AMD has purportedly revealed renders of theRadeonRX 9070 XT.Videocardzreports that AMD accidentally showed off the GPU’s reference design in a Reddit ad featuring an undisclosed graphics card.
The rendered RX 9070 XT reference cooler features a black color scheme comprising several shades of black and a triple-fan cooler design with an apparently illuminated Radeon logo pointing downwards at the top left of the shroud. A grill-like pattern flanks the central fan, with silver accents in the middle that make the appearance of an “X.”
The design takes direct inspiration from AMD’s current-gen RX 7000 series reference coolers but differs significantly in several areas. The biggest differences are the fans and the shroud architecture itself. The fans are more circular and significantly less angular, potentially providing higher static pressure performance compared to the RX 7000 series. The shroud has four perfectly linear sides with rounded edges. By comparison, theRX 7900 XTX/XTreference cooler’s shroud was broken up with angular tidbits around the top and bottom of the central fan.
The triple-fan cooler design also signals a higher potential power draw for the RX 9070 XT compared to mid-range RX 7000 variants. Its potential predecessor, theRX 7800 XT, functioned on a dual-fan cooler design for the reference design rather than a triple-fan design. TheRX 7700 XTnever received a reference variant. Still, logically, the card would have received a dual-fan cooler design if it did (given the RX 7600 also offered a dual-fan design, albeit much more compact compared to the 7800 XT’s version.)
That said, AMD is apparently changing its nomenclature for its next-generation GPUs, so we cannot officially confirm if the RX 9070 XT will be the official successor to the RX 7800 XT and/or RX 7700 XT.
Rumors suggest that the RX 9070 XT might be the flagship SKU for AMD’s next-gen GPUs, with previous rumors stating that AMD won’t be making a flagship Navi 31esque successor on the RDNA 4 architecture similar to the RX 5000 series. Along with this big change, AMD is rumored to significantly alter its nomenclature, skipping the RX 8000 series altogether and using theRX 9000 monikerfor its RDNA 4-based GPUs. As you might have already figured out, AMD is also rumored to be changing the very way it names its GPUs, going to a numbering system that is identical to Nvidia (save for the “RX” and “XT” branding).
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Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.
