I'm planning to upgrade my PC within the next few weeks and have been looking at the RTX 5070 Ti. Unfortunately, UK prices have climbed to roughly £1,000–£1,200, whereas the RX 9070 XT is currently available for around £700–£830. When the 5070 Ti was closer to £800, I was genuinely undecided, but the current £170–£500 price gap makes the choice feel very different.
I'm coming from an RX 5600 XT, so I haven't used ray tracing, frame generation, DLSS, or modern upscaling before. I mainly want to play at 1440p with high frame rates, and I may also consider using Linux rather than Windows. For gaming value, should I simply go with the RX 9070 XT, or are Nvidia's features worth paying substantially more for?
5 Answers
The market is especially frustrating because older cards haven’t dropped much either, so there isn’t always a sensible cheaper alternative. Still, at roughly £700 for the 9070 XT versus £1,000 or more for the 5070 Ti, the AMD card delivers much better performance per pound. For a 1440p gaming upgrade from an RX 5600 XT, I’d buy the 9070 XT and enjoy the games rather than overanalyse the feature lists.
For gaming value, the RX 9070 XT is the obvious choice at those prices. It offers a huge upgrade over the RX 5600 XT, has 16GB of VRAM, and is very capable at 1440p ultra settings. It can also handle plenty of 4K gaming, especially with upscaling. AMD now has FSR and frame generation as well, even if Nvidia’s implementations are generally a little more polished. That feature advantage probably isn’t worth £200–£500 for a gaming-only system.
I’d consider waiting briefly if you aren’t in a rush. Prices have moved around dramatically, with both cards sometimes £100–£200 cheaper during sales. The RX 9070 XT has occasionally appeared close to £600, and the 5070 Ti has previously been available in the high £600s or £700s. Set a price target, compare several retailers, and don’t assume the current listing price is normal.
The RTX 5070 Ti does have stronger ray tracing and Nvidia’s software ecosystem is still arguably better. DLSS can look excellent, and frame generation is useful in supported games, although it adds some latency and isn’t a substitute for genuinely higher base frame rates. If those features are important to you, paying extra could make sense, but you should decide that based on the games you actually play rather than buying them just because they’re available.
I went from a 5600 XT to a 9070-class card and the difference was enormous. At 1440p, the RX 9070 XT should give you a major improvement in both frame rate and image quality. The drivers have also been perfectly fine in my experience, and AMD is usually the more straightforward option on Linux. Unless you specifically need Nvidia CUDA, exceptional ray-tracing performance, or DLSS for a particular game or workload, I’d save the money and buy the AMD card.
The non-XT RX 9070 is worth checking too. It can often be found around £500 and is still a massive upgrade, while its lower power draw may be useful if your power supply is limited.
That’s what I was leaning towards. I’ve delayed playing newer games for ages, so either card should feel like a massive improvement, but the 9070 XT seems much easier to justify financially.