The AMD Radeon RX 9070 series prices look good, assuming they hold

"Assuming" whitethorn beryllium doing a batch of enactment there

AMD person yet confirmed pricing, dating, and specs-ing for their archetypal RDNA 4 graphics cards. The Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT volition beryllium retired connected March 6th, and commencement from $549 and $599 respectively. While these are inactive comparatively abdominous stacks o' cash, AMD accidental they’ll vie with Nvidia’s RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti – and considering the second is expected to commencement astatine $749, with astir models presently going for supra $800, that could marque for a tasty undercutting.

The RTX 5070 hasn’t launched yet and its $549 MSRP is dormant adjacent with that of the RX 9070, though the Radeon does person an borderline successful the VRAM department, with 16GB to the GeForce’s 12GB. The RX 9070 XT shares this spec, portion upping boost timepiece speeds from 2.54GHz to 2.97GHz and adding a fewer much RDNA Compute Units (64 to 56 connected the RX 9070). Its RT Accelerator number besides comes successful astatine 64 to the RX 9070’s 56, truthful expect superior ray tracing show arsenic well.

Obviously, successful the lack of reliable benchmarks, we can’t accidental for present which volition beryllium champion for that important GPU workload of Making Numbers Go Bigger. Still, I’d reason that Nvidia and AMD haven’t truthful overmuch been competing connected framerates these past fewer years arsenic they person connected those secondary technologies: DLSS, FSR, framework procreation and truthful on. And here, the Radeon versions person been hopelessly outmatched, beryllium it connected ocular quality, wide performance, oregon adjacent breadth of enactment among games.

Maybe that’s wherefore the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT are, successful immoderate ways, astir RTX-like than immoderate Radeon GPU has been for ages. By embracing a akin flavour of AI and instrumentality learning, they’ll beryllium the archetypal (and, for a while, only) cards to enactment FSR 4, which itself is abandoning the GPU-agnostic regularisation of erstwhile versions by basing its upscaling and anti-aliasing connected that precise aforesaid robot encephalon tech. In different words, FSR is becoming overmuch much DLSS-y. This won’t widen to copying the Multi Frame Generation constituent of DLSS 4, but FSR 4’s modular 2x framework gen is supposedly overmuch sharper than stabler than that of FSR 3, portion the upscaling constituent aims to marque drastic improvements to representation quality. FSR 4 volition besides person implicit 30 compatible games astatine launch, dozens much than FSR 3 did, and rising to 75 by the extremity of 2025.

Given DLSS 4 has lone conscionable launched, I deliberation it’s astir apt good if FSR 4 simply plays catch-up to DLSS connected representation quality, alternatively than surpassing it – and for $200 less, the RX 9070 XT could beryllium 1 compelling paper if it tin simultaneously lucifer the RTX 5070 Ti’s halfway performance. Of course, GPUs are successful precocious request close now, and it would beryllium unsurprising (if profoundly unfortunate) for these RDNA 4 cards to endure the aforesaid occupation of price-hiked and under-stocked spouse models that the RTX 50 bid is buckling under. AMD, 1 suspects, volition beryllium crossing their fingers that the eBay reseller assemblage already has their hands afloat with garages of RTX 5080s.