1. Introduction2. Meet the Sapphire RX 9070 XT Nitro+3. Testing Methodology4. Game Benchmarks5. Clock Speed6. GPU Temperatures7. Does the Backplate Affect Thermals?8. Acoustics9. Noise-Normalised Temperatures10. Power Draw and Efficiency11. Overclocking12. Closing Thoughts13. View All Pages

Following our launch-day review of AMD's RX 9070 XT, today we’re analysing the Sapphire Nitro+ partner card. As one of my favourite custom designs from the RX 7000 series, Sapphire has refined its Nitro+ formula even further, introducing an innovative removable backplate for better cable management, a hefty factory overclock and sleek aesthetics. Let’s see what this card is capable of.

Sapphire tells me the RX 9070 XT Nitro+ has a UK MSRP of £699, though at the time of writing it is listed for £720 at Overclockers UK, or £730 at Scan. Either way, it is clearly a high-end 9070 XT card, targeting users who want more than just basic performance, but a range of extra bells and whistles, too.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
00:35 RX 9070 XT recap
01:13 Meet the Sapphire Nitro+
03:08 Nitro+ PCB and heatsink
03:59 PowerColor Red Devil design
05:38 Red Devil PCB and heatsink
06:25 Test setup
06:55 Thermals and acoustics
08:35 Does Sapphire’s backplate increase temps?
09:12 Game benchmarks, clock speed analysis
09:56 Power draw and 12VHPWR testing
11:40 Overclocking/undervolting
12:38 Closing thoughts

	RX 9070 XT	RX 9070	RX 7900 GRE	RX 7800 XT	RX 7700 XT
Architecture	RDNA 4	RDNA 4	RDNA 3	RDNA 3	RDNA 3
Manufacturing Process	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N5 GCD + N6 MCD	TSMC N5 GCD + N6 MCD	TSMC N5 GCD + N6 MCD
Transistor Count	53.9 billion	53.9 billion	57.7 billion	28.1 billion	28.1 billion
Die Size	357 mm²	357 mm²	300 mm² GCD 220 mm² MCD	200 mm² GCD 150 mm² MCD	200 mm² GCD 150 mm² MCD
Compute Units	64	56	80	60	54
Ray Accelerators	64	56	80	60	54
Stream Processors	4096	3584	5120	3840	3456
Game GPU Clock	2400 MHz	2070 MHz	1880 MHz	2124 MHz	2171 MHz
Boost GPU Clock	Up to 2970 MHz	Up to 2520 MHz	Up to 2245 MHz	Up to 2430 MHz	Up to 2544 MHz
ROPs	128	128	192	96	96
AMD Infinity Cache	64MB	64MB	64MB	64MB	48MB
Memory	16GB GDDR6	16GB GDDR6	16GB GDDR6	16GB GDDR6	12GB GDDR6
Memory Data Rate	20 Gbps	20 Gbps	18 Gbps	19.5 Gbps	18 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	645 GB/s	645 GB/s	576 GB/s	624 GB/s	432 GB/s
Memory Interface	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	192-bit
Board Power	304W	220W	260 W	263W	245W

First, let's take a quick look at the specs. The RX 9070 XT is built on the new Navi 48 die, measuring 357mm², and it's worth pointing out this is a monolithic chip, so AMD is not using a chiplet-based design as per RDNA 3. In total, Navi 48 silicon packs in 53.9 billion transistors.

As a full implementation of Navi 48, the RX 9070 XT packs in 64 Compute Units, and each CU houses 64 Stream Processors, for a total of 4096 shaders. There's also 64 Ray Accelerators – one per CU – and 128 ROPs.

As for clock speed, the RX 9070 XT runs notably faster than its sibling, the RX 9070, given it sports a rated game clock of 2400MHz and a boost clock of up to 2970MHz. Sapphire has increased things further however, with a rated boost of 3060MHz.

The memory configuration is the same between both GPUs though, with 16GB of GDDR6 memory clocked at 20Gbps, operating over a 256-bit memory interface, for total memory bandwidth of 645 GB/s. 64MB of Infinity Cache is also present.

Power draw for the RX 9070 XT is rated at 304W Total Board Power (TBP), Sapphire has increased this up to 330W.

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