AMD pre-announced the new generation Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 video cards at CES 2025. The presentation turned out to be very crumpled – basic information about these video cards was presented only in a press release. Both cards use the latest RDNA 4 graphics architecture.
Image source: AMD
AMD plans to release both cards during the first quarter of 2025. The decision to jump from the RX 7000 series directly to the RX 9000 series is officially explained by the fact that the 8000 series name is reserved for RDNA 3.5-based mobile graphics.
It should be noted that for the first time in a long time, AMD has changed the approach to naming its desktop gaming video cards. The new approach is similar to how Nvidia calls its video cards. There is an assumption that with the announcement of a new generation of desktop graphics, AMD has actually abandoned competition in the segment of video cards for enthusiasts. According to the published graphics accelerator hierarchy diagram, the older Radeon RX 9070 XT model will provide raster graphics performance at the level of the Radeon RX 7900 XT. In turn, the Radeon RX 9070 will be slightly faster than the Radeon RX 7800 XT. It is assumed that the upcoming Radeon RX 9060 XT will replace the RX 7700 XT, and the RX 9060 will be slightly faster than the RX 7600 XT.
AMD says the RDNA 4 architecture was built from the ground up and GPUs based on it will provide “significant performance gains for artificial intelligence tasks.” The company noted that it has optimized the compute units in RDNA 4, improved the performance of the ray tracing engine, and also improved the quality of media encoding. The 4nm graphics chips include second-generation AI accelerators, third-generation ray tracing accelerators, and a second-generation Radiance display engine.
Along with the new generation of graphics cards, AMD will release a new application, Adrenalin AI, which will be a response to the Nvidia Chat RTX chatbot. With Adrenalin AI, users will be able to generate images, summarize documents and rewrite ready-made texts. In addition, the application will act as a chatbot capable of answering questions related to AMD products.
The company also announced FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4) technology, designed specifically for the RDNA 4 architecture. It is not yet known whether it will work on previous generations of Radeon video cards. FSR 4 is a machine learning (ML)-based image upscaling tool incorporating Frame Generation technologies and updated Anti-Lag 2 to reduce input lag. The first game to support FSR 4 will be Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. FSR 4 technology will be supported in games that already support FSR 3.1.
Most of AMD’s key partners among video card manufacturers are already ready to present their solutions based on the Radeon RX 9070 series. Among them are Acer, ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, Sapphire, PowerColor, XFX, Vastarmor and Yeston. Apparently, MSI has finally abandoned its partnership with AMD in the production of video cards.
The TechPowerUp portal has reported the first details about the Navi 48 graphics processor used in the Radeon RX 9070 series. The chip has an unusual rectangular shape with an aspect ratio of 2:1, which confirms rumors that the Navi 48 is two Navi 44 crystals combined together. It is assumed that the processor supports a 256-bit GDDR6 memory bus and contains 64 execution units (4096 streaming processors). In turn, Navi 44 for the Radeon RX 9060 series received support for a 128-bit GDDR6 memory bus and 32 execution units. Details will become known during the full announcement of video cards.
AMD has promised to provide more information about the new graphics cards ahead of their launch, which will take place during the first quarter of this year.