Conclusion
Today marks the official launch of the new AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and AMD Radeon RX 9070 RDNA 4 powered architectured GPUs, with availability on March 6th, 2025. In today’s review, we took a look at the new XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air Edition, which has an MSRP of $709.99 and an estimated shelf price after tariff of $779.99. The XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air Edition offers a stock AMD reference clock speed, but a very robust custom design build from XFX using their unique Magnetic Fan technology and custom hardware.
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is AMD’s flagship GPU with an MSRP of $599 for the very basic models. 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.
The XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air Edition offers the same reference clock speed of 2970MHz GPU boost and 16GB of GDDR6 with the same Wattage of 304W. The XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air Edition features XFX’s unique Magnetic Fans, which are a toolless method to simply pop the fans on and off using magnets, and this allows for easy cleaning or replacement. The video card is a three-fan design with a large nickel-plated baseplate and large heatsink fins, heatpipes, and thermal pads. The hardware is backed by a 14-phase power delivery system and two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.
Game Performance
In gaming performance, we focused on the 1440p gameplay experience, as this is the prime gaming resolution range for the Radeon RX 9070 XT. We setup our comparisons based on pricing, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti has an MSRP of $749 but has been more in the range of $900 lately. The XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air Edition at $709, and potentially $779 in retail, means those two video cards are closer in comparison. We also included the Radeon RX 7900 XT to see how the Radeon RX 9070 XT stacks up in regards to that $899 video card at launch, which did drop to around $750 in the last year, making it comparable as well.
In Alan Wake 2 the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air provided a very playable gameplay experience at 1440p and native resolution at 100 FPS. This meant the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was 7% faster than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, and 13% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT. In Black Myth Wukong, we found that you will need to utilize FSR Upscaling at 1440p to get a playable experience, but the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air is only 4% slower than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. It is 19% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT.
In Cyberpunk 2077, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air is very playable at 1440p and Ultra settings, matching exactly the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti performance and experience. It was also 9% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT. In Dying Light 2, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air provided a playable experience at 1440p, and it was 8% slower than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 8% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT. F1 24 was very fast, and the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air matched the gameplay experience of the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.
Horizon Forbidden West did extremely well on the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air and was super smooth and playable at native resolution or 150 FPS with FSR Upscaling. In this game, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was 12% faster than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, which was the highest result in our gaming suite. The XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was also 19% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle performed great on the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air at Supreme quality settings, providing smooth gameplay at native resolution. In fact, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was only 2% behind the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, so practically the same experience. The XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was 12% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT.
Kingdom Come Deliverance II had a leg up with the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti on performance; the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was 17% slower. However, it was 13% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT and still offered a great gameplay experience at native resolution. This game may need some driver optimization.
In Stalker 2 the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air easily allowed a playable experience at native resolution 1440p Epic settings, and with FSR Upscaling that went to near 100 FPS. In this game, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was 7% slower than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 9% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT. Finally, in Star Wars Outlaws, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air allowed a playable gameplay experience at native resolution. The XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was 9% slower than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 17% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT.
RDNA 4 Ray Tracing Performance
Ray Tracing performance was a big topic for AMD in regards to the RDNA 4 architecture improvements. With our testing, we can come to some conclusions and opinions about that now, because it was certainly hyped up pretty big, maybe even overhyped in our opinion.
Yes, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is faster at Ray Tracing compared to the previous generation. AMD has made strides in improving performance with this next generation. However, it isn’t enough; AMD needs to do more in regards to Ray Tracing performance. AMD is not able to match the competition in this area, and the competition is still a generation ahead on Ray Tracing performance. Strides have been made, and the gap is closing, but ultimately, AMD is still lagging behind at the end of the day. It isn’t there yet.
If we equate the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT RT performance to the competition, then it feels like RDNA 4 is where the GeForce RTX 30 series was in its Ray Tracing performance improvement from the GeForce RTX 20 series. This is akin to the improvements experienced when moving from the GeForce RTX 20 series to the GeForce RTX 30 series in RT performance.
In other words, if RDNA 2 and 3 are akin to the GeForce RTX 20 Series in RT, then RDNA 4 feels like the GeForce RTX 30 series in RT. This still puts NVIDIA a generation ahead on RT performance with the GeForce RTX 40/50 series RT performance levels. With RDNA 4, AMD is about where NVIDIA was with the GeForce RTX 30 series on RT performance now. It’s certainly better and very usable, but it hasn’t caught up.
In our gameplay testing, in Alan Wake 2, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was 24% slower than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 31% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT. We would have to enable FSR Upscaling to make this game playable at 1440p. In Black Myth Wukong, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was 53% slower than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 109% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT. For this game, RT is not much of an option, really, unless you keep it at a low setting with aggressive FSR Upscaling.
In Cyberpunk 2077, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was 16% slower than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 38% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT. However, surprisingly, in Ray Tracing Overdrive Mode with Path Tracing, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was actually 8% faster than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 37% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT. This RT Overdrive performance is unexpected, surprising, and quite literally fantastic. However, you will still need to use FSR Upscaling even at 1080p, to make it actually playable.
In Dying Light 2, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air is 13% slower than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 34% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT. In F1 24, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air is on par with the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti in RT and 23% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT. Star Wars Outlaws has the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air at 20% slower than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 22% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT. This game is not playable at 1440p without aggressive FSR Upscaling applied.
There is one more game we want to mention, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. We did try the Path Tracing RT option in this game on the Radeon RX 9070 XT. Unfortunately, there is a graphical bug in this game that causes white dots to flash on the screen, and performance tanks very severely when setting this game to “High” RT quality preset. We were therefore not able to really test it well, it’s broken at the moment. For the record, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is able to provide a playable experience at 1440p with Path Tracing on “High” in this game at 63 FPS native resolution, so it might be possible for the Radeon RX 9070 XT to achieve a playable experience with FSR Upscaling here, since it also has 16GB of VRAM. AMD is aware of this issue, and once it is fixed, we will revisit Path Tracing in this game.
Power, Temp, and Overclock
The power, temperature, and overclock of the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, in general, were interesting to test. First, let’s start with the power draw, the TDP/TGP of the Radeon RX 9070 XT is 304W. In our testing, with the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air, depending on the game, we experienced between 313W-327W, with 327W peak at the high-end.
At this power level, the Radeon RX 9070 XT is actually pulling 4% more power than the Radeon RX 7900 XT, but 12% more power than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, which is typically faster in Ray Tracing performance. This is then a bit odd because the Radeon RX 9070 XT doesn’t seem as power-efficient as the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti does for the performance it is delivering. The GeForce RTX 5070 Ti does seem to be the more efficient and power-friendly GPU for the performance it delivers. Naturally, the power will depend on the add-in-board partner card and the GPU boost it is boosting at, but potentially, the RAdeon RX 9070 XT does consume more power overall.
This then brings us to the GPU clock frequency discussion. The Radeon RX 9070 XT has an “Up To” 2970MHz GPU boost clock. For AMD, this GPU frequency will dance all around that number, sometimes below it, sometimes above it, it does not operate like NVIDIA GPU boost, which always runs faster than the GPU boost clock. We found that the specific game will determine the boosting frequency range; some games will have a lower range, some games a higher range. For us, in Cyberpunk 2077, the frequency range was 2890MHz-3010MHz. In Kingdom Come Deliverance II, the frequency range was 3010MHz-3110MHz. This indicates that boost clocks of 3GHz or above can happen in different games on the Radeon RX 9070 XT, which is neat to see.
For overclocking, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air was able to be pushed up to +500MHz on the Max Frequency Offset MHz slider, and up to 22Gbps memory frequency from the default 20Gbps frequency. At this range, the clock speed increased to 2970MHz-3050MHz in Cyberpunk 2077 and 3050MHz-3150MHz in Kingdom Come Deliverance II. Unfortunately, the real-world gaming impact of this overclock was only about 4% in a performance uplift when gaming. Overall, it doesn’t seem worth the overclock and extra power draw to gain just 4% more performance. It’s a small and insignificant overclock. On the plus side, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air remains VERY cool at default, and overclocked, absolutely steller in this area.
Final Points
Starting with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT in general, if it can truly be had at the $599 MSRP price point, it does offer a substantial value over the more expensive GeForce RTX 5070 Ti in raster performance. The Radeon RX 9070 XT is able to compete with the GeForce RTX 5070 in gaming performance; it wins some, and it loses some, but generally, it offers a competitive experience at this price point. In Ray Tracing performance, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti has a big lead, and so the value on RT performance leans toward the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.
The Radeon RX 9070 XT also offers a marked improvement over a Radeon RX 7900 XT in performance of both raster and Ray Tracing. AMD has truly improved the Ray Tracing performance gen-to-gen in a meaningful way. On raster performance, the Radeon RX 9070 XT is between the Radeon RX 7900 XT and Radeon RX 7900 XTX in performance. But on Ray Tracing performance, it’s a big leap forward. If you recall, the Radeon RX 7900 XT launched at $899; therefore at $599 the Radeon RX 9070 XT is a substantial price-to-performance increase gen-to-gen from the previous generation, showing positive movement.
We are impressed with the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air build from XFX. This video card has an amazing unique feature with the magnetic fans. We have found these fans to simply work very well, XFX has engineered a pretty cool feature that works and one that we really like, but you are paying a premium for it. The Quicksilver Class of card from XFX has the same cooling features of its MERC Series, so you are getting a solid and premium video card for enthusiasts.
We found that the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air cools extremely well and is just a really nice overall package for this video card. XFX does offer OC models as well. if you want a bit of a factory overclock, this does exist, as well as the higher-end MERC series. The stealth look of the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air is nice, with the simple LED logo atop the video card.
The only sticking point is that the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air does have a higher MSRP of $709.99, and possibly up to $779.99 expected on-shelf pricing, but we will have to wait and see. This price is still competitive to the competition, however, where the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti sits at $749 by MSRP, but is actually at much higher pricing of $900 or above. In that regard, the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air is competitively at a better value in the right scenarios. It will be important to keep an eye on pricing over time and see how it all shakes out.
In the meantime, we walk away from the XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air review with a more positive outlook than we have with some other recent GPU launches. The XFX Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Magnetic Air is a well-built video card for enthusiasts that looks great and has a really cool feature unique to XFX.