NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 vs AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
Head-to-head comparison: specs, benchmarks, ray tracing, and value. Which is right for your build?
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090
The undisputed king of consumer GPUs. The RTX 5090 delivers untouchable 4K performance, dominates ray tracing with 4th-gen RT cores, and runs DLSS 4 with multi-frame generation. With 32GB of GDDR7, it's also a beast for AI and content creation workloads. The catch: $1999 MSRP, 575W TDP, and you'll need a 1000W PSU minimum.
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AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
AMD's RDNA 4 flagship — and a genuine value champion. The 9070 XT trades blows with the RTX 5070 Ti in rasterization at $150 less, while RDNA 4 finally closes the ray tracing gap to NVIDIA. FSR 4 is a huge upgrade over FSR 3, though still trails DLSS 4 in image quality. The smart pick for builders who don't care about AI or CUDA.
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| Spec | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 | AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT |
|---|---|---|
| Price (MSRP) | $1,999 | $599 |
| VRAM | 32GB GDDR7 | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bus | 512-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 1792 GB/s | 640 GB/s |
| CUDA / Stream Cores | 21,760 | 4,096 |
| Boost Clock | 2407 MHz | 2970 MHz |
| Ray Tracing Cores | 170 | 64 |
| TDP | 575W | 304W |
| 3DMark Time Spy | 41,500 | 22,100 |
| Rasterization Score | 100/100 | 61/100 |
| Ray Tracing Score | 100/100 | 52/100 |
| Value Score | 62/100 | 88/100 |
The Verdict
Based on raw performance, ray tracing capability, and value, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 comes out ahead in this comparison. That said, the right pick depends on your budget, target resolution, and whether you care more about ray tracing, rasterization, or VRAM capacity. Both cards have their place — read the individual reviews for the full breakdown.