Raster still favours AMD
The RTX 5070 vs RX 9070 XT choice is the mainstream 1440p fork right now: Nvidia’s $549-class Blackwell card against AMD’s $599 RDNA 4 flagship. We have not bench-tested either GPU ourselves — the figures below come from named lab databases and reviews.
Tom’s Hardware’s RX 9070 XT review‘s MSRP table puts the GeForce RTX 5070 at $549 and the Radeon RX 9070 XT at $599, with the 9070 XT carrying 16GB against the 5070’s 12GB GDDR7 configuration listed in TechPowerUp’s database. Street prices still wander; treat those MSRPs as the reference, not a promise you will pay them today.
On TechPowerUp’s GPU database relative Performance Summary (1080p index used on the card pages), the RTX 5070 sits around 211 while the RX 9070 XT sits around 259 — roughly a 23% raster lead for the AMD part on that index (RTX 5070 specs page, RX 9070 XT specs page). That is a database roll-up of TPU’s own review suite, not a single game score.
What the numbers actually mean
| Source | RTX 5070 | RX 9070 XT |
|---|---|---|
| MSRP (Tom’s table) | $549 | $599 |
| VRAM (TPU specs) | 12GB GDDR7 | 16GB GDDR6 |
| TPU relative index | ~211 | ~259 |
| House read of that gap | Trails on raster | ~23% ahead on that index |
Tom’s also framed the 9070 XT as landing within about 3–5% of the more expensive RTX 5070 Ti overall in its coverage — which is why our own RX 9070 XT review roundup called out the $599 undercut. The non-Ti 5070 sits a clear step below that Ti/9070 XT band on TPU’s relative chart.
Nvidia’s side of the ledger is software: DLSS 4 multi-frame generation, Reflex, and broader creator/RT feature coverage. That is the same fork we flagged when labs talked about the RTX 5070 Ti review roundup — buy Nvidia when the feature stack matters more than the raster delta, and only when the street price is near MSRP.
Who should buy which
- Buy the RX 9070 XT when you can find it near $599 and you care about raster + 16GB VRAM at 1440p.
- Buy the RTX 5070 when DLSS title coverage, Reflex, or Nvidia broadcast/creator tools outweigh a mid-20s percent raster gap on TPU’s index.
- Wait or retarget if either card is scalped well above MSRP — the comparison collapses once you are paying Ti money for a non-Ti part.
If you are still picking the rest of the build, GearChamber’s PC Builder is the quiet place to keep CPU, cooler, and PSU from eating the GPU budget.
Supply still matters as much as the chart. Tom’s called out retail availability questions on the 9070 XT side at launch, and Nvidia’s 50-series cards have spent long stretches above MSRP. A spreadsheet win evaporates if the only listing you can open is $150–$200 over the Tom’s reference price — that is when we would rather wait, buy used last-gen near a fair number, or move the budget into CPU/storage instead of paying a scarcity tax.
Our take
We would take a near-MSRP 9070 XT for a pure 1440p raster build, and a near-MSRP 5070 only when the Nvidia stack is non-negotiable. Paying a large street premium for either card is how this matchup stops making sense.
Figures from Tom’s Hardware’s RX 9070 XT review and TechPowerUp GPU relative performance pages, checked 4 November 2026.
