As we sink ever deeper right into a squelching mire of reminiscence shortages, value gouging, and abandonment in favour of AI fantasy farms, there’s one phrase above all that game-playing PC house owners ought to preserve entrance and centre in our doomscroll-addled brains: “comparatively.”
Take the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT. It’s costly, a launch RRP of £569 / $599 lengthy since forgotten so entry-partner fashions can sit at £600 or – Yanks, look away – $720. Its present mixture of upscaling and body technology know-how, FSR Redstone, is nice however not fairly nearly as good as Nvidia’s new DLSS 4.5. And, as helpfully illustrated by the ASRock RX 9070 XT Taichi OC model I’ve been testing, lots of these accomplice variations are fairly spectacularly ugly.
Take a look at what it’s up towards, although, significantly within the 16GB, quick 1440p/funds 4K bracket. I favored the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti at launch, but it surely’s felt the brunt of business folly as painfully as another graphics card: the most affordable ones have jumped from $749 in February 2025 to $900 in January 2026, and that’s provided that you’re fortunate sufficient to search out one in inventory. Availability is so dangerous in the mean time that when a hearsay not too long ago unfold that manufacturing was prematurely ending – shortly denied by each Asus and Nvidia themselves – 1000’s believed it was true, if simply because, nicely, who’d even know the distinction?
Now, the RX 9070 XT. It’s cheaper than the RTX 5070 Ti. It performs about as nicely, generally even higher than the RX 5070 Ti. And, if nothing else, it’s nonetheless far simpler than the RTX 5070 Ti to search out in inventory. Comparatively, it’s a sensible choice. Which suggests we must always in all probability have one thing at the very least resembling a evaluation of it.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: 4K benchmarks
With those self same scarcity/pricing points tarnishing the RTX 5080’s attraction, and the RTX 5090 being out of attain for many mortals regardless, GPUs of the RX 9070 XT’s calibre have turn into rather more engaging 4K engines. These benchmarks from the RPS Check Rig present why: it’s just about even with the RTX 5070 Ti in most video games, and comes awfully near the RTX 5080 within the demanding likes of Horizon Forbidden West and Murderer’s Creed Mirage.
At this rez, it may’t fairly deal with the ultra-luxury of path tracing: Alan Wake II, operating at Extremely settings with full PT and FSR upscaling on High quality mode, solely averaged 22fps. The equal settings in Cyberpunk 2077, plus FSR body technology enabled, produced 46fps – however that simply meant that its ‘actual’, rendered body rely got here in nicely below 30fps. The RTX 5070 Ti, in contrast, managed 33fps simply with High quality-level DLSS and no body gen in any respect, suggesting that Radeon GPUs nonetheless take an even bigger hit from superior lighting/shadow programs. Whack on the GeForce’s 4x Multi Body Era (MFG) mode, and that 33fps turns into 117fps.
That stated, body technology has by no means been as compelling a function as Nvidia need it to be. Given MFG noticeably worsens enter lag when multiplying decrease rendered framerates, you’d get a smoother-feeling recreation by simply decreasing settings. At which level, the RTX 5070 Ti’s benefit disappears. It may nonetheless produce marginally sooner outcomes at upscaled 4K than the RX 9070 XT, like how High quality DLSS obtained it 104fps in HFW versus the Radeon’s 98fps with High quality FSR. However even with DLSS’s picture high quality advantages, which narrowed to a sliver with the launch of FSR Redstone, I’d reasonably preserve the additional £160 / $180 in my pocket and luxuriate in what’s, visually, an indistinguishable stage of efficiency.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: 1440p benchmarks
Our 1440p graph is nearly a mirror picture of the 4K outcomes: little or no in it between the RX 9070 XT and RTX 5070 Ti, excluding Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and a number of situations the place you’d wrestle to see the distinction between the Radeon and the twice-as-pricey RTX 5080. Particularly so, now that we’re entering into the 100fps+ area the place small framerate variances aren’t as noticeable.
The cheaper RTX 5070 does come into the dialog right here, and it stays a reliable 1440p card. Nonetheless, in case you can afford it, the RX 9070 XT’s typical framerates go considerably larger, significantly in Complete Battle: Warhammer III and F1 24, and arguably in HFW and Cyberpunk too.
Diminishing returns are nonetheless a problem at such excessive FPS, although right here, it primarily makes that small efficiency win for DLSS upscaling really feel even much less important. With DLSS High quality taking the RTX 5070 Ti as much as 150fps in Horizon Forbidden West, and FSR High quality as much as 143fps, the latter is definitely higher worth for cash – and on displays with refresh charges capping at 144Hz, you couldn’t understand the previous’s further 7fps, even in case you had the eyesight of a fighter pilot with binoculars glued to their face.
The place the RTX 5070 Ti doesn’t want a photograph end is, once more, ray and path tracing. The place 1440p offers extra headroom to crank these settings up, Nvidia tech normally stays superior: including Pyscho-level ray tracing to Cyberpunk, plus every GPU’s respective High quality-level upscalers, had the RX 9070 XT averaging 82fps and the RX 5070 Ti averaging 94fps. With path-traced results on high of that, plus 2x body technology, the RX 9070 XT did get a playable 93fps – however the RTX 5070 Ti rose to 111fps. The RTX 5070 Ti was additionally faster in a path-traced Alan Wake II, scoring 55fps with High quality DLSS; the RX 9070 XT averaged 42fps.
Thoughts you, for garden-variety ray tracing, there are situations the place the RX 9070 XT can catch up. With Alan Wake II on Extremely-quality RT, one step down from path tracing, AND’s GPU averaged 73fps – solely a single body behind the RTX 5070 Ti’s 74fps on equal settings. Contemplating there was a time when each ray-traced recreation below the ray-traced solar would run its premium results sooner on GeForce {hardware}, that’s not a nasty consequence in any respect.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: 1080p benchmarks
1080p is generally the place you see higher-end GPUs begin to bunch up, because the CPU – even the beefy Ryzen 7 9800X3D in our rig – turns into extra of a bottleneck. Even right here, although, the RX 9070 XT is routinely clinging onto the RTX 5080, whereas comfortably outpacing the RTX 5070. To fairly astounding impact, in Warhammer III:
Not that I’d counsel, inflation or in any other case, dumping this a lot cash on a 1080p system. However this does make it three for 3 on resolutions the place, between the selection of this graphics card or the costlier RTX 5070 Ti, there’s little convincing motive to make the larger funding.
In earlier critiques, this may have been the purpose the place I say “…besides DLSS,” earlier than launching right into a complain about how FSR simply doesn’t look nearly as good. Actually, had I been well timed sufficient to appraise the RX 9070 XT when it initially launched, that’s precisely what you’d be studying. However instances have modified, and never simply in cash and inventory phrases. FSR Redstone actually can move for DLSS 4 today, and whereas DLSS 4.5 has simply made additional enhancements to picture sharpness and movement dealing with, they’re not likely value an almost £200 / $200 levy.
Instances can change so quick, in reality, that I received’t assure this verdict will nonetheless be relevant in just a few months’ time. Possibly provide of Radeon playing cards will dry up as nicely. Possibly AMD will begin charging extra for it, simply because they will. Possibly DRAM-addicted tech executives will go round house owners’ homes at night time, stealing their GPUs and sucking out all of the reminiscence chips like sports-jacketed vampires. For now, although, the RX 9070 XT is the high-grade graphics card to go for. Comparatively talking.
