AMD officially revealed its new RDNA 4 graphics cards — including the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 — today after a lengthy delay full of rumors and leaks.
The February 28 presentation, hosted on AMD's YouTube channel, finally cleared up a lot of disinformation spawned from those rumors, with actual performance and pricing laid out.
The more powerful Radeon RX 9070 XT is expected to launch on March 6, 2025. AMD has set the RX 9070 XT's MSRP at $599.
The Radeon RX 9070 will also launch on March 6, 2025. The more affordable card has a $549 MSRP.
Whether or not you'll be able to buy the new RDNA 4 GPUs at MSRP remains to be seen; anything better than what NVIDIA has so far offered with the RTX 5000 cards will be welcome.
AMD claims there will be "wide availability" on March 6, which makes sense considering the company has had nearly two extra months to build up stock.
Let's dig into the performance metrics shared by AMD.
AMD RDNA 4 performance — RX 9070 XT and RX 9070
The reveal, hosted on AMD's YouTube channel, provided plenty of information regarding RDNA 4 performance in the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070.
Here's a look at the specs as laid out by AMD.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | AMD Radeon RX 9070 | AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT |
|---|---|---|
Compute units | 56 | 64 |
Boost clock | 2,520MHz | 2,970MHz |
GDDR6 Memory | 16GB | 16GB |
AI TOPS | 1,165 | 1,557 |
Board power | 220W | 304W |
MSRP | $549 | $599 |
The RX 9070 is pegged at offering 21% faster average performance compared to the RX 7900 GRE when gaming at 4K with ultra settings.
At 1440p, you can expect a similar 20% uplift compared to the 7900 GRE. That's notably raw performance without considering FSR 4's advancements.
The Radeon RX 9070 XT was introduced as "the world's best graphics cards under $600."
Compared to the 7900 GRE, you can expect up to 42% better performance in 4K games with ultra settings without FSR 4. That falls to 38% at 1440p.
With FSR 4 enabled, on the other hand, the RX 9070 XT can deliver between three and four times better performance compared to the 7900 GRE.
The biggest news is how the RX 9070 XT fares against the RTX 5070 Ti. Despite a $150 price difference in favor of AMD, the Radeon card manages a 2% raw performance drop at 4K ultra settings.
That's about a 23% performance-per-dollar ratio in favor of AMD.
Even better, AMD states that its third-party OC cards from partners will actually improve 4K ultra performance by about 2% compared to the RTX 5070 Ti.
How does AMD's RDNA 4 pricing compare to NVIDIA RTX 5000?
With the official RDNA 4 MSRP now cleared up by AMD, you're going to see plenty of comparisons between Radeon RX 9000 and NVIDIA RTX 5000 that hinge on pricing alone.
Here's how the current mark stands. Note that I included the Radeon RX 7900 GRE and RX 7900 XTX from the last-gen RDNA 3 cards for comparison.
- AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: $599 MSRP
- AMD Radeon RX 9070: $549 MSRP
- NVIDIA RTX 5090: $1,999 MSRP
- NVIDIA RTX 5080: $999 MSRP
- NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti: $749 MSRP
- NVIDIA RTX 5070: $549 MSRP
- AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE: $549 MSRP
- AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX: $999 MSRP
NVIDIA's MSRP is but a dream due to severe stock shortages, third-party price hikes, and opportunistic scalpers, so take these numbers with their due salt.
A quick look at Newegg's listings shows the RTX 5070 Ti ranging in price all the way up to $999, the MSRP of the RTX 5080.
👉 Where to buy RTX 5090 and RTX 5080
The RTX 5080 itself goes as high as $1,650, which is dangerously close to the RTX 5090's MSRP.
With AMD promising "wide availability" when the cards launch on March 6, I can only hope that buyers won't have to play the same game as has been the case with RTX 5000.
What is AMD RDNA 4?
RDNA 4 is AMD's latest GPU architecture, and it's the successor to RDNA 3 which launched in 2022.
RDNA 4 is expected to bring faster command processing, advanced shader programming, improved ray and path tracing, enhanced memory compression, improved Radiance display and media engines, and, for the first time, rendering with assistance from machine learning.
Altogether, AMD says its RDNA 4 architecture can perform >40% better than RDNA 3, making these the most powerful GPUs that AMD has ever released.
According to AMD, updated ray accelerators will offer a "transformational change in the efficiency of ray tracing, making great performance available to more gamers at compelling price points, and delivering twice the ray tracing performance of RDNA 3 per compute unit."
AMD RDNA 4 also heralds the arrival of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4), which now uses machine learning rather than upscaling algorithms.
AMD notably showed off Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 performance at 4K with FSR 4 enabled, effectively tripling the FPS.
What's more exciting is how there's far less loss of detail with FSR 4, which was one of the bigger problems with FSR 3.1.
FSR 4 is expected to be available in more than 30 games at launch, with more than 75 extra games picking up support in 2025.
What power connector is RDNA 4 using?
Following reports of RTX 5090 GPUs melting power cables, PSUs, and themselves, many were curious to see how AMD handled its power in the new GPUs.
Good news. You can expect standard 8-pin power connectors in most designs, though some will have a different setup.
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