TweakTown Rating: 85%
Our Verdict
The ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC is a fantastic GPU for 1440p gaming, benefiting from RDNA 4's improvements to ray tracing and the arrival of FSR 4. However, it sits in the shadow of the Radeon RX 9070 XT, which delivers better gaming performance for not that much more money.
Pros
Excellent 1440p performance
RDNA 4 brings massive gains to ray-tracing performance
FSR 4 is a real DLSS competitor with fantastic image quality
Significantly more efficient than the Radeon RX 9070 XT
16GB of VRAM
Cons
FSR 4 adoption and support is limited
OC pricing makes it more expensive than entry-level Radeon RX 9070 XT GPUs
Should you buy it?
AvoidConsiderShortlistBuy
Introduction
With AMD launching its first pair of RDNA 4 gaming GPUs in March, the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT, most of the attention has been focused on the latter. And for a good reason: with only $50 separating the MSRP prices set by AMD, if you were to see both GPUs on a retail shelf, you could very quickly convince yourself that getting an additional double-digit performance boost is worth spending that extra money. Of course, in this hypothetical scenario you'd be able to find these GPUs on a shelf in the first place and at prices that aren't being inflated due to supply, demand, and other constraints on the PC gaming hardware market.
A quick look around the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC
As the baseline Radeon RX 9070 features a cutdown version of the same chip found in the Radeon RX 9070 XT, there's not a whole lot separating the two when it comes to 1440p gaming performance. Looking at the impressive ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC reviewed here, the Radeon RX 9070 XT is only 11.6% faster, on average, when it comes to 1440p gaming. And when you factor in that the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC is around 7% faster, on average than the GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition model, the baseline Radeon RX 9070 is still a great GPU for modern-day PC gaming. It simply doesn't have an MSRP price point as aggressive as the Radeon RX 9070 XT - which is a shame.
ASRock's Steel Legend design is one we're familiar with, having seen it in various forms over the years, and the RDNA 4 version is as impressive as its predecessors. The all-white design, paired with vibrant RGB lighting that can be turned on or off with a simple switch, is ideal for those looking to assemble a build featuring white components. It's bolstered by excellent thermal performance and rock-solid construction.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 7
VIEW GALLERY - 72 IMAGES
And when you stack up its overclocked performance against NVIDIA's mid-range GeForce RTX 5070, it rarely falters or falls behind. Yes, AMD's new RDNA 4 architecture is a significant win for Team Red, as it has made up a lot of ground in terms of pure ray-tracing performance. And by a lot of ground, we mean it - Cyberpunk 2077, utilizing the hardware-intensive 'RT Ultra' preset, sees the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC deliver 1440p and 4K performance on par with the GeForce RTX 5070. This is something we haven't seen in previous Radeon generations, as RDNA 4 is AMD's best architecture to date for ray-tracing.
The other big win for RDNA 4 and the Radeon RX 9070 is the arrival of the new AI-powered FSR 4 upscaling. Taking advantage of the advanced AI hardware in the Radeon RX 9070, games with FSR 4 support deliver an upscaling solution that is not only light-years ahead of FSR 2 and FSR 3 in terms of image fidelity but also gives DLSS a run for its money - in that, it's finally an alternative worth enabling. In titles like Horizon Forbidden West and Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, the results are stunning, so it's great to see AMD leveling the playing field as a new generation begins.
Photo of the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Steel Legend 16GB
Best Deals: ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Steel Legend 16GB
RDNA 4 - AMD Levels the Playing Field
Below is a summary of AMD's new RDNA 4 architecture, applicable to all models.
AMD's new RDNA 4 architecture presents a massive improvement over the chiplet design that we saw with RDNA 3. Returning to the monolithic design of RDNA and RDNA 2 might sound like a regression, especially when AMD CPUs have gone in the other direction, but this isn't the case. In a nutshell, RDNA 4 is built for 2025. This GPU architecture embraces ray-tracing performance as a key pillar, lays the groundwork for neural rendering, and supercharges AI performance for the new FSR 4 and complex AI workloads. Throw in revamped media engine for creators and streamers, and support for next-gen DisplayPort 2.1a displays, and RDNA 4 presents a new and revitalized direction for Radeon graphics.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 11
RDNA 4's overhauled Compute Unit, which houses all of the raster, ray-tracing, and AI hardware, has seen several enhancements over RDNA 3 and is one of the reasons why the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT deliver impressive performance gains. The RDNA 4 Compute Unit, or CU, features an enhanced memory subsystem, improved scalar units (for raw raster), dynamic register allocation to reduce latency and bottlenecks, and increased efficiency. The improvements also mean that Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs can ship with much higher clock speeds than their RDNA 3 counterparts, hitting close to 3 GHz in several XT models, with OC variants pushing 3.1+ GHz.
The show's star, at least in terms of the massive improvement over what has come before, has to be the arrival of RDNA 4's 3rd Generation Ray-Tracing Accelerators. AMD is aware that game developers across PC and console are embracing ray-tracing, which presents a realistic depiction of lighting and related effects like shadows and reflections. The only problem is that real-time ray-tracing is complex, requiring the right blend of raw performance and innovative technologies to enhance efficiency and deliver a playable experience.
One area RDNA 4's RT Accelerator delivers where RDNA 3's don't is the arrival of "Oriented Bounding Boxes," an innovative method of handling ray-tracing Bounding Volume Hierarchy (BVH) data. Think of it as efficiently tracing rays through an environment and geometry with a lower memory cost and less hardware. RDNA 4's RT Accelerator also adds a second intersection engine to double the performance of specific raytracing workloads and calculations. The results can be seen in titles with heavy ray-tracing like Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077, where the Radeon RX 9070 XT delivers a significant 30+% performance improvement over the previous gen flagship - the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. A card with 50% more RT Accelerators than the Radeon RX 9070 XT. The Radeon RX 9070 also delivers ray-tracing performance faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 3
RDNA 4 also fully embraces AI, with new AI accelerators that support FP8 while delivering double the FP16 and four times the INT8 performance compared to RDNA 3's AI accelerators. For gamers, this means the new AI-powered FSR 4 leverages AI to deliver a massive improvement in image quality over FSR 3. However, AMD's custom AI model, which was trained on powerful AMD Instinct hardware, is FP8-based, so it is exclusive to RDNA 4 hardware.
AMD is also looking to introduce its answer to NVIDIA's DLSS Ray Reconstruction for Path Tracing with Neural Supersampling and Denoising. However, it's currently only a tech demo, which means Path Tracing, although possible on RDNA 4, does not look anywhere near as good as it does running on a GeForce RTX GPU.
With improved raw performance and a massive boost to ray-tracing and AI performance, RDNA 4 presents an enormous leap forward over RDNA 3. However, catching up to GeForce RTX in these areas and offering a viable DLSS alternative does mean that early adopters will need to wait for game support and AMD to deliver its Path Tracing solution. With 30+ FSR 4-ready titles on day one, and over 100 to arrive by the end of the year, there will still be a massive deficit compared to DLSS 3 and DLSS 4 as we head into 2026. Falling behind for over five years in these areas means there's a lot of catching up to do, and this will take time.
This brings us to RDNA 4's enhanced Media Engine, which offers creators and streamers a big improvement to H.264, HEVC, and AV1 encoding and decoding. NVIDIA's lead in this area has meant that few creators use Radeon hardware. With RDNA 4, AMD is looking to close the gap and offer a viable alternative - especially regarding image quality using popular settings in apps like OBS.
Specs and Test System
Specifications
Here's a look at the specs for the new Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 compared to the previous generation's Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7900 XT.
GPU Specs Radeon RX 9070 XT Radeon RX 9070 Radeon RX 7900 XT Radeon RX 7800 XT
Architecture RDNA 4 RDNA 4 RDNA 3 RDNA 3
Process TSMC 4nm TSMC 4nm TSMC 5nm + 6nm TSMC 5nm + 6nm
Stream Processors 4096 3584 5376 3840
Compute Units 64 56 84 60
Ray Accelerators 64 (3rd Gen) 56 (3rd Gen) 84 (2nd Gen) 60 (2nd Gen)
AI Accelerators 128 (2nd Gen) 128 (2nd Gen) 168 120
GPU Boost Clock 2970 MHz 2520 MHz 2394 MHz 2430 MHz
Memory 16GB GDDR6 16GB GDDR6 20GB GDDR6 16GB GDDR6
Memory Interface 256-bit 256-bit 320-bit 256-bit
Bandwidth 640 GB/sec 640 GB/sec 800 GB/sec 624 GB/sec
Total Board Power 304W 220W 300W 263W
Swipe / scroll right to see more ->
The Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT are both built using the same flagship 357mm die, packed with 53.9 billion transistors. The former features 14% fewer Compute Units than the fully unlocked Radeon RX 9070 XT. For AMD's RDNA 4 generation for PC gaming, these two GPUs are as powerful as it gets, with the company focusing on the mid-range and pitting these two cards against NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti. In fact, the naming change means that what could have been the Radeon RX 8700 XT and 8800 XT is now the 9070 Series.
Both Radeon RX 9070 cards feature the same memory configuration: 16GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit interface, delivering an overall memory bandwidth of 640 GB/s. Although the baseline Radeon RX 9070 can be viewed as a cut-down variant of the XT, with 14% fewer Compute Units, Ray Accelerators, and Stream Processors, it is more efficient than the XT. The Radeon RX 9070 XT features a power draw and rating that are almost 40% higher than those of the Radeon RX 9070, with higher boost clock speeds that seemingly push the GPU to its limit. This doesn't equate to 40% more in-game performance; the number sits closer to 15%, so the Radeon RX 9070 is an excellent showcase for RDNA 4's efficiency when power usage is reduced.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 9
Where RDNA 4 presents a significant improvement to RDNA 3 cards like the Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7900 XT is with the third-generation Ray Accelerators that overhauls how Radeon GPUs handle real-time ray-tracing. From more efficient ways of performing the various RT calculations to doubling the throughput, the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC delivers in-game ray-tracing performance that is on par with the previous generation's flagship, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. An impressive result that finally sees AMD deliver a mid-range GPU that can keep up with GeForce RTX hardware.
The other area where RDNA 4 significantly outperforms RDNA 3 is AI, with the Radeon RX 9070 being a capable GPU for running pure AI workloads, thanks to its 1165 TOPs of INT4 and 583 TOPs of INT8 performance. The beefier AI hardware also means that AMD has finally introduced an AI solution for upscaling with the impressive FSR 4. Unfortunately, the shift to a more complex AI model for FSR means it's exclusive to RDNA 4 desktop graphics cards. With the baseline requirement for a driver-level FSR 4 override being FSR 3.1, game support is currently limited. However, based on the 30+ titles with FSR 4 support so far, the future is promising.
Item Details
GPU Radeon RX 9070
Architecture RDNA 4
Model ASRock AMD Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend 16GB OC
Interface PCI Express Gen 5
Stream Processors 3584
Compute Units 56
Ray Accelerators 56 (3rd Gen)
AI Accelerators 128 (2nd Gen)
Boost Clock Speed 2700 MHz
Memory 16GB GDDR6
Memory Interface 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth 640 GB/sec
AMD Infinity Cache 64 MB
Total Board Power 220W
Display 3 x DisplayPort 2.1a, 1 x HDMI 2.1b
Power Input 2 x 8-pin (700W PSU recommended)
Dimensions 298 x 131 x 58mm
Weight 1135 grams
Kosta's Test System
Item Details
Motherboard ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X670E HERO
CPU AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
GPU NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition
Display MSI MAG 321UPX QD-OLED 4K 240 Hz
Cooler ASUS ROG RYUO III 360 ARGB
RAM 32GB DDR5-6000 Corsair DOMINATOR TITANIUM RGB
SSD Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD 4TB, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus Plus M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD 8TB
Power Supply ASUS TUF Gaming 1000W Gold
Case Corsair 5000D AIRFLOW Tempered Glass Mid-Tower ATX PC Case
OS Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64-bit
Physical Design and Cooling
ASRock's Steel Legend design is one we are familiar with; it combines an all-white finish with transparent fans and RGB lighting, best described as resembling a fully lit Christmas tree during the holiday season. The lighting is, of course, customizable, with the ability to sync it up with other hardware via software or direct ARGB Header - so the initial 'full rainbow' mode can be tweaked for something a little more subtle. Additionally, with a dedicated RGB light switch on the GPU, which ASRock includes on several of its cards, the ability to turn off the glow for a sleek, all-white look is commendable.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 8
This triple-fan, just shy of a triple-slot GPU, is large but not overly so, with the cooling system designed to handle the generous out-of-the-box overclocking you get, providing enough headroom to let you push it even further. The cards feature a stylish metal backplate with a camo-style print pattern that includes the Steel Legend 'S' logo alongside venting to assist with cooling. The ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC features a reinforced frame to prevent sag, and the GPU contact area boasts a premium nickel-plated copper base for optimal heat transfer to the generous fin stack.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 12
The PCB itself sports copper materials for its layers, for energy efficiency and overclocking, premium power chokes, and a Dr. MOS power stage solution. Add thermal paste and premium pads, and you've got a high-performance variant of the Radeon RX 9070 that is also remarkably quiet. The ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC ships with an out-of-the-box overclock of 2700 MHz, a 180 MHz increase over the reference spec, which means faster performance straight out of the box.
The Games and Tests
PC gaming not only covers a wide range of genres and styles, from indie games with simple 2D graphics to massive 3D worlds lit by cutting-edge real-time ray tracing technology. With that, the needs and requirements of each gamer vary. High refresh rates and latency reduction become more important than flashy visuals or playing at the highest resolution possible for those who live and breathe fast-paced competitive games. For those who want to live in a cinematic world and become a key player in an expansive narrative, ray-tracing, and high-fidelity visuals are a stepping stone toward immersion.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 4
Our chosen benchmarks cover various games, engines, APIs, and technologies. For the Radeon RX 9070, all tests are run at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K and include results for performance-boosting Super Resolution technologies like AMD's new AI-powered FSR 4, alongside older FSR 3, and FSR 2 versions. However, our benchmark results are still sorted using 'raw performance' or native rendering.
Here's the breakdown of games, settings, and what's being tested.
Games and Settings Benchmarked
Game Details
Black Myth: Wukong A high-impact Unreal Engine 5 test showcasing a detailed cinematic world. The in-game benchmark tool with the 'Very High' fidelity setting without ray-tracing and with DLSS and FSR.
Cyberpunk 2077 Competitive multiplayer FPS test with DLSS and FSR. The in-game multiplayer benchmark tool is used with 'Ultra' quality settings.
Counter-Strike 2 Competitive multiplayer FPS test running on Valve's Source 2 engine. A stress test mod map is used to showcase CS2 at its most demanding.
Cyberpunk 2077 Cinematic open-world test with stunning visuals and DLSS and FSR. The in-game benchmark tool is used with 'Ultra' quality settings without ray-tracing.
Cyberpunk 2077 (RT) Cinematic open-world test with stunning visuals and DLSS and FSR. The in-game benchmark tool is used with the demanding 'Ray Tracing Ultra' quality setting.
DOOM Eternal (RT) Fast-paced single-player FPS gaming running on the id Tech and Vulkan with DLSS. The Mars Core campaign mission is used to benchmark.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard (RT) Cinematic RPG from veteran studio BioWare, benchmarking the action-packed introduction sequence with Ultra quality settings including ray-tracing with DLSS and FSR.
F1 24 (RT) Racing game with hardware-intensive in-race ray-traced visuals and DLSS and FSR. The in-game benchmark tool is used, with 'Ultra High' quality settings on a single lap of the Bahrain track.
Horizon Forbidden West Cinematic open-world test with stunning visuals and DLSS and FSR. The opening section is tested using the 'Very High' quality setting.
Marvel Rivals Multiplayer hero shooter set in the Marvel universe, in-game Practise Range map used to benchmark with 'Ultra' quality settings, DLSS and FSR.
Resident Evil 4 (RT) Capcom's visually impressive remake, Chapter 1 - The Village used to benchmark with 'Max' settings.
Returnal (RT) Third-person action roguelike with in-built benchmark that tests environment destruction, particle effects, ray-traced reflections, and more.
Total War: Warhammer III Action-packed real-time strategy with hundreds of on-screen characters. The in-game 'Battle' benchmark tool is used with the 'Ultra' quality setting.
Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 Cinematic third-person action game with impressive visuals. Opening mission tested using 'Ultra' quality setting with DLSS and FSR.
Path Tracing Games and Settings Benchmarked
Game Details
Alan Wake 2 Full Path Tracing tested in 1440p using the new 'Ultra' setting with DLSS 4, Frame Generation, and Multi Frame Generation. Bright Falls town used to test.
Cyberpunk 2077 In-game benchmark tool used with the demanding 'RT Overdrive' or full Path Tracing mode, with DLSS 4 Performance, Frame Generation, and Multi Frame Generation.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Full Ray Tracing tested in this stunning first-person cinematic game, Marshall College walkthrough used to test with DLSS 4.
Gaming Performance Analysis - 1080p, 1440p, and 4K
Average Gaming Performance - 1080p Results
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 22
With the mainstream RDNA 4 and RTX Blackwell GPUs on the way very soon, we're including 1080p results in all of our Radeon RX 9000 Series reviews, as it remains the most popular resolution among PC gamers. And on that note, the Radeon RX 9070 achieves impressive results in competitive titles using 'Ultra' quality visual settings. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 hits 154 FPS, Counter-Strike 2 hits 339 FPS, and Marvel Rivals hits 144 FPS. Looking at the overall average, which includes several titles with ray-tracing, the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC is 5.3% faster than the GeForce RTX 5070 and within 7.5% of the Radeon RX 9070 XT.
Of course, at 1080p, you encounter limitations and bottlenecks, so the Radeon RX 9070 is better suited for 1440p and even 4K resolutions. The Radeon RX 9070 outperforms the GeForce RTX 5070 by double digits in 7 of the 15 games we tested, making it noticeably faster in nearly half of the games in our benchmark suite.
Average Gaming Performance - 1440p Results
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 23
At 1440p, the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC comes alive with an average of 121 FPS, making it a triple-digit performer at this resolution. This result places it on par with the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, which remains a fantastic 1440p gaming GPU and slightly ahead of the Radeon RX 7900 XT. The RDNA 3 does pull ahead in some games when it comes to pure rasterized performance, but the Radeon RX 9070 is the better GPU, thanks to the massive ray-tracing gains. In Cyberpunk 2077 with RT, it's 24.3% faster; in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it's 12.5% faster; and in F1 24, it's 14.3% faster.
With competitive ray-tracing performance, the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC is, on average, 7.1% faster than the GeForce RTX 5070 for 1440p gaming. Performance varies from title to title, but now in the same way we're used to - with NVIDIA's GPUs having the RT edge. It is worth pointing out that if you're a Call of Duty gamer, the choice is clear, as the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC is 40% faster than the GeForce RTX 5070 when it comes to multiplayer Black Ops 6 action. The 121 FPS average, which increases to 147 FPS with FSR 4, is actually on par with the GeForce RTX 5080 - although this game is an anomaly where RDNA 4 and Radeon GPUs perform significantly better than GeForce cards.
The flip side to this is Counter-Strike 2, where the GeForce RTX 5070 is around 8% faster than the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC. For around half of the games, the difference between the Radeon RX 9070 and the GeForce RTX 5070 was small enough that you wouldn't notice it - which means that in many titles, things like FSR 4, DLSS, and even Frame Generation make up the difference. NVIDIA still has the edge here, with DLSS (including DLSS 4) available in significantly more titles. Without a DLSS Ray Reconstruction alternative, games with heavy RT, such as Cyberpunk 2077, offer improved image quality and more detail when running on GeForce RTX hardware. The good news is that AMD has announced it is working on an AI denoiser for ray tracing. However, there is currently no timeline for when it might be implemented in a game.
Average Gaming Performance - 4K Results
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 24
The ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC is a surprisingly capable 4K gaming GPU, thanks in part to it featuring 16GB of VRAM. With RDNA 4's ray-tracing improvements, the 67 FPS average is once again enough to put slightly ahead of the Radeon RX 7900 XT and on par with the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER. However, it is clear that when it comes to 4K gaming, the flagship Radeon RX 9070 XT is the better choice as its lead over the no-XT variant increases to 13.4% at this resolution. In titles with heavy ray tracing, the Radeon RX 9070 XT is around 20% faster in 4K. Therefore, for those with a 4K or ultrawide display, this is enough to make the XT difference a notable one.
Interestingly, the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC's lead over the GeForce RTX 5070 drops to 6.3%, with the GPU still being the clear winner in titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Horizon Forbidden West, and Resident Evil 4. When gaming in 4K, FSR 4 delivers excellent image fidelity, much like DLSS, which can be seen as 'free performance' that gives the Radeon RX 9070 a notable boost to its capabilities. Again, like with 1440p gaming, the widespread adoption of DLSS 3 and DLSS 4 gives GeForce RTX the edge - as you're looking at hundreds of games versus a couple of dozen.
Benchmarks - 3DMark Synthetic Tests
3DMark offers a suite of synthetic benchmarks built to test GPUs in various scenarios. 3DMark Steel Nomad is a cutting-edge DirectX 12 benchmark with newer, modern rendering techniques designed to push GPUs to their limit. The 'Light' version tests at 1440p, while the main Steel Nomad benchmark tests pure native 4K rendering. Port Royal is a benchmark focusing exclusively on real-time ray tracing for lighting effects like reflections, shadows, and more.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 19ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 20
As seen in all the RDNA 4 GPU reviews we've published so far, the Steel Nomad results are interesting in that the 1440p score tells a different story than the 4K score. Examining the 1440p-based Steel Nomad Light results for the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC, the score of 22526 is comparable to that of the GeForce RTX 5070. In contrast, the Radeon RX 9070 XT's score outperforms it by approximately 18.7% - so the results aren't entirely in line with our average in-game results. Examining the 4K-based Steel Nomad results, the score of 6133 is now 21% higher than the GeForce RTX 5070's score while still falling short of the Radeon RX 9070 XT by around 20%.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 21
The 3D Mark Port Royal results show just how far AMD has come, with the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC's score of 16090 sitting slightly above the previous generation's flagship, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, as well as the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER. The impressive score is also 14% higher than the GeForce RTX 5070, a result that you will find in several games with ray tracing. However, NVIDIA's architecture still has the edge regarding Full Ray Tracing or Path Tracing - which is where it seems the GeForce RTX 50 Series has placed its RT focus this generation.
Benchmarks - 1080p Gaming
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 25ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 28
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 31ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 34
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 37ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 40
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 43ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 46
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 49ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 52
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 55ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 58
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 61ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 64
Benchmarks - 1440p Gaming
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 26ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 29
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 32ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 35
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 38ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 41
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 44ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 47
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 50ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 53
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 56ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 59
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 62ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 65
Benchmarks - 4K Gaming
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 27ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 30
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 33ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 36
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 39ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 42
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 45ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 48
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 51ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 54
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 57ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 60
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 63ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 66
FSR 4 and AMD Frame Generation
With the arrival of the Radeon RX 900 Series and the new Radeon RX 9070, AMD's new FSR 4 represents a massive improvement over FSR 3.1, FSR 3, and FSR 2. The shift to a custom and powerful AI model for upscaling shows that ML or AI is the definite way to maintain image quality that is on par or even superior to native rendering. As FSR 4 was explicitly designed for RDNA 4, and trained on powerful AMD hardware, it is exclusive to the Radeon RX 9000 Series due to the advanced AI hardware requirements. The good news is the games with FSR 3.1 are automatically upgraded to FSR 4 via AMD's Adrenalin Software, with a nice overlay showing a green FSR 4 tick when booting up a compatible game.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 70ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 71
AMD's FSR technology has consistently delivered a notable and impressive performance boost. However, with image quality suffering whenever FSR 2 or FSR 3 is enabled, we placed less emphasis on the number and more on the visual quality of the result compared to native rendering with TAA when evaluating FSR 4. So, we focused on two FSR 4-ready titles in our benchmark suite, Horizon Forbidden West and Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 - two cinematic games with impressive levels of detail everywhere you look.
FSR 4 is the real deal; the shift to a new AI model for Super Resolution means you're not getting the same performance uplift - percentage-wise - compared to FSR 3, but you are getting exponentially better image quality. The difference is night and day - a crisper and more detailed image, where everything, from background objects to textures, looks significantly better. It's enough to put it on par with NVIDIA's DLSS 3 and below DLSS 4's new transformer model. Essentially, the conclusion is that if a game supports FSR 4, it should be enabled.
Path Tracing Performance - 1440p
Path Tracing takes real-time ray-tracing and applies the concept of ray-traced effects to anything and everything - global illumination, shadows, reflections, indirect lighting, and more. With multiple bounces, it's a hardware-intensive and cutting-edge look at the future of PC gaming that is only possible thanks to AI tools and technologies. With RDNA 4 dramatically improving ray-tracing performance compared to RDNA 3, GPUs like the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT are capable of rendering stunning Path Traced visuals, however, it's more proof of concept than something practical.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 67ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 68
With RDNA 4 leveling up ray-tracing, it does mean that you can play games on the Radeon RX 9070 with Full Ray Tracing or Path Tracing, but it's not something we'd recommend. The reason for this is that Full Ray Tracing is designed for AI technologies and neural rendering, which AMD has only just introduced with FSR 4 upscaling. To offer a like-for-like or similar experience to a card like the GeForce RTX 5070 or even RTX 4070, FSR 4 would need to introduce some form of AI denoising, AI-powered Frame Generation, and support the latest AI neural shaders. With Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 including support for older FSR-based technologies, they're undoubtedly playable - but run up to 20% slower while looking worse than they do running on the GeForce RTX 5070 with DLSS 4.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 69
During its big RDNA 4 reveal, AMD showcased a Path Tracing or Full Ray Tracing tech demo running natively on the Radeon RX 9070 XT, with FSR 4 upscaling, AI denoising, and Frame Generation. The image quality in the tech demo certainly has its issues, but it's a step in the right direction. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle with Path Tracing and DLSS 4 running on a GeForce RTX GPU is one of the best-looking games we've ever laid eyes on, so we're hoping that we get to see the same level of fidelity and performance on an RDNA 4 GPU sometime soon.
Temperature and Power Efficiency
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 72
Unlike its beefier sibling, the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC is a highly efficient GPU that remains cool even when overclocked. Drawing up to 40% less power than the XT, our only criticism is that, like other Radeon RX 9070 GPUs on the market, ASRock's Steel Legend variant is still quite large, with three fans and a triple-slot thickness. With the fans not running at full speed and temperatures hovering around 60 degrees Celsius, there's more than enough headroom to do the job. Still, we'd love to see more compact Radeon RX 9070 cards hit the market for small form-factor builds.
Final Thoughts
With the RDNA 4 flagship, the Radeon RX 9070 XT, garnering the most attention from gamers and media alike, where does this leave the non-XT version? Well, it's in a decent place despite its MSRP being so close to that of the Radeon RX 9070 XT. The ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC is an excellent GPU for 1440p gaming, outperforming the GeForce RTX 5070 in most games in our benchmark suite, including several with ray-tracing enabled. AMD has seriously leveled up the RT performance you can get on a mid-range Radeon GPU, and with FSR 4's new AI-powered Super Resolution model, image quality is now right up there with DLSS.
ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review 13
However, there's a downside to AMD catching up, in that it has taken them a couple of generations to embrace AI upscaling technologies and ray-tracing fully. From superior image quality to exponentially more titles supporting NVIDIA DLSS, GeForce RTX hardware still has the edge when it comes to overall features - which extends to content-creator tasks, such as video editing. Video encoding and decoding quality is another area where RDNA 4 has brought notable improvements. Again, our overall view of the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT is that its latest generation of gaming GPUs is all about leveling the playing field. And that's something it will continue to do throughout 2025 as more titles add FSR 4 support and take advantage of RDNA 4's new AI capabilities.
In the weeks since the launch of RDNA 4, we've seen GPU prices skyrocket, with most premium models for all variants - such as the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC reviewed here - commanding premium prices. In a straight head-to-head with the GeForce RTX 5070, the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC comes out on top. However, OC variants of the RTX 5070 do close the gap. And with Radeon RX 9070 XT pricing starting from $599, it isn't easy to give this a full recommendation. Ultimately, you won't be disappointed with the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC - from the performance you get to the cooling and build quality. You might need to shop around.