RX 9070 is compared to the RX 7900 GRE, with a gain of 20% at 1440p and 21% at 2160p.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT 16GB :
The second card announced is the RX 9070 XT, also featuring a NAVI 48 chip, 64 processing units, a 2.97 GHz boost frequency, a total of 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and a TDP of 304 watts.
Comparisons are first made with the RX 6900 XT, where AMD claims a 51% gain, and with the RTX 3090, which claims a 26% gain, again in 2160p definition.
To maintain a certain logic, the other two slides compare the RX 7900 GRE. At 1440p, the gains are 38% and at 2160p, 42%. So we can make a quick shortcut and say that the RX 9070 XT should perform 18% better than the RX 9070 in 1440p and 21% better in 2160p. Of course, this is all supposition.
FSR 4 arrives with RDNA 4 architecture:
The FSR4 will only be compatible with RDNA 4 cards. For the launch of its Radeon RX 9070 series, AMD is announcing more than thirty compatible games, including and by the end of the year, more than 75 titles that will support FSR4.
This third generation of ray tracing accelerators should deliver even more realistic lighting, shadows and reflections. AMD has announced that its ray tracing capabilities will be twice those of RDNA 3.
We’ll also be coming back in our tests to see if this has already been deployed on the AFMF 2.1, i.e. the AMD Fluid Motion Frame. The special feature of this technology is that it works in the same way as Frame Generation, but only via the graphics drivers. The principle is still to insert an intermediate image between two native images, but as this technology does not use motion vectors, if it does not know the direction of the next image, AFMF is deactivated for a fraction of a second. AMD says it will release version 2.1 at the same time as FSR 4, and we’re very curious to see what improvements are made.
AMD has announced that these new second-generation AI accelerators benefit from throughput that is up to 8 times greater than that of previous generations. We will have the opportunity to test them with our various AI benchmarks in our GPU test protocol.
So, what about this new AMD Radeon RX 9070 series?
On paper, AMD is making a fine promise, and it could well overshadow the (chaotic) launch of NVIDIA’s RTX 5000s. While AMD has indeed postponed its plans for January, and the cards are already available in large numbers from wholesalers, good performance in our tests could well reshuffle the deck! But once again, it’s our tests that will evaluate this performance, and above all the prices in euros of the two models announced by AMD, the RX 9070 and the RX 9070 XT.
For our part, as was the case with the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX, we still don’t understand AMD’s decision to launch two models with a price difference of $50! People will certainly still prefer the XT model. Why not offer an RX 9070 XT and an RX 9060 XT model at $459 or $499? In short, availability is scheduled for March 6, and we’re expecting to see tests on the day of, or the day before, the launch.
