We go over the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT’s price, specs, and AMD’s performance claims

The Highlights

• Both the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT will have 16GB of VRAM
• AMD did not compare its new cards against NVIDIA’s 40 or 50-series GPUs
• The 9070 and 9070 XT will only be separated by $50
• Original MSRP: $550 (RX 9070), $600 (RX 9070 XT)
• Release Date: March 6, 2025

Table of Contents

• AutoTOC

Intro

AMD's RX 9070 XT MSRP is $600, with the 9070 at $550. They are releasing on March 6th, which is a day after the RTX 5070 launches.

That’s a weirdly small $50 gap between these, but AMD isn’t a stranger to smothering one product with another. It did that with the 7900 XT and the 7900 XTX before. 

AMD today announced its RX 9070 series GPUs -- again. It announced them back in January, but then decided it didn’t want to announce them, so its announcement shriveled up and receded back whence it came. But now, AMD is proud to re-announce its announced RX 9070 series.

Editor's note: This was originally published on February 28, 2025 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.

Credits

Host, Writing

Steve Burke

Video Editing

Vitalii Makhnovets
Tim Phetdara

Camera

Andrew Coleman

Writing, Web Editing

Jimmy Thang

The RX 9070 is positioned to fight the RTX 5070, with the 9070 XT up against the 5070 Ti. AMD has decided to steal NVIDIA’s naming this time, growing tired of the naming scheme that brought us the R9 270, R7 370, RX 480 (watch our review), Fury, Fury X (watch our review), RX 580 (watch our review), Vega Frontier Edition (watch our review), Vega 56, Vega 64 (watch our revisit), back to RX 590 (watch our review), Radeon VII (watch our review), RX 5700 XT (watch our review), RX 6950 XT (watch our review), and RX 7900 XTX.

Maybe leaving the old names behind is for the best. We look forward to seeing what they do when they hit the dreaded “10.” Maybe AMD will be the first to bring us the 10,080 Ti…XT.

Overview

First up, the price: At $50 apart, it seems like these cards will smother each other. Until we can publish test data, we won’t know which one will cannibalize the other -- but it seems likely, as happened with the 7900 XT and 7900 XTX when they were about $100 apart at launch.

A quick pricing recap:

AMD’s RX 7800 XT is currently priced at around $500 to $530 depending on where or if you can get it. The RX 7900 GRE has been around $550 (though has been mostly out of stock lately). The RX 7900 XT is basically gone, but was around $630 to $640 at the end of last year and more commonly around $680. The 7900 XTX was as low as $800 to $820 in November and was commonly $930 in January. It launched at $1,000.

The 7900 XT received a review from us entitled “AMD’s Greedy Upsell” in December of 2022, knocking it for the $900 price point. We revisited it in October of 2023, so less than a year later, because you could get some models for $720. AMD dropped the price by 20% or so in less than a year. 

The 7900 XT became an awesome value after the price drops at least for a window there, especially in raster performance. 

We’ll talk more about the pricing once we have benchmark numbers in. That’ll include NVIDIA’s lineup.

With that context, let’s get into the specs of the 9070 and 9070 XT.

Specs

AMD provided this spec sheet for its RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT. The RX 9070 will have 56 Compute Units, or CUs, against the 64 on the 9070 XT (a 14% increase in CUs). AMD has done splits like this before, like Vega 56 and 64, but the architecture has changed dramatically since then.

In a call with the press, AMD claimed that the reason it didn’t go up to something like 80 CUs is because it didn’t want to make something super expensive. That definitely would have been very expensive. It would have been a larger die so that is accurate that the costs would go up. We also think that the architecture might just struggle to compete with a 5090 at the cost they would need to hit to do so and that’s probably a large reason for this as well. AMD is focusing on the mid-range, where the architecture is perhaps better tuned to compete.

The hardware ray tracing accelerators match the CU count at 56 and 64, with AMD’s so-called “AI accelerators” at 112 and 128 units.

Boost clocks are significantly different between them: The 9070 XT is able to make more use of its extra 84W of power budget to hit an advertised boost of 2.97 GHz, with the RX 9070 non-XT at 2.52 GHz (the original slides said 2.54, but AMD brought that down before announcement). Memory capacity is identical between them at 16 GB. Both cards will utilize GDDR6 at 20 Gbps. Board power is advertised at 220W and 304W, hopefully with room for board partners to scale up with overclocking support. NVIDIA’s OC support has been relatively lackluster this generation, despite what the company claimed. Hopefully AMD can make it exciting. 

Finally, the cards technically are on PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, but we already showed that there’s no real impact to performance here in regards to the 5090. There almost certainly won’t be any impact with the 90 series either with the exception if they were to cut down the slot on a lower-end model or something, but for this, it won’t matter. DisplayPort is up to 2.1a and HDMI at 2.1b.

Block Diagram

Here’s the block diagram for the RDNA 4 die and architecture. AMD noted that this same die will be used for the 9070 and 9070 XT. The company says this will be 356.5mm^2, contain 53.9 billion transistors at most, and run on a 4nm process node. And then the 9070 would have some of the CUs basically turned off. AMD says that this is monolithic silicon and not a chiplet design.

This variation of the GPU has 4 Shader Engines, within each is contained 8 dual-compute units. L2 Cache is centralized and located towards the middle of the logical block, totaling 8MB max of L2, with 64MB of infinity cache at the outer edges and closer to the memory controllers. 

AMD’s big claim here is a renewed focus on ray tracing performance, where it says it has doubled ray intersection rates and improved ray traversal, alongside changes to how it’s handling bounding boxes for BVH probing. This is a big focus for AMD this generation and it is somewhere the company needs to focus because they’re pretty competitive in raster compared to NVIDIA a lot of the time, but there’s instances where they get completely crushed in ray tracing. 

Here’s a closer look internally. The area we’ll focus is on RT. Within what AMD calls the compute engine, AMD now has 2x ray accelerators to handle box and triangle intersections. AMD noted that the second intersection engine within the accelerator “doubles the performance for both ray-box and ray-triangle testing” over RDNA 3, although remember that this doesn’t mean a clean doubling in performance in an actual ray tracing game scenario. AMD noted that RT processing takes advantage of a 128KB shared memory block, also shown here.

This slide was dedicated to RT improvements specifically and highlights the addition of AMD’s dedicated ray transform block, which it says will “offload transformation as you transition from the top-level RT structure to the bottom level, where there may be many instances of a particular geometry.” Previously, shader instructions handled this task and, AMD says, added overhead to ray traversal which it claims to now have eliminated. 

The ray accelerators have the ray transform block and two intersection engines, which themselves required changes to BVH handling to be fully leveraged. 

AMD said it is moving to an 8-wide BVH solution from a 4-wide option on earlier hardware, which it couples with its new oriented bounding box approach that attempts to reduce wasted, empty space in bounding boxes by better conforming to the geometry in the scene, theoretically reducing false positives and also reducing performance overhead and loss during geometry intersection probing.

The slide claims that traversal performance improves by 10%. Again, this is not a literal 10% gain in the final framerate in an RT game, but is a building block in a series of others to contribute to AMD’s claimed uplift.

This slide above was pretty cool. The right side shows AMD’s register allocation, with the top-right showing RDNA 3 and the bottom-right showing RDNA 4. Between the two, there’s a change from static allocation in RDNA 3 to dynamic in RDNA 4. AMD highlights that RDNA 3 would reserve registers which may not be put to work, so it’d hold them in case they were needed, potentially not need them, and end up with inefficiency and unavailable resources. RDNA 4 is trying to resolve this. The bullets on the left make all of this pretty clear, stating that the improvement is in efficient utilization, largely because registers can be released or requested as needed.

AMD is claiming that its RDNA 4 CUs improve traversal by 2x over RDNA 3 when iso clock and bandwidth. The 3D block in the image is supposed to roughly illustrate where AMD thinks it’s finding most of its performance: It appears that the 2x intersectors and BVH8 change (from 4) are the largest contributions.

RDNA 4 also introduces more out-of-order queuing and aims to reduce latency of memory requests, which AMD claims further benefit RT performance. Further out of order execution allows work to complete even while longer latency requests are processing or queuing. AMD makes an example out of an uncached leaf node on the slide above, which would contain the lowest level of detail in an RT workload and could otherwise hold up a scene. 

First-Party Claims

First-Party Claims: RX 9070

Let’s get into the first-party benchmark claims next. We won’t spend a ton of time on these since you’ll be able to find plenty of third-party reviews soon enough, but it will help set expectations for what AMD is targeting.

AMD’s quick reference slide shows a claimed 26% uplift against the RTX 3080 and 38% uplift against the 6800 XT. AMD didn’t show anything from NVIDIA’s 40 or 50 series here.

At 4K/Ultra and without upscaling, AMD is marketing the RX 9070 non-XT as an average of 21% improved over the RX 7900 GRE. The 7900 GRE was originally a $550 card. AMD is showing non-RT performance as improving up to 28% on baseline 100%, with the ray tracing performance showing a disproportionately favorable gain to the new architecture at up to 34%. This is good for AMD, as it was weakest in ray tracing historically. This disproportionate gain won’t wipe-out AMD’s deficit in something like Cyberpunk 2077 or possibly Black Myth: Wukong, but the key will be whether it can close the gap with better value.

At 1440p/Ultra and native, AMD claims the 9070 will be 20% faster on average, with the peak at 38% improved for ray tracing and 26% improved for raster. AMD observed a slightly larger improvement in RT at 1440p for F1, which is interesting, despite overall losses in scaling in raster. 4K diverging from 1440p isn’t abnormal, though. One thing we do want to call attention to and give AMD credit for here though is that they’re showing native performance. Even if they show FSR, that’s fine if they kept it locked to the same FSR options between their older and newer gen cards if they’re comparing their own products to each other; showing native is a better step than that. This is a massive improvement over what we’ve been complaining about NVIDIA doing, which was comparing its 50 series to its 40 series and enabling MFG 4X on the 50 series but not the 40 series and then just making it look like they are wildly better than they actually are. So we do want to call attention to and give AMD credit for making a more fair head-to-head comparison between its own products here rather than enabling some special multiplier on one and not the other.

First-Party Claims: RX 9070 XT

As for the RX 9070 XT, AMD compared it against its 6900 XT and NVIDIA’s RTX 3090, again lacking in any 40 or 50 series comparisons here. It claims a 51% uplift over the 6900 XT and 26% average uplift over the RTX 3090.

Against the same 7900 GRE, AMD claims an average uplift of 42%, or 66% in F1 24 with ray tracing at the high end. AMD claims it saw the same uplift in Cyberpunk with RT. In raster performance, the gains max-out at 48% over baseline.

At 1440p, AMD is seeing lower overall average uplift, with a slight uptick in F1 24 with ray tracing.

Conclusion

We could run these percent scaling improvements against our own numbers to approximate where AMD would land since we have all the details we need here to calculate the expected performance. Launch is only a few days away though, and we’d rather test the cards than extrapolate on data that we have no control over or insight into. We’ll have third-party numbers in our own reviews soon enough.

Pricing is going to remain the key concern for these cards. AMD is doing some interesting things architecturally. We’ve covered a bit of that in this article. AMD has plenty of opportunities to have…ROPs and cables that…are not going to burn. The field is set for AMD to have a victory here. It is up to the company to execute on it. We just made a video called “AMD, Don’t Screw This Up” that talks primarily about the pricing, but the reason AMD has this amazing opportunity is because of NVIDIA’s screw-ups. 

Pricing is the key concern, but we’ll withhold judgment on it until we review it about a week from now.

From what we understand, it sounds like supply will be okay, but it’s hard to know what that really means.

AMD really needs to gain market share. According to Jon Peddie Research, AMD is close to the lowest they’ve ever been in the GPU market at around 10 percent while NVIDIA is down in terms of reputation and trust in their brand, so now is the time for AMD to strike. We’ll let you know if they execute on that soon.

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Split Fiction, the latest game from Hazelight Studios, is just around the corner. In preparation for launch, the studio has now revealed detailed PC system requirements for the game. While higher than the likes of A Way Out and It Takes Two, the minimum specs required are very reasonable. 

Hazelight Studios and its leader, Josef Fares, are well known for their co-op focused games. Back in 2021, It Takes Two ended up winning the Game of the Year award, and No Way Out made waves thanks to its consumer-friendly co-op pass, allowing players to invite a friend to join them in the game online without having to buy two copies. The Friend Pass returns for Split Fiction, so you only have to buy one copy of the game and then you and one other person can play through it all, whether you are doing so online or in couch co-op.

The minimum PC requirements for Split Fiction includes:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-6600k or AMD Ryzen 5 2600k
• RAM: 16GB
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 – 4GB or AMD Radeon RX 470 – 4GB
• Storage: 85GB

The recommended PC requirements for Split Fiction includes:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-11700k or AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
• RAM: 16GB
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 – 8GB or AMD Radeon 6700 XT – 12GB
• Storage: 85GB

The minimum requirements target 1080p/30FPS with low settings, while the recommended requirements are for 1440p/60FPS at High settings.

Split Fiction will be available on PC, PS5 and Xbox starting from the 6th of March.

KitGuru Says: Are you planning on picking up Split Fiction when it drops next week?

Sharkoon has launched its best looking fans yet. The new Shark Mirror RGB PWM fans are perfect for those looking to spruce up their build without spending a fortune. While a lot of ARGB fans nowadays come in at over €20 per fan, Sharkoon has kept prices well within a reasonable range at €9.90.

The SHARK Mirror RGB PWM is a powerful, RGB-illuminated fan that delivers precise performance within a speed range of 500 to 1,500 rpm. If needed, there is even a reverse edition available. In addition, thanks to the infinity mirror effect, the fan looks especially stylish in any PC case, matching the aesthetics provided by some of the more expensive fans on the market.

The aerodynamic fan blades of the SHARK Mirror RGB PWM ensure a maximum airflow volume of up to 99.52 m³/h. Even at full power, the SHARK Mirror RGB PWM does not exceed 26.8 dB(A), making it near silent whether your system is running under full load or idling.

The Sharkoon Shark Mirror ARGB fans are available in black or white, with a recommended retail price of €9.90.

KitGuru Says: If you want to kit your system out with ARGB without breaking the bank, the Shark Mirror looks to be the perfect option.

As some of you may have seen, this week we published a review of the Montech HyperFlow Silent 360 AIO cooler, both on the KitGuru website and our YouTube channel. In this review we explained that the HyperFlow Silent 360 AIO cooler has some issues in regards to the new AMD mounting system that Montech adopted.

The HyperFlow Silent is compatible with all current Intel and AMD desktop platforms,  ranging from Intel 115X up to the latest Intel 1851 socket. And it's compatible with AMD, AM3, AM4, AM5.  You get the upper mounting bracket for AMD installation, two Intel backplates – one for LGA 1700 and 1851 sockets – and then one for 115X, 1200 and so on.

While other publications who have already tested this cooler appear to have used Intel platforms, we found performance of the cooler on an AMD 9950X to be rather disappointing. Especially considering the Arctic Liquid Freezer 3, the MSI MAG CoreLiquid i360, and the Be Quiet Light loop were all outperforming it with lower fan speed and noise output. Even the original HyperFlow ARGB measured 6 degrees cooler, too.

Reducing noise output to 40 decibels puts everything on a level playing field and the true thermal performance can be measured. But again, the HyperFlow Silent is at the bottom of the pile out of the coolers we have tested so far on the 9950X. It's a massive 8 degrees C hotter than the Lian Li HydroShift LCD360S, 6 degrees off its older brother, the original HyperFlow ARGB, and even the Arctic Liquid Freezer 3, which uses an almost identical fan speed at 40 decibels.

So performance of our sample on AMD is disappointing. To validate these figures we ran the same test several times and the HyperFlow Silent was within a degree either way each time. The only anomaly we noted was how the mounting pressure and thermal paste spread looked after each mount. Upon removal of the cooler, the thermal paste looked noticeably thicker on the right hand side of the CPU, so it's likely that the contact wasn't perfect.

To take things further, we also checked performance on our new Intel Core Ultra 9 285K system. The performance gap between the original HyperFlow ARGB and the HyperFlow Silent Is much closer here at maximum fan speed, but with noise normalised at 40 decibels, the original hyper flow ARGB cooler outperformed the Silent, but only by three degrees C – meaning the deficit is halved this time. However, this was only a quick experiment to give feedback on performance to Montech, so these are not to be classed as official test figures, and we are still working on gathering data for this platform.

At this point, it was clear to us that performance on AMD AM5 CPUs didn't seem to add up. But KitGuru reviewer and cooling expert James Dawson thought he had the solution after weeks of in-depth testing and analysis. As well as changing fans between the original HyperFlow ARGB and this new Silent version, there had been another hardware change, and that's the upper mounting bracket used for AMD AM4, AM5 installation.

The new Silent cooler uses a 4 point mounting system. This slides onto the CPU block, and then it's mounted to the CPU socket. Instead of these four points using spring loaded screws, the older ARGB cooler uses a two point mounting system with two hooks that mount directly to the plastic upper mounting bracket that comes pre-installed to AMD motherboards.

Image credit: Anandtech

If you think of the AMD die layout of the CPU, there's the two smaller CCD dies side by side (as shown above). So, with this mounting system, the probability of getting a poor mount or uneven mounting pressure side to side, is higher than with the original system. In a nutshell, depending on how the screws are tightened, there is potential for a uneven mount. To re-iterate, that's critical for AM5 CPUs like the 9950X with the side by side layout of the CCDs.

With that in mind, James actually re-mounted the cooler using the older 2 point mount from Montech's original HyperFlow ARGB cooler, and ran the thermal tests again.

You can see above that reverting back to the ARGB mount with the Silent 360 has a significant impact on thermal performance. At maximum fan speed, using the HyperFlow ARGB mount brings the average temperature of the Silence 360 cooler down by a huge 7 degrees C, and that puts performance more in line with the original HyperFlow ARGB. It's ultimately the same story when the fan speed is lowered to 40 decibels noise output, where using the original ARGB mount on the Silent 360 brings the performance level of this new cooler in-line with the original ARGB cooler. That's what we were expecting from the outset considering both coolers use the same core design.

We reached out to Montech and explained what we'd found in terms of performance between the new Silent 360 and the original ARGB cooler. They then carried out some of their own testing and found similar results. Montech then set the following statement:

“After reviewing James’ feedback and conducting additional internal testing, we’ve identified that the poor AMD performance is largely due to the new mount.”

Montech went on to say:

“As a result, we’ve made the decision to hold all unshipped units and revert to the ARGB version’s original mount. For units that have already been shipped or are on store shelves, we will provide customers with the updated mount upon request—no questions asked—via rma@montechpc.com.”

At this point we felt we were fully able to share our findings with the readers and viewers and published the video review on Thursday 27th February. Commentary from the public seemed positive and the audience were happy that Montech were actioning possible replacements for these coolers to rectify performance issues on AMD platforms.

However, on Friday 28th February, Montech asked us if we could take the video review down as they wanted us to test a second unit, suggesting that our original model's radiator could have been damaged and that subsequent performance data indicated the issue could be more complex than just an update to the mounting system. We are quite confident based on checking the cooler extensively before testing that it has received no damage during shipping.

We were asked to wait for a replacement unit, with Montech's updated mounting system, as any customer will receive it when ordering online. Whether it will be exactly the same as the original ARGB cooler's mounting system, or if it will be tweaked in some way, we are unable to confirm until we receive a new unit ourselves.

For those customers who have a version of this cooler without an updated mount, you can still email Montech to get a replacement at the email address above, which will hopefully improve cooling performance on the AMD platforms.

Once we get the completely new revision from Montech, we can follow up on our testing so far, and report back to our audience. Right now, I would advise anyone even considering this cooler to wait a while longer until we get complete confirmation from Montech as to what is going on. As our data shows, buying one of these coolers for use with an AMD platform, with the current mount system, will not translate to great real world performance.

KitGuru says: Stay tuned for our update as we test a second sample from Montech, complete with the final mounting system.

The Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090 has proven its overclocking prowess, shattering six performance records, including four world records and two first-place positions in the single-GPU category.

Safedisk, Asus's in-house extreme overclocker from South Korea, was the author of these new records. Utilizing a variety of test setups, including systems powered by Intel i9-14900KF, Ryzen 9 9950X, and even a 96-core Threadripper PRO 7995WX, Safedisk pushed the ROG Astral RTX 5090 to its limits, employing both air and liquid cooling to achieve record-breaking results. While the card ships with a conservative 2.58 GHz boost clock, it's capable of much more.

Safedisk effortlessly shattered world records in 3DMark Port Royal (44,338 marks), Fire Strike Extreme (58,393 marks), and Unigine Superposition at 1080p (36,287 points) and 8K (24,816 points) resolutions. With various configurations, the ROG Astral RTX 5090 maintained a stable 3 GHz clock speed even with air cooling. In Time Spy Extreme (28,717 marks) and GPUPI (41s and 673ms), where results are limited to single-GPU configurations to avoid the scaling advantages of multiple GPUs, the ROG Astral RTX 5090 reigns supreme. When equipped with a liquid cooling pot, the card reached an astounding 3.45 GHz core clock and a memory frequency of 35 Gbps (17.5 GHz effective).

In addition to the overclocking records, Asus has also highlighted the safety benefits of its innovative connector design. Recent investigations revealed that some RTX 50 and RTX 40 GPUs cannot detect if individual power pins are drawing excessive current. As you might know, a poorly seated or damaged cable could lead to a single pin carrying the entire current load, potentially causing it to melt without warning. Asus has addressed this concern in the ROG Astral RTX 5090 and ROG Matrix RTX 4090 by incorporating additional shunt resistors. This allows for per-pin current monitoring via software, enabling the detection of power distribution anomalies and alerting the user if a cable needs to be reseated.

KitGuru says: For now, the ROG Astral RTX 5090 graphics card should stay as the record holder, but with Galax's RTX 5090 HOF Edition probably coming out soon (given pictures of these cards have already leaked online), there's a good chance some of these records will soon be broken.

While Monster Hunter Wilds has gotten off to a great start sales-wise, PC players are hammering the game in the Steam reviews section due to performance issues. Capcom has already responded to the complaints, promising improvements. 

Right now, there is a large disparity between performance players had during the Monster Hunter Wilds beta and the day-one release version on PC. Unfortunately, Capcom doesn't have a lot of ‘good' suggestions for improving performance right now, outside of updating your graphics drivers, turning off compatibility mode and adjusting your in-game quality settings.

If issues persist after that, then Capcom requests that people head to the Troubleshooting & issue reporting thread on the Steam Community forum. It is unclear exactly what is causing Monster Hunter Wild's performance problems right now and the situation is quite surprising, as previous RE Engine titles have all ran fairly well on a wide range of hardware.

KitGuru Says: Have you tried Monster Hunter Wilds already? How is the game running on your system? 

Monster Hunter Wilds has launched and already seems to be a massive hit. On PC alone, the game garnered over 1 million concurrent players in the hours after launch. 

According to SteamDB, within hours of the game going live on Steam, the game surpassed 987,000 concurrent players. As the day has progressed, that number has only grown, reaching a peak of 1.3 million concurrent players. To make this figure more impressive, it only counts Steam players. If we add PS5 and Xbox players to the mix, we are likely looking at a concurrent player count in the range of 2 to 4 million.

While the game has been a sales success so far, it hasn't come without its problems. The Steam user reviews for the game are negative, with just 41% of reviews being positive. The most common complaint is optimisation, as the game is very difficult to run in comparison to Monster Hunter World. These issues should be addressed with patches in the weeks and months ahead. Hopefully Capcom makes its plans clear soon.

By Monday, we'll no doubt see Capcom announcing historic launch weekend sales figures for Monster Hunter Wilds based on its success so far.

KitGuru Says: Monster Hunter Wilds is off to a good start. Have any of you jumped in already? How are you finding the game so far? 

Razer has joined forces with Mojang Studios, the creators of Minecraft, to deliver a unique collection of gaming peripherals that seamlessly blend Razer's design with the franchise's iconic blocky aesthetic. This collaboration is aimed at Minecraft enthusiasts and gamers seeking to enhance their experience with high-performance peripherals that exude Minecraft charm.

Starting with the Razer BlackWidow V4 X – Minecraft Edition, this RGB mechanical gaming keyboard features clicky, tactile switches, six dedicated macro keys, and a distinctive Minecraft-themed design. It even includes an exclusive in-game item, the Ender Dragon Shawl, to personalize your Minecraft adventures further.

For those looking for a Minecraft headset, there's the Razer Kraken V4 X – Minecraft Edition, a wired RGB gaming headset. This headset, like the BlackWidow V4 keyboard – Minecraft Edition, also includes the Ender Dragon Shawl in-game item. The mouse chosen to receive a Minecraft Edition was the Razer Cobra, a lightweight and wired RGB gaming mouse equipped with durable and precise optical switches. Like the other two peripherals, it includes an in-game item, the Overgrown Arm. Lastly, the Razer Gigantus V2 – Medium – Minecraft Edition, a soft mouse mat designed for smooth gliding, features a Minecraft-themed design and provides a comfortable and stylish surface for gaming. This edition also includes the Overgrown Arm in-game item.

All of Razer's Minecraft-themed peripherals are now available: the Razer BlackWidow V4 X – Minecraft Edition costs £169.99/$169.99/€199.99, the Razer Kraken V4 X – Minecraft Edition costs £99.99/$99.99/€109.99€, the Razer Cobra – Minecraft Edition costs £59.99/$59.99/€69.99, and the Razer Gigantus V2 – Medium – Minecraft Edition costs €39.99.

KitGuru says: Are you a fan of Minecraft? Would you consider getting one of these Minecraft-themed peripherals?

MSI has released a trio of next-generation power supply units designed to power demanding gaming rigs and workstations: the MEG Ai1600T PCIE5, MPG A1250GS PCIE5, and MPG A1000GS PCIE5. These PSUs boast cutting-edge features and robust certifications to ensure exceptional efficiency, stability, and compatibility with the latest hardware.

All three models (MEG Ai1600T PCIE5, MPG A1250GS PCIE5, and MPG A1000GS PCIE5) have earned 80 Plus, Cybenetics, and PPLP certifications, underscoring their commitment to efficiency and performance. They fully comply with the latest ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 standards, ensuring compatibility with current and future hardware, including Nvidia's power-hungry RTX 50 series graphics cards. These PSUs are built to handle even the most extreme workloads, from multi-GPU configurations to AI and machine learning applications, delivering reliable power regardless of the load.

MSI has incorporated several features to ensure these PSUs can keep pace with the demands of modern systems. Dual 12V-2×6 connectors provide ample power delivery for the latest graphics cards, enabling smooth operation of even dual Nvidia RTX 50 series GPUs in demanding AI and machine learning applications. Full compliance with the PCIe 5.1 standard ensures compatibility with future generations of graphics cards and other PCIe 5.0 devices. High-quality components and advanced design ensure optimal efficiency and stability for gaming and professional workloads. These PSUs can withstand up to 240% total power excursion, providing headroom for demanding transient loads and ensuring stable operation. Efficient cooling and noise-reduction technologies deliver a quiet and reliable experience, even for power users.

To celebrate the launch, MSI is offering a special Monster Hunter Wilds Game Bundle promotion. From February 28th to March 28th, 2025, customers who purchase eligible MSI PSUs will receive a free game code for the PC standard edition of Monster Hunter Wilds. In addition to the game bundle, MSI has partnered with SignalRGB, a leading RGB lighting synchronisation software, to offer a unique integration with Monster Hunter Wilds. SignalRGB users can enjoy real-time dynamic lighting effects that respond to in-game events, such as battles, achievements, and environmental changes, creating a more immersive and personalised gaming experience.

KitGuru says: Will you take advantage of the ongoing Monster Hunter Wilds campaign and get an MSI PSU?

It is AMD launch day, with the company revealing the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics cards in full. As always, Sapphire is hot on the heels of the launch with its own custom-cooled models, and they look to be their best yet. 

Sapphire has new Nitro+, Pure and Pulse RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics cards hitting the market. The Nitro+ version will cost a little more, but you'll get the fastest out-of-box clock speeds, a beefy triple-fan cooler and a dual-layer all-metal black plate that lets you hide your power connector.

The Sapphire Pure model is for fans of all-white graphics cards offering a sleek white and black aesthetic with a hint of ARGB on the logo. Finally, the Sapphire Pulse model offers a slimmer all-black cooler.

The Sapphire TriXX software has also received a significant upgrade, introducing clean UI design to help gamers quickly find settings for overclocking, hardware monitoring, performance and efficiency profiles, as well as adjustments for the ARGB LEDs on your graphics card.

You can find the technical specifications for RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT in the table below:

The Sapphire Pulse and Pure models offer the same specs, but with different clock speeds. For instance, the RX 9070 XT Pulse and Pure models offer up to 3010MHz boost clock speeds out of the box, and up to 2700MHz on the RX 9070 version.

Sapphire's RX 9070 series graphics cards will be available starting on the 6th of March.

KitGuru Says: Sapphire has an excellent reputation for its custom AMD graphics cards and that looks to continue with the new RX 9070 series models. Are you thinking of making the jump to AMD's latest GPU? 

First announced at CES last month, today AMD is finally launching its new generation RX 9070 series graphics cards. Based on the RDNA 4 architecture, these new GPUs aim to offer improved AI performance and RT acceleration at a lower price than an RTX 50 series GPU. 

The new RDNA 4 GPUs at the heart of the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT feature up to 64 Compute Units / 4096 Stream Processors. Clock speeds can boost up to 3GHz and AMD has made the wise choice to pair the GPU with 16GB of 20Gbps DDR6 memory and 64MB of Infinity Cache, so gamers won't have to worry about hitting VRAM limits.

Compared to RDNA 3, AMD has enhanced the memory subsystem, improved Scalar Units, and increased efficiency to reach higher clock speeds. According to AMD, RDNA 4 delivers 2x raytracing Throughput per CU. On top of that, AMD has also enhanced the architecture with new AI Accelerators, delivering 2x FP16 performance and 4x INT8 performance.

You can find the technical specifications for RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT in the table below:

Compared to an RTX 3080 at 4K, the RX 9070 is said to be as much as 26 percent faster. This is the average score based on benchmarks across 30 games. You can also see RX 9070 vs AMD's previous gen RX 7900 GRE in the slide above, showcasing big improvements in titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, Final Fantasy 16, and more.

These new graphics cards will also be the first to support AMD's new FSR4 technology, which utilises AI accelerators to improve visuals and performance for the first time, bringing the technology closer to matching the bar set by Nvidia's competing DLSS technology.

Board partners like Sapphire, XFX, Acer, PowerColor, Asus, ASRock and Gigabyte are already confirmed to be launching custom-cooled versions of these graphics cards. They will become available worldwide starting on the 6th of March, with prices starting at $549 for the RX 9070 and $599 for the RX 9070 XT.

KitGuru Says: Are you considering making the jump to an RX 9070 or RX 9070 XT? 

For over a decade, work has progressed on a Minecraft film adaptation in one way or another. Finally, we got our first official trailer last year. While quite controversial in its execution, further previews have painted the film in a greater light. Ahead of its premiere on the 4th of April, the ‘Final’ trailer for A Minecraft Movie has now been released.

While the film still appears to suffer from rather obvious use of greenscreen, the final trailer for A Minecraft Movie presents what could be a solid enough time for families and fans of the game – appearing much more like a film about Minecraft and its world, compared to the initial showing which seemed somewhat less in touch with the core of the series itself.

It will be interesting to see how the film performs at the box office when it releases, as due to the overwhelming popularity of Minecraft as a brand it could very well give the Super Mario Bros. film a run for its money.

Regardless, A Minecraft Movie will likely wind up as the second highest-grossing adaptation all time at the very least, taking the spot from the current runner-up (Sonic the Hedgehog 3’s $483 million) – though whether it will beat Mario’s $1.3 Billion haul is yet to be determined. We will have to wait and see.

KitGuru says: What did you think of the final trailer? Could the film be solid? How much do you think it’ll make at the box office? Let us know down below.

Ever since Microsoft began to support the PlayStation with its games, the question has arisen as to whether the company would utilise all of the unique hardware in its competitor’s console. It seems they are supporting all of it and more, with the upcoming Forza Horizon 5 confirmed to offer DualSense haptics on PS5 as well as ray tracing support for the PS5 Pro.

Taking to their blog, the team at Playground games officially detailed the upcoming PS5 release for Forza Horizon 5, confirming that the title will launch on the 29th of April – or the 25th with ‘Advanced Access’.

More interestingly, we’ve gotten details on the PS5-specific features, with the studio confirming that Horizon 5 will make full use of the DualSense and its haptics/triggers. Beyond this, the PS5 is set to get two graphics modes: Performance (60fps) and Quality (30fps).

Being the first Microsoft game to come to the console since the release of the PS5 Pro, Playground Games have also confirmed that both modes will see a boost on the Pro system, with Performance mode upping the overall ‘visual fidelity’ while the Pro’s Quality mode adds ray traced car reflections to Races and Free Roam – a first for the series on console.

Arbitrary early access aside, Forza Horizon 5 represents the biggest Xbox game to come to PlayStation so far, and as such it will be interesting to see how the game’s overall reception pans out.

KitGuru says: What do you think of the PS5 Pro features? Which mode would you pick? Let us know down below.

Approximately nine months ago, Montech launched its first AIO CPU cooler – the HyperFlow ARGB. It was available in 240mm and 360mm sizes, in black or white colour schemes and was reasonably priced at around £85 for the 360mm version. Now Montech is back with a new HyperFlow Silent which, according to Montech, has whisper-quiet performance but ditches the RGB lighting. It’s a budget AIO for the cooling purists, but does its low noise output mean performance is compromised? Let's find out.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
01:18 Overview and pricing
03:01 Close up look
07:54 Compatibility / Accessories
09:12 New AMD Test platform
11:37 Testing Thermals and Noise output
13:24 First Anomaly
13:41 Checking deeper
14:31 James works out the problem
15:46 James tests out his ‘solution’
16:35 Montech response to our findings
17:48 Closing thoughts

Features:

• According to Montech the HyperFlow Silent offers whisper-quiet performance from a reduced noise pump and fan blades capable of achieving 45.18dBA noise output while its 27mm thick radiator and 72.3 CFM of airflow provide optimal heat transfer.
• The innovative ring-type fan blades reduce noise output to 24.8 decibels even at their maximum speed of 2200 RPM.
• HyperFlow Silent is available in 240mm and 360mm size in black or white. The pump block has a metal finish for a sleek look and pre-installed fans for a quick and simple installation process.
• The versatile design means that the HyperFlow Silent is compatible with the latest AMD and Intel desktop platforms and comes with a 6-year extended warranty for peace of mind.

Specifications:

• CPU Socket Compatibility: Intel LGA1151/1200/1700/1851/20XX, AMD AM3/AM4/AM5
• Radiator Material: Aluminium
• Radiator Dimensions: 397 x 120 x 27 mm
• Radiator Tube Length: 400mm
• CPU Block Dimensions: 68.8 x 68.8 x 53 mm
• Pump Speed: 3100 RPM +/- 10% PWM
• Cold Plate: Copper
• Pump Connector: 4-pin PWM
• LCD Screen: N/A
• Pump Noise: 28.8 dBA
• Pump LED: N/A
• VRM Fan: N/A
• Fan Dimensions: 120 x 120 x 28 mm
• Fan LED: N/A
• Fan Speed (PWM): 2200 RPM +/- 10% PWM
• Fan Max Airflow: 72.3 CFM
• Fan Max Air Pressure: 3.12 mmH2O
• Fan Noise: 24.8 dBA
• Fan Bearing: Rifle
• Fan Connector: 4-pin PWM
• Warranty: 6 years

Following the conclusion of the purchase of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, the console maker began to bring a number of the publisher's back-catalogue to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service. While we’ve yet to see any classic CODs come to Game Pass, the Microsoft Store on PC has seen a ton of activity – with the OG Black Ops 1 having now been added.

Available right now on the PC Microsoft Store for $39.99, 2010’s Call of Duty Black Ops 1 has been added; though is seemingly missing its DLC.

Interestingly, while much of the game’s description remains the same from decades past (including the reference to “last year’s” Modern Warfare 2), the top of the page does note the fact that “This is a classic Call of Duty experience, cross-platform Multiplayer is not supported.”

As mentioned, this isn’t the first Call of Duty to be added to the Microsoft Store, and like those prior additions, there has yet to be any official wording on a Game Pass launch.

Given its lack of cross-play, paying for the Microsoft Store version of any older Call of Duty seems like an unwise decision.

That said, if Microsoft does eventually bring these titles to Game Pass, then a bunch of classic CODs could receive second lives over a decade after their peak.

KitGuru says: Do you think Microsoft is gearing up for a Game Pass release? If not, then why are they being added? Which classic Call of Duty is your favourite? Let us know down below.

Prior to its release on the Xbox Series X|S last year, Microsoft confirmed that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would also be swinging its way onto PS5 in 2025. While we have yet to get a concrete release date, one insider has now claimed that the game is planned for launch sometime this April.

In an article discussing Microsoft’s recent increase in adoption of AI for game development, industry insider Tom Warren offered a small tidbit on the planned release timing for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PS5, writing (paywalled) “we're now waiting to hear if Indiana Jones is going to make Microsoft's target of an April release on PS5.”

As mentioned, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle first released in early December of last year for the Xbox Series X|S and PC. At the time, it was stated that PS5 players would get to enjoy Indy’s latest adventure some time in Spring of 2025.

While we have yet to get official confirmation, April would make some sense as it would land somewhat in the middle of Spring. That said, with Microsoft recently confirming that Forza Horizon 5 is launching at the end of April, it would be odd to have both titles release within the same month.

Given how Forza Horizon and Indiana Jones are two entirely different games in completely separate genres however, it’s possible that neither title will cannibalise sales from the other.

KitGuru says: Are you more excited for Forza or Indiana Jones? Will it arrive in April? What enhancements do you expect to see for the PS5 Pro? Let us know down below.

The PlayStation VR2 hasn't made very many headlines since launch, in large part due to low sales, which in turn led to a drought of significant game releases. That may finally start to change, as the headset is finally getting a much needed price cut. 

Today, Sony announced that the PlayStation VR2 headset will get a significant price cut. Starting in March, the headset will be priced at £399, a near £200 price cut compared to launch. Sony will be selling a bundle including the headset, controllers, a pair of headphones and a copy of Horizon: Call of the Mountain at this £399 price point.

It is clear that Sony's goal here is to boost adoption of its latest VR headset, which failed to meet initial sales expectations. Nobody really knows why Sony expected to sell millions of these headsets at its original price point, especially when you factor in the fact that it was more expensive than the PS5 console also required to use the headset. However, the situation is now finally starting to improve, with the headset merely costing about as much as a PS5 Digital Edition system.

If you buy a PlayStation VR2 headset now, you won't be restricted to only using it with the PS5. Last year, Sony released an update and a special dongle allowing the headset to be used with PC, so you can access PSVR2 exclusives on console, as well as a much larger range of VR titles available on services like Steam.

KitGuru Says: Would you consider picking up a PSVR2 at its new price point? 

This year's Pokemon Presents stream didn't have too many surprises but Game Freak did announce a new game – Pokemon Champions, a PvP battle focused Pokemon game with crossplay across Switch and Mobile devices. 

Pokemon Champions takes out all of the exploration and Pokemon-capturing mechanics in order to purely focus on battles. It appears to be a spiritual successor to Pokemon Collesium and Pokemon Stadium but with more modern Pokemon designs and new mechanics like Mega Evolution and Terastalized Pokemon forms.

The game will have a multiplayer focus, with no plans for a single-player campaign. To ensure a broad player base, the game will be available for both Nintendo Switch and mobile platforms, like iOS and Android. There will be full crossplay between the mobile and Switch versions of the game.

On top of all that, the game also connects to Pokemon Home, so you can import Pokemon you've collected from other titles in the series and use them in Pokemon Champions without having to go through any extra effort to unlock them.

There is no release date yet for Pokemon Champions, but we expect to get more information on it later in the year.

KitGuru Says: Would you be interested in Pokemon game purely focused on PvP battles? 

Today during the annual Pokemon Presents livestream, The Pokemon Company gave us the latest update on their next major game, Pokemon Legends Z-A. Unfortunately, the game won't be coming out as early as we expected, with it now having a late 2025 release window. 

Initially thought to be releasing this summer, Pokemon Legends Z-A is now destined for a late 2025 release date. While not currently announced for the Nintendo Switch 2, the new release window means the game will assuredly be available in enhanced form on Nintendo's new system, which is due to launch later this year. The game will still also be playable on the original Nintendo Switch, but like Arceus, Scarlet and Violet, it is likely to look very rough and run with a very choppy frame rate.

Unlike Pokemon Legends Arceus, which was set well in the past, Pokemon Legends Z-A has a more futuristic setting, with a massive sprawling version of Lumiose city, far different to the version of the city we previously saw in Pokemon X & Y back in the day.

The starter Pokemon you'll get to pick are roughly in line with what you would expect. Players will be able to choose from Chikorita, Totodile and unfortunately for anyone who is a Cyndaquil fan, you'll have to settle for Tepig instead as your fire-type starter.

The battle system in Pokemon Legends ZA has evolved a little from Arceus too. You can see in the trailer that now, Game Freak has implemented dodging and positioning mechanics, so whether you land or miss an attack will be firmly within your control. You'll also be able to try and dodge incoming attacks, adding a new dynamic we've not really seen before in a Pokemon title.

KitGuru Says: I really enjoyed Arceus, but it was rough to play on the Switch console. I am hoping that with the Switch 2, we'll get much better frame rates and more anti-aliasing for Pokemon Legends Z-A.