Introduction
Today, March 5th, 2025, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and AMD Radeon RX 9070 GPUs are launching, and video cards based on these new GPUs will be available March 6th, 2025. In this review, we will take a look at the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT video card. This video card sports the new Radeon RX 9070 XT flagship GPU with a factory overclock and a unique custom design from SAPPHIRE like we have never seen before. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9070 XT Gaming OC video card SKU 11348-01-20G will have an MSRP of $729.
AMD pre-announced the RDNA 4 powered Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 XT at CES 2025. Then, on February 28th, 2025, AMD officially officially announced the RDNA 4 architecture and the new Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 XT GPUs, as well as new features like FSR 4. Check out our announcement article, where we detailed every single presentation slide and showed everything from the press deck, with all the information that AMD is announcing. All of the video card specs are in that article, so we won’t spend too much time here in regards to the architecture.
Just as a quick brief on the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, the Radeon RX 9070 XT is AMD’s flagship GPU this generation with an MSRP of $599. The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT has 64 CUs, 64 hardware RT accelerators, 128 hardware AI accelerators, with 1557 peak TOPS, clocked at a boost clock of 2.97GHz with 16GB of GDDR6 with a total board power of 304W.
SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 9000 Series Models
If you head over to SAPPHIRE’s product pages, you’ll find all the variants, and there are a lot of different tiers SAPPHIRE offers. The four main SKUs offered are the TOXIC, NITRO, PURE, and PULSE cards, the NITRO+ cards are at SAPPHIRE’s high-end enthusiast class, with the most robust feature set, build, and overall look. The NITRO+ also has the highest factory-overclocked frequencies and a very distinct look with RGB.
Under the NITRO+ series, SAPPHIRE will offer both a Radeon RX 9070 XT model and a Radeon RX 9070 model, both having a high factory overclock. SAPPHIRE will also offer a PURE series Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 white themed variant also with a factory overclock on both. In the PULSE line, you’ll also find a Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070, but using the stock reference clock speeds, and these are the video cards that will also be at the $599 AMD MSRP as well, everything above that will have a price premium.
SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9070 XT
There are a really cool features to talk about with the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9070 XT video card. This being the NITRO+ model means it has everything, including the kitchen sink! First, this is a factory overclocked video card with a GPU Boost that is up to 3060MHz, which is a 3% factory overclock set out-of-the-box. The 16GB of GDDR6 runs at the default 20 Gbps.
SAPPHIRE has also changed up the I/O supported, it provides 2x HDMI 2.1 and 2x DisplayPort 2.1a. Typically, you see three DisplayPorts and one HDMI, but SAPPHIRE has customized it with 2 HDMI and 2 DisplayPort. What really sets the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9070 XT apart is the cooling solution and STEALTH hidden power connector with yes a PCIe 12V-2×6 connector, we will go into more detail about that below.
Inside is a very solid box with two layers. On the top, you are greeted by the Backplate envelope in its own foam cutout. Underneath is the main foam with the video card and a separate Accessories box. Everything is well cushioned and has a premium look and feel to it. Aside from the backplate being a separate piece, the accessories include a very study video card support, an ARGB motherboard extension cable, and a three-headed 12V-2×6 HPWR connector. Yup, you read that right. This AMD card has a 12V-2×6 power plug. It is unique in that it has a blue end that will be hidden if you plug the cable into the card correctly. SAPPHIRE calls this their STEALTH Hidden Power Connetor.
Picking the video card out of the box, you notice how big and heavy it is, even without the backplate, it has a big ole Cold Rolled Steel Frame. It has FrameDefense in the mechanical design for structural rigidity. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9070 XT is essentially a gray metallic rectangle. It has a very smooth, tight fit and finish with three dual ball-bearing 100mm fans. It features a Free Flow cooling design with axial fans. The fans are what Sapphire calls AeroCurve and have 7 blades joined at the perimeter and slightly raised above the surface. Sapphire has designed the fans to be easy to remove from the card for cleaning.
The top of the video card is slightly cowled near the fans and has the look of a finely perforated “grill” like you would see on a radio speaker cover. The top edge is a very open grill to allow airflow and RGB light. The front and rear of the card are essentially closed. One can see a very large end-to-end heatsink inside.
The heatsink is a direct contact heatpipe that covers the VRM, memory ,and GPU chip. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9070 XT utilizes a 16-phase power design using High TG Copper 12-layer 2oz PCB. The thermal interface material used is Honeywell PTM7950. On the back of the card, you see a large opening. At the front edge are connectors for the STEALTH Hidden Power Connector 12V-2×6 and external ARGB cable. There is a special insulator on the heatsink to protect the cables. Once connected (I recommend you connect the cables BEFORE you install the video card), you can then position the magnetic full metal backplate.
The dual-layer All Metal Backplate is fully vented and also has open flanges for routing your cables, whether it be up or down. SAPPHIRE calls this their Quick Connect MagniPlate feature. It also helps with heat dissipation. Surprisingly, there is ample room to maneuver the cabling before you place the backplate. As was said, this is a big card. Measurements are 13inch x 5.75inch x 2.75inch, overall a 3+ slotted video card. The weight without the backplate is 3.5 pounds, and attached is 4 pounds 3 ounces.
Specifically, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9070 XT is overclocked to 2520Mhz on the Game Clock and 3060Mhz on the Boost Clock. Reference values are 2400MHz and 2970MHz. It is supplied with 16GB of GDDR6 video memory. The stated power draw for our card is 330 Watts, and a minimum of 750 Watt PSU is recommended. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9070 XT is a PCIe 5.0 x16 capable video card.
We would be remiss if not to point out that we do have a nice ARGB LED Light Bar running the entire length of the front-facing grill. At the time of writing, SAPPHIRE’s TRIXX software was not fully functional, so we only had the default flashing-blinking-ever-changing light show to look at. There will be full control over the lights once TRIXX is fully ready. There is a cable to plug into the motherboard ARGB header, but our ASRock Nova would not recognize that yet.