Even in 2026’s component hellscape, AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 XT is that rarest of things: a high-end GPU that’s still decent value

Or, why RPS is reviewing a graphics card a year after it came out

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As we sink ever deeper into a squelching mire of memory shortages , price gouging , and abandonment in favour of AI fantasy farms , there is one word above all that game-playing PC owners should keep front and centre in our doomscroll-addled brains: “relatively.”

Take the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT. It’s expensive, a launch RRP of £569 / $599 long since forgotten so entry-partner models can sit at £600 or – Yanks, look away – $720 . Its current combination of upscaling and frame generation technology, FSR Redstone , is good but not quite as good as Nvidia’s new DLSS 4.5 . And, as helpfully illustrated by the ASRock RX 9070 XT Taichi OC version I’ve been testing, a lot of these partner versions are quite spectacularly ugly.

Look at what it’s up against, though, particularly in the 16GB, fast 1440p/budget 4K bracket. I liked the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti at launch, but it’s felt the brunt of industry folly as painfully as any other graphics card: the cheapest ones have jumped from $749 in February 2025 to $900 in January 2026, and that’s only if you’re lucky enough to find one in stock. Availability is so bad at the moment that when a rumour recently spread that production was prematurely ending – quickly denied by both Asus and Nvidia themselves – thousands believed it was true, if just because, well, who’d even know the difference?

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Now, the RX 9070 XT. It’s cheaper than the RTX 5070 Ti. It performs about as well, sometimes even better than the RX 5070 Ti. And, if nothing else, it’s still far easier than the RTX 5070 Ti to find in stock. Relatively , it’s a good choice. Which means we should probably have something at least resembling a review of it.

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: 4K benchmarks

With those same shortage/pricing issues tarnishing the RTX 5080 ’s appeal, and the RTX 5090 being out of reach for most mortals regardless, GPUs of the RX 9070 XT’s calibre have become much more attractive 4K engines. These benchmarks from the RPS Test Rig show why: it’s pretty much even with the RTX 5070 Ti in most games, and comes awfully close to the RTX 5080 in the demanding likes of Horizon Forbidden West and Assassin’s Creed Mirage.

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At this rez, it can’t quite handle the ultra-luxury of path tracing: Alan Wake II, running at Ultra settings with full PT and FSR upscaling on Quality mode, only averaged 22fps. The equivalent settings in Cyberpunk 2077 , plus FSR frame generation enabled, produced 46fps – but that just meant that its ‘real’, rendered frame count came in well under 30fps. The RTX 5070 Ti, by contrast, managed 33fps just with Quality-level DLSS and no frame gen at all, suggesting that Radeon GPUs still take a bigger hit from advanced lighting/shadow systems. Whack on the GeForce’s 4x Multi Frame Generation (MFG) mode, and that 33fps becomes 117fps.

That said, frame generation has never been as compelling a feature as Nvidia want it to be. Given MFG noticeably worsens input lag when multiplying lower rendered framerates, you’d get a smoother-feeling game by just lowering settings. At which point, the RTX 5070 Ti’s advantage disappears. It can still produce marginally faster results at upscaled 4K than the RX 9070 XT, like how Quality DLSS got it 104fps in HFW versus the Radeon’s 98fps with Quality FSR. But even with DLSS’s image quality benefits, which narrowed to a sliver with the launch of FSR Redstone, I’d rather keep the extra £160 / $180 in my pocket and enjoy what is, visually, an indistinguishable level of performance.

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: 1440p benchmarks

Our 1440p graph is almost a mirror image of the 4K results: very little in it between the RX 9070 XT and RTX 5070 Ti, with the exception of Shadow of the Tomb Raider , and multiple instances where you’d struggle to see the difference between the Radeon and the twice-as-pricey RTX 5080. Especially so, now that we’re getting into the 100fps+ region where small framerate variances aren’t as noticeable.

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The cheaper RTX 5070 does come into the conversation here, and it remains a competent 1440p card. Still, if you can afford it, the RX 9070 XT’s conventional framerates go substantially higher, particularly in Total War: Warhammer III and F1 24, and arguably in HFW and Cyberpunk too.

Diminishing returns are still an issue at such high FPS, though here, it mainly makes that small performance win for DLSS upscaling feel even less significant. With DLSS Quality taking the RTX 5070 Ti up to 150fps in Horizon Forbidden West, and FSR Quality up to 143fps, the latter is easily better value for money – and on monitors with refresh rates capping at 144Hz, you couldn’t perceive the former’s extra 7fps, even if you had the eyesight of a fighter pilot with binoculars glued to their face.

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Where the RTX 5070 Ti doesn’t need a photo finish is, again, ray and path tracing. Where 1440p provides more headroom to crank these settings up, Nvidia tech usually remains superior: adding Pyscho-level ray tracing to Cyberpunk, plus each GPU’s respective Quality-level upscalers, had the RX 9070 XT averaging 82fps and the RX 5070 Ti averaging 94fps. With path-traced effects on top of that, plus 2x frame generation, the RX 9070 XT did get a playable 93fps – but the RTX 5070 Ti rose to 111fps. The RTX 5070 Ti was also quicker in a path-traced Alan Wake II, scoring 55fps with Quality DLSS; the RX 9070 XT averaged 42fps.

Mind you, for garden-variety ray tracing, there are conditions where the RX 9070 XT can catch up. With Alan Wake II on Ultra-quality RT, one step down from path tracing, AND’s GPU averaged 73fps – only a single frame behind the RTX 5070 Ti’s 74fps on equivalent settings. Considering there was a time when every ray-traced game under the ray-traced sun would run its premium effects faster on GeForce hardware, that’s not a bad result at all.

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: 1080p benchmarks

1080p is normally where you see higher-end GPUs start to bunch up, as the CPU – even the beefy Ryzen 7 9800X3D in our rig – becomes more of a bottleneck. Even here, though, the RX 9070 XT is routinely clinging onto the RTX 5080, while comfortably outpacing the RTX 5070. To quite astounding effect, in Warhammer III:

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Not that I’d suggest, inflation or otherwise, dumping this much money on a 1080p system. But this does make it three for three on resolutions where, between the choice of this graphics card or the more expensive RTX 5070 Ti, there’s little convincing reason to make the bigger investment.

In previous reviews, this would have been the point where I say “…except DLSS,” before launching into a whinge about how FSR just doesn’t look as good. Honestly, had I been timely enough to appraise the RX 9070 XT when it originally released, that’s exactly what you’d be reading. But times have changed, and not just in money and stock terms. FSR Redstone really can pass for DLSS 4 these days, and while DLSS 4.5 has just made further improvements to image sharpness and motion handling, they’re not really worth a nearly £200 / $200 levy.

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Times can change so fast, in fact, that I won’t guarantee this verdict will still be applicable in a few months’ time. Maybe supply of Radeon cards will dry up as well. Maybe AMD will start charging more for it, just because they can. Maybe DRAM-addicted tech executives will go around owners’ houses at night, stealing their GPUs and sucking out all the memory chips like sports-jacketed vampires. For now, though, the RX 9070 XT is the high-grade graphics card to go for. Relatively speaking.

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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