While Nvidia may lack competition at the high-end when it announces its RTX 5000 series, if you’re content with performance equivalent to its current RTX 4080 then AMD’s RX 9700 XT could be just what you’re looking for and hopefully for a lot less cash too.
Like Nvidia, AMD is expected to make some significant announcements in January, such as the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D – it’s final two 3D V-Cache Zen 5 processors following in the wake of the excellent Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It will also be announcing its next generation graphics cards with the Radeon RX 9070 XT expected to take center stage. However, this is a launch with a difference and here’s everything we know about it so far ahead of the expected announcement at January’s CES event in Las Vegas.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT performance: AMD isn’t aiming to beat the RTX 5090 or 5080
AMD is struggling with graphics card market share and has been for a while despite its models often offering better value than Nvidia and in some cases more longevity too thanks to more memory. However, the fact is that Nvidia is utterly dominant in sales and Steam’s Hardware Survey is good proof of this. To combat Nvidia’s dominance, AMD has decided to do something it’s done once or twice in the past and focus on the mid-range and ignore the high-end gaming GPU space, saving development costs and hopefully being in a better position to offer decent competition and better value in higher volume areas of the market.
Current rumors point at RTX 4080-level performance for the Radeon RX 9070 XT, which will be the AMD flagship for its RDNA 4 architecture on desktop gaming PCs. This would mean that the current RX 7900 XTX is likely to remain the most powerful option for AMD seeing as it often outperforms the RTX 4080 and has a lot more memory too.
This makes sense for AMD as it’s only the richest gamers that can afford the huge price tags of flagship graphics cards and it’s the same reason Intel has aimed low in terms of pricing with its new ARC B580 graphics card. The reality is the vast majority of gamers own graphics cards that cost less than $600 so if AMD can offer great value here, market share will surely follow, especially given rumors of high pricing for Nvidia’s RTX 5000 series.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT specifications
Little is known about AMD’s new RDNA 4 models, but we’re fairly certain the RX 9070 XT will be joined at launch or shortly after by an RX 9700. Sensibly, AMD is apparently opting for 16GB of VRAM on the card according to regular leaker @momomo_us via Club386, which matches the RTX 5080. As discussed on that website, though, there’s no indication of the type of memory AMD will use.
Nvidia is using fast GDDR7 memory with the RTX 5000 series, but AMD could opt for cheaper GDDR6 with the RX 9000 series to focus on value, which does seem to be a recurring theme. That continue with the card rumored to be using the current PCIe 4.0 interface rather than PCIe 5.0 according to rumors and current specification tables. While modern motherboards support PCIe 5.0, there’s little to be gained currently by using it, especially with what will essentially be an upper mid-range graphics card.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT power connectors
While Nvidia is sticking with its 16-pin 12VPWR connector with the RTX 5000 series, AMD is reportedly sticking with the traditional 8-pin power connector. This is good news for owners of old power supplies, most of which lack native 12VPWR connectors, although adaptors are usually included with graphics cards that use the new connector. It would likely cost AMD more to develop cards around the new connector, though, so if value and market share are its main goals, opting for the usual 8-pin connector is sensible.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT features
While Nvidia is sticking with its 16-pin 12VPWR connector with the RTX 5000 series, AMD is reportedly sticking with the traditional 8-pin power connector. This is good news for owners of old power supplies, most of which lack native 12VPWR connectors, although adaptors are usually included with graphics cards that use the new connector. It would likely cost AMD more to develop cards around the new connector, though, so if value and market share are its main goals, opting for the usual 8-pin connector is sensible.
Tech website Videocardz claims that AMD will have software feature announcements in addition to the hardware side at CES in January with FSR 4 coming at the same time as the RX 9070 XT announcement.
I’ll be covering the hardware launches in January so follow me here on Forbes using the blue button below, Facebook or YouTube to get the latest news and reviews.
