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After more than four years, it’s time to retire my trusty RTX 3070. But instead of upgrading to yet another NVIDIA GPU, like I have been doing for the past decade, I’ve ordered myself an AMD RX 9070 XT.
It’s not a decision I took lightly, but in the end there are multiple reasons that AMD’s next generation of graphics cards ticked the boxes. Price plays a bit role, but so does availability and the presence of hardware problems. Perhaps most positive, though, is AMD’s comeback as a company who can once again rival NVIDIA.
The RX 9070 XT Offers More Value Than the RTX 5070 Ti
Looking at their MSRPs, the RX 9070 XT packs more value than the RTX 5070 Ti, the card I had my sights on initially. The difference in non-ray tracinggaming performance is less than 10%, with NVIDIA’s card being about 15% faster inray tracing, but the AMD card is 20% more affordable.
Even when I take into account street prices, the RX 9070 XT still provides more value. Here in Europe, I managed to score an RX 9070 XT for €810, which is 17% over the EU MSRP (€689). On the flip side, the most affordable RTX 5070 Ti would cost me about €1120, 27% above its €884 EU MSRP and €320 or 28% higher than what I paid for my RX 9070 XT. I don’t know about you, but that deal isn’t very attractive to me.
The situation in the US is better but far from perfect. You can find a few RX 9070 XT MSRP listings, but those will most likely stay out of stock. If we’re looking realistically, an RX 9070 XT will cost you about $730 unless you live near a Micro Center.
On the other hand, if we disregard the RTX 5070 Ti MSRP and Micro Center listings, you’d have to pay at least $900 for an RTX 5070 Ti, which is almost $200 higher than the RX 9070 XT’s price and, personally, not worth the slim performance bump you’re getting with the RTX 5070 Ti.
The RTX 50 Series Barely Offers Improvements Over the 40 Series
I had been planning to replace my aging RTX 3070 for a while now. Late last year, I decided to wait instead of getting an RTX 4080 Super to see what the RTX 50 series will bring and whether AMD will have an answer with itsRDNA 4architecture. In the worst case, I could snag myself a used RTX 4080 for less than €1,000, right?
And oh boy, was I disappointed with NVIDIA. Not only did the RTX 50 series, aside from the RTX 5090, bring disappointing performance uplifts over the previous generation, but the cards are somehow even more expensive. The RTX 5070 Ti costs almost as much as what you’d have to pay for the RTX 4080 Super in late 2024 while boasting zero performance uplift. The only upgrade you’re getting isDLSS Multi-Frame Generation, which I have zero interest in.
Due to the RTX 50 pricing being so bad, I can’t even get a used RTX 4080/4080 Super at a reasonable price. Used cards are listed for more than 1,000 euros here, which is bonkers.
Conversely, the RX 9070 XT brings a massive performance bump over the RX 7800 XT, the card it replaces (technically, it replaces the 7700XT, but the RX 7800 XT should’ve carried the 7700 moniker). You’re getting a 36% performance bump without ray tracing, with more than 40% uplift when you enable ray tracing effects. That’s a generational uplift I’m satisfied with.
AMD’s FSR 4 Upscaling Can Finally Compete With DLSS
I’ll be honest here: IfFSR 4were a disappointment and noticeably worse thanDLSS 3upscaling, I’d have a long think about upgrading to an RTX 5070 Ti. I’m using a 3440x1440ultrawide monitor, and while I mostlystream gamesto my ASUS ROG Ally, upscaling is a must when I game on the ultrawide. And FSR 3 and older versions of the upscaler absolutely demolish image quality.
Fizzling and blurry image, temporal artifacts, poor texture clarity, immense issues with resolving fine detail such as foliage—the list goes on. Due to its tiny screen, I’m okay with FSR 3 and older versions when running games on my ROG Ally. But on a large monitor, these issues completely ruin the experience.
Luckily, FRS 4is a massive winfor AMD. The company finally released a machine learning-based upscaler that trumps DLSS 3, which is praiseworthy. Sure, FSR 4 is still a tad behindDLSS 4upscaling, but I’m willing to accept small compromises to the clarity of textures and image stability if I’m paying almost a third less than what I’d pay for an NVIDIA GPU.
Sapphire NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU
The AMD 9070 from Sapphire features 12GB of DDR6 memory, two HDMi and two DisplayPorts, and plenty of cooling options to keep your GPU from running hot while gaming.
The RX 9070 XT Is a Great Upgrade From My Aging RTX 3070
Compared to my RTX 3070, the RX 9070 XT offers more than 60% higher performance in ray tracing titles and about 80% better performance in rasterization. I’ll gladly take these improvements, thank you very much.
But the most important upgrade is going from, nowadaysquite anemic, 8GB of video memory to 16GB. The RTX 3070 is still a very capable card, even for 1440p gaming. But itslimited memory buffermeans that, even if the card’s got enough raw horsepower for high or ultra settings, you must compromise by lowering the quality of textures, shadows, and other memory-intensive options to reach acceptable performance.
While I can technically play some games with ray tracing, enabling ray tracing effects usually works well for about a few minutes before the memory buffer overflows and the game turns into a slideshow.
I Want to Avoid NVIDIA’s 50-Series Issues
The RX 9070 XT comes with two or three tried-and-true 8-pin power connectors, depending on the model. However, NVIDIA decided to keep the 16-pin 12VHPWR connector for its RTX 50 GPUs. The new connector, 12V-2x6, is a minor revision that solves zero issuesplaguingthe 12VHPWR.
Somehow, NVIDIA made the 12V-2x6 connector found on RTX 50 cardseven worsethan the 12VHPWR. This resulted in more frequent instances of power cables and connectorsmeltingon RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 GPUs. The said issue will continue to affect these GPUs unless NVIDIA either redesigns circuit boards on these GPUs and includes a better fuse protection solution or abandons the 12V-2x6 altogether. By the looks of it, neither will happen.
Now, it looks like the RTX 5070 Ti isn’t affected by this issue because the card uses less power than high-end RTX 50 options, but I’d rather not have to deal with the 12V-2x6 unless I have no other choice.
I’d have to use an adapter because my PSU doesn’t come with a 16-pin power connector, and I’d have to bend it because my case is too narrow, which is not what manufacturers recommend. Since the RX 9070 XT comes with regular power connectors, I don’t have to worry about this.
What the RX 9070 XT also doesn’t suffer from aremissing ROPs(Render Output Units), another issueaffectingRTX 50 GPUs. In a nutshell, ROPs are part of the render pipeline; the fewer there are, the slower the GPU will be.According to testsperformed by Gamers Nexus, you’re looking at up to 10% slower performance if your card is affected, which is a massive drop.
Again, I’d rather not worry about the card I got being defective, pushing 10% fewer frames than it’s supposed to. Then you have the RMA process, which is always a pain, especially because you have to wait for weeks before getting a new card. I’d rather just get the card, put it inside the case, and not have to openGPU-Zas soon as the system boots to check whether I’ll need to return it less than an hour after it has arrived.
In the end, I’m confident in my decision to go for an RX 9070 XT instead of an RTX 5070 Ti. This isn’t something I could see myself saying a few years ago, but AMD’s resurgence as a force to be reckoned with in the GPU game is a welcome development. All I have to do now is wait until next week for the card to arrive, and I’m golden.
I’m more than satisfied with the performance bump I’ll be getting over my RTX 3070; 16 GB of memory is just right for a card priced this high, and the card packs enough horsepower to allow me to enjoyhigh-refresh-rategaming with max details (and even some ray tracing effects enabled) for at least a couple of years.
