AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT And 9070 Review: Competition Heats-Up For Gamers
Homeworld 3 Benchmarks
Homeworld 3
XFX Radeon RX 9070 XT Homeworld 3 Details @ 4K
The Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT cards offered competitive performance in Homeworld 3, but ultimately trade blows with the GeForce RTX 5070. At 1440p, the new RDNA 4-based Radeons once again finish ahead of the RTX 5070, but behind the RTX 5070 Ti. With the resolution cranked up to 4K, however, the GeForce RTX 5070 is able to overtake the Radeon RX 9070 and finishes right on top of the two 9070 XTs, though the GeForce put up a better minimum framerate.
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Benchmarks
Next up, we’ve got some benchmarks from Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. The original Horizon Zero Dawn was initially released as an exclusive on the PlayStation 4, but was ported to the PC a couple of years back. A few months ago, however, a remastered version of the game was released, with upgraded visuals and support for more advanced graphics technologies. For those unfamiliar with the game, it follows a character named Aloy, who is on a quest to unravel mysteries of a future Earth ruled by machines. She is outcast from her tribe and fights to uncover her past and stop an impending threat.
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered XFX Radeon RX 9070 XT Details @ 4K
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered XFX Radeon RX 9070 XT Details @ 4K
This game supports DLSS and FSR 4, with or without frame generation. In these tests, the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT continue to perform well, with the XT cards taking the overall lead with the base Radeon RX 9070 battling it out with the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.
The Talos Principle II Testing
Croteam’s The Talos Principle II is a sequel to the original first-person, puzzle-based adventure game that features philosophical themes and expansive environments with increasingly more difficult challenges as the game progresses. It was originally released for multiple platforms, but has been continually updated on the PC.
The Talos Principle II
The Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT continue to battle it out with the higher-end GeForce RTX 5070 Ti in the Talos Principle II. At 1440p, the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT finish right on top of the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. With the resolution increased to 4K, the new Radeons continue to perform well, and easily outrun the GeForce RTX 5070, but the RTX 5070 Ti pulls ahead by a few percentage points.
With DLSS or FSR enabled, the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT's performance is good, but somewhat mixed. With just resolution scaling enabled, the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT outrun the GeForce RTX 5070, and duke it out with the RTX 5070 Ti. Add frame generation to the mix, however, and the new Radeons jump to the top of the charts in this game.
Assassin's Creed Mirage Benchmarks
Ubisoft’s Assassin's Creed Mirage is an action-adventure game set in 9th century Baghdad, Iraq. It is the thirteenth major installment in the storied Assassin's Creed franchise and the successor to 2020's Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
Assassin's Creed Mirage ASUS GeForce RTX 5070 Ti PRIME Details @ 4K
The latest Assassin's Creed game also ran particularly well on the new RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT. Here, the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT compete well with the GeForce RTX 4080 at both resolutions and clearly outrun the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, let alone the GeForce RTX 5070.
Enabling DLSS or FSR in Assassin's Creed Mirage significantly increases framerates, but doesn't change the overall story. The Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT remain competitive with the GeForce RTX 4080 and outrun the RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti.
Black Myth: Wukong Benchmarks
Black Myth: Wukong is a title with a storied history. It began development way back in 2018, and was first showed to the public with an incredible trailer in 2020, but the pandemic and other internal struggles delayed the game's development and it wasn't released until last year. Black Myth: Wukong supports a variety of upscalers, including NVIDIA's DLSS, AMD's FSR3, Intel's XeSS, and Epic's own TSR. Using DLSS, FSR3, or TSR gives you the option of enabling frame generation too, which you'll need if you want to crank up the visuals in this stunning title to maintain smooth animation.
Black Myth: Wukong
Black Myth: Wukong XFX Radeon RX 9070 XT Details @ 4K
Black Myth: Wukong is absolutely punishing at the Cinematic image quality preset with full ray tracing enabled (medium quality). The Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT fare much better then the RDNA 3-based Radeon RX 7900 XTX, but ultimately still trail even the GeForce RTX 5070 at both resolutions.
Resolution scaling with DLSS or FSR is practically a must if you want to play Black Myth: Wukong with the highest image quality settings. Doing so here has a hugely positive affect on framerates, but it doesn't change the outcome for the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT. They perform better than the previous-gen Radeon, but NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 series handle this game much better.
Black Myth: Wukong
Black Myth: Wukong XFX Radeon RX 9070 XT Details @ 4K
Resolution scaling with DLSS or FSR is practically a must if you want to play Black Myth: Wukong with the highest image quality settings. Doing so here has a hugely positive affect on framerates, but it doesn't change the outcome for the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT. They perform better than the previous-gen Radeon, but NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 series handle this game much better.
F1 24 Racing Sim Benchmarks
F1 24 is Codemaster’s latest Formula One racing simulation, and like previous version of the game, it sports impressive visuals. This latest addition to the franchise supports DirectX 12 with ray tracing, and it incorporates support for a number of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) features and NVIDIA technologies, like DLSS with frame generation. We tested the games with its Ultra High graphics preset, with ray tracing and TAA enabled at a couple of resolutions to see what these graphics cards could do.
F1 24
With DLSS or FSR 2 (Balanced) enabled in F1 24, the new Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT continue to perform well. With just resolution scaling, they continue to do battle with the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. Add frame generation into the mix, however, and these new RDNA 4-based Radeons actually leap to the head of the pack.
Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarks
Cyberpunk 2077 is based on the Cyberpunk tabletop role-playing game franchise. The tabletop game was published for the first time all the way back in 1988, and the intervening 30-odd years has not changed the game world all that much. As a result, Cyberpunk 2077 looks somewhat retro-futuristic, as this is how people in the '80s imagined what the future would look like.The PC game make use of virtually every advanced DirectX graphics technology and features support for DLSS, FSR and XeSS, and after a somewhat rocky release, it has been significantly updated and optimized for a multitude of hardware configurations. Although it is no longer considered a new title, Cyberpunk 2077 remains a showcase for many advanced graphics technologies.
We tested a pre-release version of Cyberpunk 2077 that's been updated with support for DLSS 4's transformer model and multi-frame generation. This is an important note because Cyberpunk foreshadows how future games that are optimized for the Blackwell GPU architecture and the RTX 50 series, may perform relative to other GPUs.
Cyberpunk 2077
Adding frame generation into the mix helps push the new Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT up the stack a bit. With single frame generation (labeled 2x in this game, on the GeForce RTX 50 series cards), the Radeon RX 9070s finish right alongside the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and leave the RTX 5070 behind. Factor in multi-frame generation though, and the GeForce RTX 50 series cards surge ahead and take the top spots. That said, the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT can still manage triple-digit framerates here, with very taxing settings -- good stuff for cards in this price range.
