The embargo is over! We finally can share details on the exciting Radeon RX 9070 series graphics cards powered by RDNA4 that will be available from Internet retailers next week.
Via a livestream happening now, AMD is formally lifting the wraps on the AMD Radeon RX 9000 series graphics as their first RDNA4 graphics products.
RDNA4 is a nice upgrade over RDNA3 especially around ray-tracing and AI performance. There is also an enhanced media engine delivering up to 20% higher quality over RDNA3.
With the Radeon RX 9070 series products they are being advertised as being “built for 4K gaming at a 1440p price.” As far as the price goes, you’ll need to check for an update at the end of this article as soon as it gets announced in the livestream… In the advanced press briefings, AMD refrained from sharing the official pricing information - presumably due to the relentless leakers out there… In any event the Radeon RX 9070 series graphics cards are expected to be priced very competitively.
The Radeon RX 9070 features 56 RDNA4 compute units, 56 RT accelerators, 112 AI accelerators, and features a 2.52GHz boost clock and 16GB of vRAM. There is a 220 Watt board power. The Radeon RX 9070 XT features 64 compute units, 64 RT accelerators, 128 AI accelerators, and a 2.97GHz boost clock. The Radeon RX 9070 XT still is capped off at 16GB of vRAM and bears a 304 Watt board power rating.
AMD in their presentation talked up the RX 9070 as being around 38% faster than an aging Radeon RX 6800 XT or around 26% faster than the GeForce RTX 3080. Yes, older generation cards in the budget-oriented gamers tending to keep their GPUs around longer rather than upgrading each cycle, as their explanation.
Or AMD talks up the RX 9070 as around 21% faster gaming than the Radeon RX 7900 GRE. All of these numbers, of course, are under Microsoft Windows 11.
With the Radeon RX 9070 XT, it’s generalized as being 51% faster than a Radeon RX 6900 XT and 26% faster than a GeForce RTX 3090. Or 42% faster than a Radeon RX 7900 GRE for 4K ultra gaming.
AMD talked up the (Windows) gaming potential a lot for the Radeon RX 9070 series… For Linux gaming performance, you will need to wait for Phoronix benchmark results. Today only the announcement embargo expires and not the review embargo.
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT will see reportedly wide availability beginning on 6 March. With the review/benchmark embargo not expiring today, that’s all we can share for now with our main emphasis and focus being on the Linux support and performance. As you’ll know if reading Phoronix over the past number of months, AMD engineers have been busy for a while now working on the RDNA4/GFX12 open-source Linux driver support. And typically I am not invited to said press/media briefings if the Linux support is knowingly in bad shape to the company. So that all bodes well for the outlook of the Radeon RX 9070 series on Linux (well, aside from late ROCm support for RDNA4 GPUs). Stay tuned.
Update: The pricing has come in and it’s very competitive! The Radeon RX 9070 XT is listed for $599 USD and the Radeon RX 9070 for $549 USD.