The Radeon RX 9070 XT, based on AMD's RDNA 4 architecture, offers significant improvements in both ray tracing and rasterized rendering compared to its predecessors and competitors. In terms of ray tracing, the RX 9070 XT is particularly notable for its enhanced performance, which is a crucial area where AMD has historically trailed behind NVIDIA. The RDNA 4 architecture includes third-generation ray tracing cores that provide double the ray tracing throughput compared to the RDNA 3 compute units, although this does not directly translate to a doubling of real-world performance due to the complexity of ray tracing tasks[7].
In ray tracing, the RX 9070 XT shows impressive gains, often outperforming the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and offering improvements of up to 50-53% in ray-traced games compared to previous models[2][8]. For example, in games like Cyberpunk 2077, the RX 9070 XT achieves substantial frame rate increases with ray tracing enabled, showcasing its capability to handle demanding ray-traced workloads efficiently[1][5].
In contrast, while the RX 9070 XT excels in ray tracing, its rasterized rendering performance is slightly different. It closely parallels the Radeon RX 7900 XTX in rasterization, with some titles showing a slight edge for one or the other[8]. This suggests that while the RX 9070 XT is highly competitive in ray tracing, its raster performance is more aligned with the top-end models of the previous generation, albeit with some variability depending on the specific game or scenario.
Overall, the RX 9070 XT's performance highlights AMD's focus on improving ray tracing capabilities, positioning it as a strong competitor to NVIDIA's offerings in this area. However, its rasterized performance, while strong, does not show the same level of superiority over previous models as it does in ray tracing. This balance makes the RX 9070 XT an attractive option for those prioritizing ray tracing performance without sacrificing raster performance.
Citations:[1] https://www.tweaktown.com/news/103556/amds-official-benchmarks-for-the-radeon-rx-9070-xt-and-across-30-games/index.html
[2] https://www.club386.com/amd-reveals-radeon-rx-9070-series-gpu-specs-and-performance-launches-march-6/
[3] https://hardforum.com/threads/amd-radeon-rx-9070-series-technical-deep-dive.2040042/
[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/radeon/comments/1il7whl/9070xt_better_have_improved_ray_tracing/
[5] https://www.guru3d.com/story/radeon-rx-9070-xt-performance-analysis-in-cyberpunk-2077-and-black-myth-wukong/
[6] https://www.reddit.com/r/radeon/comments/1iwjmp0/with_the_new_official_benchmarks_out_and_that_in/
[7] https://www.pcworld.com/article/2622531/amds-radeon-rx-9070-and-9070-xt-target-4k-gaming-at-a-1440p-price.html
[8] https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/1iw8b77/amd_radeon_rx_9070_series_gaming_performance/
[9] https://www.pcmag.com/news/look-out-rtx-5070-amd-radeon-rx-9070-graphics-cards-get-detailed-priced
[10] https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-RX-9070-XT-and-RX-9070-4K-capable-cards-at-1440p-prices-with-significant-performance-gains-over-RTX-3090-and-RX-6900-XT.969965.0.html
[11] https://hardforum.com/threads/amd-radeon-rx-9070-and-9070-xt-official-performance-metrics-leaked-42-4k-performance-over-radeon-rx-7900-gre.2039933/
[12] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/amd-estimates-of-radeon-rx-9070-xt-performance-leaked-42-percent-66-percent-faster-than-radeon-rx-7900-gre