AMD explained the decision to postpone the launch of the Radeon RX 9070 series of video cards until March

AMD’s decision to delay the launch of the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT video cards until March caused disappointment among fans of the brand and the gaming community as a whole. According to David McAfee, general manager of AMD’s client processors and Radeon graphics division, the company decided to take additional time to optimize the new software that will be used by the new video cards.

Image source: ASUS

While AMD has yet to confirm an official launch date for the Radeon RX 9070 series graphics cards, the company has said that they will be available in the first quarter of this year. To the surprise of many, the new cards were not officially unveiled as part of AMD’s CES 2025 presentation earlier this month. Instead, the company revealed some details about the new products as part of a printed presentation.

AMD later confirmed that the company will hold a separate event for the full announcement of the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT. Based on the company’s latest statements, it will take place in March. AMD is clearly keen to see how the market will accept Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 cards, which are expected to be the main competitors to the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT models and will be released in February.

«I really appreciate the excitement about RDNA 4. We are focused on ensuring we deliver a great set of products with the Radeon RX 9000 series. We are placing additional emphasis on optimizing the software stack for maximum performance and supporting the new FSR 4 technology with more games. Many of our partners are going to release their versions of Radeon 9000 video cards. Some have already begun to build up an initial supply of accelerators from retailers, so at the start of sales you can expect a large assortment of cards from our partners,” commented David McAfee.

As previously reported, some retailers began receiving new Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT cards in early January. AMD has historically had difficulty stocking graphics cards at launch, so if there is any benefit to delaying the launch of new RDNA4-based products, it is definitely related to the desire to improve their availability.