GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC Review - Fantastic Performance, Questionable Value

Introduction

RDNA has arrived, with AMD releasing the Radeon RX 9070 and the flagship Radeon RX 9070 XT, two cards that are set to compete directly with NVIDIA's brand-new GeForce RTX 5070 and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. Unlike NVIDIA's mid-range and enthusiast offerings, the Radeon RX 9070 XT, at $599, is only 9% more expensive than the $549 Radeon RX 9070.

This muddles the Radeon RX 9070 value proposition quite a bit, as you've got a situation where spending a bit more is enough to unlock a new tier of performance. Granted, the Radeon RX 9070, especially in overclocked GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC form, is not dramatically slower than the Radeon RX 9070 XT. However, the aggressive pricing of the latter is enough to make you choose that over this.

A quick look at the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC

How much slower are we talking? Looking at 1440p and 4K gaming, the difference is around 14%. With this in mind, with the same MSRP or price point as NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5070, the overclocked GIGABYTE card we received from AMD for review is around 5% faster on average for 1440p gaming and 6% faster when you bump up the resolution to 4K when stacked up against the Founders Edition model. With RDNA 4's massive improvement to ray-tracing performance and FSR 4, which even means Path Tracing is possible on the Radeon RX 9070, AMD has effectively leveled the playing field.

However, DLSS 4 and support for NVIDIA's RTX suite of technologies are enough to swing the pendulum in favor of the RTX 5070. But even here, the shadow of the Radeon RX 9070 XT looms large, a card that outperforms the GeForce RTX 5070 in every way - including raw ray-tracing performance in games like Cyberpunk 2077.

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So where does that leave the Radeon RX 9070, especially OC models like the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC, which ships with a 180 MHz boost to clock speeds? OC models usually command a premium, and with only $50 separating the MSRP of the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT, there's not a lot of wiggle room. It's no secret that GeForce RTX is the dominant brand for discrete GPUs, so for the baseline Radeon RX 9070 to make as significant an impact as the Radeon RX 9070 XT, its price should have been $449 or $479.

And that's because, pricing aside, the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC is a fantastic GPU for 1440p gaming, FSR 4 delivers excellent image quality, and AMD has finally delivered a mid-range GPU with decent ray-tracing performance.

Best Deals: GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC

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RDNA 4 - AMD Levels the Playing Field

Below is a summary of AMD's new RDNA 4 architecture, applicable to all models.

AMD's new RDNA 4 architecture presents a massive improvement over the chiplet design that we saw with RDNA 3. Returning to the monolithic design of RDNA and RDNA 2 might sound like a regression, especially when AMD CPUs have gone in the other direction, but this isn't the case. In a nutshell, RDNA 4 is built for 2025. This GPU architecture embraces ray-tracing performance as a key pillar, lays the groundwork for neural rendering, and supercharges AI performance for the new FSR 4 and complex AI workloads. Throw in a revamped media engine for creators and streamers and support for next-gen DisplayPort 2.1a displays, and RDNA 4 presents a new and revitalized direction for Radeon graphics.

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RDNA 4's overhauled Compute Unit, which houses all of the raster, ray-tracing, and AI hardware, has seen several enhancements over RDNA 3 and is one of the reasons why the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT deliver impressive performance gains. The RDNA 4 Compute Unit, or CU, features an enhanced memory subsystem, improved scalar units (for raw raster), dynamic register allocation to reduce latency and bottlenecks, and increased efficiency. The improvements also mean that Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs can ship with much higher clock speeds than their RDNA 3 counterparts, hitting close to 3 GHz in several XT models, with OC variants pushing 3.1+ GHz.

The show's star, at least in terms of the massive improvement over what has come before, has to be the arrival of RDNA 4's 3rd Generation Ray-Tracing Accelerators. AMD is aware that game developers across PC and console are embracing ray tracing, which presents a realistic depiction of lighting and related effects like shadows and reflections. The only problem is that real-time ray tracing is complex, requiring the right blend of raw performance and innovative technologies to enhance efficiency and deliver a playable experience.

One area RDNA 4's RT Accelerator delivers where RDNA 3's don't is the arrival of "Oriented Bounding Boxes," an innovative method of handling ray-tracing Bounding Volume Hierarchy (BVH) data. Think of it as efficiently tracing rays through an environment and geometry with a lower memory cost and less hardware. RDNA 4's RT Accelerator also adds a second intersection engine to double the performance of specific raytracing workloads and calculations. The results can be seen in titles with heavy ray-tracing like Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077, where the Radeon RX 9070 XT delivers a significant 30+% performance improvement over the previous gen flagship - the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. A card with 50% more RT Accelerators than the Radeon RX 9070 XT. The Radeon RX 9070 also delivers ray-tracing performance faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

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RDNA 4 also fully embraces AI, with new AI accelerators that support FP8 while delivering double the FP16 and four times the INT8 performance compared to RDNA 3's AI accelerators. For gamers, this means the new AI-powered FSR 4 leverages AI to deliver a massive improvement in image quality over FSR 3. However, AMD's custom AI model, which was trained on powerful AMD Instinct hardware, is FP8-based, so it is exclusive to RDNA 4 hardware.

AMD is also looking to introduce its answer to NVIDIA's DLSS Ray Reconstruction for Path Tracing with Neural Supersampling and Denoising. However, it's currently only a tech demo, which means Path Tracing, although possible on RDNA 4, does not look anywhere near as good as it does running on a GeForce RTX GPU.

With improved raw performance and a massive boost to ray-tracing and AI performance, RDNA 4 presents an enormous leap forward over RDNA 3. However, catching up to GeForce RTX in these areas and offering a viable DLSS alternative does mean that early adopters will need to wait for game support and AMD to deliver its Path Tracing solution. With 30+ FSR 4-ready titles on day one and over 100 to arrive by the end of the year, there will still be a massive deficit compared to DLSS 3 and DLSS 4 as we head into 2026. Falling behind for over five years in these areas means there's a lot of catching up to do, and this will take time.

This brings us to RDNA 4's enhanced Media Engine, which offers creators and streamers a big improvement to H.264, HEVC, and AV1 encoding and decoding. NVIDIA's lead in this area has meant that few creators use Radeon hardware. With RDNA 4, AMD is looking to close the gap and offer a viable alternative - especially regarding image quality using popular settings in apps like OBS.

Specs and Test System

Specifications

Here's a look at the specs for the new Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 compared to the previous generation's Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7900 XT.

The Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT share the same 357mm die with a whopping 53.9 billion transistors. The baseline Radeon RX 9070 is a cutdown version, with 56 Compute Units instead of 64 - a 14% reduction. With lower boost clock speeds and a lower power rating of 220W, it is the more efficient GPU of the two as it's able to do more with less, with the Radeon RX 9070 XT using its additional Compute Units and higher clock speeds to push performance into the realm of the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER. On paper, it's also more efficient than NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5070 - which features a power rating of 250W.

With significant architectural improvements, enhanced Ray Accelerators, and supercharged AI hardware and performance compared to RDNA 3, RDNA 4 feels like a Radeon reboot - especially when you factor in the arrival of FSR 4 and AMD's promise of neural rendering and AI denoising in the future. AMD has always delivered when it comes to raw raster performance, and RDNA 4 is no different. However, with ray-tracing performance and AI rendering now catching up to NVIDIA in a real way, AMD has delivered a level of competition that we haven't seen from the company in a long time.

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With 16GB of VRAM, the Radeon RX 9070 is also better equipped to handle 4K gaming and more intense workloads than the GeForce RTX 5070 - which has decided to stick with 12GB. Even though AMD's decision to stick with GDDR6 is slower than the GDDR7 found in the GeForce RTX 5070, capacity still rules the day for gaming with high-res textures and ray-tracing in 4K.

The Radeon RX 9070 is also a capable AI GPU, with 1156 TOPs of INT4 and 7578 TOPs of INT8 performance. Powerful enough to run local LLMs, this AI performance also powers FSR 4, exclusive to RDNA 4. FSR 4 is a game changer for Radeon in 4K and 1440p, offering a substantial boost to performance without sacrificing much or anything noticeable regarding image fidelity. Granted, FSR 4 adoption is nowhere near the levels of DLSS 3, and NVIDIA's DLSS 4 is a step above FSR 4, but going from the least impressive upscaling solution to one that can compete is fantastic to see.

Kosta's Test System

Physical Design and Cooling

The GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC is a relatively compact triple-fan GPU. Its cooling is powered by GIGABYTE's new Hawk Fans, which offer better performance without increasing noise. According to the company, the design was inspired by the wings of eagles, but all you need to know is that they're super practical and the same fans found in more premium AORUS cards from the company. That and under load, the GPU temperature of the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC sits below 60 degrees Celsius, even with its generous +180 MHz boost clock speed.

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GIGABYTE's latest GPUs feature server-grade thermal conductive gel instead of thermal pads, which you can find on the VRAM and MOSFETs. With improved contact, this is another reason why the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC runs nice and cool. Rounding out the internal design is a large copper plate that makes direct contact with the GPU alongside composite copper heat pipes for effective heat transfer to the heatsink.

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The actual look and physical design of the GPU is somewhat unique, too, with a curved surface that features what looks like a paint splatter pattern alongside a little piece of plastic that slides over the RGB lighting strip on the side - giving you the options of lighting up the GIGABYRE logo or simply basking in the glow of some nice RGB. The reinforced metal backplate features the GIGABYTE GAMING logo, AMD Radeon logo, and a vented exhaust for additional cooling power. There are several nice little touches, from the DUAL BIOS switch to the power dual 8-pin power connectors, including indicators to let you know that it's all connected up correctly.

The Games and Tests

PC gaming not only covers a wide range of genres and styles, from indie games with simple 2D graphics to massive 3D worlds lit by cutting-edge real-time ray tracing technology. With that, the needs and requirements of each gamer vary. High refresh rates and latency reduction become more important than flashy visuals or playing at the highest resolution possible for those who live and breathe fast-paced competitive games. For those who want to live in a cinematic world and become a key player in an expansive narrative, ray-tracing, and high-fidelity visuals are a stepping stone toward immersion.

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Our chosen benchmarks cover various games, engines, APIs, and technologies. For the Radeon RX 9070, all tests are run at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K and include results for performance-boosting Super Resolution technologies like AMD's new AI-powered FSR 4, alongside older FSR 3 and FSR 2 versions. However, our benchmark results are still sorted using 'raw performance' or native rendering.

Here's the breakdown of games, settings, and what's being tested.

Games and Settings Benchmarked

Path Tracing Games and Settings Benchmarked

Gaming Performance Analysis - 1080p, 1440p, and 4K

Average Gaming Performance - 1080p Results

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As we start to see more mid-range and mainstream GPU launches in 2025, we're starting to add 1080p benchmark data to our reviews, and here we see the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC deliver 1080p performance that is slightly faster than the GeForce RTX 5070 Founder Edition. The performance improvement varies from title to title, so check out the individual game results below for a closer look. When it comes to evaluating the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC, the focus of this review is placed on 1440p and 4K gaming performance, so let's dig in.

Average Gaming Performance - 1440p Results

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Looking at the average 1440p gaming performance, the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC is roughly on par with the Radeon RX 7900 XT. However, performance sits behind the Radeon RX 7900 XT when looking at pure raster performance, with the most significant gains coming from RDNA 4's superior ray-tracing performance. Here the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC is 5.3% faster than the GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition and around 14% slower than the beefier Radeon RX 9070 XT.

Traditionally, ray-tracing performance has been where Radeon has fumbled or fallen behind. That's not the case here, as if you look at Cyberpunk 2077 using the RT Ultra preset in 1440p. The GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC delivers the same performance as the GeForce RTX 5070 - which is also faster than the previous-gen flagship, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. Numbers, of course, don't paint a complete picture, so it's worth reiterating that with DLSS 4 Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction, Cyberpunk 2077 with ray-tracing looks much better running on GeForce RTX hardware.

One game where the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC significantly outperforms the GeForce RTX 5070 is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, where the 120 FPS average (which increases to 151 FPS with FSR 4) is a massive 39% faster. If Call of Duty is your game, the new Radeon RX 9000 Series is the way to go, as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 also features native support for FSR 4. The GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC only falls behind the GeForce RTX 5070 in several titles, however, it has the lead more often than not. Outside of Call of Duty, performance is close, even regarding ray-tracing, so the real difference becomes features like FSR 4, DLSS, and Frame Generation. NVIDIA has the edge here, which is no surprise, which adds weight to the idea that the Radeon RX 9070 is priced higher than it should be.

Average Gaming Performance - 4K Results

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The GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC doesn't deliver 4K gaming performance that is on par with the Radeon RX 9070 XT or GeForce RTX 5080. However, it's still surprisingly capable at this resolution - with an average frame rate of 67 FPS across all titles in our benchmark suite. This means that to get more performance, you'll need to enable FSR 4 in games that support it or tweak settings if you're after the 100 FPS experience. Here the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC delivers performance that is roughly on par with the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, or around 14% slower than the Radeon RX 9070 XT.

There are some notable wins for the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC compared to the GeForce RTX 5070 in 4K: Dragon Age: The Veilguard with ray-tracing runs 20% faster, F1 24 with ray-tracing runs 14% faster, and the visually impressive Horizon Forbidden West runs 19% faster. Horizon Forbidden West features FSR 4 support, so the 74 FPS quickly becomes 89 FPS with fantastic image quality. Like with 1440p gaming, NVIDIA's hardware's advantage comes via the widespread adoption of DLSS 3, DLSS 4, and AI-rendering that extends to Frame Generation and the new Multi-Frame Generation.

The GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC's overall 4K gaming performance is impressive, but if you look at the chart, several GeForce RTX options have the same overall performance. As mentioned a few times in this review, the biggest issue with the Radeon RX 9070 is that the price is close enough to the Radeon RX 9070 XT, so it makes more sense to go for that. Especially if you want to enable ray-tracing, as the most significant difference between the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT is that ray-tracing performance is up to 20% faster.

Benchmarks - 3DMark Synthetic Tests

3DMark offers a suite of synthetic benchmarks built to test GPUs in various scenarios. 3DMark Steel Nomad is a cutting-edge DirectX 12 benchmark with newer, modern rendering techniques designed to push GPUs to their limit. The 'Light' version tests at 1440p, while the main Steel Nomad benchmark tests pure native 4K rendering. Port Royal is a benchmark focusing exclusively on real-time ray tracing for lighting effects like reflections, shadows, and more.

The synthetic Steel Nomad Light test, which targets 1440p gaming, sees the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC deliver a score that is on par with the GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition. Bump things up to the more intensive 4K Steel Nomad test, and the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC delivers a score that is 20% higher than the GeForce RTX 5070. This isn't something you'll find in many titles, making us wonder if VRAM capacity has a more significant role in this test. The Steel Nomad Light test better reflects what we saw in real-world gaming, with non-ray-tracing performance sitting slightly below the Radeon RX 7900 XT.

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The 3DMark Port Royal results are interesting because they show that the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC is 14% faster than the GeForce RTX 5070 regarding ray-tracing. The score here is even higher than what we got with the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER. In titles without Path Tracing or super-intensive RT workloads, the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC is faster than the GeForce RTX 5070, however, the lead isn't as pronounced as we see here. Still, the results here show RDNA 4's massive RT gains over RDNA 3.

Benchmarks - 1080p Gaming

Benchmarks - 1440p Gaming

Benchmarks - 4K Gaming

FSR 4 and AMD Frame Generation

With the arrival of the Radeon RX 900 Series and the new Radeon RX 9070, AMD's new FSR 4 represents a massive improvement over FSR 3.1, FSR 3, and FSR 2. The shift to a custom and powerful AI model for upscaling shows that ML or AI is the definite way to maintain image quality that is on par or even superior to native rendering. As FSR 4 was explicitly designed for RDNA 4 and trained on powerful AMD hardware, it is exclusive to the Radeon RX 9000 Series due to the advanced AI hardware requirements. The good news is the games with FSR 3.1 are automatically upgraded to FSR 4 via AMD's Adrenalin Software, with a nice overlay showing a green FSR 4 tick when booting up a compatible game.

FSR 4 was available in a few games in our benchmark suite. However, when looking closely at image quality compared to DLSS and previous versions of AMD's FSR, we focused on two titles-Horizon Forbidden West and Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2. Without beating around the bush, the difference that FSR 4's new AI model brings to image quality is night and day compared to previous versions. The image quality, especially in 4K, is now at a level that the 'Quality' preset is something you would enable whenever it's available for a free boost to performance.

When paired with AMD Frame Generation and the company's improved latency reduction technology, you can push performance, even in 4K, to triple-digit territory on the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC. Granted, the Frame Generation quality is not at the level of NVIDIA's, but the results show a concerted effort from AMD to level the playing field. You're always going to sacrifice image quality and latency with Frame Generation. Still, the 136 FPS in Horizon Forbidden West with FSR 4 with Frame Gen was something we preferred over native rendering. And really, that's a big win for Radeon.

Path Tracing Performance - 1440p

Path Tracing takes real-time ray-tracing and applies the concept of ray-traced effects to anything and everything - global illumination, shadows, reflections, indirect lighting, and more. With multiple bounces, it's a hardware-intensive and cutting-edge look at the future of PC gaming that is only possible thanks to AI tools and technologies. With RDNA 4 dramatically improving ray-tracing performance compared to RDNA 3, GPUs like the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT are capable of rendering stunning Path Traced visuals. However, it's more proof of concept than something practical.

Path Tracing is possible on the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC, however, it's more proof of concept as image quality is nowhere near as crisp and detailed as the DLSS 4 image quality you get. Also, this is one area where the Radeon RX 9070 falls behind the GeForce RTX 5070, so if Path Tracing is something you're interested in, GeForce RTX GPUs are the way to go. At least for now, as we know, AMD is working on its version of Ray Reconstruction and other neural rendering techniques that have been explicitly designed to improve path tracing performance and image quality.

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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a title that recently added support for AMD's FSR and Frame Generation technologies; however, as it's FSR 3 and not FSR 3.1, there's no option to enable FSR 4. Still, with FSR and AMD's Frame Generation, you can hit 100 FPS on the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC - which is fantastic. A mid-range Radeon GPU that delivers decent Path Tracing performance is a game changer for the brand. Again, without the same level of AI-enhanced rendering as GeForce RTX, it's more proof of concept, but RDNA 4 lays the foundation upon which a future generation can build.

Temperature and Power Efficiency

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The GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC has a boost clock speed of 2700 MHz, notably higher than the reference spec of 2520 MHz. With temperatures topping out at only 57 degrees in our stress test, this leaves room for further overclocking. However, the 220W power rating of the Radeon RX 9070 might not deliver as much OC potential as the beefier Radeon RX 9070 XT's 300-340W limit. That said, the Radeon RX 9070 is the more efficient GPU of the two, with OC Radeon RX 9070 XT models drawing up to 40-50% more power than the Radeon RX 9070.

Final Thoughts

The Radeon RX 9070 main competition might be NVIDIA's similarly priced GeForce RTX 5070, but its real competitor is its older sibling - the Radeon RX 9070 XT. For $50 more, you get a notable bump in performance, with improved ray-tracing and even more impressive 4K gaming. When stacked against the GeForce RTX 5070 reference spec (the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC is an overclocked model), you're looking at faster performance in most titles - including games with ray-tracing. Yes, RDNA 4 is a big win for AMD, thanks to the improvements you'll get with RT and the arrival of the AI-powered FSR 4 upscaler.

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However, with DLSS 4 and hundreds of games released over the past couple of years, including DLSS support, FSR 4 still has a long way to go to catch up. And with DLSS Ray Reconstruction, games with ray-tracing look better running on GeForce RTX hardware, so the software advantage still favors Team Green.

With this in mind, we're not sure why AMD decided to price the Radeon RX 9070 the same as the GeForce RTX 5070, other than to place the focus squarely on the Radeon RX 9070 XT. Put it this way: If AMD only released the Radeon RX 9070, RDNA would feel like a giant leap forward for Radeon capabilities followed by a big step back.

Without market or mind share, AMD's biggest drawcard right now is pricing, especially when you look at the current state of the PC gaming market. The Radeon RX 9070 XT offers GeForce RTX 5070 Ti performance for $150 less - that's a win. On average, the Radeon RX 9070 is a little bit faster than the GeForce RTX 5070 for the same price. That's not that exciting. With a price starting from $449, the Radeon RX 9070 would be an easy recommendation, offering a new level of performance for a sub-$500 GPU - a game change along the lines of the Radeon RX 9070 XT. The GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC is still a great GPU for PC gaming thanks to AMD's new RDNA 4 architecture - it's simply priced too high.