ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC evaluation: Combating Nvidia at a a lot lower cost

AMD has lastly launched its new era of graphics playing cards, the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070. With Nvidia falling down in sentiment contemplating the lack of inventory and never so nice reception as even our RTX 5070 evaluation didn’t precisely give it an incredible rating. That leaves a fairly open door for AMD to enter and have the ability to promote loads of playing cards if it has the provision, however is its card price contemplating?

We put that to the check and reviewed the ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC, which brings some aggressive pricing and design to the market. As AMD has been sitting on these for fairly a while, I can solely hope it has some nice efficiency behind it which may make it one of many greatest graphics playing cards to think about, even when it doesn’t intention to compete proper on the high finish. So right here is the way it carried out and what I consider the cardboard.

Specs

• GPU: Navi 48 XT
• Stream Processors: 4,096
• VRAM: 16GB GDDR6
• Reminiscence Bus Width: 256-bit
• Base/Recreation/Increase clock pace: 1,660/2,400/2,970 MHz
• TBP: 304W

What We Suppose

After preserving us ready a number of months, AMD’s RX 9070 XT appears well worth the wait. It affords unbelievable efficiency and true 4K gaming for $600. That’s, if the market can meet the demand and supply sufficient inventory for the cardboard that may provide a breath of contemporary air available in the market.

AMD has even made nice strides in AI and ray tracing efficiency, closing the hole to Nvidia and what it’s able to. Although it’s not all there, it undoubtedly makes it a extra rounded choice than both the earlier era. Even providing loads of VRAM on the proper worth makes me query the price of getting the non-XT simply $50 cheaper.

Causes to Purchase

• Nice efficiency even at 4K and reaching RTX 4080 ranges
• Wonderful MSRP makes it rather more interesting in opposition to competitors
• Unimaginable enhancements over the earlier era
• Loads of VRAM for the value

Causes to Keep away from

• Nonetheless falls behind in ray tracing, AI, and inventive workloads
• Spiking and excessive energy draw
• Options not as in depth as Nvidia

RX 9070 XT Worth

The worth is the place AMD takes an aggressive stance in opposition to Nvidia, touting the world’s greatest $549 graphics card for its 9070, the 9070 XT comes at simply $50 extra and an MSRP of $599. Contemplating the non-XT was up in opposition to the RTX 5070, the XT mannequin might provide rather more for simply the additional worth on high. That may clarify the delay in releasing the playing cards after they had been not introduced in AMD’s CES presentation.

It additionally may need given AMD a while to vary the pricing following Nvidia’s launch of the RTX 50 collection. For the reason that pricing technique is complicated, inserting two of its GPUs so shut in worth makes it compete with itself, as we noticed with the earlier era, the place the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT had been simply $100 aside, till AMD began reducing the value of the lower-tier card simply months after launch.

We will count on the customized playing cards’ pricing to range. Overclocked and revised fashions normally cost greater than the usual, and the ASUS Prime OC will possible do the same upon launch.

Key specs

Trying on the specs of the RX 9070 XT and evaluating them to the RX 9070 XT and RTX 5070, we will see the sort of {hardware} it affords available in the market. We will see how a lot it improves over the RDNA 3 card and compares to the closest Blackwell card in its pricing vary.

Beginning within the die and processing core, RDNA 4 strikes away from the MCM design of two totally different chips, one for graphics and the opposite for IO, as a substitute of shifting again to monolithic whereas preserving the method dimension the identical with TSMC’s 5nm transistor dimension. That may change its efficiency and performance in comparison with the earlier era selection, because it has an analogous stream processor depend to the 7800 XT.

Nonetheless, it affords much more pace from the manufacturing facility, because it boosts the bottom clock pace to over 1.5GHz, whereas its sport clock reaches what the 7800 XT had at its enhance clock. Now, the 9070 XT’s enhance clock is near 3GHz, and with overclocked playing cards, you possibly can count on to see that breach the road and enhance the cardboard’s speeds and efficiency.

Additionally, simply barely growing the reminiscence clock, an entire 0.5Gbps, offers a 16GB/s bandwidth enchancment. Because it stays on GDDR6 VRAM, it does lose out in comparison with the RTX 5070, however the larger capability would possibly nonetheless make it a greater choice for larger resolutions, which I’ll examine in our efficiency part.

All that doesn’t come totally free, although, as the cardboard’s board energy has elevated by 16%/41W to make it a bit more durable and costlier to run. That is sufficient for AMD to up the really useful energy provide to 750W in comparison with 700W of the 7800 XT. Nonetheless, there’s no want to fret about burning cables right here, because the Radeon playing cards default to the tried and examined 8-pin energy connectors, offering extra peace of thoughts than something.

As we noticed in our testing, our mannequin was able to reaching a lot larger ranges since AMD permits companions to extend the ability ranges.

Design

The ASUS Prim RX 9070 XT is an easy and lightweight card with a plastic outer shell and a metallic backplate, which makes issues cheaper and easier. Though, unpacking it out of the field, there was fairly an enormous quantity of protecting plastic to attempt to peel off, with each floor coated with the layer that I spent means too lengthy attempting to get all off (and I noticed after images had been executed I’d even missed a bit on the ASUS brand).

On the entrance of the cardboard, there are three axial followers spanning the size of the cardboard, which, contemplating the design, convey a powerful uniform blower functionality. That’s the place you’ll discover the lengthy backplate with a cutout for that last fan to get a blow-through design, as the opposite two compete with the PCB and encasement from the shroud.

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC again plate, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC field, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC entrance on, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC IO, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC PCIe facet, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC proper finish, Picture by PC Information

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For the design, it has a comparatively simplistic black colorway with white traces crossing the size and curving away. That’s what occurs to the plastic construct that curves in direction of the facet you’ll see in your case. A distinguished Prime and Radeon logos cowl many of the edge. A void between the highest offers the airflow a spot to flee, the place the highest proper showcases the ASUS brand and three 8-pin energy connectors, as AMD sticks to the outdated methodology.

On the sturdy backplate there’s not rather more to see, just some stickers, and loads of screw heads so that you can undo if you happen to ever need a peak inside. There’s additionally a BIOS toggle if you wish to change between efficiency or quiet, relying on how a lot noise or efficiency you need from the graphics card. It definitely is a fingerprint magnet too, as simply wanting over it, the again is fairly coated now.

The IO isn’t as expansive as there was on the likes of the ASUS TUF RTX 5070, as there’s as soon as once more simply the one HDMI connector with the mixture of three DisplayPorts. Whereas the opposite facet is enclosed and has three screw holes, more likely to mount any GPU helps out of your case or standalone to maintain the cardboard from sagging.

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC energy connectors, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC profile, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC proper fan, Picture by PC Information

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Efficiency

Subsequent I put the cardboard by the testing lab to see how effectively it carried out. That additionally permits us to match it in opposition to the competitors of a spread of Nvidia GPUs, which we will use to search out its price and functionality. Seeing how a lot it has improved, together with the ray tracing efficiency.

Take a look at bench parts:

• Motherboard: ASUS ProArt X670E-CREATOR WIFI
• CPU: Ryzen 7 9800X3D
• RAM: Corsair Dominator Titanium RGB (64GB, 6600MT/s, CL32)
• CPU Cooler: ROG RYUJIN III 360
• PSU: 1000W Phanteks
• Home windows model: 24H2
• Driver: 

Gaming

First off, we see the way it performs in gaming eventualities and the framerates it achieves. Beneath are the outcomes positioned alongside the RTX 5080, 5070, and 4080 displaying off whereabouts the RX 9070 XT slots in between them.

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC F1 24, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC Cyberpunk 2077, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC Indiana Jones The Nice Circle, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC AC Mirage, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC Horizon Zero Daybreak Remastered, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC Cyberpunk 2077 DLSS FSR, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC Doom Everlasting, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC CS2, Picture by PC Information

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Beginning with Counter-Strike 2, issues don’t instantly look promising, because the RX 9070 XT falls behind even the RTX 5070. That may simply be a driver and optimization factor, as that sentiment rapidly falls away in the remainder of the checks. On this explicit case, the RX 9070 XT is between 5-15% behind the RTX 4070, 23-30% behind the 4080, and as much as 40% beneath the RTX 5080.

Nonetheless, in Cyberpunk 2077 and with no upscaling, the 9070 XT begins to take the lead, enhancing over the RTX 5070 between 14-27% and even buying and selling blows with the RTX 4080 going between -3 to +7%. As for ray tracing, that does hinder the AMD GPU, however not an excessive amount of, because it beats out the 5070 by 11-19% and now falls behind by 19% over the 4080 and 25% behind the 5080.

I did attempt upscaling right here, too, because the 50 collection makes use of DLSS 4. AMD’s graphics card can run FSR 3 within the sport with the flexibility for single body era. Right here, the 9070 XT isn’t fairly on par with the same-name DLSS upscaling, however does present a comparable resolution to larger framerates.

In Doom Everlasting, it will get loads of excessive body charges even for ray tracing. It beats out the 5070 by 17-23%, falling behind the 4080 by 7-18%, 5080 beating it out by simply 5-19%. So, it holds as much as the competitors exceptionally effectively, together with in ray tracing. The identical will be seen in Murderer’s Creed Mirage the place the 9070 XT beats out the 5070 by 13-25% in growing resolutions, whereas solely behind the 4080 and 5080 by 3-10%.

Horizon Zero Daybreak Remastered offers the RX 9070 XT an incredible benefit throughout the board, even with FSR. It beat out all the opposite Nvidia playing cards I additionally examined, spanning a formidable 24-56% in opposition to the 5070. It even defeats the RTX 4080 and 5080 by single-digit percentages.

Indiana Jones the Nice Circle returns the scenario to an analogous trend. It beats out the 5070 by 0-14%, falling behind the 5080 by 7-19%. F1 24 offers the 9070 XT one other important benefit over the varied resolutions, main the 5070 by 25-30%, together with upscaling. It additionally trades blows with the 5080 ranging a number of p.c right here and there.

Synthetics

Lastly, I checked out the cardboard’s synthetics, though there have been a number of cases the place this system didn’t see it. One is the Blender benchmark, which doesn’t present the RX 9070 XT.

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC 3DMar, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC Geekbench 6, Picture by PC Information

ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT OC Geekbench AI, Picture by PC Information

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In 3DMark the RX 9070 XT holds out by itself, even beating out the 4080, however 7-10% within the totally different eventualities. The identical is true for the RTX 5070 because it leads by between 21-38%, but falls behind the RTX 5080 by 11-18%.

In Geekbench and Geekbench AI it’s a little bit of a combined bag because the 9070 XT falls behind for probably the most half. In Geekbench that’s 3 and 9% in OpenCL and Vulkan in opposition to the 5070, whereas it takes a shocking lead within the AI model. It’s not fairly the entire story because it’s possible nonetheless not an incredible choose for normal rendering and work duties.

Thermal

I additionally examined the cardboard’s thermal efficiency, placing it by Furmark 2 GPU and CPU stress checks over a 20-minute interval to see the way it behaved. Beneath is the graph of its efficiency, the fan behaviour to observe, and the ability draw it’s able to.

The 9070 XT reaches as much as 360W on common, because it peaks over 500W at particular factors. That may be a bit regarding, however doesn’t look like a continuing, simply spikes right here and there. That makes it fairly sizzling, because the reminiscence junction reaches a toasty 90°C, but the final GPU temperature solely peaks at 54°C. That retains it comparatively cool and makes positive it doesn’t thermal throttle.

As for the followers, they do go for fairly the quick spin to attain that temperature. As they measure in at round 1,600 RPM, but it surely wasn’t loud both on the check bench, because it manages to take action in relative silence.

Conclusion

Specs

• GPU: Navi 48 XT
• Stream Processors: 4,096
• VRAM: 16GB GDDR6
• Reminiscence Bus Width: 256-bit
• Base/Recreation/Increase clock pace: 1,660/2,400/2,970 MHz
• TBP: 304W

General, the RX 9070 XT is a good graphics card for the value. Combating in opposition to playing cards larger up in tiers and so offering a wonderful selection even for 4K gaming and with ray tracing capabilities. Nonetheless, it nonetheless loses out in some eventualities, and never every little thing is as much as the identical degree. Nonetheless, for the value, it definitely affords glorious efficiency, particularly in opposition to the competitors, contemplating the nice reminiscence capability it offers it that additional enhance on the larger finish.