AORUS RX 9070 XT Elite Review

Designed for 1440p/4K gaming, we take a look at a factory overclocked graphics card from the AORUS team. Can this Elite GPU impress?

Product on Review: GV-R9070XTAORUS E-16GD
Manufacturer: GIGABYTE
Street Price: USD 785 | GBP 759 | AUD 1250

The AORUS RX 9070 XT Elite (model GV-R9070XTAORUS E-16GD) marks GIGABYTE’S high-end take on AMD’s latest RDNA 4 flagship GPU, delivering a compelling combination of power, thermal design, and aesthetics. Built around AMD’s Navi 48 architecture, this graphics card boasts 4,096 stream processors, a 3100 MHz boost clock, and 16 GB of 256-bit GDDR6 memory. With that kind of specification sheet, it promises to tackle everything from high-refresh 1440p gaming to demanding 4K workloads with confidence.

On the hardware front, the Elite model doesn’t cut corners. It uses GIGABYTE’S WINDFORCE cooling system, featuring three Hawk alternate-spinning fans, a large vapor chamber, composite copper heat pipes, and a server-grade thermal conductive gel to ensure efficient heat dissipation. Further enhancing its design is a reinforced backplate, a versatile VGA holder to prevent sag, and a dual-BIOS setup (Performance and Silent), giving users more control over performance versus acoustics. A signature RGB Halo ring adds visual flair, syncing with other AORUS gear via GIGABYTE Control Center.

Beyond the raw specs, the card is future-ready with support for PCIe 5.0, DisplayPort 2.1, and HDMI 2.1 outputs, making it suitable for next-gen high-bandwidth displays. Power is supplied through three 8-pin connectors, paired with GIGABYTE’S recommendation of an 850 W PSU for stable operation. With all of this in mind, we’re looking forward to seeing how the RX 9070 XT Elite performs once we get it on the test bench.

Technical Specifications

Graphics Processing
Radeon™ RX 9070 XT
Core Clock
Boost Clock* : up to 3100 MHz (Reference card: 2970 MHz)
Game Clock* : up to 2570 MHz (Reference card: 2400 MHz)
Stream Processors
4096
Memory Clock
20 Gbps
Memory Size
16GB
Memory Type
GDDR6
Memory Bus
256 bit
Card Bus
PCI-E 5.0
Digital max resolution
7680×4320
Multi-view
4
Card size
L=339 W=136 H=59 mm
PCB Form
ATX
DirectX
DirectX 12 API
OpenGL
4.6
Recommended PSU
850W
Power Connectors
8 pin*3
Output
DisplayPort 2.1a *2
HDMI 2.1b *2
Accessories
1. Quick guide
2. Warranty registration
3. AORUS metal sticker
4. Versatile VGA holder
5. Versatile VGA holder manual

Closer Look

As you’ll have seen on the previous page, Elite comes packaged in a large box and within that above we receive the following items which form the bundle:

• Quick guide
• Warranty registration
• AORUS metal sticker
• Versatile VGA holder
• Versatile VGA holder manual

Elite is a striking looking graphics card which sports both a sleek and aggressive design. Its large triple-fan shroud is matte-black with subtly angular cut lines, giving it a sharp, dynamic profile. The three “Hawk” fans, one of which carries the AORUS eagle logo, are illuminated by concentric RGB rings offering both style and airflow.

Flipping to the reverse of the card, there is a solid, reinforced backplate that has both structural rigidity and clean geometric cutouts. The team has not failed to deliver an outstanding design in the Elite.

This card features a trio of 8-pin PCIe connector and AORUS are recommending an 850W power supply for this graphics card.

On the outer edge AORUS has included a switch to allow users to toggle between performance or quiet mode with dual BIOS.

On the rear IO panel there are a total of four video outputs – 2x DisplayPort 2.1b and 2x HDMI 2.1b. So, there are plenty of options between the two standards.

As you can see, Elite does stray into a third PCI-E slot. One thing is for sure, this is a large graphics card and it measures in at: L=339 W=136 H=59 mm.

Elite does come in with a factory overclock, boosting the GPU clock to 3100MHz. This means there is an uplift of 130MHz which is not too shabby by any means.

Test Setup & Methodology

HOW WE TEST GRAPHICS CARDS

Testing a graphics card is an extremely lengthy process. We sometimes see reviews where a graphics card has been tested using out of date equipment, out of date games and even out of date drivers. While the latter can be excused due to the sheer amount of driver updates making a thorough review impossible we will however notify the reader when we have used a different driver to the normal for example a pre-release driver. For the most part however we will always use the same hardware and latest drivers so this does certainly need to be taken into consideration when viewing our testing results. Each game and benchmark is tested times with the lowest and highest scores omitted out of the 5 results and the average then taken from the three remaining to give us our final result for each resolution and setting used.

HARDWARE

In Q1 2025 we decided to upgrade our test system to the very latest AMD X870E platform with the renowned AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D – currently regarded as one of the best gaming CPUs to date. AMD’s platform is one of the most popular choices for gamers and by using such a configuration, we can hopefully showcase to our readership what they can expect.

This new platform provides us with the very latest technology and standards to be able to accurately report back on performance of modern graphics cards.

Graphics Cards on test:
MSI VENTUS 2X OC RTX 4060 TI
ASUS PRIME RTX 4070 SUPER
INNO3D RTX 4080 SUPER X3
PNY RTX 4090 XLR8 VERTO EPIC-X
ASUS PRIME RTX 5060 OC
GIGABYTE RTX 5070 TI EAGLE OC ICE
GIGABYTE RTX 5080 GAMING OC
GIGABYTE RTX 5080 AERO OC SFF
AORUS RTX 5090 MASTER

GIGABYTE RX 7700 XT GAMING OC
POWERCOLOR RED DEVIL RX 7800 XT
POWERCOLOR HELLHOUND RX 7900 GRE
XFX MERC 310 RX 7900 XTX
POWERCOLOR REAPER RX 9060 XT
POWERCOLOR HELLHOUND RX 9070
AORUS RX 9070 XT Elite

Special thanks go to MSI and Corsair for providing the hardware configuration for our graphics card reviews:

Motherboard: MSI X870E CARBON WIFI
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
RAM – 32GB HyperX FURY Renegade 7600MHz
Power Supply – Corsair RM1000X
Hard Drive – Samsung 990 PRO
Cooler – Corsair iCue Link Titan 360 RX LCD

BENCHMARKS

If you are a regular reader of our reviews you will know we like to test the latest hardware with the latest games and benchmarks on the market. Here are the games we’ve chosen:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Black Myth: Wukong
Silent Hill 2 Remake
TEKKEN 8
Horizon Forbidden West

To capture framerates we use CapFrameX.

Other benchmark tools have been included to give a broad overview of performance and these include:

PugetBench for Davinci Resolve
ProCyon AI Image Generation
ProCyon Video Editing
3DMark SpeedWay
3DMark Nomad

Let’s see how today’s graphics card performed…

Power, Temperatures, Acoustics

To test for power consumption, we take a measurement from the plug socket. It is important to note that the figures below represent total system power use and not just the GPU. The CPU was always in a fixed state so did not affect the additional power load when the GPU was placed under 100% load using AIDA64 stability test (GPU Only) which was ran for 20 minutes at which point a load reading was taken. Idle readings were taken 5 minutes after system boot to ensure any background services and applications had loaded.

TEMPERATURE

To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests we use GPU-Z and have this running throughout all of our benchmarks, and then report back on the maximum temperatures at the end of this exhaustive session.

ACOUSTICS

For the purpose of testing audio levels we have the NDI KC-3300 sound level meter. During the temperature recording above, while in Black Myth Wukong benchmark we monitored the audio and the results are found below. All graphics cards are tested in their out of the box state (auto).

PugetBench for Davinci Resolve

PugetBench for DaVinci Resolve runs on top of your installed copy of Resolve, providing benchmark data directly from the application. Our benchmarks are designed in partnership with hardware and software industry leaders, as well as end users and influencers who use DaVinci Resolve daily, to ensure that they are representative of real-world workflows.

Procyon AI Image Generation

The Procyon AI Image Generation Benchmark provides a consistent, accurate, and understandable workload for measuring the inference performance of on-device AI accelerators. This benchmark was developed in partnership with multiple key industry members to ensure it produces fair and comparable results across all supported hardware.

Procyon Video Editing Benchmark

Procyon benchmarks use real applications to test performance whenever possible. The Procyon Video Editing Benchmark uses Adobe Premiere Pro in a typical video editing workflow.

3DMark Speed Way

3DMark Speed Way is a DirectX 12 Ultimate benchmark for gaming PCs running Windows 10 and 11. Speed Way’s engine is assembled to demonstrate the new features DirectX 12 Ultimate brings to raytraced gaming. Speed Way uses DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time raytraced reflections, coupled with new DirectX 12 Ultimate performance optimizations like Mesh Shaders.

3DMark Steel Nomad

Steel Nomad uses graphics technologies just like your favorite new game titles to give you a good idea of how your system will run the latest heavy PC games without ray tracing. Succeeding the massively popular 3DMark Time Spy benchmark, Steel Nomad runs at a 4k resolution and adds new graphics technologies like volumetric skies and procedural grass.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a 2024 first-person shooter, survival horror video game developed and published by GSC Game World. It is the fourth main game released in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series, as well as the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in 15 years since the release of Call of Pripyat in 2009.

Silent Hill 2 Remake

Silent Hill 2 is a 2024 survival horror game developed by Bloober Team and published by Konami Digital Entertainment. It is a remake of the 2001 video game Silent Hill 2, originally developed by Team Silent, a group within Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a 2024 action-adventure game developed by MachineGames and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is based on the Indiana Jones franchise and features an original narrative that draws from the film series.

Black Myth: Wukong

Black Myth: Wukong is a 2024 action role-playing game developed and published by Game Science. The game is inspired by the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West.

TEKKEN 8

Tekken 8 is a 2024 fighting game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Arika and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It is the eighth main installment in the Tekken series and the first one to debut on home systems instead of arcades.

Conclusion

The AORUS RX 9070 XT Elite makes a strong case for itself in the upper-mid to high-end GPU market, delivering performance that competes comfortably with the RTX 5070. In titles that favour AMD’s architectural strengths, it pulls ahead convincingly, while in more balanced workloads it still holds its ground. This positions the card as a compelling option for gamers seeking flagship-level performance without stepping into extreme-tier pricing.

One of the standout qualities of the AORUS Elite model is its exceptional cooling performance. Gigabyte’s WINDFORCE system, paired with a large vapor chamber and finely tuned fan curves, keeps temperatures impressively low even under extended heavy loads. The card also maintains excellent acoustics—remaining notably quiet during gaming and productivity tasks—making it well-suited for users who value a silent or near-silent build.

Connectivity is another strong advantage. With two HDMI 2.1b ports and two DisplayPort 2.1a outputs, the RX 9070 XT Elite offers a level of display flexibility that exceeds many competitors. This makes it particularly appealing for users running multiple high-refresh or high-resolution monitors, or those preparing for next-generation display technologies.

The drawbacks, however, shouldn’t be overlooked. The requirement for an 850W power supply means that users building or upgrading on tighter budgets may need to account for an additional PSU purchase. And with its large physical footprint, the card may not fit comfortably in smaller or more compact cases. These considerations aside, the AORUS RX 9070 XT Elite remains a powerful, cool-running, and feature-rich option that delivers a strong overall value for those able to accommodate its size and power needs.

The AORUS RX 9070 XT Elite stands out for its striking design, strong performance against competing GPUs, excellent cooling efficiency, quiet operation, and versatile display options thanks to its dual HDMI 2.1b and dual DisplayPort 2.1a outputs—making it a powerful and well-rounded choice for high-end gaming setups.

Pros
+ Striking, impressive design/styling
+ Halo RGB lighting is exceptional
+ Competes well with RTX 5070
+ Superb cooling performance
+ Operates quietly
+ Features 2x HDMI 2.1b and 2x DP 2.1a

Cons
– Requires 850W power supply
– Large footprint

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