RTX 5070 vs RX 7900 XT: Differences explained

NVIDIA is presenting its latest card in the RTX 50 series, the RTX 5070. The major new features of the RTX 50 series are also to be found on this model, but certain elements have been scaled down to make it more affordable.

Let's compare its technical data with AMD's established competitor, the Radeon RX 7900 XT and see what conclusions we can draw.

It's worth mentioning here that it's really hard to directly compare an AMD GPU against an NVIDIA one. We don't mean that in the sense that one is so much stronger than the other, we mean it in in that they work differently that x amount of NVIDIA's CUDA cores are not equivalent to an amount of AMD cores.

That being said, we can still make some educated guesses, and things like VRAM capacities and speeds are more closely equivalent.

Despite a little more than two years between the two launches, performance is still in favour of the AMD RX 7900 XT, which is slightly ahead but should also be more interesting when you apply numerous filters that require a large amount of memory. On the other hand, the NVDIA RTX 5070, with its support for DLSS and Ray Tracing, allows you to benefit from the technical, AI driven advances that work the best with a 50 Series card like DLSS Multi Frame Generation.

The RTX 5070's TDP of just 250W does give it a tangible advantage in performance over the RX 7900 XT and its TDP of 325W. Power efficiency notwithstanding.

The difference of 75W represents both an increase in power consumption and an increase in the heat dissipation that needs to be managed. This difference will mean either a larger cooler, and therefore physical size and perhaps more noise pollution.

It's also worth mentioning that AMD's decision to stick to a couple of 8-pin connectors does provide some peace of mind compared to 12V-2x6, though it must be said that you're less likely to run into any of the issues with the connector that you've seen with a mere 5070.

The new NVIDIA card should, once the madness of the launch is over, offer a better performance/price ratio than the AMD RX 7900XT card, especially with the addition of DLSS 4.0.

For those who already own an AMD RX 7900XT card, the need to replace the card with the RTX 5070 card won't present any noticeable performance gains.

Useful Tools

Looking to upgrade to an NVIDIA RTX 5070 or an AMD RX 7900 XT? We have a ton of useful tools and information to help get you started:

• PC Builder - Get instant hardware recommendations, size guides and compatibility checks for your full PC build, including your Power Supply.
• PSU Calculator - Choose your GPU and CPU, answer a few quick questions, and we'll suggest the best few PSU options for your setup.

We also offer Prebuilt Gaming PCs, including a range of RTX 5070 Gaming PCs. All CORSAIR PCs are built with world-class CORSAIR components to help you instantly get the most out of the next-generation of GPUs.

Note - our prebuilt 50-series PCs are only available in the US.