AMD Radeon RX 570X vs AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Comparison

AMD Radeon RX 570X vs AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is a generational mismatch that pits a 2018 Polaris entry against a 2025 RDNA 4 flagship. The benchmark data shows a near-total rout in raw graphics performance for the newer card, yet one legacy test reveals a surprising counterpoint. The RX 9070 XT dominates the PassMark G3D suite with a score of 26,795, a staggering 92.8% lead over the RX 570X's 1,923. In contrast, the RX 570X wins the Geekbench OpenCL test with 38,939 points, a 123.4% advantage over the RX 9070 XT's 17,428. The RX 9070 XT also takes the PassMark G2D test with 1,328 versus 750, a 43.5% gap. These results paint a clear picture but deserve deeper scrutiny.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most decisive victory for the RX 9070 XT is in PassMark G3D, the industry-standard DirectX gaming benchmark. The RX 9070 XT scores 26,795, while the RX 570X manages only 1,923. This 92.8% delta is not a marginal improvement; it is an order-of-magnitude leap. The RX 9070 XT's 128 ROPs and 760.3 GTexel/s texture rate dwarf the RX 570X's 32 ROPs and 159.2 GTexel/s, explaining the massive fill-rate advantage. For any modern gaming workload, this benchmark alone signals that the RX 570X is obsolete.

The RX 9070 XT also wins the PassMark G2D test, scoring 1,328 versus the RX 570X's 750, a 43.5% difference. This test measures 2D GUI acceleration, window management, and basic desktop rendering. The RX 9070 XT's newer RDNA 4.0 architecture, with its 4 nm process and higher memory bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s, clearly provides faster 2D compositing than the GCN 4.0-based RX 570X, which has only 224.0 GB/s. While less critical for gaming, this gap matters for multi-monitor productivity setups.

However, the RX 570X pulls off a shocking upset in Geekbench OpenCL. It scores 38,939 against the RX 9070 XT's 17,428, a 123.4% lead. This is counterintuitive given the RX 9070 XT's 48.66 TFLOPS FP32 performance versus the RX 570X's 5.095 TFLOPS. The likely culprit is driver optimization or test methodology—OpenCL is a legacy compute API, and AMD's newer RDNA 4.0 cards may not be fully optimized for it, whereas the older GCN 4.0 architecture was tuned for this workload. The data shows the RX 570X wins 1 of 3 head-to-head tests, but this victory is in a synthetic compute benchmark, not a gaming or graphics workload.

Across all available benchmarks, the RX 9070 XT's average score is 13,543, slightly lower than the RX 570X's 13,871 due to the OpenCL outlier. Yet the RX 9070 XT's PassMark G3D score of 26,795 places it at the 55th percentile of all GPUs, matching the RX 570X's percentile. This is misleading: the percentile field is identical, but the two cards achieve this rank through vastly different distributions. The RX 570X's percentile is propped up by its OpenCL score, while the RX 9070 XT's is driven by its G3D dominance. In real-world gaming, the RX 9070 XT is the clear victor.

The Verdict

The data supports an unambiguous conclusion for gamers: the RX 9070 XT is the only viable choice. Its PassMark G3D score of 26,795 is 13.9 times higher than the RX 570X's 1,923, a performance gap that translates directly to playable frame rates at high resolutions versus slideshow-level performance. The RX 9070 XT also offers 16 GB of GDDR6 memory versus 8 GB of GDDR5, ensuring future-proofing for texture-heavy titles. For anyone building a new gaming rig or upgrading from a decade-old card, the RX 9070 XT is the data-backed recommendation.

The RX 570X has a narrow niche: users running legacy OpenCL compute workloads. Its 123.4% lead over the RX 9070 XT in Geekbench OpenCL suggests that older scientific or rendering applications that rely on this API may run faster on the Polaris 20 chip. However, this is a niche use case, and the RX 570X is end-of-life, so driver support and availability are limited. The RX 9070 XT, with its active production status, DirectX 12 Ultimate support, and Vulkan 1.4 API, is the forward-looking purchase.

For esports or competitive gaming at 1080p, the RX 9070 XT's 380.2 GPixel/s pixel rate and 760.3 GTexel/s texture rate ensure it can handle high refresh rates, while the RX 570X's 39.81 GPixel/s is a bottleneck. The RX 9070 XT's 64 ray tracing cores also provide hardware-accelerated RT, a feature completely absent from the RX 570X. There is no scenario in the data where the RX 570X is the sensible choice for a new build; its sole benchmark win is an anomaly in a legacy API.

Architecture Differences

The two cards represent polar opposites in AMD's design philosophy. The RX 570X uses the Polaris 20 chip built on GCN 4.0 architecture, a 14 nm design from GlobalFoundries. It packs 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 24.6 million per mm². GCN 4.0 was AMD's fourth-generation Graphics Core Next design, optimized for compute and DX12 feature level 12_0. It has no dedicated ray tracing hardware and relies on 2,048 shading units running at a boost clock of 1244 MHz.

The RX 9070 XT uses the Navi 48 chip on RDNA 4.0 architecture, fabricated on TSMC's 4 nm process. It contains 53,900 million transistors on a 357 mm² die, achieving a density of 151.0 million per mm²—over six times denser than the RX 570X. RDNA 4.0 is a gaming-first architecture, featuring 4,096 shading units, 64 dedicated ray tracing cores, and a boost clock of 2970 MHz. The clock speed increase alone—2970 MHz versus 1244 MHz—is a 138.7% improvement, which combined with the 100% increase in shading units, explains the massive FP32 throughput gap: 48.66 TFLOPS versus 5.095 TFLOPS.

The memory subsystem also diverges sharply. The RX 570X uses 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 224.0 GB/s. The RX 9070 XT has 16 GB of GDDR6 on the same 256-bit bus, but at 20.1 Gbps effective speed, yielding 644.6 GB/s—a 187.8% bandwidth increase. The RX 9070 XT also supports PCIe 5.0 x16 versus PCIe 3.0 x16, doubling the available bus bandwidth for system memory transfers. Display outputs differ too: the RX 570X offers 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0b, and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the RX 9070 XT provides 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1a, enabling higher refresh rates and resolutions.

Specification Differences

The specification table reveals stark contrasts across nearly every field. The RX 9070 XT's base clock is 1660 MHz, a 42.1% increase over the RX 570X's 1168 MHz, and its boost clock of 2970 MHz is 138.7% higher than 1244 MHz. The RX 9070 XT also has a game clock of 2400 MHz, a feature absent from the RX 570X. Memory speed jumps from 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective) to 2518 MHz (20.1 Gbps effective), a 43.9% increase in raw clock and a 187.8% increase in effective bandwidth.

The compute unit counts scale proportionally: the RX 9070 XT has 4,096 shading units, 256 TMUs, and 128 ROPs, versus the RX 570X's 2,048, 128, and 32, respectively. This doubles the shading and texturing throughput while quadrupling the pixel output. The RX 9070 XT's 64 ray tracing cores are a new addition with no equivalent on the RX 570X. Power requirements also differ: the RX 9070 XT draws 304 W TDP and needs 2x 8-pin connectors with a 700 W suggested PSU, while the RX 570X uses 150 W with a single 6-pin and 450 W PSU. The RX 9070 XT is a dual-slot card like the RX 570X, but its 357 mm² die is 53.9% larger than the 232 mm² Polaris 20.

API support also reflects the generational leap: the RX 9070 XT supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the RX 570X is limited to DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. Both support OpenGL 4.6. The RX 570X has a length of 241 mm (9.5 inches), while the RX 9070 XT's dimensions are unspecified in the data. The RX 9070 XT launched with an MSRP of 599 USD, while the RX 570X has no recorded launch MSRP.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins in gaming performance based on the benchmarks?

A: The RX 9070 XT wins decisively. Its PassMark G3D score of 26,795 is 92.8% higher than the RX 570X's 1,923, indicating dramatically higher DirectX gaming performance.

Q: Does the RX 570X have any advantage over the RX 9070 XT?

A: Yes, in the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RX 570X scores 38,939 versus 17,428 for the RX 9070 XT, a 123.4% lead. This suggests better performance in legacy OpenCL compute workloads.

Q: How do the memory specifications compare between the two cards?

A: The RX 9070 XT has 16 GB of GDDR6 with 644.6 GB/s bandwidth, while the RX 570X has 8 GB of GDDR5 with 224.0 GB/s. The RX 9070 XT offers 187.8% more bandwidth.

Q: What is the process node difference between the two GPUs?

A: The RX 570X uses a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries, while the RX 9070 XT uses a 4 nm process from TSMC. This allows the RX 9070 XT to fit 53,900 million transistors, versus 5,700 million for the RX 570X.

Q: Does the RX 9070 XT support ray tracing?

A: Yes, it has 64 dedicated ray tracing cores. The RX 570X has no ray tracing hardware, meaning it cannot accelerate RT workloads.

Q: Which card has better API support?

A: The RX 9070 XT supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, whereas the RX 570X supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3. Both offer OpenGL 4.6.