AMD has reportedly revealed the reason why RDNA 4 wasn't discussed at the CES 2025 keynote, disclosing that the architecture deserves a standalone showcase.
AMD Plans To "Disrupt" The Mainstream GPU Markets With RDNA 4 SKUs, Claiming That They'll Be Available In The $300-$1,000 Range
Well, Team Red surprised us all by not announcing details about RDNA 4 and particular SKU names, such as the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070, which was not expected by the firm. To top it all, AMD didn't provide a specific reason behind this move to mainstream channels, but fortunately, in an interview with a Spanish tech channel, Michael Quesada (Translated via Videocardz), AMD's Chief Architecture of Gaming Solutions Frank Azor, managed to disclose the intentions of Team Red behind not giving RDNA 4 showtime, and here's what he has to say.
Azor claims that AMD was short of time, their keynote couldn't squeeze in RDNA 4 and FSR 4 announcements, and the firm didn't want to undershadow their AI-relevant developments as well. But, this is a bit of "shady" reasoning, given that when you see companies like NVIDIA holding a 1.5-hour keynote, it's undoubtedly clear that AMD could've extended the keynote. Our best guess is that AMD was waiting for NVIDIA's RTX 50 series showcase before making their move, so they decided not to unveil the RX 9000 series.
What are we announcing here? With the announcements of RDNA2 and RDNA3, we had dedicated events to present the architecture and performance improvements. We can’t cover that in five minutes. If we had, everyone would be angry with us for not giving the new graphics cards the attention they deserve.
That’s why we decided to reserve the announcement of the new graphics cards for a separate event where we can give them proper focus. We will also announce software-related advancements such as AMD FSR 4.
- AMD's Frank Azor
Apart from discussing the RDNA 4 release schedule, Azor gave us a slight glimpse of what to expect with the next-gen GPU lineup in terms of pricing, claiming that consumers should expect a $300-$1,000 range for the upcoming models. He also revealed that the RX 9070 SKUs will be on par with previous-gen Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 GRE, so AMD's supposedly mid-tier RDNA 4 GPUs will indeed compete with higher-end RDNA 3 counterparts.
We’re going to bring a very competitive product. Everyone will benefit from this launch. It will be worth the wait. The Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 GRE offered aggressive pricing for their performance. The market responded well, especially in a landscape where prices are constantly rising.
AMD remains focused on delivering value for money. When we announce RDNA4, we’ll introduce a powerful graphics card—not a $300 card, but also not a $1,000 card.
Azor gave a deep dive into FSR 4 and AMD's next upscaling tech, saying that the technology can only be utilized best when paired up with RDNA 4. Interestingly, AMD is already working to make FSR 4 compatible with RDNA 3 GPUs as well, but that will take time for now.
We’ve significantly improved our ray-tracing performance and now have a large selection of ray-tracing games. This technology has become more valuable, and we’ve invested heavily in it. AMD FSR 3 will continue to grow because it works on all GPUs on the market since it doesn’t require machine learning, but it has limitations in visual quality.
By using machine learning, we can achieve better quality, but this requires substantial computational power. That’s why only RDNA4 graphics cards can handle FSR4 technology.
It is possible we can optimize it to make it work in RDNA 3 architecture, we are on it and we want to do it, but we need to work it.
Well, that was the main crux of the Q&A session, and this does mark the first media talk by AMD on updating their stance towards the RDNA 4 launch. In a previous post, we discussed how a prominent leaker says the RX 9070 series will "change everything" and that people shouldn't rush to pre-order RTX 50 series GPUs, so that's something interesting to look forward to once RDNA 4 is officially showcased.
