AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 9070 XT will stick with traditional 8-pin power

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AMD's next-gen RDNA 4 flagship GPU will be the mid-range Radeon RX 9070 XT. The company is also expected to announce the lower-tier Radeon RX 9070 at CES 2025. Both cards are aimed at the mid-range GPU market, which is currently dominated by the GeForce RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 SUPER.

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Leaked image of AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU.

The Radeon RX 9070 XT is effectively the successor to the Radeon RX 7800 XT from the RDNA 3 generation, with AMD opting to forego calling it the Radeon RX 8800 XT. The new naming puts desktop Radeon model numbers on par with the current Ryzen 9000 CPU Series while sharing similarities with its competition - the RTX 4070 and the upcoming RTX 5070.

Recent rumors and leaks have confirmed some interesting specs, including boost clock speeds of up to 3.1 GHz and the revelation that the Radeon RX 9070 XT reference design will feature a TBP (Total Board Power) of around 260W, with partner cards reportedly pushing this as high as 330W.

A 27% difference like this is usually unheard of and points to some serious overclocking capabilities with RDNA 4.

According to a new report at Benchlife (via Videocardz), AMD will not mandate that partners use the new 16-pin 12V-2x6 power connector for the upcoming Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070 combo.

Instead, the next generation of Radeon graphics cards will use the traditional 8-pin power connectors, with the reference Radeon RX 9070 XT expected to include 2 x 8-pin connectors. However, if partner cards push 330W, we'll probably see a few 3 x 8-pin Radeon RX 9070 XT cards.

Interestingly, even though AMD won't be mandating a switch to the newer 12V-2x6 power connector, ala NVIDIA, this doesn't mean we won't see RDNA 4 GPUs with the newer standard. With this in mind, some partners could opt for the newer 16-pin connector for OC models instead of a 3 x 8-pin setup.

According to leaks, the Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 will launch at the end of January.

• Read more: AMD's next-gen Radeon RX 9070 XT leaks: flagship RDNA 4 GPU boosts to 3.1GHz, 260-330W power
• Read more: RDNA 4 smiles for the camera: this could be AMD's next-gen Radeon RX 8800 XT reference GPU
• Read more: AMD and NVIDIA ship next-gen gaming GPUs from China to US before Jan 20 to escape tariffs