Incredibly Efficient: AMD RX 9070 GPU Review & Benchmarks vs. 9070 XT, RTX 5070

The quickest possible version is this: For the 9070 XT vs. the 9070, the XT model is in the range of 9% to 16% better at 4K and 1440p rasterized, but typically is about 11-13% better than the 9070 in our suite of tested games. At 1080p, it’s 6% to 15% better, with most cases around 9% to 11% for the games we tested.

As for the RTX 5070, it’s not looking good for NVIDIA’s card you shouldn’t buy: At 4K and rasterized, the 9070 leads the 5070 by 0% to 18%, depending on game. It has one loss in Final Fantasy and it has losses in some ray tracing tests, but not all of them, which is interesting.

The 5070 is basically out of the conversation, so we’re left with the 9070 XT or the 9070 at this price point -- which is what AMD probably wants, because the 9070 is priced in a way that the 9070 XT becomes an easy upsell. That might be to do with yields. If they’re yielding enough XTs that they don’t really want to sell non-XTs, maybe that’s the strategy. 

We’re not going to spend much time on the specs and architecture today. We’re also going to speedrun the charts and shorten the comparisons. If you want the full depth, check out our 9070 XT review. That contains some more discussion of results and some more architectural information. Our news video about the 9070 series has even more architecture background than that.

AMD RX 9070 Overview & Specs

The RX 9070 has 56 Compute Units, with the 9070 XT running 64 CUs. Both are 16 GB cards with GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus. The GPUs have slightly different clocks. Both GPUs get the architectural overhauls of RDNA 4 and there’s no difference there, so the same ray tracing changes apply to the 9070 as the XT. The only real main difference is the move to 56 CUs.

And that’s sort of it. 

We’ll save the pricing recap for post-launch -- we want to monitor launch for the next day or two to get an idea of availability of both the 5070 and 9070 series, plus the pricing they land at.

Let’s just get straight into the data.

RX 9070 Game Benchmarks

Dragon’s Dogma 2 - 4K

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is up first and at 4K initially.

In this test, the RX 9070 non-XT ran at 64 FPS AVG, with lows at 54 and 53. The 9070 XT’s 70 FPS result positions it 9% ahead, which is exactly how much higher the base MSRP is.

Against the equivalently priced RTX 5070, this is one of AMD’s stronger titles: The 9070 Pulse leads the 5070 FE’s 56 FPS AVG by 14% here, with 1% and 0.1% lows improved in-step with the average. The 9070 is achieving 87% of the performance of the 5070 Ti, but at 73% of the base MSRP.

The RX 9070 leads the RX 7800 XT (watch our review) by 37% here as well. We’ll look at the 6700 XT elsewhere.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 - 1440p

At 1440p, the RX 9070 ran at 106 FPS AVG, with the 9070 XT leading it at 116 FPS (or 9.3%). The 5070 Ti is only a few FPS higher than the 9070 XT, with the 4080 Super (read our review) just beyond that. In short, the 9070 is achieving 88% of the 4080 Super’s performance, which was a $1,000 card, but at 55% of the original MSRP. Despite our wishes that the 9070 were $50 cheaper, this at least helps to slowly reset the runaway pricing that NVIDIA set in motion. This gives everyone some perspective.

For some comparisons against prior generations: The 9070 improves on the 67 FPS result of the 7700 XT (watch our review) by 59%, the 53 FPS result of the 6700 XT by 100%, and the 42 FPS of the 6600 XT by 152%.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 - 1080p

Here’s 1080p. The old GTX 1060 and 1070 also appear on this chart to give some insight into upgrades, though anything modern would be better. There’s no point getting into percentages for those: They go from unplayable to playable.

The RX 9070 is about tied with the RX 7900 XT. The 9070 XT still leads by around 8%, with the 5070 Ti (read our review) ahead of the 9070 by 13%. The 9070 leads the RTX 5070 DOA edition by 6%. The lead over the 6700 XT is 96%, with the improvement on the 6600 non-XT’s 49 FPS result at 173%.

FFXIV 4K

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail is up now. We included this same disclaimer and disclosure in our RX 9070 XT review, but to recap: We’ve noticed lower performance for the 9070 series specifically in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, including lower results than AMD’s own claims. We’ve had highly reliable results in this benchmark and our RX 9070 series data has been repeatable across multiple retests, so we’re publishing it, but we just want to highlight that there is disproportionately low performance for the 9070s and that it is something we’re investigating. It’s possible it could be the specific scene, benchmark version, or just the architecture’s behavior here. But the results are repeatable, so we’re running them.

At 4K, the RX 9070 continues the scaling pattern set by the 9070 XT. The XT is again 9% ahead. 

The 5070 FE leads both of the cards in this test, running at 78 FPS AVG and improving upon the 9070’s result of 63 FPS by 24%. Against the prior generation, the 9070 XT sees a smaller improvement on the 6700 XT of 53%. 

FFXIV 1440p

At 1440p, the 9070 ran at 126 FPS AVG. The 9070 XT is 10% ahead here, with the 5070 ahead by 21%. Improvement over last generation is non-existent, with the 7800 XT right next to the 9070.

Resident Evil 4 - 4K

Resident Evil 4 is up next, tested at 4K first.

The 9070 ran at 91 FPS AVG here, creating a 13% lead for the 9070 XT and its 103 FPS result. The 9070 XT was excitingly right next to the 4080 Super’s 105 FPS in this game, meaning that the same $1,000 4080 Super result leads the $550 MSRP 9070 by only 16%. That’s a paltry gain for such a huge price difference, especially given how new the 4080 Super is.

AMD’s 9070 exceeds the performance of the same-MSRP RTX 5070’s 78 FPS by 16%. If NVIDIA would stop remaking 4070 Supers (read our review) and 4080s, they might actually make some progress here.

Resident Evil 4 - 1440p

At 1440p, the RX 9070 ran at 172 FPS AVG and outperformed the 3090 Ti. 

The 9070 XT outperforms the 9070 by 13%, with the 5070 Ti only slightly beyond that result.

Against the 5070’s 152 FPS AVG, the 9070 runs 13% ahead. The 5070 really does look even more DOA than previously in some of these tests. If it were a dead horse, it’d be getting kicked right now.

Resident Evil 4 - 1080p

1080p is up now. The 9070 ran at 247 FPS AVG here, which had it between the 4070 Ti (watch our review) and 4070 Ti Super. The 5070 still trails, now giving the 9070 a lead of 10%.

The XT model maintains about a 12% advantage over the non-XT.

Black Myth: Wukong - 4K

Black Myth: Wukong is a much more challenging title for AMD to run, but mostly with ray tracing. Either way, there should be some more favor for NVIDIA here. Even without RT, it’s a heavy game. The ray tracing tests will come later.

At 4K and rasterized, the RX 9070 ran at 41 FPS AVG against the 9070 XT’s 46, giving the latter a lead of 11%. The 7900 XTX sits ahead of the 9070 XT. The 9070 ends up still leading the RTX 5070, albeit on a technicality, which is actually a huge victory for AMD in this particular title. That’ll change with RT, but this is a good position overall in raster.

Black Myth: Wukong - 1440p

At 1440p, the RX 9070 held 75 FPS AVG with well-paced lows, sitting at 65 and 60 FPS for 1% and 0.1%. This is consistent (and good) frametime pacing, but it’s about the same as all of its neighbors, so nothing exceptional.

The 5070 ran at 72.1 FPS AVG. The difference between the two cards is imperceptible and shows up in measurements, but would not be noticeable to an end user. 

The 9070 XT’s 83 FPS result has it again about 11% ahead of the 9070, so that’s pretty predictable now.

To just highlight some landmarks: The 2060 ran at 25 FPS and tied the RX 6600, the 6600 XT ran at 29 FPS AVG, and the 3060 ran at 31 FPS AVG.

Black Myth: Wukong - 1080p

At 1080p, the 9070’s 104 FPS AVG allowed it to finally start gaining some distance on the 5070. It’s not a meaningful swing at 6% improved, but is in favor of the 9070. If AMD were $50 cheaper, it’d be a clear victory. Unfortunately for AMD, a tie will often be decided in NVIDIA’s favor by most buyers, especially with the complications of RT and software suites. But still, beating the 5070 in this game is an achievement for the 9070.

Starfield - 4K

Starfield is up now, tested at 4K. In this one, the RX 9070 ran at 63 FPS AVG and roughly tied the RTX 4070 Ti Super. The 9070 outperforms the RTX 5070’s 54 FPS AVG by 17%, which is starting to be wide enough that NVIDIA needs to be concerned…if they basically weren’t a monopoly. The 5070 Ti falls below the 9070 XT in this one and only leads the non-XT by about 6 FPS. Hardly enough to spend $200 more for. The proximity to the 4080 (watch our review) and 4080 Super also isn’t great news for NVIDIA.

Starfield - 1440p

At 1440p, the RX 9070 ran at 96 FPS AVG and nearly tied the 4070 Ti Super again. The 5070 Ti outperforms the 9070 by a lame 5.4%, with the 9070 XT outperforming the 9070 by 10%. 

Against the 5070’s 83 FPS AVG, the 9070 leads by 15%. If the 5070 weren’t already in the grave, we’d pronounce its impending demise. We might want the 9070 to be a bit cheaper just to see that balance for the times it loses or is tied, but even without that, we can’t deny that AMD is putting up its best fight against NVIDIA in years.

Starfield - 1080p

At 1080p, the 9070 runs at 118 FPS AVG. The relative rank hasn’t moved much. It leads the RTX 5070 by 14% here, so the lead has slightly reduced, but it’s still ahead. The 9070 XT leads the 9070 by 8%.

Dying Light 2 - 4K

In Dying Light 2 at 4K, the RX 9070 ran at 56 FPS AVG and kept lows remarkably close by, at 50 and 41 -- but not in any more remarkable way than all of its neighbors. This game is just consistent.

The 9070 ends up tied with the 5070. There is no difference between these two and, in these situations, NVIDIA will generally be viewed more favorably by a mainstream audience. That’s where the price would come in, or hopefully awareness of the other results.

The 9070 XT leads the 9070 by 11%, so you’d be paying 9% more at MSRP for about 11% more performance.

This is one of the games where the 5070 Ti pulled ahead of the 9070 XT in a noteworthy way, so we see some of that apply to the 9070 and 5070.

Dying Light 2 - 1440p

At 1440p, the 9070 runs at 106 FPS AVG and ties the 5070 again. They’re within error of each other. The 9070 XT outperforms the 9070 by 11%, with the 5070 Ti still ahead of the XT. Generationally, we’ll just briefly highlight the RX 6600 (watch our review), RTX 2060 (watch our review), and RTX 3060 (watch our review) as reference points to some of the most common GPUs of past generations. Those should give you an idea of the performance gains.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty - 4K

Cyberpunk is up now. This one has generally been tough for AMD in the past, but is harder for it with ray tracing. We’ll start with rasterized testing and at 4K.

The results are thus far positive: We already knew that the 9070 XT outmatched the 5070 Ti, but now the 9070 is nearly tying the RTX 4080. That’s just embarrassing for NVIDIA’s last-gen mid-range-posed-as-a-flagship GPU as compared to a $550 card. The 9070 technically outperforms the 7900 XT as well, though is basically tied, and the lead over the 5070 is 15% again. 

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty - 1440p

At 1440p, the 9070 now falls slightly below the 7900 XT, so they’ve traded places as resolution came down, and the 5070 has also gotten closer. The 9070 is now about 11% ahead of the 5070 rather than 15% before. The 9070 XT leads the 9070 by 11% and the 5070 Ti slightly.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty - 1080p

In Phantom Liberty at 1080p now, the 9070 landed at 148 FPS AVG, allowing the 7900 XT (watch our review) to maintain its slight lead. The improvement in the 9070 over the 5070 is now down to 7% from 15% at 4K originally. If we dropped it down to 360p, based on this trend, NVIDIA might actually pull ahead. Great. Just like they’ve wanted -- maybe that’s the push for DLSS.

RX 9070 Ray Tracing Benchmarks

Ray tracing is up. This is where AMD has invested heavy effort with its architecture but all of it has been to try and catch up. NVIDIA was so far ahead in some games that AMD won’t be able to catch them in all scenarios. The real question is how much closer do they get this time.

Ray Tracing - Black Myth: Wukong 4K

We’ll start with AMD’s worst case: Black Myth - Wukong, but now with ray tracing and at 4K with upscaling.

The 9070 ran at 26 FPS AVG here, so outdoing the 3070 Ti (watch our review) but below the 3080 (watch our review) from 2020. The 3080’s original MSRP was around $700, although that really only held for a week or two before COVID-era scalping went crazy.

The 9070 XT outdoes the 9070 by 14% here. This is too low of a framerate to be playable, but we do the test for relative scaling and percent scaling.

The RTX 5070 crushes the 9070 here, holding a 57% lead over the AMD GPU. The 5070 Ti’s scaling over the 9070 XT was better and nearly 80%, but 57% is still huge for the 5070 over the 9070. If you want to play Black Myth with ray tracing, like we said in the 9070 XT review, you basically only buy NVIDIA.

Lows are where NVIDIA will struggle the most for 5070 VRAM capacity. In this particular test, we aren’t hitting VRAM saturation; however, we have shown instances where the 5070 hits saturation with heavy workloads and higher resolutions, leading to heavy stutter like in the Cyberpunk RT 4K scenario.

Ray Tracing - Black Myth: Wukong 1440p

At 1440p upscaled, the 9070 pushed 47 FPS. This gave the 9070 XT about a 6 FPS lead, nearly tied the 3080, and outperformed the 3070 Ti and 7900 XTX notably. The improvement over the 7900 XTX (watch our review) shows that AMD has actually executed on its RT performance uplifts.

But unfortunately for AMD, the 5070 remains superior with a 73 FPS AVG. It leads the 9070 by 55%.

Ray Tracing - Black Myth: Wukong 1080p

At 1080p, the 9070 measured at 67 FPS AVG and pushed past the 3080. The 9070 XT leads by 9%. The 5070 leads the 9070 by 46%, so it’s slightly reduced, but still has an unbeatable lead.

Ray Tracing - Dragon’s Dogma 2 4K

Dragon’s Dogma 2 with ray tracing is next, tested at 4K first. We measured the 9070 at 56 FPS AVG, giving the 9070 XT a lead of 9%. The 4080 isn’t much past that, so for as close as these cards are, they’re also very close to the 4080 and 4080 Super. The 5070 trails in this one, giving the 9070 a lead of 15%.

Ray Tracing - Dragon’s Dogma 2 1440p

At 1440p, the 9070 gets dangerously close to NVIDIA’s 5070 Ti, which failed to pass the 9070 XT in the previous review. The 5070 Ti leads the 9070 by 9%, the same lead as the 9070 XT has against it. The 5070 non-Ti is down at 83 FPS AVG, creating a 13% lead for the 9070.

This chart has entries for the 6700 XT (watch our review) and other prior GPUs.

Ray Tracing - Dragon’s Dogma 2 1080p

At 1080p, the 9070 ran at 119 FPS AVG and led the 7900 XT by a few frames per second. The lead over the 5070’s 107 FPS AVG was 11%. The 9070 XT has a reduced lead over the non-XT at this resolution, now just 6% ahead of the cheaper card.

Ray Tracing - Dying Light 2 4K

Dying Light 2 with upscaling at 4K is up now, this time with ray tracing. The 9070 XT leads the 9070 by a higher-than-average lead of 16% here. The 9070 ends up below the 5070 in this one also, with the 5070 producing a lead of 9% over AMD’s most relevant card. 

Ray Tracing - Dying Light 2 1440p

At 1440p, the 9070 runs at 78 FPS AVG and gives the 9070 XT a lead of about 10-11 FPS. The 9070 XT’s prior 16% lead is now reduced to 14%. The 5070 is also reduced to a 4% lead from a 9% lead at 4K. The 9070 was really struggling with the 4K resolution.

Ray Tracing - Dying Light 2 1080p

Finally for this game, 1080p puts the 5070 at just 1 FPS ahead now, so basically margin of error. The 9070 XT leads the 9070 by 13%.

Ray Tracing - Resident Evil 4 4K

In Resident Evil 4 with ray tracing and at 4K upscaled, the 9070 held a 104 FPS AVG and outperformed the 4070 Ti Super and 5070. The boost over the 5070 is 14% here. The 9070 XT ran 12% higher framerate than the non-XT, with the 5070 Ti basically tied with that.

This chart has a lot of cards lower down the stack, like the 2060 (watch our review), 3060 (watch our review), 2070 (watch our review), and 6700 XT for past generation comparisons.

Ray Tracing - Resident Evil 4 1440p

At 1440p upscaled, the 9070 ran at 162 FPS AVG and roughly tied the prior 7900 XT. The 9070 XT was 11% ahead of the non-XT here, with the non-XT ahead of the 5070 by 9%.

Ray Tracing - Cyberpunk 4K RT Ultra

Cyberpunk is up now, one of the two heavier titles we test for RT. We test this one at two groups of settings: Ultra and Medium, chosen because NVIDIA gains a disproportionate advantage at Ultra, while Medium pushes them closer together. That gives us the full picture.

At 4K and RT Ultra just to stress test it for relative scaling, the RX 9070 ran at 18 FPS AVG. Obviously this is unplayable, but this makes the point we made in our 5070 review: The 0.1% lows suffer on the 5070 in a big way. That’s because they’re indicating to us that underneath those lows, which really are just meant to be an indicator of a problem, there’s spiky and erratic frametime performance. This is caused by exceeding VRAM limitations on the 5070, which simply isn’t equipped enough to deal with these problems.

Ray Tracing - Cyberpunk 4K RT Medium

At 4K Medium, the 9070 boosted up to 24 FPS. No change in how playable it is, but even this lighter-weight workload is too much for the 5070 FE’s capacity, which you can again see in its lows.

The 9070 XT leads the 9070 by 15% here, one of the higher percent increases.

Ray Tracing - Cyberpunk 1080p RT Ultra

Reducing the resolution helps reach playable framerates. At 1080p and RT Ultra, the 9070 held 61 FPS AVG against the 9070 XT’s 71. That’s a relatively large advantage of 16% for the 9070 XT.

The RTX 5070 ran at 64 FPS here, outdoing the 9070 by just 5.7%.

Ray Tracing - Cyberpunk 1080p RT Medium

Finally for games, the Cyberpunk 1080p/Medium results put the 9070 at 81 FPS AVG, roughly tying the 7900 XTX. This also puts it above the 3080. The 5070 ran at 81.9 FPS AVG and lows were within error of the 9070. There is no distinct advantage in lows for the 9070 here. Average is the same, which is a major positive for AMD when considering its previous RT deficit.

Power Efficiency Testing

Efficiency: F1 24 4K

We’re moving on to power and efficiency testing now, which looks at both the total power consumption of the device during the test and the frame rate. The end result is that we can calculate the efficiency in performance per Watt. It’s actually a really exciting test for the 9070. 

In F1 24 at 4K and with RT, AMD has exceptional performance. These are only showing two decimals, but more are processed for the bar width. The 9070 roughly tied with the 4080 Super and 5090 FE (beware of scalped prices) as the most efficient GPU in our test suite.

The 5070 was at 0.17 FPS/W, giving the 9070 an advantage of 24%. That’s a huge swing in its favor. The 9070 XT was closer to the 5070.

Efficiency: F1 24 1080p

At 1080p but with the same settings and game, the 9070 again ends up just behind first place. It’s tied with the 5070 Ti and just behind the 0.64 result of the 5080 (read our review). The 9070 XT burns more power and, although its performance is better, the tradeoff favors the 9070 here. The 5070 ends up way down the ranks, at 0.55 here.

Efficiency: FFXIV 4K

Final Fantasy 4K is up next. This is one of AMD’s weaker showings given its limited performance scaling in Final Fantasy 14.

The 9070 pulled 224W during this test when measured at the PCIe cables and the slot. The 5070 pulled 10W more, but had better efficiency from its higher performance. The end result is that the 9070 outdid the 7900 XT for efficiency, but gave the 5070 a lead of about 18%. For reference, the 9070 XT pulled 310W here, roughly matching their TDPs.

Efficiency: FFXIV 1440p

At 1440p, the 9070 ranked at 0.56 FPS/W with a 224W draw. That has the 4060 as more efficient, the B570 slightly less efficient, and the 7900 XT also slightly less efficient. The NVIDIA 5070’s 0.65 FPS/W result outdoes the 9070 again here, but we’ll see if that persists outside of AMD’s weakest rasterization title.

Efficiency: Dragon’s Dogma 2 RT 1440p

Dragon’s Dogma 2 with RT shows exceptional efficiency for the RX 9070, at 224W again and 0.42 FPS/W, it’s looking pretty good overall. The performance is slightly lower than that of the 9070 XT, but the reduction in power really puts it in a better spot on the efficiency curve. It seems like this is more of the so-called “sweet spot” for power to performance. The 5070 is down at 0.36 FPS/W, despite pulling 231W.

Efficiency: Starfield 1440p

In Starfield at 1440p, the 9070 is less impressive than in F1 and Dragon’s Dogma 2, but still overall good. Its result was 0.43 FPS/W, a large improvement on the 9070 XT’s 0.34. The 9070 ties the RTX 5070, which is a problem for NVIDIA because efficiency was one of NVIDIA’s main benefits with the 5070 Ti against the 9070 XT so if AMD is starting to chip that away, that’s bad news for NVIDIA. That’s kind of one of the key things the company has stood upon for being more expensive in the past. 

AMD RX 9070 Conclusion

First, the 9070 gets credit for being relatively power efficient. It’s basically tied at the top in a few of our charts, though not all of them, but it’s looking better there. In our 9070 XT review, we said that AMD’s decision to favor performance over cutting power was the right move for the company right now. We think that remains true for the card that’s supposed to be its flagship, but for the 9070, the power cut helps create the difference between the cards to begin with, but the baseline performance is high enough that it ends up in a great efficiency position.

The 9070 XT ends up ahead of the 9070 by about 9-12% in most of the games we tested, with the 5070 generally giving the 9070 a lead in several games. Dragon’s Dogma 2 at 4K was playable on both, but the 9070 had about a 14% advantage over the 5070. The 9070 also led the 5070 by about 15% in Cyberpunk rasterized at 4K, with the 9070 XT ahead of the 9070 by 12%. There remains the one break-out for the 5070 in Final Fantasy, something we talked about in our 9070 XT review, but beyond that, for rasterization, the 9070 is ahead in basically every scenario.

Baldur’s Gate 3 even showed a large benefit at 4K for the 9070 versus the 5070 since we’re far enough away from the CPU bottleneck.

In ray tracing at 4K, the 9070 XT ended up around 9% to 19% higher framerate than the 9070, though that 19% number is based on low framerate, but even still, 17 is the next highest percentage. 1440p and 1080p weren’t that different and can be found in the charts section earlier. As for the 5070 in RT and 4K, the 9070 beat it by 15% in Dragon’s Dogma 2, 8% in F1 24, 6-7% in Cyberpunk, and 14% in Resident Evil 4. The 9070 lost in Black Myth and Dying Light 2 with RT. At 1440p and RT, the same losses exist. This points non XT and XT in a similar position to what we saw with the 7800 XT and the 7700 XT or the 7900 XT and 7900 XTX. The gap is small enough that most people will upsell themselves to the XT model. 
Weirdly, NVIDIA’s own fumbles have sort of made the proximity of the two cards less of a problem than they otherwise might have been. Because from AMD’s perspective, it’s either AMD or AMD. They probably don’t really care that much which version you buy, but the XT makes more sense than a 5070 does. The 5070 is already mostly irrelevant. NVIDIA’s strengths like DLSS, ray reconstruction, and Reflex all remain, of course, but we don’t think the bells and whistles are good enough on the 5070 to outweigh the 9070 or the 9070 XT. The biggest strength it probably has is CUDA, which we personally leverage for things like video editing. But for gaming, the 9070 and 9070 XT have really kicked the 5070’s ass (though it really kicked its own ass).