AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: Can it keep up with Nvidia’s RTX 50?

At this year’s CES 2025, AMD caused mixed reactions: Although the manufacturer presented an initial preview of its new Radeon RX 90_0 graphics card series based on the RDNA 4 architecture, there was no concrete information on performance and prices. With the new Radeon RX 90_0 series, AMD is once again changing its naming structure and replacing the previous RX 7_00 series. Although the step is intended to position the new generation more clearly, it remains a more symbolic change without any concrete details on performance.

While AMD skimped on concrete information at CES, it succeeded IGN However, to get unofficial insights. At a trade fair demo for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the Radeon RX 9070 (standard, not XT) impressed in benchmarks and left AMD’s existing RX models, including the 7900 XTX and 6950 XT, behind.

In addition, alleged 3DMark results for the RX 9070 XT were circulating online. RDNA 4 appears to be competitive compared to Nvidia’s current RTX 4070 and 4070 Ti models. AMD’s in-house predecessors such as the 7700 XT should also be overshadowed. Frank Azor, AMD’s Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions, fuels these rumors. In conversation with the magazine PCWorld He promised that the actual performance of the new GPUs would exceed previous leaks. He also made it clear that AMD is focusing on the mid-range market with RDNA 4. He ruled out pricing in the $1,000 range.

According to Azor, there should be great progress, especially in ray tracing performance and in AI calculations. These are intended to form the basis for AMD’s new FSR-4 upscaling, with which the company competes against Nvidia’s DLSS and Intel’s XeSS.

Whether the new GPUs will be a long-term success now depends on the actual pricing and comparison with the upcoming Nvidia RTX 50 series. AMD has announced that it will reveal more details in the next few weeks.