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Hands On with the PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 XT Red Devil and HellHound

btarunr

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At CES 2025, we went hands on with PowerColor's new Radeon RX 9070 series graphics cards. These include the RX 9070 XT and the RX 9070. PowerColor will keep custom board designs common for both SKUs as they're both based on the 4 nm "Navi 48" silicon. We get the general feeling that these cards aren't designed as over-the-top as the RX 7900 series custom designs; since the GPUs are positioned in the performance segment, and AMD's board partners would ideally like to give themselves room to price-wars against NVIDIA's products from the RTX 5070 series.

The PowerColor RX 9070 XT Red Devil features a triple-slot cooling solution. It is a fairly long card, with an aluminium fin-stack heatsink that's ventilated by a trio of fans. The large, rhomboid vent on its backplate gives you the impression that the PCB inside is just two-thirds the length of the card—it's not, it's closer to 80% its length. There is an elaborate LED-illuminated decal at the tail end of the card. The Red Devil gets a few premium features, such as dual-BIOS, and the company's highest factory overclock. The lighting on this card is RGB and controllable via software. The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The 375 W of power on tap should be sufficient for a performance-segment GPU.



Next up, is the RX 9070 XT HellHound. This card features a much simpler design, with a die-cast metal top-plate for the cooler. The card is strictly 2 slots-thick. It features axial airflow fans, just like the Red Devil. You also get some premium touches, such as a factory overclock, and dual-BIOS. The factory OC isn't as high as the Red Devil, though. There is a fixed color LED illumination, with a physical switch on the card. Much like the Red Devil, the HellHound draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors.



Lastly, there's the RX 9070 XT Fighter. This line of graphics cards from PowerColor form the company's baseline, which is priced close to the AMD MSRP for a given GPU. It features the simplest board design among the three, with a dual-slot cooling solution that uses a trio of axial airflow fans, a more compact aluminium fin-stack heatsink, which gives it standard height. For this card, the PCB is 2/3 the length, and so all the airflow from the third fan flows through the heatsink and out a large cutout on the backplate. The Fighter sticks to AMD reference clock speeds.



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375 Watt for a GPU that competed with the 7900xt. You can't make this stuff up. And people think Blackwell's efficiency is bad ......
 
Wow don't remember a time when the chip was so close to the PCI-e slot.

EDIT: maybe it's just the pic.
 
375 Watt for a GPU that competed with the 7900xt. You can't make this stuff up. And people think Blackwell's efficiency is bad ......

This is worrying. Vega 2.0?
 
375 Watt for a GPU that competed with the 7900xt. You can't make this stuff up. And people think Blackwell's efficiency is bad ......

-Some stuff from IGN has the card performing faster than the 7900xtx on COD6 in some informal backroom run.

AMD is playing silly jebaited games again and I wish they wouldn't.
 
-Some stuff from IGN has the card performing faster than the 7900xtx on COD6 in some informal backroom run.

AMD is playing silly jebaited games again and I wish they wouldn't.
IW Engine always runs incredibly well on AMD cards for some reason, 7900XTX is already almost as fast as a 4090.
 
IW Engine always runs incredibly well on AMD cards for some reason, 7900XTX is already almost as fast as a 4090.
Sure, only 100% slower at what the 4090 is good at but almost might mean something else in your dictionary...

relative-performance-rt-3840-2160.pngrelative-performance-3840-2160.png

Cod is just one game...
 
Sure, only 100% slower at what the 4090 is good at but almost might mean something else in your dictionary...
I am clearly speaking in the context of this one game, why do you have to be an obtuse fanboy ?
 
I am clearly speaking in the context of this one game, why do you have to be an obtuse fanboy ?

You got me there.... I shouldn't be scrolling fast while trying to work lol.
 
Is there a pic showing that RX 9070 XT Red Devil has only two 8-pin power connectors ?
 
So I've found more pics of the PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 XT Red Devil and it has 3 8-pin power connectors :rockout:

1736322217773.png
 
I like the design of the Fighter. Dual slot (which is a must in my chassis), and no gamery bling. Just nice.

375 Watt for a GPU that competed with the 7900xt. You can't make this stuff up. And people think Blackwell's efficiency is bad ......
It doesn't consume 375 W. That's what you got available from the PCI-e bus and two 8-pin power connectors.

Wow don't remember a time when the chip was so close to the PCI-e slot.

EDIT: maybe it's just the pic.
Maybe. Or maybe it's the cards being so big.
 
@btarunr Did PowerColor mention if they're using PTM on the die for the cards or just standard paste?
 
As much as I would love to have a 2-slot 9070XT Hellhound card the one on the picture is clearly a 9070 non-XT card.
It can be seen on the label on the back of the card.

Red Devil's back:
1736348847434.png

Vs the Hellhound's
1736348876283.png
 
As much as I would love to have a 2-slot 9070XT Hellhound card the one on the picture is clearly a 9070 non-XT card.
It can be seen on the label on the back of the card.

Red Devil's back:
View attachment 379021
Vs the Hellhound's
View attachment 379022
The Fighter looks like an XT to me, and it's dual slot.

What is PoweColor's fascination with the devil and hell?
We all go to hell if we spend so much money (and tell our wives/girlfriends about it). :laugh:
 
I'm sorry but call me superstitious but ain't no way I'd ever buy a product named "hell" or "devil" in the name... You're just asking for things unseen to be invited into your space..no thanks.
 
I'm sorry but call me superstitious but ain't no way I'd ever buy a product named "hell" or "devil" in the name... You're just asking for things unseen to be invited into your space..no thanks.
Supposedly Nvidia comes from latin "invidia" meaning "envy" what do you think of that one huh ?
 
Then I can still dream about it :toast:
If the made-by-AMD version ends up being too big, I'll probably get a Fighter myself. :)
 
I'm sorry but call me superstitious but ain't no way I'd ever buy a product named "hell" or "devil" in the name... You're just asking for things unseen to be invited into your space..no thanks.
Take it you have never played diablo, devil may cry, Helldivers, eaten devilled eggs, watched the devil's advocate, from hell, hellraiser etc etc
 
Didn't all Hellhounds have clear fans for the lighting to diffuse through? That's a downgrade in the lighting department.
 
Closer to the PCIe slot means much shorter traces, maybe saves some 5.0 repeaters, largely improves the latencies, but maybe a large amount of heat will be dumped directly onto the motherboard, which means many dead mobos incoming. We'll see.
Hopefully the large cutouts will help dump most of that heat into the case instead of the motherboard, but yeah, we'll see.
 
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