AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: RDNA 4 performance Exposed

AMD gave a first look at its upcoming graphics card generation at CES 2025. The new Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 models are based on the RDNA 4 architecture and are scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2025.

Technical innovations and optimizations

According to AMD, the RDNA 4 architecture brings some improvements. This includes optimized compute units, improved AI computing power and higher ray tracing performance per compute unit. AMD speaks of the “third generation of RT accelerators, the second generation of AI accelerators and the second generation of the Radiance display engine”.

The latter should, among other things, also offer better encoding quality. The new GPUs will be manufactured in a 4 nm process, presumably by TSMC. AMD has not yet published specific technical data such as the number of shader cores. However, Asus has already confirmed: The Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 both come with 16 GB of graphics memory.

New naming scheme and positioning

AMD has adjusted the naming scheme of its graphics cards. The 9000 series should now harmonize better with the Ryzen 9000 processors and enable a more direct comparison with Nvidia’s models. AMD is positioning the RX 9070 XT at roughly the same level as the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti.

The RX 9070 should roughly achieve the performance of the previous Radeon RX 7800 XT. AMD also mentioned an upcoming RX 9060 series, but did not provide any further details. The 8000 designations are reserved for the integrated RDNA 3.5 graphics units in Ryzen processors.

FSR 4, AI, availability and prices

An important innovation is AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4). This upscaling technology is said to be optimized exclusively for RDNA 4 and could potentially only work on the new cards. FSR 4 now also uses AI technology to upscale low-resolution images and improve image quality.

AMD plans to launch the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 by the end of March 2025. In addition to AMD’s reference design, numerous board partners will also offer their own models. Confirmed designs include Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte, PowerColor, Sapphire and XFX. MSI still doesn’t seem to be returning to AMD partners.