After a bit of an awkward silence moment during CES 2025 when AMD refused to divvy over RX 9070 / 9070 XT deetz, things might now finally be hotting up on the RDNA 4 front, as we're seeing plenty of stirrings regarding the upcoming GPUs. None of these stirrings are official, mind, but when there are enough leaks and rumours in the same vicinity, I tend to pay attention.
So, buckle up for a round-up of rumours, folks. Here we go: The RX 9070 has seemingly been shipped out and pictured by a Reddit user (via Wccftech) and the RX 9070 XT was apparently listed at a Danish retailer site (spotted by hardware leaker momomo_us) and at UK retailer site Overclockers (as spotted by Reddit user EmeraldPerson). These retailer listings have since been taken down.
You can also see some specs listed on Geizhals (via VideoCardz), a German tech comparison website.
Product no: GV-R9070XTGAMING OC-16GDEAN: 4719331355524https://t.co/7qZHBB1QrH pic.twitter.com/lLKb364MtiJanuary 15, 2025
What's particularly interesting about these sightings is that some of the listed specs match each other and also match those of another recent leak by momomo. In other words, there's enough corroboration across various leaks and retailer listings to take at least some of these specs seriously.
The ones that seem to have multiple sources of corroboration are the 9070 XT's CU count and and the GPU clock speeds. For the RX 9070 XT, it looks like we could be seeing a GPU with 64 CUs (Compute Units). For reference, the Radeon RX 7800 XT has 60 CUs and the RX 7900 XT has 84 CUs, so if these leaks are correct then the 9070 XT should sit somewhere between the two just in terms of the number of shader cores.
Where it might shoot ahead of both, though, is in the clock speed department. On this front, while they disagree over the RX 9070's boost clock, the Overclockers listing and momomo's familiarly unlabelled specification leak both point towards a similarly high RX 9070 XT boost clock of 2,970 MHz. That's a few hundred MHz higher than both the RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 XT.
5⃣.0⃣2⃣4⃣0⃣0⃣➡️2⃣9⃣7⃣0⃣4⃣0⃣9⃣6⃣1⃣6⃣ 2⃣0⃣ 2⃣5⃣6⃣5⃣.0⃣2⃣0⃣7⃣0⃣➡️2⃣5⃣2⃣0⃣3⃣5⃣8⃣4⃣1⃣6⃣ 2⃣0⃣ 2⃣5⃣6⃣January 15, 2025
There are some other specifications mixed into all this rumour slop, but these are the main things that have cross-corroboration. Which isn't to say that they'll end up being correct—we won't know for sure until we hear official word from AMD.
We do also have lots of cross-corroborated reports that the cards should feature 16 GB of VRAM. This is supported both from these new listings and also from a previous Asus TUF and TUF OC announcement that these cards should have "a supersized 16GB serving of VRAM". This announcement has since been removed, however.
You might notice that I've not spoken about any release date rumours, despite many of these listings and leaks pointing towards a January 22 reveal and January 24 release. That's because, based on what we know here at PC Gamer, this release window is very unlikely.
Which does suck, because I'd love to see what we're working with ASAP. If the more reasonable specification rumours are correct, then we could indeed be looking at cards that compete with the RTX 4070 Super and RTX 4070 Ti, which is where AMD seems to be positioning them.
Don't forget that these cards should also feature AMD's new and improved frame generation, plus improved ray tracing over previous-gen RDNA cards, too. 64 CUs on the RX 9070 XT, assuming architectural improvements, plus a much higher boost clock and 16 GB of VRAM, all seems very enticing if the price is right.
And that's the key, really. Pricing will likely make or break the RDNA 4 proposition.
