An unpleasant surprise at AMD’s CES 2025 presentation was that the company did not show the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 video cards, and said almost nothing about the new RDNA 4 graphics architecture that underpins them. After the event, the company’s top managers David McAfee and Frank Azor spoke with the press and explained why AMD’s presentation went the way it did, and also answered a number of other questions about the next generation graphics.
Asus Radeon RX 9070 XT TUF Gaming at CES 2025. Image source: TechPowerUp
All information about the new Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 video cards became available exclusively from materials that AMD previously sent to the media. This was done intentionally, AMD representatives said, and the company did not initially intend to include information from the slides in the presentation itself at CES.
AMD representatives explained this for several reasons. The main reason is that it was simply impossible to fully talk about the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 video cards, RDNA 4 architecture and FSR 4 scaling technology within a 45-minute presentation at CES 2025. Especially considering that AMD presented many other products on it, in particular new desktop and mobile processors. For the same reason, AMD did not say anything during the presentation about the new mobile chips of the Ryzen Z2 series, optimized for portable gaming consoles. All information about these products was also available only on press slides.
David McAfee and Frank Azor noted that information about the new Radeon cards, in particular how the Radeon RX 9070 series will be positioned, what features the new RDNA 4 architecture offers, what FSR 4 is and why AMD decided to change the name of the video cards, would require much more time for discussion.
AMD has announced that the new Radeon RX 9070 series of graphics cards will launch in the first quarter of 2025 and that the company will host an online event to celebrate their launch. A full hour-long presentation will allow the “red” team to talk in more detail about the new RDNA 4 graphics architecture and RX 9000 graphics. At the same time, AMD did not announce the exact date of the full presentation. However, from AMD’s press release it is known that the company’s partners among video card manufacturers have already prepared their solutions based on the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070.