Compared to Nvidia, AMD has managed to keep the prices of its desktop-grade graphics cards relatively stable. But its GPUs are still more expensive than they were in 2025, largely due to the memory pricing apocalypse. Gamers looking to upgrade their PC’s graphics performance are stuck between buying a less capable GPU or paying exorbitant rates for something that can handle higher resolutions.
The $550 Radeon RX 9070 GRE is supposed to provide a middle ground between the extremes of price and performance. But first, some background. If you weren’t already aware of AMD’s cryptic nomenclature, you might have assumed that this “Great Radeon Edition” was an upgraded AMD Radeon RX 9070. it’s opposite. AMD’s non-Gray midrange graphics cards have 16GB of VRAM and a total of 56 compute units (AMD’s name for its GPU core clusters). The GRE model has 12GB of VRAM and 48 CUs. GRE card available in China from 2025. As of Monday, it is now available to US customers as well. The chip maker is selling the GRE at the same $550 launch price as the original 9070 when it launches in 2025.
AMD gave Gizmodo a chance to test the $550 GPU ahead of launch, so I decided to stick this 12GB graphics card inside a PC ready for 1440p gaming. The system in question was running on a last-generation AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT CPU and 32GB of RAM. This is the type of desktop tower that AMD is clearly targeting. This week, the company launched a 10-year anniversary edition of the best AM4 gaming CPU, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which is apparently aimed at gamers who can’t afford more modern RAM on a new motherboard.
The Radeon RX 9070 was AMD’s GPU designed for 1440p gaming, with the promise that it could reach 4K in some less demanding games. That card had 16GB of VRAM, meaning it was better able to handle higher resolutions on demand. Simply put, the 12GB GRE version is less capable.
Compared to the lower-end Radeon RX 9060 XT, the 9070 GRE is a clear upgrade. It achieved 31% higher scores on benchmarks like 3DMark’s “Speed Way” and 28% better scores on 3DMark’s “Port Royale.” Subsequent testing indicates that this version of the 9070 is still much better at handling ray tracing.
The roughly $450 9060 XT with 16GB of VRAM at launch was offered for 1440p gaming. When you compare the 5070 GRE for gaming purposes, there is essentially no competition. I assigned tasks to each card cyberpunk 2077 Ray tracing at Ultra graphics settings at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions. You can probably guess who won.
While the 9060XT can get around 30 fps cyberpunk At high resolution, the 9070 Gray shows 40 fps. If you rely on FSR4 upscaling (for games that actually support it, as opposed to recent games) 007 first light), you can easily play such games at around 80 FPS. like a game Black Myth: Wukong It is not playable on the 9060 XT if you decide to increase ray tracing to max and avoid upscaling. You can get stable 30 fps on the 9070 gre. If you start comparing the 12GB 9070 to the 16GB version the benefits disappear. The impact is minimal, but the 9070 is more capable if you want to aim for 4K.
So the RX 9070 GRE straddles the line between the company’s other 1440p-focused card, the RX 9060 XT and the RX 9070 with 16GB of VRAM. This is true in both performance and price. While GPU prices continue to fluctuate day to day, I was able to search through Best Buy and Newegg listings and find the RX 9060 XT GPU for around $450. That’s $100 more than the card’s original suggested retail price. An RX 9070 similarly increases to around $600.
You can make a good argument that 4GB of additional VRAM is worth the $50. Sure, but let’s say we’ll continue to see stock of the 16GB model. That’s effectively what happened with Nvidia’s RTX 5070. The MSI-made 12GB Nvidia RTX 5070 costs $670 at Best Buy. The original 5070 with 8GB of VRAM had a suggested retail price of $550. In 2026, any GPU you buy will be a compromise.
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