Impressive RX 9070 gaming performance surfaces as midrange RDNA 4 GPU appears to match RX 7900 XT

Rather than do a full unveiling of the next-generation RX 9070 XT and the RX 9070 desktop GPUs, AMD just revealed some juicy but unremarkable details regarding the new RDNA 4 architecture. So, we don’t know the potential performance, specs, and price of the RX 9070 XT and the RX 9070.

However, the good folks over at IGN have managed to run the built-in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 benchmark on a system equipped with an RX 9070 and a Ryzen 9 9950X3D. As a result, we can now see the possible RX 9070 performance as well as compare the RX 9070 to other similarly positioned GPUs.

Per IGN’s testing, the Radeon RX 9070 manages to play the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 at 99 FPS, on average, with a 1% Low of 60 FPS. This benchmark was run at 4K resolution, with Extreme settings, and without any FSR/DLSS.

We tested the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 quite extensively a few months ago and found out that the RX 7900 XT, coupled with a Core i9-13900K, plays the game at 102 FPS on average. So, the RX 9070 in question essentially matches the RX 7900 XT and is a few percentage points ahead of the RTX 4080. While Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is known to favor AMD GPUs, the pure performance of the RX 9070 on display is hard to deny.

The proposed RX 9070 performance becomes even more impressive when you consider that, per IGN, the RX 9070 was “running on very alpha drivers”. So, with final drivers that are properly optimized for the title, we can see some notable gains.

Moreover, it is interesting to consider that the 9070 matching the RX 7900 XT bodes well for the RX 9700 XT which will undoubtedly be faster than the RX 9070. How much faster? We don’t know but we expect a measurable performance delta between the two GPUs. So, the RX 9070 XT can beat the RX 7900 XT. The RX 9070 XT might even approach the RX 7900 XTX, a GPU that is 20% faster than the RX 7900 XT.

As always, one game doesn’t reveal the full picture. Therefore, any conclusions about the RX 9070, the RX 9070 XT, and performance comparisons with other GPUs will need to wait until AMD officially reveals the GPUs and we get to test the cards.

Buy the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX on Amazon