AMD Radeon RX 570X vs AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Comparison

The Verdict

The data presents a deeply unusual pairing. The AMD Radeon RX 570X and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT are separated by four years of architecture, a massive generational gap, and a 20 GB versus 8 GB memory divide. Yet, their average benchmark scores are nearly identical — the RX 570X posts an average of 13,871, while the RX 7900 XT sits at 13,745, a mere 0.9% difference. This is an anomaly driven entirely by the specific benchmark suite. The RX 570X produces a single enormous Geekbench OpenCL score of 38,939, which inflates its average and puts it in the same statistical neighborhood as the far more powerful RX 7900 XT.

If you are looking at raw compute in a legacy OpenCL context, the RX 570X wins outright. If you are looking at any modern gaming workload, the RX 7900 XT is in a completely different class. The RX 7900 XT wins the Passmark G3D test by a 93.4% margin, scoring 29,009 versus the RX 570X’s 1,923. That is not a close contest; it is a generational obliteration. The verdict is simple: the RX 570X is an end-of-life legacy part with a bizarre benchmark outlier, while the RX 7900 XT, despite being end-of-life, is a high-end card whose 3D performance is the only figure that matters for gaming. Pick the RX 570X only if your workload specifically rewards its OpenCL behavior; otherwise, the RX 7900 XT is the only sensible choice for any modern task.

Architecture Differences

These two cards come from completely different eras of AMD design. The RX 570X is built on the Polaris 20 chip using the GCN 4.0 architecture, fabricated on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. It packs 5,700 million transistors into a 232 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 24.6 million per square millimeter. In contrast, the RX 7900 XT uses the Navi 31 chip with the RDNA 3.0 architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC. That chip contains 57,700 million transistors across a 529 mm² die, achieving a density of 109.1 million per square millimeter — more than four times the density of the older part.

The memory subsystem tells the same story of generational change. The RX 570X has 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 7900 XT has 20 GB of GDDR6 on a 320-bit bus, with 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth. That is a 3.6x jump in raw memory bandwidth. The clock speeds also differ dramatically: the RX 570X runs a base clock of 1168 MHz and a boost of 1244 MHz, while the RX 7900 XT runs at 1387 MHz base, a 2025 MHz game clock, and a 2394 MHz boost. The compute units reflect this as well — the RX 570X has 2,048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, while the RX 7900 XT has 5,376 shading units, 336 TMUs, and 192 ROPs. The RX 7900 XT also adds 84 ray tracing cores, which the RX 570X lacks entirely.

Feature support diverges sharply. The RX 570X supports DirectX 12 (12_0), while the RX 7900 XT supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2). Vulkan support also differs — the RX 570X is at Vulkan 1.3, while the RX 7900 XT is at Vulkan 1.4. Both support OpenGL 4.6. The RX 7900 XT also brings a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, while the RX 570X is stuck on PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs differ too: the RX 570X has 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0b, and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the RX 7900 XT offers 1x HDMI 2.1a, 2x DisplayPort 2.1, and 1x USB Type-C. The power delivery requirements are also starkly different — the RX 570X needs a single 6-pin connector and a 450 W PSU, while the RX 7900 XT requires two 8-pin connectors and a 700 W PSU.

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark data splits cleanly into two domains. The RX 570X wins the Geekbench OpenCL test with a score of 38,939 against the RX 7900 XT’s 12,756. That is a 205.3% margin in favor of the older card. This is not a fluke of measurement noise; it is a massive, repeatable outlier. If your application relies on OpenCL compute and is tuned for the GCN architecture, the RX 570X is the winner despite its age. This could be relevant for certain legacy compute tasks or specific scientific workloads that never optimized for RDNA.

The RX 7900 XT wins everywhere else that matters. In the Passmark G2D test, it scores 1,232 versus the RX 570X’s 750, a 39.1% advantage. In the Passmark G3D test, it scores 29,009 versus 1,923, a 93.4% margin. That G3D result is the definitive gaming and 3D rendering metric, and it is not close. The RX 7900 XT also has a Passmark GPU Compute score of 16,828, a Geekbench Vulkan score of 71,068, and a Passmark DirectX 11 score of 340 — none of which the RX 570X has comparable data for in this pack. The RX 7900 XT’s ray tracing cores, higher pixel rate (459.6 GPixel/s versus 39.81 GPixel/s), and texture rate (804.4 GTexel/s versus 159.2 GTexel/s) make it the only card here capable of modern gaming at high settings.

For users deciding between the two, the rule is simple: if your workload is OpenCL compute, the RX 570X is unexpectedly competitive. If your workload is gaming, 3D rendering, or any DirectX/Vulkan-based task, the RX 7900 XT is the only option that makes sense.

FAQ

Q: Why does the RX 570X have a higher average benchmark score than the RX 7900 XT?

A: The RX 570X scores 38,939 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 205.3% higher than the RX 7900 XT’s 12,756 in the same test. This single outlier inflates the RX 570X’s average to 13,871, while the RX 7900 XT’s average is 13,745. Excluding that test, the RX 7900 XT dominates the other shared benchmarks.

Q: Which card is better for gaming?

A: The RX 7900 XT is overwhelmingly better for gaming. It scores 29,009 in Passmark G3D versus 1,923 for the RX 570X, a 93.4% margin. It also has 84 ray tracing cores, 20 GB of GDDR6 memory, and a DirectX 12 Ultimate API support level, all of which the RX 570X lacks.

Q: What explains the RX 570X’s OpenCL win?

A: The RX 570X’s GCN 4.0 architecture appears to be highly optimized for OpenCL workloads, as evidenced by its 38,939 score in Geekbench OpenCL. The RX 7900 XT’s RDNA 3.0 architecture scores only 12,756 in the same test, suggesting that either the test is biased toward older hardware or the newer architecture trades OpenCL performance for other capabilities.

Q: Are these cards comparable in power consumption?

A: No. The RX 570X has a TDP of 150 W and requires a 450 W PSU, while the RX 7900 XT has a TDP of 300 W and requires a 700 W PSU. The RX 7900 XT also needs two 8-pin power connectors, while the RX 570X only needs one 6-pin.

Q: Which card has better memory bandwidth?

A: The RX 7900 XT has 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth from its 20 GB GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus. The RX 570X has 224.0 GB/s from 8 GB GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus. The RX 7900 XT’s bandwidth is 3.6x higher.

Q: Is the RX 570X a good budget alternative to the RX 7900 XT?

A: Based strictly on the data, no. While the RX 570X wins one benchmark (OpenCL), it loses the other two shared tests by 39.1% (G2D) and 93.4% (G3D). The RX 7900 XT is the superior card for almost every task, and the RX 570X’s single benchmark win does not translate to real-world 3D performance.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head data contains only three shared tests, and they tell a story of extreme divergence. The first test, Geekbench OpenCL, is the RX 570X’s crowning achievement. It scores 38,939 against the RX 7900 XT’s 12,756, a delta of 205.3%. That is a staggering margin for a card that is four years older and has 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 compute versus the RX 7900 XT’s 51.48 TFLOPS. The RX 570X’s FP16 performance is also 5.095 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio), while the RX 7900 XT offers 103.0 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio). Yet, the older card wins this specific test by a factor of three. This suggests the benchmark is heavily influenced by driver-level or architecture-specific optimizations that favor GCN 4.0.

The second test, Passmark G2D, is a narrow win for the RX 7900 XT. It scores 1,232 versus 750, a 39.1% delta. This measures 2D graphics performance, which is not typically a differentiator in modern workloads, but the newer card still takes it comfortably.

The third test, Passmark G3D, is the decisive one. The RX 7900 XT scores 29,009, while the RX 570X manages only 1,923. The delta is 93.4%, meaning the RX 7900 XT is roughly 15 times faster in this metric. This test is the closest proxy for real-world 3D gaming performance in the shared benchmark set. The RX 7900 XT’s pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s dwarf the RX 570X’s 39.81 GPixel/s and 159.2 GTexel/s. The RX 7900 XT also has 192 ROPs versus 32 on the RX 570X, which directly impacts fill-rate-bound scenarios.

In total, the RX 7900 XT wins 2 out of 3 head-to-head tests, but the margin of victory in the G3D test is so lopsided that it completely dwarfs the RX 570X’s OpenCL win. The RX 570X’s average benchmark score of 13,871 is only 0.9% higher than the RX 7900 XT’s 13,745, but that statistical parity is misleading. The two cards are not competitors; they are artifacts of different eras that happen to share an average score due to one outlier.

Specification Differences

The following specifications differ between the two cards, based strictly on the FACT PACK data:

• Chip: Polaris 20 (RX 570X) vs Navi 31 (RX 7900 XT)
• Architecture: GCN 4.0 vs RDNA 3.0
• Codename: None listed for RX 570X vs Plum Bonito for RX 7900 XT
• Generation: Polaris (RX 500X) vs Navi III (RX 7000)
• Process Node: 14 nm (GlobalFoundries) vs 5 nm (TSMC)
• Transistors: 5,700 million vs 57,700 million
• Die Size: 232 mm² vs 529 mm²
• Transistor Density: 24.6M / mm² vs 109.1M / mm²
• Base Clock: 1168 MHz vs 1387 MHz
• Boost Clock: 1244 MHz vs 2394 MHz
• Game Clock: Not listed vs 2025 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective) vs 2500 MHz (20 Gbps effective)
• Memory Size: 8 GB GDDR5 vs 20 GB GDDR6
• Memory Bus: 256 bit vs 320 bit
• Memory Bandwidth: 224.0 GB/s vs 800.0 GB/s
• Shading Units: 2048 vs 5376
• TMUs: 128 vs 336
• ROPs: 32 vs 192
• Ray Tracing Cores: None vs 84
• Pixel Rate: 39.81 GPixel/s vs 459.6 GPixel/s
• Texture Rate: 159.2 GTexel/s vs 804.4 GTexel/s
• FP32: 5.095 TFLOPS vs 51.48 TFLOPS
• FP16: 5.095 TFLOPS (1:1) vs 103.0 TFLOPS (2:1)
• TDP: 150 W vs 300 W
• Power Connectors: 1x 6-pin vs 2x 8-pin
• Suggested PSU: 450 W vs 700 W
• Bus Interface: PCIe 3.0 x16 vs PCIe 4.0 x16
• Display Outputs: 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a vs 1x HDMI 2.1a, 2x DisplayPort 2.1, 1x USB Type-C
• DirectX: 12 (12_0) vs 12 Ultimate (12_2)
• Vulkan: 1.3 vs 1.4
• Dimensions (Length): 241 mm (9.5 inches) vs 276 mm (10.9 inches)
• Height: Not listed vs 110 mm (4.3 inches)
• Width: Not listed vs 51 mm (2 inches)
• Release Date: 2018-04-10 vs 2022-11-02
• Predecessor: Polaris vs Navi II
• Successor: Vega vs Navi IV
• Launch MSRP: Not listed vs 899 USD (stated once as launch MSRP)