AMD announced its new RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT at the end of last week, and the reaction has been positive – especially if prices can remain as low as MSRP for the release on March 6th. That’s just a few days away, and there’s still a lot to dig into regarding the performance of these cards. Based on AMD’s internal testing, the RX 9070 XT is about on par with Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Ti.

However, in some cases, Team Red has demonstrated that the 9070 XT actually outperforms the 5070 Ti. This is evident in 4K, and we’re talking about a card that is set to cost $150 cheaper than the competition, or even more so, considering the price hikes for Nvidia’s 50 series cards so far.

RX 9070 XT at $599 is for the 304W model, AMD confirms

First things first, AMD openly admits that the RX 9070 XT is 2% slower than the 5070 Ti at 4K Ultra Settings. This is no problem at all considering the large MSRP gap ($599 versus $749), with both cards offering 16GB of VRAM and ~300W total board power.

AMD makes significant gains in titles such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Ghost of Tsushima, 24% and 16% faster than the Team Green rival at native 4K, respectively. In contrast, Nvidia continues to dominate the ray tracing benchmarks, but the RX 9000 series still offers “Significant Gen over Gen gains in RT titles” compared to the 7000 series.

340W partner cards are going to cost you a little extra

Tech leaker and outspoken AMD fan Tomasz Gawroński was sighted celebrating the performance gains of the RX 9070 #XT over the RTX 5070 Ti in 4K, referencing a slide that boasts 2% faster gaming averaged across 30+ games. However, it’s important to point out that these benchmarks are for high-end partner cards featuring up to 340W of board power.

We have yet to see how exactly the pricing will differ for these models – or which SKUs will feature it – but the interjection from AMD’s Frank Azor more or less confirms that they won’t be selling for the $599 price tag of the “standard clock speed” 304W cards. It’s worth noting that there will be no reference cards for the 9070 series, but AMD has still promised “Excellent availability across all markets” by working closely with its partners.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.