picksbycard
September 26, 2026No. 147
Home / 1440p / Radeon RX 9070
AMD Mid range

Radeon RX 9070

The 5070's direct rival, with the 16GB the 5070 should have had.

Average in-stock listing $915 on Sep 26, 2026 (lowest $570), 1.7 times the $549 launch MSRP. See its price history. The links open live listings. Amazon links may earn us a commission.

16GB GDDR6
Memory16GB GDDR6
Price today$915 MSRP $549
Board power220W
Released2025

Will it run your models?

VRAM meter
16GB
8B5GB
14B9GB
24B14GB
32B20GB
70B40GB

Local AI fit: up to low-20B class models. Rule of thumb for 4-bit quantized models; context length and other apps eat into the same memory.

Open models that fit comfortably at Q4

Tight but possible: Codestral 22B v0.1, Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct (2506), Gemma 4 26B-A4B IT.

The full model x card grid →

What it costs to run

220W of board power, 4 hours a day under load, priced at the residential electricity rate where you live. Pick a state and the numbers update.

Board power220W
Energy at 4h / day321 kWh / yr
$59 / yr
Per hour under load4.0¢

Board power is the rated maximum; real gaming load usually sits below it and idle is a few watts, so treat this as the ceiling. Rates: EIA residential average, May 2026. See every card ranked by running cost →

Why you buy it

  • 16GB at $549
  • Efficient 220W board power
  • Trades blows with the RTX 5070

Why you hesitate

  • The 9070 XT is close in price and clearly faster
  • FSR adoption in games still trails DLSS

The editor's take

Same money as the RTX 5070, more memory, very close performance, and 220W efficiency that makes it easy to cool. The XT is only $50 more and meaningfully faster, which is this card's biggest problem. If the budget stops precisely here, it is still a fine buy.

Who it's for: 1440p gamers choosing between this and the RTX 5070 who would rather have four extra gigabytes than DLSS.

Decided?

Live listings for the Radeon RX 9070, straight from the retailers.

Average in-stock listing $915 on Sep 26, 2026 (lowest $570), 1.7 times the $549 launch MSRP. See its price history. Amazon links may earn us a commission.

The Silicon Note

One short read on the GPU market, most mornings. No spam, one-click out.