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The 9070 XT graphics are terrible

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Hi all,

Yesterday I was lucky enough to find a Taichi 9070 XT OC at microcenter, rushed to buy it, tried it all day. If I crushed the score on Steel Nomad (7931 points), I quickly noticed how ugly games are. I firs tred Half-Life 2 RTX, to see the difference with my 2070 SUPER. The game looked like a mushy pile of pixels, so much so I thought it was a bug. I switched to Stalker 2. The game had terrible aliasing issues, way too noticeable. It had issues with the shadows, they build up and move in "blocks", not progressively. I started feeling really uneasy with all these really noticeable issues compared to my previous card. I switched to CounterStrike 2, sure enough, aliasing everywhere, smokes not displaying well (no details), blocky shadows.

I went to the options, changed AA to max, tweaked all the options I could step by step, hoping for something I missed that would fix it, to no avail. AA and Anisotropic filtering did help, but made everything slightly blurry, making fps like Counter-Strike unplayable. and the shadows were still blocky, smokes not detailed, and some aliasing still visible. I started regretting my purchase, because this thing is very powerful but the experience sucks. I ended up returning it, because I'm not spending $900 and regretting my choice every time I'm starting a game. They tested the card, but nothing wrong with it, it's just the way it handles games.

I purchased an overpriced 5080 Aorus Master instead. Sure enough, games look crisp again, shadows are fine, aliasing normal.

I am really disappointed by AMD. I had seen comparison videos on youtube and I thought it wasn't such a big deal, but it is really noticeable. It feels like they tweaked a few things down to get more brut performance, plain and simple. Has anyone experienced this too?
 
I think we might be getting trolled.... Just a thought......
 
I had seen comparison videos on youtube and I thought it wasn't such a big deal, but it is really noticeable. It feels like they tweaked a few things down to get more brut performance, plain and simple. Has anyone experienced this too?

Zero people have said that in any reviews or posts here and I've seen nothing of that sort on Youtube. Either you had a defective unit or you could have tried to DDU all your GPU drivers and install again. If you're happy with the 5080, then enjoy that.
 
Zero people have said that in any reviews or posts here and I've seen nothing of that sort on Youtube. Either you had a defective unit or you could have tried to DDU all your GPU drivers and install again. If you're happy with the 5080, then enjoy that.
I agree. Either a defective unit, or driver conflict, or user error. Programmable shaders render graphics the same way regardless of manufacturer.
 
I agree. Either a defective unit, or driver conflict, or user error. Programmable shaders render graphics the same way regardless of manufacturer.
I call it pebcak
 
Zero people have said that in any reviews or posts here and I've seen nothing of that sort on Youtube. Either you had a defective unit or you could have tried to DDU all your GPU drivers and install again. If you're happy with the 5080, then enjoy that.
Well then consider me the first, and that's why I took the time to post. I don't know if it's just the FSR, but in Steel Nomad I didn't notice much issues (and I crushed the scores). Only in games. nothing disfunctional with the card, just these details that were too glaring to ignore. At least if someone experiences the same, he won't feel crazy like I did.
 
Well then consider me the first, and that's why I took the time to post. I don't know if it's just the FSR, but in Steel Nomad I didn't notice much issues (and I crushed the scores). Only in games. nothing disfunctional with the card, just these details that were too glaring to ignore.
Considering that you are the only one with such complaints, you have to acknowledge that the chances of the fault lying with the card are negligible.

It is most possibly a software conflict, imo. A fresh OS install couldn't hurt.
 
Hi all,

To follow up, after I switched for a 5080, I hit another issue; image was perfect again, but performance-wise, it was the opposite! low Steel Nomad score, performance about similar to the 9070XT ingame if not lower (I had bought the Aorus Master, supposedly high end, wasn't making sense). I tweaked the Bios flashing the card with a Suprime X one, no dice. I updated my whole rig, bios, drivers, nothing would happen. I used MSI Afterburner to overclock, not much difference.

I ended up thinking I got a lemon, and exchanged it for an Asus Tuf gaming 5080. Same issue happened again. I was about to give up, but then chatGPT mentioned DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) to do a full, clean removal of all drivers. So I did it, switched to safe mode, cleaned up AMD AND Nvidia drivers, removed everything, cleaned my registery with CCLeaner, reinstalled my drivers. Bingo! Card is now unleashed, pulverized Steel Nomad (8800 points), incredible performance.

Of course, now I think of my Taichi 9070 XT that I wanted to love so much, and I'm fairly sure the drivers mix were the culprit too. I had uninstalled my former Nvidia drivers from my prior 2070 SUPER before installing the 9070 XT, and was not aware of DDU (after all, why would you, the uninstall function is there for a reason), and it seems to be very impactful. I wish I could retest it, but what's done is done. I regret though, because for the price, this card was great performance-wise, and I wanted to support team red. Next time. Hope this helps someone down the road.
 
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How could anyone here not know about ddu?
 
Glad that You found the way to get the performance and image back on tracks :),
ps in My opinion there is no team red and team blue, what works for You is important :D,
after all We all wanna smooth experience :D
 
I purchased an overpriced 5080 Aorus Master instead. Sure enough, games look crisp again, shadows are fine, aliasing normal.
I've heard about this. The way the AMD driver renders things and the way NVidia drivers do the same can result in very distinct image qualities. This is why some people are very team Red and some are team Green. At the end of the day, you got your situation sorted, that's what's important.

How could anyone here not know about ddu?
In all fairness, not everyone knows about utilities like DDU. While it's amazingly useful, it is very niche.

I find it incredible people like you are even allowed to comment really. You're not here to help, just to mock or blame people trying to find answers.
I would not go that far. Eiairaman1 is a very passionate person and generally feels strongly about things. That doesn't make him a bad person.
 
@lexluthermiester
niche?
i know/use it since at least 2017.
and at least on forums like guru3d, if ppl have gpu/driver trouble, ddu cleaning is mentioned to the user.
 
@lexluthermiester
niche?
i know/use it since at least 2017.
and at least on forums like guru3d, if ppl have gpu/driver trouble, ddu cleaning is mentioned to the user.
Ok, but you're a tech geek like most of us regulars. We're the exception, not the rule. Most people have no idea what DDU is. That requires us techies to enlighten them and help them get familiar with cool utilities like that. We can't assume everyone knows about something, even if it seems like it is, or should be, common knowledge.
 
To the best of my knowledge, at default driver settings, the image produced by a Radeon and the image produced by a GeForce will be exactly the same. Where it might differ is in the upscaler method used, if any. But a native resolution image, with a matching ray count (if applicable) is exactly the same between both vendors - even in titles that use relatively esoteric rendering methods, like Minecraft.

I can't tell them apart, really.

2025-05-15_16.50.49.png


2025-05-15_16.48.11.png
 
I've heard about this. The way the AMD driver renders things and the way NVidia drivers do the same can result in very distinct image qualities. This is why some people are very team Red and some are team Green. At the end of the day, you got your situation sorted, that's what's important.

Has that old thing come back? Remember the "image quality" arguments from way back in the day?
 
Has that old thing come back? Remember the "image quality" arguments from way back in the day?

I don't think these ever left... it's an age old hoax, like the one that says "Nvidia has poorer colors" or "Nvidia loads games slower". Probably rooted in the ATI Quake 3 scandal of 2001.

Fanboys gonna fanboy lol
 
So...2070 to a 9070xt...to a 5080. Basically comparing a $800 card, to a $1600 card (street prices, because neither is at MSRP), to a card 3 generations old. Providing no details on setting, no details on resolution, and most importantly nothing to discuss like a screenshot that would offer some comparable metric.

I don't think the performance thing is our discussion point here, so much as a claim made with no facts or proof (and one that cannot be proven), is one that can be dismissed as quickly and easily. It's a shame you have such hate for the 9070, but this sounds a lot like user error. A one-d-ten-t user error. If you don't get the joke then read a bit faster, and you should understand the "coded" message about where the source comes from.


As an example, if you're trying to run a 4 k monitor off of a 1920x1080 resolution default size, and hoping that the upscaling is going to allow you to run at uncapped refresh rates with all settings to the moon then maybe you are asking for something a tad bit silly...but this is something I've seen people do. I've seen people do it the second they can reasonably push a 4k resolution's worth of pixels...because they don't understand how setting uncapped frame rates can utterly hobble something. In the last decade I've never seen two video cards render the same scene differently when you manage to wrangle them to exactly the same settings...even when you've got a stuttery mess, that doesn't change what is rendered so much as the brain's processing of motion through a bunch of static images.
 
Next time.
Be (more) patient, please.

Do not come to any conclusion right away, give time to digest, breathe a little, to see things more clearly.

At its current price point, the top RDNA4 SKU is definitely a worthy offering. Especially in raw RT performance, I mean, running CP77 at QHD maxed out RT (no PT) 50+ avg FPS is absolutely no easy task. The performance of the 9070 XT is comparable to the 4070 Ti SUPER (aka faster than the 2000USD 3090 Ti).

was not aware of DDU
Alright, problem solved, thankfully.
 
Yeah this seems kinda far fetched, I'm having no such issues. Currently playing DOOM: The Dark Ages, check out this screen grab on my RX 9070 XT:
DoomDarkAges.jpg
 
Has that old thing come back? Remember the "image quality" arguments from way back in the day?
I do, and it was a freaky mess. To be fair, AMD and NVidia have again changed they way they render visuals enough that differences are possible. For the OP, the default AMD driver config is less than optimal and if they didn't know what settings to change to improve it, NVidia's default config might appeal to them better.

I don't think these ever left... it's an age old hoax
It was not a hoax. There were real and tangible differences. And they have made a somewhat strange reappearance. Granted, with a bit of tweaking, those issues are easily solved, but not everyone knows how to change them or even what needs to be changed.

Probably rooted in the ATI Quake 3 scandal of 2001.
There was that. There where some other instances where certain games looked different, dramatically so in some cases.
 
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It was not a hoax. There were real and tangible differences. And they have made a somewhat strange reappearance. Granted, with a bit of tweaking, those issues are easily solved, but not everyone know how to change them or even what needs to be changed.


There was that. There where some other instances where certain games looked different, dramatically so in some cases.

A very long time ago, yeah. Has been in recent and, at this point, distant memory too, though.

I suppose since the advent of unified compute things have been far closer together than ever before.
 
Low quality post by Marcus L
Hi all,

Yesterday I was lucky enough to find a Taichi 9070 XT OC at microcenter, rushed to buy it, tried it all day. If I crushed the score on Steel Nomad (7931 points), I quickly noticed how ugly games are. I firs tred Half-Life 2 RTX, to see the difference with my 2070 SUPER. The game looked like a mushy pile of pixels, so much so I thought it was a bug. I switched to Stalker 2. The game had terrible aliasing issues, way too noticeable. It had issues with the shadows, they build up and move in "blocks", not progressively. I started feeling really uneasy with all these really noticeable issues compared to my previous card. I switched to CounterStrike 2, sure enough, aliasing everywhere, smokes not displaying well (no details), blocky shadows.

I went to the options, changed AA to max, tweaked all the options I could step by step, hoping for something I missed that would fix it, to no avail. AA and Anisotropic filtering did help, but made everything slightly blurry, making fps like Counter-Strike unplayable. and the shadows were still blocky, smokes not detailed, and some aliasing still visible. I started regretting my purchase, because this thing is very powerful but the experience sucks. I ended up returning it, because I'm not spending $900 and regretting my choice every time I'm starting a game. They tested the card, but nothing wrong with it, it's just the way it handles games.

I purchased an overpriced 5080 Aorus Master instead. Sure enough, games look crisp again, shadows are fine, aliasing normal.

I am really disappointed by AMD. I had seen comparison videos on youtube and I thought it wasn't such a big deal, but it is really noticeable. It feels like they tweaked a few things down to get more brut performance, plain and simple. Has anyone experienced this too?
Go and buy a console you noob, what a load of FUD, you should delete this post for spreading BS

I do, and it was a freaky mess. To be fair, AMD and NVidia have again changed they way they render visuals enough that differences are possible. For the OP, the default AMD driver config is less than optimal and if they didn't know what settings to change to improve it, NVidia's default config might appeal to them better.


It was not a hoax. There were real and tangible differences. And they have made a somewhat strange reappearance. Granted, with a bit of tweaking, those issues are easily solved, but not everyone know how to change them or even what needs to be changed.


There was that. There where some other instances where certain games looked different, dramatically so in some cases.
Maybe 20 years ago, there is 0 difference in image quality rendering with AMD or Nvidia GPU's these days in the same game, the OP is either incompetent or trolling at this point
 
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