XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC review

What I want to say about AMD's second-tier Navi 48 graphics card is that you shouldn't worry if you missed out on the RX 9070 XT because the RX 9070 is an excellent mid-range card, has pretty much all the same Radeon goodness, but with a slightly lower sticker price. Which we now know is a ridiculous thing to say in the wan light of a post-launch day.

Because, while the RX 9070 is nominally cheaper than its XT sibling, the reality of current GPU pricing means this XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 is actually listed for $50 more than the original MSRP of the RX 9070 XT. And I would urge you to wait for literally any other XT version that comes on sale for the same $650 price or below, because that will always be better than this otherwise impressive card.

It's a huge shame, because AMD does have a couple of winners on its hands with these mid-range graphics chips. It took everyone by surprise, slapping lower than expected price tags on its two new GPUs, and even at launch we were all taken in by the price/performance metrics of the cards.

And, had they remained around their respective $549 and $599 MSRPs, we would still be lauding them to the high heavens. But XFX noted to me during the pre-release review process the price of this formerly $549 RX 9070 Swift was going to rise the instant that March 6 launch day had passed. And so, right now, even while it is still out of stock everywhere, it's being listed for $650.

That certainly takes the shine off this secondary RDNA 4 card. Sure, RX 9070 XT cards have also had their own post-launch price hikes, but there will still be reference priced cards floating around once/if AMD can start to normalise stock levels.

But let me park my gnashing of teeth at the GPU pricing malaise of '25 for a moment, because this is our first taste of the RX 9070, so let's dig a little into what we're actually talking about here.

This is AMD continuing its Sith-inspired rule-of-two for its top-end graphics cards of a new generation. That means it's delivering two GPUs far too close in pricing and specs to really make a ton of sense. Like the Vega cards of the before-time, the long, long, ago, we're looking at a pair of GPUs with 64 and 56 compute units (CUs) respectively. The RX 9070's Navi 48 chip has simply been given a little nip and tuck to offer something else to do with GPUs which fell off the TSMC N4P production line being a few CUs short of a full die.

That's not euphemism for some AMD dummkopf—though, now I'm writing that, I could definitely see it being said of Raja in the post-Vega fallout—but it definitely makes sense for AMD to have something to do with graphics silicon that couldn't quite make the cut as a full RX 9070 XT chip.

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When the initial specs were given, combined with the announcement there was just $50 between the two cards, many of us were concerned about what a notably worse graphics card the RX 9070 looked in comparison with the XT card. The 9% price difference between the non-XT and RX 9070 XT cards resulted in a 14% increase in shader count and a massive jump in clock speeds, too. Taking the rated boost clocks at face value, the RX 9070 is some 450 MHz behind its bigger sibling.

Put the clock speed bump and increased CU and shader count together and you have a graphics card in the RX 9070 XT that is certainly worth more than just another $50. Conversely, the RX 9070 looked like a terrible deal priced so close to the XT version.

But those clock speed figures were always going to be pretty arbitrary, and with everything else on the board essentially the same—both cards come with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory running at 20 Gbps over a 256-bit memory bus—it all comes down to how much of a difference those 512 shaders actually make.

The eight CUs they make up are of the new RDNA 4 variety, which look mighty similar to the old RDNA 3 ones, but as Andy points out in his overview of the RDNA 4 architecture there's a new matrix processing engine in there—the second-gen AI accelerator—and a dramatically improved ray tracing core, too. Of course, there's a healthy chunk of pure raster performance improvements baked in there, as well.

In all, that core difference translates to a 10% delta between the cards at 1080p, 13% at 1440p, and 16% in the rarefied air of 4K gaming.

For just another $50, you're buying the RX 9070, right?

But remember when I said those clock speeds were going to be arbitrary? Yeah, that. In keeping with the one theme of graphics cards in 2025 that has nothing to do with pricing, the RX 9070 is a more than capable overclocker. With AMD cards, it's more about undervolting the GPU really, and allowing it more capacity to hit its clock speed headroom. On the XFX RX 9070 Swift, that means dropping it by 140 mV with a +10% power offset and watching the clock speeds spike.

With the Navi 48 chip now running at a far more impressive 2,734 MHz in our Metro Exodus Enhanced tests, as opposed to the 2,349 MHz it was previously hitting, the performance delta narrows to almost nothing.

Now you're looking at around a 2% difference between the two AMD cards, and that suddenly makes the question of which card to buy more of an interesting conundrum. That's especially true when you look at the green team in comparison.

The RTX 5070 dropped the day before these cards, with the same nominal $549 price tag as this RX 9070. At stock speeds, this second-string AMD card is around 7% faster than the Nvidia GPU on average, but while both are very capable overclocking cards, if they're pushed to their respective limits that gap actually stretches.

At the fastest I could get both cards running at, I'm now seeing a 10% difference at 1440p and an 11% difference at 4K.

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Yes, the Nvidia card does have the magic of Multi Frame Generation to call on in certain games, and that is definitely a head-turner, but is going to be a tougher sell now that AMD can call on FSR4, has its own frame generation tech, and can almost match Nvidia toe-to-toe on ray tracing performance now. The AMD cards also have more VRAM, and that will definitely be a factor on the balance sheet when gamers are weighing up where to spend their money.

DLSS 4 and its associated Frame Generation features are still, for me, more effective than AMD's upscaling and interpolating tricks, but on the other side of that sheet lies the improved all-round gaming experience of the Navi 48 GPU. That's specifically all-round gaming experience because, despite having the bigger memory bus and VRAM capacity, the Nvidia card is the better bet for creatives. Its Blender performance is well in advance of AMD, as are its gen-AI chops, too.

But there's a lot to like about the RX 9070, and only the frustratingly increased post-launch pricing has me struggling to recommend it. This XFX RX 9070 Swift is an overclocked version despite the fact its frequency looks a lot lower than its rated 2,700 MHz boost clock, and I guess that's going to be a way for XFX to justify its increased expense. While the white shroud is quite pleasing in its pure simplicity, it is also rather basic, though it does keep the GPU remarkably cool, even when I can get its clock speed up beyond that initial rating.

It is also very big. XFX isn't messing around here with any chance of over-heating, because this is a triple-lot design, even if it is rocking a dual-slot bracket. Make sure you can fit it in your chassis before you buy is all I'm going to say.

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But, if as hoped, AMD is able to normalise supply and encourage AIBs to get more $600 RX 9070 XT cards out into retail, this card will struggle at its current pricing. Or if Nvidia can do the same and squeeze more $549 RTX 5070s out of the factories. It's not been a well-received GeForce GPU, but if it undercuts the RX 9070 by a bit, and the XT version by a lot, it could still find a place for itself.

Should the RX 9070's price drop back down towards its original MSRP level, or if no RX 9070 XT cards get back towards their own MSRP, then I'll feel a lot more positive about recommending the RX 9070. You can get effectively the same performance as the XT version without much effort, and you will see RTX 5070-beating performance in games that aren't using Multi Frame Generation, too.

But while AIBs and retailers are intent on squeezing as much cash out of a tightly constrained GPU market as possible, then unless the RX 9070 is the only card on offer for a reasonable price, it's a hard card to love.