PowerColor's take on a premium non-MSRP RX 9070 graphics card stands out for its sleek aesthetic that boasts an eye-catching "Hellstone" RGB lighting element.

6 March 2025 saw the launch of AMD's "RDNA 4" line-up of GPUs, in the form of the Radeon RX 9070 XT and the RX 9070. Packing significantly-improved ray tracing performance compared to its predecessors, the RX 9000 series marks AMD's shift away from the flagship GPU scene towards mainstream offerings in a bid to shore up its share of the global GPU market, and is intended to give NVIDIA's mid-range "Blackwell" series of GPUs (chiefly the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 5070) a serious run for their money.

For this review, I'll be unboxing and testing a premium non-MSRP RX 9070 non-XT graphics card by PowerColor - the Red Devil Radeon RX 9070 16GB GDDR6. Featuring a unique aesthetic all thanks to its "Hellstone" RGB lighting element, the card comes with a hefty triple-fan cooling solution that also employs the use of a phase-changing GPU thermal pad to keep temperatures at bay. Read on to see how this card performs with a selection of gaming benchmark tests at the 1440p and 4K resolution, when paired with AMD's Ryzen 7 7800X3D gaming processor!

Summary of Specifications (RX9070 16G-E/OC)

• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070
• Memory: 16GB GDDR6 RAM (256-bit, 20 Gbps)
• Core Clocks:
  • OC Mode: up to 2700 MHz (Boost Clock) / up to 2210 MHz (Game Clock)
  • STD/Silent Mode: up to 2650 MHz (Boost Clock) / up to 2170 MHz (Game Clock)
• Bus Type: PCIe 5.0 x16
• Outputs: 3x DisplayPort 2.1a, 1x HDMI 2.1b
• External Power Required: Yes, 3x 8-pin PCIe
• Recommended PSU Wattage: 800W and above
• Dimensions: 340mm x 132mm x 69mm (without bracket), 340mm x 132mm x 69mm (with bracket)
  
• Official PowerColor product page: https://www.powercolor.com/product-detail213.htm

Packaging & Accessories

The PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 9070 16GB GDDR6 comes in a plain black cardboard box with a black-and-red outer sleeve, where the said sleeve features a large Red Devil motif on the front and over on the rear, the usual overview of features and specifications for this graphics card.

Removing the outer sleeve reveals a plain black cardboard box that holds the graphics card. PowerColor has also included the following accessories with the card:

• Graphics card holder
• Addressable RGB LED Y-cable
• Red Devil case badge
• Devil Gallery card
• PowerColor gaming gear intro card

For a walkthrough of the accessories that come included with the card, be sure to check out the YouTube video embedded at the start of this article.

Aesthetics & Physical Features

The Red Devil Radeon RX 9070 16GB GDDR6 features an all-black cooler assembly with a fan shroud that is made of plastic. According to PowerColor, the graphics card's fans utilise Japanese dual ball bearings for better durability, and come with a ring blade design to improve airflow. In the name of improved heat dissipation, the heatsink assembly utilises seven nickel-plated copper heat pipes, alongside a large nickel-plated copper plate that comes into direct contact with the GPU and memory modules.

The card also features a reinforced metal backplate with ventilation slats. As can be seen, there is also a subtle Red Devil motif beneath the slats - the said motif is actually an addressable RGB LED accent that lights up when the graphics card is in use.

As a premium non-MSRP RX 9070 offering, no surprises here that the card is relatively large all thanks to its cooler assembly, where it measures in at 340mm x 132mm x 69mm without the mounting bracket.

The card comes with dual BIOSes, where end-users can toggle between an "OC" BIOS profile with a fan curve that sees the fans operate at higher RPMs to maximise cooling performance, or a "Silent" BIOS profile that utilises a less aggressive fan curve so as to minimise fan noise.

Also found along the long edge of the card is an addressable RGB header, which is to be used in conjunction with the addressable RGB Y-cable that PowerColor has included. The said cable is to be connected to your motherboard's addressable RGB header, so as to allow the Red Devil's RGB lighting effects to be controlled via your motherboard's RGB software, or via PowerColor's Keystone app.

To the right of the addressable RGB header are two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. This is great for those of you who aren't fans of NVIDIA's 16-pin 12VHPWR power connector, which has become the de-facto power connector for most of Team Green's GPU offerings.

One thing going for the Red Devil Radeon RX 9070 is the way PowerColor has executed the card's RGB lighting effects. First up, we get two subtle accents in between the first and second cooling fans...

...and these are accompanied by what PowerColor terms a "Hellstone" lighting element that is found along the short edge of the card. Inspired by the design of gemstones, the Hellstone element doesn't look like much when the card is not in use (it looks like a black glossy plastic accent when not illuminated) - when powered on however, it's quite a sight to behold and is almost certain to be a conversation starter due to its appearance.

Rounding things off in the RGB department is a RGB LED accent in the shape of the Red Devil motif, which can be found beneath the ventilation openings of the graphics card's backplate.

In keeping with the all-black aesthetic of the graphics card, the Red Devil Radeon RX 9070 16GB GDDR6 comes with a blacked-out PCIe faceplate. In terms of display connectivity, we get three DisplayPort 2.1a ports and a single HDMI 2.1b port.

GPU-Z Screenshot

Benchmarks & Test Setup

To get a sensing of the card's gaming performance, the following gaming benchmarks were run:

• Assassin's Creed Mirage in-game benchmark
• Black Myth Wukong Benchmark Tool
• Cyberpunk 2077 v2.21 in-game benchmark
• F1 23 in-game benchmark
• Far Cry 6 in-game benchmark
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider in-game benchmark

The benchmark tests above were run at both the 1440p and 4K resolution, where upscaling technologies such as FSR as well as Frame Generation were disabled for the test runs. Also, the card was tested on the "OC" BIOS mode.

Test Setup

A test bench with the specifications as listed below was used:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (stock settings, PBO & Curve Optimiser disabled)
• CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB
• CPU Thermal Paste: Thermalright TF7
• Motherboard: Gigabyte X670E AORUS MASTER (F34 BIOS)
• Memory: 32GB (2x16GB) KingBank DDR5 Dark Heatsink UDIMM 6000MHz (DDR5 6000 CL28-35-35-76 1.45V)
• Storage: Lexar NM790 1TB NVMe SSD
• Graphics Card: PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 9070 16GB GDDR6
• PSU: Cooler Master MWE Gold 1050 V2 ATX 3.0
• Case: Open-air test bench
• Monitor: Gigabyte M27U 27" LCD monitor (4K, 160Hz)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (24H2 with all latest drivers and updates installed, "Balanced" power profile)
• Graphics Driver: AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.5.1
• Resizable BAR: Enabled

The test results shown below were taken from benchmark runs that did not have any screen capture software running in the background.

Assassin's Creed Mirage In-game Benchmark

First up is Assassin's Creed Mirage's in-game benchmark test, where on the 1440p resolution, the test bench achieves an average FPS of 152, with a minimum FPS of 64 and a maximum FPS of 275. These results were obtained on the "Ultra High" preset with Adaptive Quality set to "60 FPS", and all forms of upscaling (e.g. FSR) disabled.

Turning the resolution up to 4K with the same quality settings as above, the test bench puts out an average FPS of 94, a minimum FPS of 51 and a maximum FPS of 194.

Black Myth Wukong Benchmark Tool

We've got Black Myth Wukong's standalone benchmark tool up next, where the test bench achieves an average FPS of 76, with a minimum FPS of 58 and a maximum FPS of 88. These results were obtained on the "High" preset with ray tracing switched off, and Super Resolution set to "100" with TSR as the sampling mode (i.e. FSR was disabled). Frame Generation was also disabled for the duration of the benchmark.

On the 4K resolution with the same graphics quality settings as the 1440p benchmark run, the test system achieves an average FPS of 41, a minimum FPS of 34 and a maximum FPS of 47.

Cyberpunk 2077 v2.21 In-game Benchmark

With Cyberpunk 2077 v2.21's in-game benchmark tool, the test bench achieves an average FPS of 105.79, a minimum FPS of 90.70 and a maximum FPS of 127.82 on the 1440p resolution. These results were obtained on the "Ray Tracing Low" preset with FSR and Frame Generation disabled.

Notching the resolution up to 4K with the same quality settings, the test bench attains an average FPS of 50.65, a minimum FPS of 42.92 and a maximum FPS of 62.30.

F1 23 In-game Benchmark

Moving on, with F1 23's in-game benchmark tool, the test system achieves an average FPS of 77, a minimum FPS of 61 and a maximum FPS of 100 at 1440p. These results were obtained on the "Ultra High" detail preset with all forms of upscaling technologies (e.g. FSR) disabled. Anisotropic Filtering was set to the "16x" setting.

On the 4K resolution with the same quality settings as the 1440p test run, the test system achieves an average FPS of 39, a minimum FPS of 31 and a maximum FPS of 53.

Far Cry 6 In-game Benchmark

Far Cry 6's in-game benchmark sees the test bench achieves an average FPS of 161, a minimum FPS of 125 and a maximum FPS of 194 at 1440p. These results were obtained on the "Ultra" quality preset with all forms of upscaling disabled. DXR reflections and shadows were enabled throughout the duration of testing.

At 4K with the same "Ultra" quality settings as the 1440p benchmark run, the test bench achieves an average FPS of 101, a minimum FPS of 92 and a maximum FPS of 113.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider In-game Benchmark

Rounding things off in the benchmarks section is Shadow of the Tomb Raider's built-in benchmark test - at 1440p, the test bench achieves an average FPS of 94. The results above were obtained on maxed out graphics settings, where Ray Tracing Shadow Quality was set to "Ultra" and all forms of upscaling technologies such as FSR were disabled.

On the 4K resolution with the same graphics settings as the 1440p test run, the test system achieves an average FPS of 50.

Power Consumption, Thermals & Acoustics

Power Consumption

Under Load (F1 23 In-game Benchmark, 1440p, Ultra High Detail Preset, TAA, 16x AF, FSR Off, Singapore Circuit, Two Laps)
• Avg. Total Board Power: 242.9W
• Min. Total Board Power: 134.8W
• Max. Total Board Power: 246.4W

Idle
• Avg. Total Board Power: 4.7W
• Min. Total Board Power: 3.7W
• Max. Total Board Power: 21.0W

The figures above were obtained from "Total Board Power (TBP)" readouts from HWiNFO64.

Thermals

Under Load (F1 23 In-game Benchmark, 1440p, Ultra High Detail Preset, TAA, 16x AF, FSR Off, Singapore Circuit, Two Laps)
• Avg. GPU Temperature: 57.6°C
• Min. GPU Temperature: 51.0°C
• Max. GPU Temperature: 62.0°C
• Avg. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 76.2°C
• Min. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 62.0°C
• Max. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 81.0°C
• Avg. GPU Memory Junction Temperature: 81.0°C
• Min. GPU Memory Junction Temperature: 72.0°C
• Max. GPU Memory Junction Temperature: 86.0°C

Idle
• Avg. GPU Temperature: 47.8°C
• Min. GPU Temperature: 46.0°C
• Max. GPU Temperature: 50.0°C
• Avg. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 48.7°C
• Min. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 47.0°C
• Max. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 52.0°C
• Avg. GPU Memory Junction Temperature: 65.7°C
• Min. GPU Memory Junction Temperature: 64.0°C
• Max. GPU Memory Junction Temperature: 68.0°C

The figures above were obtained from "GPU Temperature", "GPU Hot Spot Temperature" & "GPU Memory Junction Temperature" readouts from HWiNFO64. Do note that these figures were obtained with an open-air test bench with an ambient temperature of around 30°C.

While under gaming workloads with default out-of-box fan curve settings, I found the PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 9070 16GB GDDR6's fans to be pretty quiet. However, there was a fair bit of coil whine with the media sample that I tested, which manifested itself in the form of a buzzing noise that varied in intensity depending on the type of gaming workload.

Conclusion & Pricing

The PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 9070 16GB GDDR6 is indeed worthy of it's positioning as a premium Radeon RX 9070 graphics card, where it boasts good thermal performance and good looks thanks to its eye-catching "Hellstone" RGB lighting element. With the RX 9070 GPU's performance, it'll handle 1440p gaming with ease and even 4K gaming too, as long as you're willing to turn down some quality settings for a smoother gaming experience.

Bearing in mind AMD's MSRP of US$549 for base model RX 9070 graphics cards, be prepared to pay a premium for the Red Devil Radeon RX 9070 16GB GDDR6, seeing as it is after all positioned as a premium RX 9070 graphics card offering. As of the time of writing this article, Newegg has this card listed for US$749.99, though it's out-of-stock - unsurprising really, given the state of the GPU market courtesy of supply shortages and the spectre of tariffs looming overhead (especially if you're based in the United States). One certainly hopes that given enough time, the GPU market will soften and normalise in due course.

Get this graphics card from Amazon: https://amzn.to/44ZGawV (affiliate link)

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The graphics card featured in this article was a review unit provided on loan from AMD Singapore.