Conclusion
Today, we reviewed the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC, which has a high factory overclock and a higher Total Board Power compared to the reference specification. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is a compact video card in SAPPHIRE’s PULSE mainstream video card line aimed at providing a value-driven level of performance and features with a sleek look and improved gaming performance out of the box.
The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC has a factory overclock of 2920MHz, compared to the reference clock speed of 2790MHz. In addition, to hit those targets, the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC has a beefed-up Total Board Power of 240W compared to the 220W of the reference Radeon RX 9070 GRE specification.
This heightened performance level is still attained in a small 11″ 2.5-Slot video, which should fit well in SFF systems or small or tight builds. SAPPHIRE has built this video card with its Dual-X cooling configuration with two fans. The heatsink is dense and makes direct contact with VRMs, memory, and GPU, and also has backside pass-through cooling. The video card itself features a 14-phase VRM configuration and uses standard dual-8-pin PCIe power connectors.
The Radeon RX 9070 GRE sits closer to the Radeon RX 9070 on the scale of GPUs, rather than the Radeon RX 9060 XT. The Radeon RX 9070 GRE is a cut-down Navi 48 die that the Radeon RX 9070 uses, and also has a cut-down memory bus and capacity. The Radeon RX 9070 GRE consists of 48 Compute Units, 3,072 Shading Units, 48 RT Accelerators, 96 HW AI Accelerators, 96 ROPS, and 192 TMUS. It has a Game Clock of 2220MHz and a Boost Clock of up to 2.79GHz. It has 12GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit memory bus, at 18Gbps, providing 432GB/s of memory bandwidth. The Total Board Power is 220W, and it does support PCI-Express 5.0 x16 full bandwidth.
Performance
In our review today, we took a look specifically at the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC Edition video card. This is a factory overclocked video card with custom cooling, but in a compact form. In our game testing today, we took 13 games for a spin, and tested at the 1440p resolution at both Native Resolution and with FSR 4 Upscaling enabled, we also tested optional Ray Tracing performance in games as well.
Please refer to the game pages to see the actual percentage of uplift over the Radeon RX 9060 XT and how the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC compares to the Radeon RX 9070 and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. We are going to simply sum up our experiences from gaming on the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC here.
As we have experienced now, the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC sits closer to the Radeon RX 9070 in performance than it does to the Radeon RX 9060 XT. This makes a lot of sense, since it is a cut-down Navi 48 that the Radeon RX 9070 is based on, with cut-down memory as well.
We did note that the factory overclock and higher Total Board Power on the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC did make a slight difference in gaming performance compared to the reference spec Radeon RX 9070 GRE. We noted higher percentage differences compared to the Radeon RX 9060 XT and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. We also noted a narrowing of performance between it and the Radeon RX 9070. The factory overclock actually made a difference.
As we had noted before, the Ray Tracing performance of games with ‘baked in’ ray tracing was better on the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC compared to the Radeon RX 9060 XT. We noted an improved and playable experience at 1440p with Upscaling enabled. What was even more surprising was how much faster the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC actually was, even in Ray Tracing, compared to the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB video card.
The Upscaling performance also greatly helps the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC. Since RDNA 4 (Radeon RX 9070 GRE) supports FSR 4 and 4.1, we were able to utilize it at 1440p and gain the performance we needed in the most demanding games. We can enable “Quality” Upscaling at 1440p, and with FSR 4/4.1 the image quality is more than acceptable at that resolution. It allows us to achieve the performance we need in the demanding titles. In addition, “Balanced” also looks very good at 1440p with FSR 4/4.1, and that mode, combined with some Ray Tracing, actually provides a playable experience at 1440p in many games on the Radeon RX 9070 GRE.
Compared to the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, the factory overclocked nature of the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC provided a larger uplift over the RTX 5060 Ti. Despite the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC having only 12GB of VRAM, it held up very well to the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB video card. It allowed a better gaming experience, higher quality settings to be used, and smoother framerates with Upscaling.
Final Points
The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC has the potential to be a great value video card compared to the competition. As we have noted, the Radeon RX 9070 GRE overall is a better value than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, considering the price comparisons. The GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB video card today starts at around $559 and quickly moves into the $580+ category on pricing. The MSRP of the Radeon RX 9070 GRE is $549, and so when you look at it that way, you find that the Radeon RX 9070 GRE offers a lot more performance at the same or cheaper pricing.
When we compare the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC to the Radeon RX 9060 XT, we find that the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC offers a bigger advantage in performance over it. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC actually hangs closer to Radeon RX 9070 performance, and the margins between those video cards are much narrower. Therefore, over the Radeon RX 9060 XT, the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is a much better value since you get a lot more performance out of it.
We also found the factory overclock and the higher Total Board Power on the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC to be an advantage in terms of the performance differences and how things shaped up. That factory overclock, and Total Board Power increase set the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC apart from reference clocked Radeon RX 9070 GREs, and makes it more appealing in comparison. It also closes the gap between it and the Radeon RX 9070 performance. Remember, every card we were using in this review was a factory overclocked video card as well, so that makes it all the more impressive how narrow the margin is between it and the Radeon RX 9070.
The most important question we have is if, in retail, the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC really will be near its MSRP pricing for this specific video card. There is every chance the price could be inflated in this market. It will be important to watch the pricing and pricing trends. However, even if it was inflated to around $600, it would still be faster than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, and a better value based on that performance per dollar.
Overall, the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is a solidly built video card. Considering how compact and small the video card actually is, and not heavy either, we were impressed at the cooling performance of the GPU and RAM. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is also factory overclocked with a higher Total Board Power of 240W, and yet it remained cool and quiet. It really is a testament to SAPPHIRE’s design of this video card how well it runs, out of the box and overclocked, considering the size and weight of the video card. In addition, the MSRP remains $549. If the Radeon RX 9070 GRE tickles you, you might want to be on the lookout for a factory overclocked version like the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC.