AMD’s RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 both rival some of the best graphics cards, but the RX 9070 finds itself in an awkward spot in the GPU market. Now, with the RX 9070 GRE officially out, the non-XT variant might be in hot water. Leaked pricing tells us that the two cards will be very close in price, and that’s actually bad news for both.
The RX 9070 GRE (Great Radeon Edition) has now officially been launched in China, and IT Home shared the scoop. The GPU cuts back on some specifications when compared to the RX 9070 XT and the RX 9070, but that wasn’t unexpected — this was also the case with the RX 7900 GRE, which ultimately turned out to be an excellent card.
AMD’s new RX 9070 GRE comes with 3,072 cores (or 48 CUs), a maximum clock speed of up to 2.79GHz, and 12GB of GDDR6 RAM across a 192-bit bus, reportedly clocked at 18Gbps (via VideoCardz). This would be a strange decision, as the rest of the RDNA 4 lineup comes with 20Gbps memory speeds. Using these 18Gbps modules (if true) will lead to 432GB/s of effective bandwidth.
These specs place the RX 9070 GRE firmly between the RX 9070 non-XT and the rumored RX 9060 XT. AMD claims that it’ll be 6% faster than the RX 7900 GRE, which is not a big gain, but the RX 7900 GRE is largely sold out or overpriced, which gives the RX 9070 GRE a chance to shine even if it’s unable to offer a remarkable performance increase.
The situation in the GPU market could put the RX 9070 non-XT in trouble, too. The RX 9070 GRE will be a downgrade — that’s for sure — but it’s said to be priced perilously close to the RX 9070. In China, the RX 9070 launched at 4,449 Chinese yuan (RMB); the RX 9070 GRE is said to start at 4,199 RMB, so just 7% cheaper.
The RX 9070, priced way too close to the RX 9070 XT to make much of a splash, could see a new rival in the GRE GPU. With the prices so close together and performance perhaps not too far apart, many gamers might opt to buy the GRE. However, as things stand now, all three GPUs are lucky, because the state of the GPU market means that they sell well above their recommended list price (MSRP) anyway.
As of now, AMD is yet to confirm a worldwide release for the RX 9070 GRE. However, seeing as the last-gen equivalent started out as a China exclusive and was then launched globally, I expect the same will eventually happen to the RX 9070 GRE. For now, we have to wait and see.
