AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT has been showing surprising performance improvements through aggressive undervolting, with overclocking experts noting significant enhancements that push the GPU ahead of NVIDIA's more expensive GeForce RTX 5080 in specific benchmarks. Recent tests conducted by Der8auer using a PowerColor Red Devil RX 9070 XT revealed a 10% increase in frame rates in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K Ultra settings by applying a -170 mV voltage offset while increasing the power target to 110%. This modification allowed the GPU to achieve clock speeds of 3.36 GHz, compared to the stock settings of 2.90 GHz, resulting in 66 FPS compared to the RTX 5080's 65 FPS in the same testing conditions. The undervolting trend seems to be consistent across the product range, with YouTuber Alva Jonathan achieving similar 10% performance boosts on the standard RX 9070 using ASRock's Steel Legend model.
Both testers found that traditional core clock overclocking did not yield significant results, indicating that these factory-overclocked cards are already operating close to their maximum capabilities. The adjustments to the voltage-frequency curve effectively reduce the voltage needed for higher frequencies. However, overclocking the memory proved to be counterproductive, as error correction mechanisms actually decreased in-game performance when pushed beyond stable limits. It is important to note that the tested units are premium variants with enhanced power delivery and cooling solutions that are priced significantly higher than AMD's MSRP. The PowerColor Red Devil had a $200 premium over the RX 9070 XT's $599 launch price, while the ASRock Steel Legend had a $90 markup over the RX 9070's base $550 MSRP. Despite these premiums, the high-end RX 9070 XT models are still around $200 cheaper than NVIDIA's RTX 5080 while offering comparable rasterization performance after optimization, despite NVIDIA's advantages in ray tracing capabilities and software ecosystem.
