AMD is stepping into the ring with its latest contenders: the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT, set to hit shelves on March 6th, these cards are priced at $549 and $599, respectively, and they’re landing just one day after NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5070 drops. If you’ve been keeping an eye on the graphics card market, you’ll know NVIDIA’s RTX 5070 starts at $549, while the beefier RTX 5070 Ti clocks in at $749. AMD’s clearly aiming to undercut the competition and make some waves—and from what I’ve dug up, they might just pull it off.

Let’s break this down in a way that doesn’t feel like a spec sheet lecture. AMD’s pitching the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT as “4K gaming at a 1440p price,” which sounds like a sweet deal if it holds up. They’re touting some bold performance claims, though the comparisons they’re using raise an eyebrow or two. According to AMD, the RX 9070 XT is 51% faster at 4K with max settings than the RX 6900 XT—a card from 2020 that was a high-end beast back in its day. It’s also supposedly 26% faster than NVIDIA’s RTX 3090, another four-year-old titan. That’s great and all, but those cards were niche, expensive options two generations ago. How about stacking them up against something more current, AMD?

Still, the pricing announcement caught everyone off guard in a good way. Rumors had pegged the RX 9070 at around $649, so seeing it launch at $549 feels like a win for anyone who’s been saving up. The RX 9070 XT at $599, meanwhile, looks poised to take a swing at NVIDIA’s $749 RTX 5070 Ti. If AMD’s performance claims hold water, this could be a real David-versus-Goliath moment—assuming they’ve got the goods to back it up.

So, what are we working with here? AMD’s dropping some hints about where these cards sit in their lineup. The RX 9070 XT, they say, is 42% stronger at 4K Ultra and 38% better at 1440p Ultra than the RX 7900 GRE—a card that went toe-to-toe with NVIDIA’s RTX 4070 at $549 before quietly disappearing last year. They also claim it’s “just barely slightly slower” than the RX 7900 XTX, their flagship from 2022. That’s a pretty tight window, and it suggests the RX 9070 XT could be a sleeper hit for high-end gaming.

The base RX 9070 isn’t far behind, either. AMD says it’s 21% faster than the RX 7900 GRE at 4K, and it outperforms the RX 6800 XT by 38% and the RTX 3080 by 26%. Not bad for a $549 card. Scott Olschewsky, AMD’s director of graphics product management, called the RX 9070’s 4nm monolithic chip “the most efficient GPU we’ve ever built,” sipping just 220 watts of power. Efficiency’s a big deal these days—nobody wants a space heater under their desk.

Both cards come loaded with 16GB of GDDR6 memory, DisplayPort 2.1a, HDMI 2.1b, and PCIe 5.0 support. Don’t sweat the PCIe 5.0 part too much—unless you’ve got a bleeding-edge motherboard, you won’t miss out on much with a 4.0 slot. They’ll plug into your PSU with standard 8-pin connectors, so no funky power adapter nonsense here.

RDNA 4

Here’s where things get juicy: these are the first cards rocking AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture. Compared to RDNA 2 (think RX 6000 series), RDNA 4 doubles the rasterization performance per compute unit. That’s your bread-and-butter graphics power, no ray tracing bells and whistles attached. RDNA 3, for reference, only bumped that up by about 1.4x over RDNA 2, so this is a meaty leap. The catch? The RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT have fewer compute units than the RX 7900 GRE—55 and 64 versus 80—but AMD says they don’t need as many thanks to RDNA 4’s efficiency.

Ray tracing’s getting a glow-up too, with AMD claiming “larger steps” than before. And if you’re into AI tinkering, the FP16 machine learning performance is nearly double what RDNA 3 offered, hitting up to 779 TOPS. Real-world gains vary, though—AMD cited a modest 12% boost in Adobe Lightroom’s super resolution versus the RX 7900 GRE. Your mileage may differ depending on the app.

FSR 4

Even if AI isn’t your thing, AMD’s putting that horsepower to work with FSR 4—their latest FidelityFX Super Resolution tech. It’s an AI-powered upscaler exclusive to RDNA 4 cards (and beyond), promising to juice frame rates without sacrificing visuals. Olschewsky bragged that FSR 4 delivers 4K performance “while looking just as good as native rendering.” They showed it off with Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, a game that crawls at 53fps on 4K Ultra settings. With FSR 4 and frame generation, it hit 182fps, with sharper distant details to boot. No word on performance without the fake frames, but for other titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Ratchet & Clank, AMD promises solid gains.

Launch day will bring 30 FSR 4-ready games, with over 75 by year’s end. A bunch are PS5 titles, which has me wondering how tight FSR 4 ties into the PS5 Pro’s “PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution”—another AMD-powered AI upscaler. Coincidence? Maybe not. Older FSR 3.1 games can reportedly flip to FSR 4 with a simple switch, too, which is a nice perk for developers.

AMD’s also sprucing up the media engine for better gameplay recording after the last one fell short of streamer expectations. And their Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF)—a driver-level frame generation trick you can slap on any game—is leveling up to AFMF 2.1, cutting down on ghosting and smearing. Little quality-of-life tweaks like these could make a big difference if you’re capturing or just chasing smoother gameplay.

Price and availability

Here’s the million-dollar question: will you actually be able to buy these at $549 and $599? Graphics card launches are a circus these days—scalpers, shortages, and board partners hiking prices can turn a good deal sour fast. NVIDIA’s already hinted at supply woes with its RTX 50-series, but Olschewsky’s talking a big game. “We expect strong availability at launch,” he said, taking a jab at NVIDIA: “Our 9070 XT will be going toe-to-toe with the 5070 Ti that users may or may not be able to buy.” The RX 9070, he added, “is going to look very strong against their upcoming 5070.”

AMD’s working with partners to keep prices in check globally, but Olschewsky admitted it’s tough to predict how it’ll shake out. “We’ll be working with partners as we see pricing show up,” he said. Translation: they’re hoping for the best but ready to pivot if things get wild.

Before wrapping up their event, AMD teased the RX 9060 XT, slated for Q2 2025. Details are slim—they’re saving the juicy bits for later—but it’s clear they’re gunning for NVIDIA’s unannounced RTX 5060 lineup. AMD’s not messing around; they want a piece of every tier this year.

So, where does this leave us? The Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT look like serious contenders on paper—aggressive pricing, solid specs, and a shiny new architecture. If AMD nails performance and keeps stock on shelves, they could steal some thunder from NVIDIA’s RTX 50-series launch. March 6th is right around the corner, so we won’t have to wait long to see if these cards live up to the hype. For now, I’d say AMD’s got my attention—and maybe yours too. What do you think: ready to trade in your old GPU for one of these?