Following the surprise turn of events that the next AMD graphics card will be Radeon RX 9070 XT, specifications for the pixel pusher have followed shortly after. Thankfully, it seems that the midrange maverick will have memory aplenty to tackle the demands of today’s games.
Radeon RX 9070 XT will feature 16GB of VRAM according to leaker momomo_us, citing several unannounced Asus models of the graphics card. For now, it seems as though the manufacturer only plans to launch TUF Gaming and Prime versions of the AMD pixel pusher, but ROG variants could show face closer to launch.
Tangentially, momomo_us also confirms that GeForce RTX 5080 will arrive with 16GB of VRAM too. The leaker curiously cites a potentially new family of products from Asus dubbed ‘ROG Astral’. Listings featuring this branding also briefly appeared on the store El Changarro, before the retailer promptly erased any mention of it.
A 16GB buffer puts Radeon RX 9070 XT alongside Radeon RX 7800 XT and the now-discontinued Radeon 7900 GRE in this respect. However, there’s no confirmation as to what standard of video memory the next-gen Navi 44 GPU will have at its disposal, nor what its total bandwidth will be. Nvidia seems all but certain to use GDDR7 on its upcoming GeForce RTX 50 Series but AMD could opt for slower GDDR6 stock in a bid to cut costs.
Should this be the case, I hope AMD has the sense to equip its less-powerful Navi 44 GPU with at least 12GB of memory. Anything less would risk less-than-flattering comparisons to Intel’s Arc B580 and put in the already mired company of the 8GB GeForce RTX 5060.
VRAM capacity has its part to play in manifesting Radeon RX 9070 XT performance but the grunt of its GPU will ultimately determine its value, alongside price. We should learn more about each category come CES 2025, where I expect AMD will formally unveil the graphics card alongside Ryzen 9 9000X3D CPUs.
Club386 will be in Las Vegas for the show, so stay tuned for any and all announcements. In the meantime, give the site a follow on Google News to make sure you don’t miss any of our daily news coverage, as well as reviews and other thoughts on all things tech.
