Short answer for 5 September 2026: with a thousand euro in Europe you buy the Radeon RX 9070 at 627 euro. Not because it is the fastest card in the budget, but because its frames are the cheapest in the whole table and 16 gigabytes come with them. If you want the maximum, take the RX 9070 XT at 747. Anything dearer makes no sense at this money, and the numbers below show why.
One thing up front. In the week since our last price snapshot the NVIDIA cards went up and the AMD cards did not move. The RTX 5070 added forty euro, the RTX 5070 Ti fifty three. That is not a year long trend, but it is what the shelf looks like today.
Prices and frames today
Prices captured on 5 September 2026 from geizhals.de, lowest offer per model, VAT included, shipping excluded. Frame rates are the averages across the Tom's Hardware test suite at the ultra preset with no upscaling. Euro per frame is ours: the price divided by the 1440p average.
| Card | Memory | Price, euro | 1080p | 1440p | 4K | Euro per frame |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Radeon RX 9070 GRE | 12 GB | 541 | 120.6 | 86.6 | 46.3 | 6.24 |
| Radeon RX 9070 | 16 GB | 627 | 140.9 | 104.0 | 57.7 | 6.03 |
| Radeon RX 7900 XT | 20 GB | 719 | 145.4 | 108.0 | 59.8 | 6.66 |
| GeForce RTX 5070 | 12 GB | 730 | 132.6 | 96.4 | 54.3 | 7.57 |
| Radeon RX 9070 XT | 16 GB | 747 | 156.6 | 116.5 | 65.8 | 6.41 |
| Radeon RX 7900 GRE | 16 GB | 799 | no longer listed in the current Tom's Hardware table | no data | ||
| GeForce RTX 5070 Ti | 16 GB | 1090 | 155.4 | 116.8 | 68.6 | 9.33 |
The oddity of this budget is visible straight away. The RTX 5070 Ti at 1090 euro delivers 116.8 frames at 1440p. The RX 9070 XT at 747 delivers 116.5. The difference in frames is noise, the difference in price is 343 euro.
Why the RX 9070 at 627 and not something bigger
Because that money buys 104 frames at 1440p and 16 gigabytes of memory, and after this point every extra frame costs more than the one before it.
- 6.03 euro per frame, the best number in the table, including cards that cost twice as much.
- 16 gigabytes. That is the main difference from the RTX 5070 at 730 euro, which has twelve and is slower.
- RDNA 4, which means the whole Redstone set: the FSR 4 upscaler, frame generation and ray regeneration. Older Radeons only got the upscaler, as we set out in our list of games with FSR 4.
- 57.7 frames at 4K with no upscaling. Thin for a 4K monitor, comfortable once FSR 4 is on.
If 627 euro is too much, one step down sits the RX 9070 GRE at 541. Same RDNA 4, same feature set, but 12 gigabytes and 86.6 frames instead of 104. For the 86 euro between them I would pay up, though that is a wallet question rather than a technical one.
If you want the maximum: RX 9070 XT at 747
This is the fastest card that fits inside a thousand euro, and it doubles as the cheapest way into real 4K: 65.8 frames at ultra with no upscaling. Not sixty with a squint, sixty five.
The 120 euro over the plain RX 9070 buy twelve frames at 1440p and eight at 4K. That is nineteen percent more money for twelve percent more speed, which is exactly why the XT loses to its own little brother on euro per frame.
And here is what not to look at once you are on this line: the RTX 5070 Ti. It produces the same 116 frames, costs 343 euro more, and the one thing that money buys is in the next section.
Ray tracing reshuffles the order
Everything above is rasterisation. Turn ray tracing on and the table rearranges itself.
The RTX 5070 Ti and its 66.2 frames pull away from the RX 9070 XT on 55.5, nineteen percent ahead. The RTX 5070 at 730 euro overtakes the RX 9070 at 627 (51.5 against 47.6), even though it loses to it clearly in raster. This is the situation NVIDIA is charging for.
The practical read is simple. If you play Cyberpunk 2077 with full path tracing, or expect everything to look like that soon, paying NVIDIA money makes sense. If, like most people, you switch ray tracing on in two games out of ten, paying 343 euro for nineteen percent in those two is a strange way to spend it.
What not to buy at this money
The section that usually gets cut so it does not get in the way of selling. We have no affiliate links, so it stays.
- GeForce RTX 5070 at 730 euro. Slower than the RX 9070 at 627 and carrying twelve gigabytes against sixteen. A hundred euro extra for less.
- Radeon RX 7900 GRE at 799 euro. A 2024 card priced above the faster RX 9070 XT. Of the modern features it only got the upscaler, because frame generation and ray regeneration do not run on RDNA 3.
- Radeon RX 7900 XT at 719 euro. This one is harder: 108 frames and a full 20 gigabytes, and on euro per frame it even beats the RTX 5070. But it is last generation with a trimmed feature set, and in a year that will start to show.
- GeForce RTX 5070 Ti at 1090 euro. Technically it does not fit the budget, and that is for the best.
What changed in a week
The previous snapshot was taken on 30 August for the roundup under 700 euro. Here is what moved in six days.
| Card | 30 August | 5 September | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce RTX 5070 Ti | 1037 | 1090 | plus 53 |
| GeForce RTX 5070 | 690 | 730 | plus 40 |
| Radeon RX 9070 GRE | 539 | 541 | plus 2 |
| Radeon RX 9070 | 629 | 627 | minus 2 |
| Radeon RX 9070 XT | 752 | 747 | minus 5 |
| Radeon RX 7900 XTX | 1326 | 1254 | minus 72 |
Both NVIDIA cards in this budget went up, every Radeon held or slipped slightly. One week is not a trend and I am not going to pretend I know the cause. But if you read our roundup under 700 euro last week and had your eye on the RTX 5070, it costs forty euro more today.
One more thing worth holding in mind before buying right now: GTA 6 is not coming to PC on 19 November or any announced date. If that was your reason for upgrading, there is no hurry.
We recapture prices every month. This table is from 5 September 2026.
Sources
Prices: the geizhals.de graphics card listing, lowest offer per model, captured 5 September 2026, VAT included, shipping excluded.
Frame rates: the Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy, averages across their game suite at the ultra preset, rasterisation and ray tracing listed separately, no upscaling.
Which parts of Redstone run on which Radeon: AMD's own table, unpacked in our piece on games with FSR 4.
Euro per frame is our own arithmetic: the lowest price divided by the 1440p average.
