Friday, March 7th, 2025Posted by Jim ThackerAMD launches Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"AMD has launched the Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070, the first cards in its Radeon RX 9000 Series of consumer GPUs, based on its next-gen RDNA 4 GPU architecture.The 16GB cards, which have recommended prices of $599 and $549, hit online stores yesterday, to strong reviews in the gaming press.Below, weve summarized their key specs, and rounded up what we know so far about how that gaming performance will translate to CG software like Blender, DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro.New RDNA 4 architecture promises better AI, ray tracing and video encoding performanceThe Radeon RX 9000 Series cards are the first GPUs to use AMDs new RDNA 4 GPU architecture.It features improvements to all of the cards hardware core types, including for general GPU compute, but particularly for AI operations and ray tracing, with AMD claiming that RDNA 4 provides 2x the ray tracing throughput per compute unit compared to RDNA 3.For video processing, a new dual media engine promises to double throughput for AV1 encoding, and to improve the quality of AV1, H.264 and H.265 encoding and decoding by up to 25%.As with NVIDIAs current-gen GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs, the Radeon RX 9000 Series cards support PCIe 5.0.The new cards are also currently the only GPUs to support FSR 4 (FidelityFX Super Resolution 4), the latest version of AMDs AI-based viewport upscaling technology.For more details, Toms Hardware has a deeper dive into the RDNA 4 architecture.AMD Radeon RX 9000 and 7000 Series GPUsRadeon RX 7900 XTRadeon RX 9070 XTRadeon RX 9070Radeon RX 7900 GREArchitectureRDNA 3RDNA 4RDNA 4RDNA 3Shading units5,3764,0963,5845,120AI accelerators168128112160Ray accelerators84645680Base clock (GHz)*1.41.71.31.3Boost clock (GHz)2.43.02.52.2FP32 compute performance (Tflops)*51.548.736.146.0GPU memory20GB GDDR616GB GDDR616GB GDDR616GB GDDR6Memory bandwidth (GB/s)*800645645576TBP300W304W220W260WDisplay*2 x DisplayPort 2.11 x HDMI 2.1a1 x USB-C3 x DisplayPort 2.1a1 x HDMI 2.1b3 x DisplayPort 2.1a1 x HDMI 2.1b2 x DisplayPort 2.11 x HDMI 2.1a1 x USB-CRelease date2022202520252023MSRP at launch$899$599$549$549*Figure taken from third-party website.Key specificationsAMD has changed its naming scheme since the previous-gen Radeon RX 7000 Series, but its launch materials position the new GPUs between the Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 GRE.The new numbering convention suggests that the cards are being pitched against NVIDIAs mid-range consumer GPUs: the current-gen GeForce RTX 5070 and previous-gen GeForce RTX 4070.Above, weve rounded up the key specs of the new Radeon RX 9000 Series cards and their previous-gen counterparts, based on AMDs own figures and the TechPowerUp database.All of the Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070 GPUs are being manufactured by partner firms there are no AMD reference cards so clock speeds and power consumption will vary between models.However, their core specs are broadly comparable to the Radeon RX 7900 GRE all are 16GB cards, and remain on GDDR6 memory as are their recommended launch prices.Processor core core counts are actually down on the previous generation, though AMD is promising overall performance improvements due to the advances in GPU architecture.Strong early reviews in the gaming pressEarly reviews of the Radeon RX 9000 Series cards in the gaming press have been positive, with many contrasting the launch troubles and lukewarm reviews for NVIDIAs GeForce RTX 5070.TechRadars review of the Radeon RX 9070 XT is fairly typical, describing it as a stunning release delivering [GeForce] RTX 4080 levels of gaming performance at half that cards launch MSRP.Benchmark results in CG softwareBut how will that gaming performance translate to professional graphics work?As you would expect, most of AMDs own published performance comparisons are for games, although its launch materials do include a few benchmarks for AI.That includes both generative AI models and the AI tools in CG applications.The slide above shows the Radeon RX 9070 XT outperforming the previous-gen Radeon RX 7900 GRE by 12-17% in AI-based tools in Adobes Lightroom Classic photo editor and by 20-34% in DaVinci Resolve, Blackmagic Designs video editing, compositing and VFX software.The figures are based on Puget Systems standard PugetBench tests.Independent reviews include scores for Blender and Premiere ProSome early reviews also include benchmarks for CG apps, although their conclusions are mixed.Toms Hardware shows the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 outperforming NVIDIAs GeForce RTX 5070 and 4070 in the synthetic SPECworkstation 4.0 benchmark, both in the HandBrake video transcoding test, and for average viewport performance across a range of apps, including Blender.However, for rendering, the GeForce RTX 5070 and 4070 outperformed both the Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs in the Blender benchmark itself.PC Worlds review also notes that the GeForce RTX 5070 absolutely stomped the Radeon RX 9000 Series cards in the PugetBench Premiere Pro benchmark.For DCC work, its also important to note that some GPU render engines, including Arnold GPU, OctaneRender and V-Ray GPU, use NVIDIA APIs, and are not accelerated on AMD graphics cards.Price and availabilityAMDs Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs became available on 6 March 2025 through partner firms including Acer, ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, PowerColor, Sapphire, Vastarmor, XFX and Yeston. The Radeon RX 9070 XT has a MSRP of $599, and the Radeon RX 9070 has a MSRP of $549, but street prices are currently significantly higher for what remains of the initial stock.Read more about the Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs AMDs websiteHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.Latest NewsAMD launches Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070First RDNA 4 GPUs get strong reviews in the gaming press. But how do they fare in CG apps like Blender and DaVinci Resolve?Friday, March 7th, 2025D5 Render 2.10 adds real-time path tracingMajor update to Dimension 5's real-time visualization software adds experimental path tracing system. Check out the other new features.Thursday, March 6th, 2025Download Marmoset's free materials for Toolbag 5Library Drop 05 makes over 150 new assets available for the real-time rendering and look dev software, including 86 new materials.Wednesday, March 5th, 2025Autodesk lays off 1,350 staffSo why is the Maya and 3ds Max developer culling 9% of its global workforce when revenue is actually going up across the business?Tuesday, March 4th, 20253d-io releases Unwrella-IONew standalone app from the maker of the Unwrella plugins for 3ds Max and Maya promises easy UV unwrapping and packing.Tuesday, March 4th, 20255 key features for CG artists in Godot 4.4Discover five key new features in the open-source game engine, including updates to shading, lighting, animation and physics.Tuesday, March 4th, 2025More NewsTrimble releases SketchUp 2025.0Tutorial: Dynamic Cloth Simulation for ProductionCheck out free Blender scattering add-on OpenScatterCETA Software launches Artist AccessFoundry releases Nuke 16.0Boris FX releases SynthEyes 2025Adobe launches Photoshop on iPhonePlastic Software releases Plasticity 2025.1Technicolor Group begins to shut down operationsDownload four free VDB clouds from VFX AssetsArtlist discontinues the FXhome apps: HitFilm and Imerge deadFree tool: Mesh Cleaner for BlenderOlder Posts