AMD RX 9070 XT Delivers Strong 1440p and 4K Performance

AMD’s RX 9070 XT has become one of NVIDIA's main competitors in the current GPU generation. After the previous 6000 generation, AMD can once again compete with NVIDIA, and the current 9000 generation takes that approach further by focusing on the consumer market rather than releasing a top-of-the-line flagship card.

This generation, AMD outright refused to release a top-of-the-line flagship card. Instead, the company focused on the more consumer-friendly low- and mid-tier segments. The highest-tier card was designed to compete with the RTX 5070 Ti, while being priced $150 cheaper. Based on the MSRP alone, the RX 9070 XT looks like a more compelling offer than the RTX 5070 Ti.

AMD Focuses on the Consumer GPU Market

At current pricing, the RTX 5070 Ti looks even less appealing because it already surpasses the MSRP of the RTX 5080. I honestly cannot imagine who would choose the RTX 5070 Ti over the RX 9070 XT today, as these cards offer very similar performance. The RX 9070 XT in question is from Acer and features an entry-level Nitro design with a 2.5-slot, triple-fan cooler.

It comes in at just under 30cm in length, making it a good choice for a small-form-factor build. Unlike NVIDIA, which uses high-power connectors, AMD still uses a standard three-8-pin connector setup. That means if you are upgrading from an older card, your power supply might not be an issue. This card is not a review sample. This card is mine, and it permanently lives in my Steam Machine.

The first things that come to mind are the noise level and the temperature. Overall, temperature stays around 60°C under load, which is fine. But while NVIDIA hides the hotspot reading from users, AMD does not. Seeing temperatures over 100 °C in the hardware monitor doesn't make me very comfortable.

RX 9070 XT comes equipped with 16GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus.

It features a Ryzen 5 9600X, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 2TB Western Digital SSD. After building a Steam Machine, I kind of slowly started to appreciate SteamOS more and more. With the amount of care and support Valve is giving it, many people might be interested in running SteamOS as their primary operating system instead of Windows.

At 1440p, the RX 9070 XT feels at home. 16GB of VRAM is plenty for high-refresh-rate gaming at ultra settings, and RDNA 4 offers improved ray-tracing capabilities. Average FPS across 10 tested games hovered around the triple-digit mark, with only Black Myth: Wukong and Stalker 2 falling behind.