Less than two years since AMD launched Radeon RX 7800 XT into the world, the company has a new midrange model to offer the masses with Radeon RX 9070 XT. Team Red has spent its time wisely, greatly improving its GPU architecture to the benefit of rasterised and ray traced rendering, in turn crafting a card that offers awesomely large generational uplifts.
There’s no better way to demonstrate just how far Radeon RX 9070 XT pushes the boat out, relative to RX 7800 XT, than a good old-fashioned hyper-focussed showdown. So, let’s get right to it.
Specs
Radeon RX 9070 XT represents the best possible performance available from RDNA 4 architecture via its Navi 48 GPU. Contrastingly, RX 7800 XT and its Navi 32 die have more-powerful RDNA 3 siblings to look up to. This highlights AMD’s laser focus on the midrange market with its new graphics cards. While architectural innovations markedly differentiate these two pixel pushers, their specifications aren’t so-different in some respects.
| Radeon | RX 9070 XT | RX 7800 XT | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Released | March 2025 | Sep 2023 | – |
| Codename | RDNA 4 | RDNA 3 | – |
| GPU | Navi 48 | Navi 32 | – |
| Process | TSMC N4P (4nm) | TSMC N5/6 (5/6nm) | – |
| Transistors | 53.9bn | 28.1bn | 1.92 |
| Die size | 357mm2 | 346mm2 | 1.03 |
| Stream processors | 4,096 | 3,840 | 1.07 |
| Game clock | 2,400MHz | 2,124MHz | 1.13 |
| Boost clock | 2,970MHz | 2,430MHz | 1.22 |
| Compute units | 64 of 64 | 60 of 60 | 1.07 |
| RT accelerators | 64 (3rd Gen) | 60 (2nd Gen) | 1.07 |
| AI accelerators | 128 (2nd Gen) | 120 (1st Gen) | 1.07 |
| Peak FP32 TFLOPS | 49 | 37 | 1.32 |
| Peak FP16 TFLOPS | 97 | 75 | 1.29 |
| ROPS | 128 | 96 | 1.33 |
| Memory | 16GB | 16GB | 1.00 |
| Mem. type | GDDR6 | GDDR6 | – |
| Mem. clock | 20.0Gb/s | 19.5Gb/s | 1.03 |
| Mem. interface | 256-bit (PCIe Gen 5) | 256-bit (PCIe Gen 4) | 1.00 |
| Mem. bandwidth | 640GB/s | 624GB/s | 1.03 |
| Board power | 304W | 263W | 1.16 |
| Launch MSRP | $599 | $499 | 1.20 |
The die sizes of Navi 48 and 32 are very similar, at 357mm2 and 346mm2, respectively. Within that space, though, the difference in transistor count is stark with a 92% advantage to the RDNA 4 GPU. Staggering stuff.
In terms of subcomponents, Radeon RX 9070 XT boasts a greater compute unit count of 7% compared to RX 7800 XT, with stream processors as well as RT and AI accelerators rising by the same degree. Comparing clock speeds, RX 9070 XT’s game clock is 13% higher than RX 7800 XT. However, boost clock gets a bigger bump across generations, rising by 22%.
Of course, this quantitative analysis doesn’t betray the higher quality of RDNA 4’s accelerator designs, which will become more apparent through benchmarks. In terms of AI performance, though, AMD rates Radeon RX 9070 XT’s FP32 chops at 49 TFLOPS, rising to 97 TFLOPS switching to FP16. This translates to a respective improvement of 29% and 32% compared to 7800 XT.
AMD equips Radeon RX 9070 XT with GDDR6 VRAM running at 20.0Gb/s, a 500Mb/s increase over RX 7800 XT’s 19.5Gb/s chips. This sees the former card’s memory bandwidth inflate to 640GB/s, a rise of 16GB/s compared to the latter’s 624GB/s setup. Outside of these differences, the two models ride on a 256-bit bus and have a 16GB at their disposal. RX 9070 XT does make the jump to PCIe Gen 5, but this change isn’t particularly noteworthy.
Radeon RX 9070 XT has a larger power budget to play with at 304W compared to RX 7800 XT’s 263W. However, manufacturers can boost board power all the way up to 340W on the new card, making for a 16-29% increase gen-on-gen. AMD recommends pairing RX 9070 XT with a 750W power supply, up from its call for a 700W PSU for RX 7800 XT.
For all these improvements, you’ll pay 20% more for Radeon RX 9070 XT than you did for RX 7800 XT upon release, which in turn reaps a much higher value in terms of performance-per-dollar.
Performance
Fresh on the scene, Radeon RX 9070 XT has spent a stint in a Club386 7950X3D test bench. To make this a fair fight, RX 7800 XT has also undergone the same ritual.
Our 7950X3D Test PCs
Club386 carefully chooses each component in a test bench to best suit the review at hand. When you view our benchmarks, you’re not just getting an opinion, but the results of rigorous testing carried out using hardware we trust.
Shop Club386 test platform components:
CPU:Â AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
Motherboard:Â MSI MEG X670E ACE
Cooler:Â Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420 A-RGB
Memory:Â 64GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5
Storage:Â 2TB WD_Black SN850X NVMe SSD
PSU:Â be quiet! Dark Power Pro 13 1,300W
Chassis:Â Fractal Design Torrent Grey
While these cards perhaps shine brightest at QHD (1440p), I’ve tested their mettle at FHD (1080p) and UHD (2160p) resolutions too. You’ll also find benchmarks pertaining to AI performance below.
Application & AI
RDNA 4’s RT accelerators flex their muscles in 3DMark Speed Way, affording Radeon RX 9070 XT at 54% lead over RX 7800 XT. This is a welcome generational improvement in isolation but it translates well within the broader market too, putting AMD within spitting distance of its rivals.
More impressively, Radeon RX 9070 XT delivers a 74% generational upgrade in 3DMark Steel Nomad. This enormous leap makes it a rasterised force to reckon with, actually surpassing RX 7800 XT’s most-powerful siblings.
There’s more to the story beyond these synthetic tests but, without spoiling too much, real-world results remain exciting.
Putting half-precision compute performance to the test in Geekbench AI, Radeon RX 9070 XT returns a score 51% the better of RX 7800 XT. This is markedly higher than its on-paper FP16 TFLOPS suggest and is testament to the power of AMD’s new AI accelerators.
Running Llama 3.1, Radeon RX 9070 XT leads RX 7800 XT by 32% in the Procyon AI Text Generation benchmark. This is a solid gen-on-gen uplift but more work is necessary if AMD hopes to be competitive in the wider market in this respect.
Gaming
Leaping into Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Radeon RX 9070 XT delivers triple-digit frame rates across the board. Relative to RX 7800 XT, it enjoys leads of 31% at FHD, growing to 37% at QHD and 43% at UHD.
Generational gains aren’t as pronounced in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, but Radeon RX 9070 XT still pulls ahead of RX 7800 XT by 19% at FHD, 27% at QHD and 34% at UHD. Note that the newer card more comfortably maintains a frame rate north of 60fps at the highest of the three resolutions, averaging at 82fps to its predecessor’s 61fps.
Switching gears to ray tracing in Forza Motorsport, putting Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 9070 XT side-by-side feels like pitting an affordable hatchback against a souped-up track car. The race between the cards isn’t remotely close, as the newer model barrels ahead by 52% at FHD, 58% at QHD and a whopping 72% at UHD.
As Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 7800 XT joust one another in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, each performs admirably across all three resolutions. Of course, the fresh-faced contender emerges the superior combatant as it musters 25% more frames at FHD, growing to 39% at QHD and 37% at UHD.
Radeon RX 7800 XT sits within arm’s reach of Radeon RX 9070 XT at FHD in Rainbow Six Extraction with a relatively small 14% difference. However, this gap turns into a chasm at QHD as RDNA 4’s gains a 38% advantage, widening all the more to 48% at UHD.
FSR
Before taking in the blinding path traced lights of Night City, note the comparisons below are using FSR 3.0. Radeon RX 9070 XT does support FSR 4, unlike RX 7800 XT, but it isn’t possible to inject the newer version into Cyberpunk 2077. Hopefully, though, it’s only a matter of time until CD Projekt Red updates the game and adds the new upscaler.
Running Cyberpunk 2077’s RT Overdrive graphics preset sans any performance enhancers isn’t something I typically recommend, even on higher-end cards. Regardless, Radeon RX 9070 XT demonstrates an extraordinary generational uplift of 100% at FHD and QHD, rounding off with a still-impressive 83% at UHD.
It’s important to stress, though, that Radeon RX 9070 XT only manages to deliver a playable experience at native FHD. This doesn’t diminish AMD’s progress in the face of an incredibly different rendering workload, of course, but is important to bear in mind all the same.
Setting FSR 3 Super Resolution to ‘Quality’ mode considerably lightens the load on both cards. Upscaling grants Radeon RX 9070 XT enough breathing room to push north of 60fps at FHD and above 30fps at QHD while UHD remains off limits. Meanwhile, RX 7800 XT finally pushes north of 30fps at FHD.
Performance differentials across all three resolutions are broadly similar, as Radeon RX 9070 XT enjoys an 86% advantage at FHD, 96% at QHD, rounding off with 92% at UHD.
AMD recommends establishing a base average frame rate of 60fps before engaging FSR 3 Frame Generation in a bid to avoid noticeably high frame latency as well as curb interpolation artefacts. Radeon RX 9070 XT is the only graphics card here to tick these boxes, offering 73fps at FHD using FSR 3 Super Resolution and 145fps with frame generation.
It should be possible to bring other resolutions up to speed on Radeon RX 9070 XT using a less-demanding quality preset for FSR 3 Super Resolution, i.e. using a lower base resolution. Speaking from experience, this is an easy trade-off to stomach using FSR 4 but isn’t something I recommend doing with older versions, such as the one present in Cyberpunk 2077.
Vitals
As mentioned earlier, board power for Radeon RX 9070 XT will vary across models. I’ve sourced system power consumption metrics from a Sapphire Nitro+ 9070 XT (330W) and a Sapphire Nitro+ 7800 XT (288W). Both cards are higher than reference specs but are similar in their increase at +27W and +25W, respectively.
With those caveats mentioned, Radeon RX 9070 XT draws 26% more watts from the wall under load than RX 7800 XT. However, it does sip less electricity while idle.
Despite its larger appetite for watts, Radeon RX 9070 XT is nowhere near as hot as 7800 XT, running at a cool 59°C to it’s forebears 72°C.
Once again, this is a comparison between two generations of Nitro+ coolers, as there’s no MBA Radeon RX 9070 XT to point to. These temperatures won’t apply to every cooler, of course, so treat them as ballpark reference points.
Credit to Sapphire for designing such a robust cooler with its Nitro+ Radeon RX 9070 XT, which hums along at 36.0db under load. That’s practically inaudible over the test bench’s already-quiet system fans. By comparison, previous generation Nitro+ Radeon RX 7800 XT is noticeably louder at 41.8db. As a final reminder, noise profiles will vary across manufacturers.
Conclusion
It’s plain to see how much more-powerful Radeon RX 9070 XT is when you place it alongside RX 7800 XT. In fact, it’s superior to the point that it’s one of the rare examples of a worthwhile upgrade across a single generation. Of course, these improvements come at a higher cost but spending more will net you a better value purchase in this case.
Radeon RX 9070 XT
“There’s a new midrange marvel in town.” Read our review.
Radeon RX 7800 XT
“The midrange card you’ve been waiting for.” Read our review.
If you can’t stretch your budget to accommodate Radeon RX 9070 XT, then I suggest picking up RX 9070 over RX 7800 XT if possible if you find them at MSRP. Expect a versus guide comparing the two graphics cards shortly, but you’ll find all the numbers you want in my review in the meantime.
