AMD RX 9070 XT vs 9070: Which RDNA 4 GPU should you buy?

It's been a long time coming for AMD to reveal RDNA 4, but has it been worth the wait? Presently, the only two graphics cards of AMD's current GPU generation, the RX 9070 XT and 9070, seek the fill the budget space left in the market by Nvidia, as Team Green has pushed the bleeding edge of performance (and prices) up over the years.

With that said, there's a lot to go over with the RX 9070 XT vs 9070 as RDNA 4 features many important distinctions. While they're both substantially cheaper than some of the best graphics cards made by Nvidia, coming in at the same asking price as the RTX 5070 (no longer competing at the high-end market), there's a lot that will go into your decision of the standard or XT card in 2025.

Neither the RX 9070 XT nor the RX 9070 will expressly rival what the best 4K graphics cards can do, however, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by what RDNA 4 can do from a price-to-performance perspective. We're comparing the two graphics cards based on their price, specs, performance, and more so that you're fully informed whether you're considering an upgrade or debating the switch from Team Green to Team Red.

AMD RX 9070 XT vs RX 9070: Price

Both the AMD RX 9070 XT and the RX 9070 were released on March 6, 2025. The former is available from $599 whereas the latter is slightly cheaper at $549.

On the surface, there's only a $50 price difference between the two, which would make the choice fairly straightforward, however, that's before factoring in the lack of an AMD-made Reference model, meaning it's solely up to AMD's partners to create, distribute, and set the prices for their RDNA 4 graphics cards.

While you may be able to find both the RX 9070 XT and the RX 9070 for their respective MSRPs, you're more likely to see graphics cards that are more expensive than the recommended sticker prices depending on whether they are overclocked and feature enhanced cooling solutions. There's no shortage of AIB options, such as those from Asus, Sapphire, PowerColor, and Gigabyte, among others.

With that said, the RX 9070 is still the cheaper of the two RDNA 4 graphics cards, which brings an even more affordable gaming GPU even when compared to the similarly priced RX 9070 XT. If you can benefit from the lower price, then it's a great value proposition, but if you can't, then you're better off eyeing up the RX 9070 XT for the sake of a $50 difference instead.

• Winner: AMD RX 9070

AMD RX 9070 XT vs RX 9070: Specs

As you may expect from the RX 9070 XT vs RX 9070, given the $50 difference, the two graphics cards are remarkably similar in many ways.

They are both midrange offerings in the market, featuring 16GB GDDR6 memory with a 256-bit memory bus and 20 Gbps effective memory, and they are PCIe 5.0 compliant.

However, where the former excels is in its larger amount of Compute Units, Shaders, and AI cores by around 14%, which means a theoretical performance potential difference of about 10% depending on the software in question.

The RX 9070 XT can also be pushed 17% more with its near-3,000 MHz clock speed against the 9070's just over 2,500 MHz boost clock.

However, the added boost in power potential means the total thermal power draw is significantly higher in the more expensive card by an unsubtle 38%, from 220W up to 304W.

This could be a make-or-break feature if you have a smaller PSU inside your machine and don't want to upgrade it alongside the GPU, so that's something to keep in mind.

• Winner: RX 9070 XT

AMD RX 9070 XT vs 9070: Performance

While there's only a $50 difference between the RX 9070 XT and 9070, paired with incredibly similar hardware under the hood, the performance disparity of both graphics cards shows what that extra gear can do.

Starting with the synthetic benchmarks, the RX 9070 XT confidently pulls ahead in benchmarking tools such as GeekBench 6 Compute (OpenGL and Vulcan) with respective scores of 178,857 and 210,051 compared to 150,919 and 192,027 (differences of 18.5% and 9.3%). Similarly, many 3DMark benchmarks, including Time Spy and Fire Strike, feature a 10-15% improvement when contrasted directly.

Looking at how both RDNA 4 graphics cards handle creative workloads, it's neck-and-neck for the most part.

A slight gap in favor of the non-XT model can be seen in PugetBench for Adobe Premiere with figures of 14,306, in contrast to 13,615 (an increase of 5%). The XT card is slightly better at Blender, but neither card is great for this workload compared to a comparable Nvidia card in this class.

The two GPUs have respective strengths and weaknesses, where you may be better with the standard model if you're doing more creativity-focused tasks instead of purely gaming.

The RX 9070 is (arguably) more at home when used for gaming in 1440p instead of 2160p, as our testing indicates. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 in Ultra settings was no problem for the RDNA 4 GPU at 113fps averages, nor was Black Myth: Wukong at 70fps averages.

There are diminishing returns between the two graphics cards depending on the game in this target resolution, with near-identical figures in Civilization VII (208 versus 202fps) and comparable numbers in Dying Light 2 with ray tracing enabled. If 4K is the way you want to play, splash the cash for the XT; if 1440p is more your speed, you may get away with saving that money.

All of the marketing around the RX 9070 XT promises "Native 4K Ultra" so that's the main resolution we'll be looking at with our in-house benchmarks. The graphics cards delivered 63fps averages in Black Myth: Wukong with 50% upscaling in Cinematic, whereas the cheaper RX 9070 only hit 55fps averages (a difference of 16.3%).

The same can be said of Cyberpunk 2077 in Ultra settings, of which the 9070 XT averaged 61fps, but the 9070 standard couldn't hit the mark at just 53fps (15% improvement). However, that's not to say the latter card necessarily struggles; it ran Civilization VII on max settings at over 128fps, with Dying Light 2 at 79fps as well.

• Winner: AMD RX 9070 XT

AMD RX 9070 XT vs RX 9070: Verdict

While the RX 9070 XT and 9070 are incredibly similar, they have slightly different use cases and are priced accordingly. For the extra 4K power, you're going to want to spend the additional $50 (or so) for the XT variant as it's genuinely capable of 4K60 and above.

However, if you're only interested in 1440p gaming, then you won't really benefit from the increase in shaders, compute units, and the higher boost clock speed in terms of real-world potential.

Ultimately, deciding on the two RDNA 4 cards is going to depend on the sticker price in your region. AMD has promised "wide availability" in direct response to Nvidia's lacking RTX 50 series rollout since January 2025.

As such, finding the two at MSRP, for the sake of $50, you may as well get the faster card, but if there's a much larger gap in price between the two, then the non-XT model holds up remarkably well.

• Winner: RX 9070 XT