Radeon RX 9070 XT Rated: 8/10 Radeon RX 7900 XTX Rated: 7.4/10
Pros And Cons
| GPU | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| RX 9070 XT | ✅ Uses a more efficient 4 nm process technology ✅ Slightly better in terms of performance | ❌ Higher price tag |
| RX 7900 XTX | ✅ Has 50% more shading units ✅ Has 54% higher memory bandwidth | ❌Slightly worse in terms of performance |
Comparison Table
| Feature | RX 9070 XT | RX 7900 XTX |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | RDNA 4.0 | RDNA 3.0 |
| GPU Codename | Navi 48 XT | Navi 31 |
| Shading Units | 4096 | 6144 |
| Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) | 256 | 384 |
| Render Output Units (ROPs) | 96 | 192 |
| Compute Units (Pipelines) | 64 | - |
| Ray-tracing Cores | 64 | 96 |
| Fabrication Process | 5 nm | 5 nm |
| Die Size | 357 mm² | 529 mm² |
| Best CPU | Best CPUs For RX 9070 XT | Best CPUs For RX 7900 XTX |
| Best PSU | Best PSUs For RX 9070 XT | Best PSUs For RX 7900 XTX |
| GPU Review | RX 9070 XT Review | - |
Architectural Differences
- Process Nodes: Both the RX 9070 XT and the 7900 XTX use 5nm processing nodes made by TSMC.
- Clock Speeds: The RX 9070 XT has a 1660MHz base clock, with a boost of up to 2970MHz. The RX 7900 XTX has a base clock of 1929MHz, with a boost of up to 2489MHz.
- VRAM: AMD’s older card takes the cake when it comes to VRAM as it uses 24GB of GDDR6 memory over a 384-bit bus, whereas the RX 9070 XT uses a 16GB VRAM buffer over a 256-bit bus.
- TDP: The RX 9070 XT has a TDP of 304 watts, which is considerably lower than the 355-watt TDP of the RX 7900 XTX.
- Supported Technologies: The RDNA 4.0-based RX 9070 XT features FSR 4, which enhances image quality and minimizes artefacts, making it a significant improvement over FSR 3 used in the RDNA 3.0-based RX 7900 XTX.
With the new releases in the GPU market, we had almost lost hope of anything good being released this year. That is until AMD swooped in and gave us the RX 9070 XT, a graphics card that seemingly doesn’t suck. Does it finally deliver something worthwhile? Let’s compare the RX 9700 XT vs RX 7900 XTX and find out!
Gaming Benchmarks – 4K
Unlike Team Green, AMD builds its cards around gaming more so than any other subspace. To test if this is still the case with the RX 9070 XT, we have devised a tailored test bench for this card as well as the RX 7900 XTX, the specs of which you can read below:
Test Bench
- OS: Windows 11
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- Motherboard: MSI MAG B850 Tomahawk Max WiFi
- SSD: XPG GAMMIX S70 BLADE 2TB NVMe SSD
- RAM: XPG Lancer RGB 32GB 7200MHz DDR5 Ram
- PSU: XPG Fusion Titanium 1600W Power Supply
- CPU Cooler: EK-Nucleus AIO CR360 LUX D-RGB
Marvel Rivals
- Marvel Rivals ran about 14% better on the 7900 XTX, with a framerate of 58 FPS instead of the 51 FPS of the RX 9070 XT. An impressively close result for a card about half the price.
- There was a 10% difference in the 1% lows, with the 7900 XTX getting 44 FPS, while the RX 9070 fell to about 40 FPS.
Stalker 2
- We saw the RX 7900 XTX reach an average of 45 FPS in Stalker 2, giving it a 15.38% lead over the RX 9070 XT, which averaged 39 FPS.
- In terms of lows, the RX 7900 XTX held 39 FPS, while the RX 9070 XT dipped to 31 FPS, creating a 25.81% difference in the most demanding moments.
God of War Ragnarok
- Both GPUs performed identically, with the RX 9070 XT and RX 7900 XTX averaging 107 FPS. This is a victory in our eyes, considering that the RX 9070 XT is supposed to be a mid-range card.
- The 1% lows told the same story, as both cards dropped to 95 FPS, showing no difference in frame stability.
Cyberpunk 2077
- We measured the RX 7900 XTX at 73 FPS, leading the RX 9070 XT’s 69 FPS by 5.80%. The RX 9070 more or less felt identical to the RX 7900 XTX in this test s as well.
- The 1% lows followed a similar trend, with the RX 7900 XTX maintaining 63 FPS, while the RX 9070 XT fell to 60 FPS, resulting in a 5.00% gap.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- The RX 7900 XTX pulled ahead slightly in our test of CoD Black Ops 6, averaging 71 FPS, which was 2.90% faster than the RX 9070 XT’s 69 FPS. The difference was small, great news for the 9070 XT.
- The lows saw a slightly larger separation, with the RX 7900 XTX dropping to 50 FPS, while the RX 9070 XT dipped to 47 FPS, showing a 6.38% difference.
Alan Wake 2 (RT)
- With high ray tracing settings, the RX 9070 XT actually outperformed the RX 7900 XTX, averaging 19 FPS compared to 12 FPS, a 58.33% increase. The new RT cores from AMD might finally be catching up to their competitors.
- The lows painted an even starker contrast, with the RX 9070 XT managing 15 FPS, while the RX 7900 XTX fell to just 8 FPS, leading to an 87.50% difference in minimum performance.
Cyberpunk 2077 (RT)
- In ultra ray tracing mode, the RX 9070 XT averaged 36 FPS, running 28.57% ahead of the RX 7900 XTX, which reached only 28 FPS.
- The 1% lows reinforced this, as the RX 9070 XT hit 32 FPS, while the RX 7900 XTX dropped to 23 FPS, showing a 39.13% difference in performance stability.
Black Myth: Wukong (RT)
- With very high ray tracing enabled, the RX 9070 XT averaged 15 FPS, which was a massive 66.67% faster than the RX 7900 XTX, which struggled at 9 FPS. This game, like all the other RT titles, was extremely taxing on both GPUs.
- The 1% lows revealed an even bigger gap, with the RX 9070 XT managing 12 FPS, while the RX 7900 XTX hit only 5 FPS, leading to an astonishing 140% difference in worst-case performance.
Productivity Benchmarks
The RX 9070 XT held its own against the 7900 XTX in the gaming tests, but how do they compare to each other in productivity benchmarks? To answer this benchmark we test a variety of software on the same test bench fitted with these graphics cards as the gaming tests.
UL Procyon
- We saw about 11% of difference between these cards in the Llama 2 text generation test, with the RX 9070 getting a score of 2278 points, whereas the RX 7900 XTX hovered closer to around 2527 points.
Blender
- The Barbershop test in Blender using Optix rendering saw a 25% difference between these cards, with the 9070 XT finishing the render in 95 seconds, whereas the RX 7900 XTX had a performance of around 76 seconds.
Davinci Resolve
- Finally, the Pudget Systems test bench had a performance of 9323 points in Davinci Resolve with the RX 9070 XT, which was about 5% lower than the 9815 points seen with the RX 7900 XT.
Overall Performance
| GPU | RX 9070 XT | RX 7900 XTX |
|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 📈50.62 | 📈50.37 |
| 1% Lows | 📉41.5 | 📉40.87 |
| Productivity (Rating) | ✏️7.5/10 | ✏️8/10 |
| Winner: RX 9070 XT | ||
Average Framerate
When we looked at the bigger picture, we saw very little difference between these two cards. The RX 9070 XT performed a bit better in our testing, rounding out the competition with a 0.5% lead. In reality, the RX 7900 XTX performs better in rasterized games, while the RX 9070 XT takes the lead in RT.
1% Lows
The minimum framerates showed about the same performance, with the RX 7900 XTX winning when it came to rasterized games, while the RX 9070 XT took the lead in ray-traced scenarios. We saw a 1.5% difference in the 1% lows on average, with the RX 9070 XT taking the lead.
Productivity
The 7900 XTX won with a noticeable lead in the productivity tests, probably because of its extra VRAM. It beat the RX 9070 pretty handily in our AI test, harder still in Blender Optix rendering, while Davinci Resolve had a less dramatic difference of only 5%.
Power Consumption
| Power Consumption | RX 7900 XTX | RX 9070 XT |
|---|---|---|
| Idle | 13⚡ | 10⚡ |
| Gaming | 356⚡ | 351⚡ |
| Ray Tracing | 358⚡ | 351⚡ |
| Maximum | 450⚡ | 417⚡ |
| Winner: RX 9070 XT | ||
Both cards were about on par with each other when it came to power consumption, though the RX 7900 XTX drew a little bit more power and gave a little bit more performance. The average gaming test ran with about 1.5% more power on the 7900 XTX, whereas the maximum spikes were about 8% higher on the 7900 XTX.
Price And Availability
| GPU | RX 9070 XT | RX 7900 XTX | Price Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch MSRP | 💲599 | 💲999 | 66.78% |
| Current Price | 💲1199 | 💲1238 | 3.25% |
From Intel to AMD to Nvidia, no one is safe from the GPU shortage price hikes. The RX 9070 XT, which is supposed to be a mid-range card, is being sold for more than double its MSRP, if you can find it at all in the first place. The RX 9070 XT is about 3.25% cheaper currently than the 7900 XTX.
What We Recommend
RX 9070 XT: We are thoroughly impressed with the performance of the RX 9070 XT, but the current state of the GPU still makes it not a good deal. Spending over a thousand for a 70-class card is not a wise spending decision. Still, the performance and MSRP of this card show promise.
RX 7900 XTX: In our comparison, even though the RX 7900 XTX performed slightly better in rasterized games, it got thorough when it comes to price-to-performance, when we look at just the MSRP. RT is also something that the RX 7900 XTX lacks that its successors make up for.
With the current state of the market, you could honestly go either way. We would still go with the RX 9070 XT because it is more recent and has better RT capabilities, but the RX 7900 XTX does have more VRAM. If the prices settle down close to the MSRP, then the RX 9070 is the clear victor of this comparison.
The RX 7900 XTX was released in November 2022, which makes it about 2.5 years older than the RX 9070 XT. No, the RX 7900 XTX has 16 lanes of PCIe 4.0, whereas the RX 9070 XT does support 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0. The 24 gigabytes of VRAM of the RX 7900 XTX can be useful if you are working on a big project and running local models would be easier on this card as well. No, the RX 9070 XT has fewer cores compared to the RX 7900 XTX, but it has much-improved performance within those cores. The RX 7900 XTX has a single HDMI 2.1a, two DP 2.1 ports, and a USB Type-C port. The 9070 XT has a single HDMI 2.1b and three DP 2.1a ports. FAQs
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[Comparisons Expert]
Shehryar Khan, a seasoned PC hardware expert, brings over three years of extensive experience and a deep passion for the world of technology. With a love for building PCs and a genuine enthusiasm for exploring the latest advancements in components, his expertise shines through his work and dedication towards this field. Currently, Shehryar is rocking a custom loop setup for his built.
Get In Touch: shehryar@tech4gamers.com
