I'm building a gaming PC with a budget of about $1,800 and I'm stuck between the Nvidia RTX 5070 and AMD RX 9070 XT. I've always preferred Nvidia and had my heart set on the RTX 5070, but the RX 9070 XT is surprisingly affordable online—around $720, and sometimes even less—despite costing roughly $250 more than the RTX 5070 in local stores. I'll use the PC for gaming about 70% of the time, with the remaining use being for other software. Is the 9070 XT the better choice, or are Nvidia's features worth considering?
4 Answers
The main reason to choose the RTX 5070 would be software compatibility, such as Blender or other workloads that benefit from CUDA, along with Nvidia-specific features. If that other 30% of your usage depends on those tools, Nvidia could still make sense. Otherwise, the 9070 XT is the stronger all-around gaming purchase.
Go with the 9070 XT unless you specifically need Nvidia’s CUDA support or features for work applications. For regular gaming, AMD gives you more performance for the money. Even the standard RX 9070 is typically faster than the RTX 5070, while the XT model steps up another level.
The RX 9070 XT is roughly a tier above the RTX 5070 for gaming, so being an Nvidia fan shouldn’t outweigh the performance difference if the prices are close. You could also consider the regular RX 9070 if you want to save money, since it delivers much of the XT’s performance while using less power.
For gaming, the RX 9070 XT is the clear choice. It’s significantly faster than the RTX 5070, has more VRAM, and is generally closer to an RTX 5070 Ti in performance. At a similar price, there isn’t much reason to pick the 5070 based on gaming performance alone.
The other 30% will be general desktop use and some productivity software, but I haven’t identified any specific CUDA-dependent programs yet.