AMD Radeon RX 9070 Series Technical Deep Dive

[bitsandboots]

Geforce 8 series was at it's prime where ~100% performance boost was nothing special so no you are wrong again! I never studied AMD history maybe there is something similar in history.

Radeon HD 4xxx through 7xxx series are the only times that come to mind in which AMD seemed to stand a chance in the high end to me. It was a time in which nvidia had lukewarm cards at minimum.
Since the GTX 680 I don't think nvidia ever looked in their rear view mirror to see where AMD wound up.

But, now they've taken advantage of their more or less monopoly and the 9070XT is looking pretty good. If I weren't so vram sensitive I might ditch my 3090 for it, but let's see if 32gb actually happens.

 

[theglaze]

The only way $50 makes sense betweeen 9070 XT and 9070 non-XT:

• 9070 XT is a paper launch with very limited stock with overpriced AIB models, plus anti-consumer behaviour by retailers with forced bundles.
• GPU starved customers can buy 9070 non-XT because it's actually stocked regularly at MSRP (which is a relative bad deal) and no bundle required?

Which is the same ploy Nvidia is pulling with the upcoming 5070 vanilla model.

and if you complain:

 

[Lew Zealand]

Shocking development, immediately after AMD presentation a few big retailers suddenly have a lot of rtx 5080 and 5070 ti in stock, stores like pcgarage.ro and cel.ro now all have plenty of Nvidia in stock.

In the US the cheapest you can get any 5000 now is an MSRP 5070 Ti Ventus for $1250. $600 seems reasonable compared to that but of course both prices are subject to the current market's highly variable supply and demand.

 

[btk2k2]

The only way $50 makes sense betweeen 9070 XT and 9070 non-XT:

N48 has good yields so rather than binning perfectly good dies as a 9070 AMD are just making sure there is supply of 9070XT and that means using the 9070 as an upsell product. As more production ramps and they get more faulty dies the 9070 price can drop down a bit.

 

[AnotherReader]

Thanks for the article @W1zzard . The article says that N4C is more advanced than N4P, but TSMC claims that it's a lower cost variant:

As a result of these improvements, the company expects N4C to achieve both smaller die sizes as well as a reduction in production complexity, which in turn will bring die costs down by up to 8.5%.

Thing should be 60% faster then a 6700XT, which i'm sitting on now still.

Going by TPU's reviews and AMD's claims, this should be more than twice as fast as your 6700 XT.

 

[EatingDirt]

The copium from AMD fans is real.

I'll eat my shorts if these cards show up anywhere near the 5070 Ti in the steam hardware survey.

What's the point of your post? This just makes you sound like a Nvidia fanboy. Many of us on this site understand that the general consumer will just blindly buy a Nvidia anyway.

We'll see how the reviews turn out but, the 9070XT appears to be an excellent value for people looking to upgrade from low-mid range cards a few generations old. A much better value than anything Nvidia is giving us currently.

 

[Krit]

Emphasize "ONE OF" instead of "THE BEST", please.

It's still not that close as you think it is. Yes RX 9070 XT is a great gpu in terms of price/perfromance but only if compare it to today's RTX 5070 Ti piece of shit. The worst gpu generation ever!!!!!!! Nowadays RTX 50 Series is a real gaming cancer! It's something similar when bird on streets unintentionally shits on head better get rid of this shit as quickly as possible.........

 

[Zareek]

Decent pricing but they are still missing the boat on grabbing back a huge chunk of the market. With the 9070XT at $550 and the 9070 at $450 these would never be on the shelf. That is how you steal market share. These prices will attract AMD fans and some of the people on the fence. To steal Nvidia's loyal customers you need to make the price/feature difference just plain silly, an absolute no brainer.

 

[Chrispy_]

Personally I disagree, after reading all the material released today, I think that despite the lukewarm performance figures and the usual marketing blunders, there is a lot more to like than to dislike about it and reckon it's time to acknowledge the great gains in some of the auxiliary features that I have always defended NVIDIA over AMD for. Namely, the one I personally had the biggest bone to pick with: THEY FINALLY FIXED THE DOGSHIT ENCODER!

I'm not sure what the encoder has to do with my argument that the vanilla 5070 is overpriced.
Don't get me wrong, fixing the encoder is good news, but I only talked about the 9070 being lower performance/$ than the 9070XT. Nothing else.

Overpricing the lower-tier card is a repeat mistake that they've made multiple times before, proving once again that AMD's marketing team can't learn from mistakes.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

AMD opting to go for performance comparison against 4 year old GPUs. Great! And to top it off majority of slides feature MBA designs that we were told were "only artist concept" which I strongly doubt.

Yes, it looks better, but it’s common to compare new product to a couple generations ago, as that is likely the target upgrade audience. I know some people upgrade every generation, but I sure don’t.

Also, depending on price and performance, the non-XT might not be so bad, and it’s a drop-in upgrade for those with lesser PSUs. Granted, they tend to aim higher than needed on the PSU requirements, but if you can only support one 8-pin currently, it’s worth a look. Once you start talking new PSU, the “all in” price difference becomes more like $100-125. If your PSU passes muster, then yeah, the non-XT doesn’t offer as much.

 

[Krit]

Hopefully AV1/HEVC will be improved in terms of visual quality per size. Very important thing to me.

 

[AnotherReader]

I'm not sure what the encoder has to do with my argument that the vanilla 5070 is overpriced.
Don't get me wrong, fixing the encoder is good news, but I only talked about the 9070 being lower performance/$ than the 9070XT. Nothing else.

Overpricing the lower-tier card is a repeat mistake that they've made multiple times before, proving once again that AMD's marketing team can't learn from mistakes.

I haven't worked for any silicon manufacturers, but in large retailers, marketing and pricing are separate teams.

 

[Scattergrunt]

In the US the cheapest you can get any 5000 now is an MSRP 5070 Ti Ventus for $1250. $600 seems reasonable compared to that but of course both prices are subject to the current market's highly variable supply and demand.

I've seen it more hover around 900 / 1000 USD, which is still really bad. Lets not get too hopeful that AMD will have better than than NVIDIA.. I don't think they will paper launch it (because they obviously had a lot more time to buildup the stock, so their stock will be better than NVIDIA's at launch)

What's the point of your post? This just makes you sound like a Nvidia fanboy. Many of us on this site understand that the general consumer will just blindly buy a Nvidia anyway.

Most general consumers don't even know AMD exists, or don't really care. Keep in mind that many people buy prebuilts instead of building too, a field which NVIDIA almost universally dominates.

We'll see how the reviews turn out but, the 9070XT appears to be an excellent value for people looking to upgrade from low-mid range cards a few generations old. A much better value than anything Nvidia is giving us currently.

Yes, it looks better, but it’s common to compare new product to a couple generations ago, as that is likely the target upgrade audience. I know some people upgrade every generation, but I sure don’t.

Seconded!

Also, depending on price and performance, the non-XT might not be so bad, and it’s a drop-in upgrade for those with lesser PSUs. Granted, they tend to aim higher than needed on the PSU requirements, but if you can only support one 8-pin currently, it’s worth a look. Once you start talking new PSU, the “all in” price difference becomes more like $100-125. If your PSU passes muster, then yeah, the non-XT doesn’t offer as much.

I'm hoping the non XT model is better than it looks. I don't expect its current MSRP to last though, they're gonna drop it to like $525 or lower I'd imagine.

 

[GhostRyder]

AMD snatches defeat from the jaws of victory again... $600/$550 are too expensive for these cards to be compelling.

Single digit market share incoming within two years. I hate this garbage GPU timeline we're on.

The copium from AMD fans is real.

I'll eat my shorts if these cards show up anywhere near the 5070 Ti in the steam hardware survey.

Considering your commentary, I don't think you can talk about 'copium' or 'AMD fans'. The fact you say $600 for this card is too much shows your bias... Even if the card is 10% on average below the 5070ti, well guess what the 5070ti is $750 MSRP and even then good luck finding one under $900.

AS for the cards themselves, I will wait for TPU reviews to see how I feel. The 50 dollar difference is weird choice, so my opinion is either they are cut down chips that are very close in performance, or there are going to be alot less of the 9070XT due to yields and these lower yield chips will be a lot more available. Either way I would have preferred the difference being a bit more in price.

 

[bitsandboots]

What's the point of your post? This just makes you sound like a Nvidia fanboy. Many of us on this site understand that the general consumer will just blindly buy a Nvidia anyway.

They were coming from a point of fashion. As you know, people wouldn't be caught in public with just any old GPU. This isn't just a piece of hardware you can buy in a vacuum, this is a lifestyle and you must pay attention to what other people are buying. [/s]

 

[dartuil]

Now i wait for 5070 vanilla reviews and 9070 review im in the 400-600 range.

 

[Scattergrunt]

Decent pricing but they are still missing the boat on grabbing back a huge chunk of the market.

AMD will have to do a lot more than give great price to performance to take back a huge chunk of the market IMHO. Lets not forget prebuilts, a space which NVIDIA has always dominated. The only GPU in recent memory from AMD that was really popular in prebuilts to my knowledge was the RX 6600, the RX 7700XT was a particular favorite for some system builders but from what more indie prebuilt makers seem to say, the preference for NVIDIA in prebuilts is real. Especially among the parents / teens and young adult crowd. Bigger company's like IBUYPOWER offer both pretty equally but when you look at companies like Alienware or etc, its pretty clear who's winning in the prebuilt market.

I can't say too much obviously because I have never worked for a prebuilt company, indie or gigantic. But it seems that NVIDIA has a iron fist over this part of the market

AMD has been doing better lately at least, I see RX 7000 GPU's more in prebuilts now, but its still way less compared to RTX 4000 GPU's, and soon to be 5000. This NVIDIA iron fist situation was noticeable during the RTX 3000 series too.

With the 9070XT at $550 and the 9070 at $450 these would never be on the shelf. That is how you steal market share. These prices will attract AMD fans and some of the people on the fence. To steal Nvidia's loyal customers you need to make the price/feature difference just plain silly, an absolute no brainer.

Lets not forget the margins.. as much as I love the idea of that price, I'm not sure if AMD has the margins for it. I think the 9060 and 9060XT will be the popular ones this RX 90xx generation.

I'm more interested in the 9060XT and 9060, because of those are good price to performance, we could see those get as popular as the RX 6600 was in prebuilts. And that could really help with the market share, too.

 

[LastDudeALive]

Hopefully AV1/HEVC will be improved in terms of visual quality per size. Very important thing to me.

TPU doesn't test that, but TomsHardware and Puget Systems do.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

AMD will have to do a lot more than give great price to performance to take back a huge chunk of the market IMHO. Lets not forget prebuilts, a space which NVIDIA has always dominated. The only GPU in recent memory from AMD that was really popular in prebuilts to my knowledge was the RX 6600, the RX 7700XT was a particular favorite for some system builders but from what more indie prebuilt makers seem to say, the preference for NVIDIA in prebuilts is real. Especially among the parents / teens and young adult crowd. Bigger company's like IBUYPOWER offer both pretty equally but when you look at companies like Alienware or etc, its pretty clear who's winning in the prebuilt market.

I can't say too much obviously because I have never worked for a prebuilt company, indie or gigantic. But it seems that NVIDIA has a iron fist over this part of the market

Lets not forget the margins.. as much as I love the idea of that price, I'm not sure if AMD has the margins for it. I think the 9060 and 9060XT will be the popular ones this RX 90xx generation.

I'm more interested in the 9060XT and 9060, because of those are good price to performance, we could see those get as popular as the RX 6600 was in prebuilts. And that could really help with the market share, too.

Also, best "price to performance" for the last two generations really only means "best price to performance *for native raster". In RT AMD has long trailed behind nvidia, and FSR has been a wet fart. FSR4 looks to fix much of that, we'll have to wait for testing to see. But if they cant close the RT performance gap being cheaper wont be enough to regain significant marketshare.

 

[nRag3]

What's the deal with the March 6th launch date? Hasn't stock been seeded with retailers around the globe for weeks now? Why not ride the release momentum and make them available now? Drivers aren't ready? I don't get it.

 

[LastDudeALive]

What's the deal with the March 6th launch date? Hasn't stock been seeded with retailers around the globe for weeks now? Why not ride the release momentum and make them available now? Drivers aren't ready? I don't get it.

They're giving Nvidia time to increase 5070-Ti stock and lower prices so gamers can buy what they actually want. Very considerate of them.

 

[dir_d]

Everyone is talking about the 9070 being a bad buy at $549 but that was done on purpose. Its an upselling technique so 95% will see for only 50 bucks they can buy a 9070XT. This time i think it may work

 

[Bomby569]

In Europe at least these will be too expensive for what they are and I'm not going to say otherwise just because Nvidia is even more greedy.

 

[Frick]

What's the deal with the March 6th launch date? Hasn't stock been seeded with retailers around the globe for weeks now? Why not ride the release momentum and make them available now? Drivers aren't ready? I don't get it.

If those are actual retail prices these will sell incredibly well, if the stock is abundant that will be a huge win for AMD.

 

[Scattergrunt]

Also, best "price to performance" for the last two generations really only means "best price to performance *for native raster". In RT AMD has long trailed behind nvidia, and FSR has been a wet fart. FSR4 looks to fix much of that, we'll have to wait for testing to see. But if they cant close the RT performance gap being cheaper wont be enough to regain significant marketshare.

Yea, us as tech enthusiasts can live with worse RT or a worse version of DLSS in FSR but the general public is far more skeptical (or arguably, has the wrong values)
I think AMD will close the RT gap with this generation, putting their RT as "still worse, but not by much" and FSR4 looks very promising (Not that it will match the newest DLSS gens but as long as its 'good enough', which FSR3 was for me, then it should be fine.)

I think with that, they can finally have the general public look less at those things and focus more on the price to performance. I'm hoping too that this way they can get these GPU's popular with prebuilt companies, especially in later generations of AMD GPU's.

Everyone is talking about the 9070 being a bad buy at $549 but that was done on purpose. Its an upselling technique so 95% will see for only 50 bucks they can buy a 9070XT. This time i think it may work

I think the reason why people are saying this is because its very similar to what they did with the RX 7900XT & RX 7900XTX launches. And initial price of the RX 7900XT was universally panned for the most part.