A major earthquake in Colombia damaged my PC, and unfortunately my Radeon RX 9070 XT was the only component that failed. My family and I—including my two cats—are safe, and I'm temporarily using the integrated graphics on my Ryzen 5 9600X with a damaged but still usable 1080p 180Hz monitor.
I need to replace the GPU and have about $750 available, though local pricing is inflated. My system includes a Ryzen 5 9600X, 16GB of DDR5-6000 memory, a Gigabyte B850M Gaming X WiFi motherboard, and an ASUS ROG Strix 1000W Gold power supply.
The used cards I can currently find are:
- Zotac RTX 5070 Solid OC, used and without its box: $786
- Radeon RX 9070 GRE Steel Legend: $606
- MSI RTX 4070 Super Ventus 3X 12GB: $707
- XFX RX 9060 XT Mercury White 16GB: $606
The RTX 5070 is the fastest option, but it costs noticeably more than the 9070 GRE. The 9060 XT costs the same as the GRE, while the 4070 Super is an older alternative. I may eventually move to a 1440p monitor, so which card would offer the best balance of performance, features, and value?
3 Answers
The RX 9070 GRE looks like the clear value choice here. It should be close to RTX 5070 performance while costing $180 less, and the 12GB of VRAM is more comfortable than the 9060 XT’s performance level suggests. The 9060 XT makes little sense at the same price, while the 4070 Super is older and costs more. Choose the RTX 5070 only if you want the highest performance from this list and don’t mind spending extra.
I’d skip the RX 9060 XT at that price. It’s a reasonable budget card when priced appropriately, but matching the 9070 GRE makes it a poor deal. The RTX 4070 Super is still capable, especially if you care about ray tracing or upscaling, but paying more for an older card with 12GB of VRAM doesn’t seem worthwhile here. The GRE gives you the strongest value unless you specifically want Nvidia’s feature set.
For $606, I’d take the 9070 GRE without hesitation. It should be a strong match for the 9600X at both high-refresh 1080p and 1440p, and your 1000W power supply gives you plenty of headroom. The RTX 5070 is faster and has newer features, but the premium is difficult to justify when the GRE is only around 10% behind in typical gaming performance.
That’s where I’m leaning too. The GRE seems to give up only a small amount of performance compared with the 5070 while leaving money available for a future monitor upgrade.