AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT vs AMD Radeon HD 7870 (GHz Edition)

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is a desktop graphics card that launched in Q1 2025 with a MSRP of $599. It is built on the RDNA 4.0 GPU microarchitecture (codename Navi 48) and is manufactured on a 4 nm process.

Memory

The RX 9070 XT has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, with a 2,518 MHz memory clock and a 256 bit interface. This gives it a memory bandwidth of 644.6 Gb/s, which affects how fast it can transfer data to and from memory. GPU memory stores temporary data that helps the GPU with complex math and graphics operations. More memory is generally better, as not having enough can cause performance bottlenecks.

Cores and Clock Speeds

The RX 9070 XT includes 4,096 stream processors (SPs), the processing units for handling parallel computing tasks. The GPU operates at a core clock speed of 1,660 MHz and can dynamically boost its clock speed up to 2,970 MHz. It usually operates at 2,400 MHz during typical gaming workloads. Complementing the processing units are 256 texture mapping units (TMUs) for efficient texture filtering and 128 render output units (ROPs) for pixel processing. Additionally, the GPU features 128 AI accelerators optimized for AI workloads and 64 ray accelerators dedicated to real-time ray tracing calculations.

Compatibility & Power Consumption

The RX 9070 XT occupies 2 PCIe expansion slots. It supports HDMI 2.1b, DisplayPort 2.1a display connections. AMD recommends a power supply of at least 700 W to handle the GPU's thermal design power (TDP) of 304 W.

Benchmark Performance & Value

The RX 9070 XT has the 4th best 3DMark 11 Performance GPU score among the 567 benchmarked GPUs in our database. It achieves 76.22% of the performance of the best benchmarked GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. Its 98,912 score and $599 launch price (MSRP) gives it a performance per dollar of 165.13. This is the best in value for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.