Yes they are.
It wins some it loses some but on average they are in the same class power wise.
Price wise the 9070XT wins outright.
Games with excessive RT it loses, no one is denying that, but as I said on average because no one ONLY plays heavy RT games and most games arent RT heavy, they are ~5% apart at 1440p.
With Unreal Engine being the most popular engine going forward they are basically the same so yes they are direct competitors: