AMD’s RX 9000 series is right around the corner, and it’s almost ready to compete against some of the best graphics cards. Although AMD keeps all the juicy information about RDNA 4 under wraps, we now know more than we did just a couple of months ago, and leakers are here to supply the rest of it.
Here’s everything you need to know about the RX 9000 series.
AMD RX 9000 series: pricing and availability
Leading up to AMD’s CES 2025 keynote, many thought that it would shed some light on the matter of RDNA 4 release dates and pricing. Unfortunately, the GPUs got little more than a brief mention, and nothing was made any clearer than before. On the upside, AMD shared some slides with the press that revealed the RX 9070 XT/non-XT and the RX 9060 XT/non-XT.
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AMD may have revealed little bits of information about the RDNA 4 architecture, but we still don’t have a solid release date.
The GPUs were found up for preorder at B&H with a January 22 launch date, but they have since been taken down. Many leakers agreed that the RX 9070 XT would make an appearance by the end of the month, but then, the narrative suddenly shifted. A Chiphell forum leaker said that AMD is still waiting for Nvidia to make a move and has pulled back on releasing the RX 9000 series.
That leak could be untrue, but the delay is very much real. David McAfee, AMD’s vice president and general manager of the Ryzen and Radeon divisions, said that the RX 9000 series will be released in March. At that point, Nvidia should have four RTX 50-series graphics cards up for sale, ranging from the RTX 5090 to the RTX 5070.
Radeon 9000 series hardware and software are looking great and we are planning to have a wide assortment of cards available globally. Can’t wait for gamers to get their hands on the cards when they go on sale in March!
— David McAfee (@McAfeeDavid_AMD) January 20, 2025
It’s unclear whether AMD will immediately release both the RX 9070 XT and the RX 9060 XT.
The prices are still a mystery, and whispers from industry insiders have been really scarce. One leaker on the Chiphell forums believes that the reference model of the RX 9070 XT will cost $479, while partner cards might cost as much as $549. However, at this point, this is just speculation.
AMD Radeon RX 9000 series: specs and architecture
| AMD RDNA 4 | |
| Process node | TSMC N4P |
| Architecture | RDNA 4 |
| Chip | Navi 48, Navi 44 |
| Memory type | GDDR6 |
| Maximum bus width | 256-bit |
| Maximum clock speed | 3GHz-3.3GHz |
It became clear very early on that AMD may not be trying to compete against the best of Nvidia’s RTX 50-series this time around. Various hardware leakers have been saying for well over a year that even AMD’s flagship may only rival the likes of Nvidia’s upcoming RTX 5070, and this is reflected in the rumored specs for each card. AMD itself has also confirmed that it’s not aiming for the high-end.
AMD’s senior vice president, Jack Huynh, spoke to Tom’s Hardware, pretty much confirming what leakers have been saying: AMD’s plan for the RX 9000 series is to focus on the mainstream PC gaming market. Huynh said: “Do I want to go after 10% of the total addressable market (TAM) or 80%? I’m an 80% kind of guy because I don’t want AMD to be the company that only people who can afford Porsches and Ferraris can buy. We want to build gaming systems for millions of users.”
This mindset implies that Nvidia’s two most high-end cards, the RTX 5080 and the RTX 5090, will not see any direct competition in this generation.
We’ll dive into GPU-specific leaks below, but first, let’s talk about what to expect from RDNA 4 as a whole.
So far, it seems that the lineup itself might be pretty slim. Only two GPUs have been mentioned: Navi 48 and Navi 44. Some leakers, such as Moore’s Law Is Dead, claim that the flagship used to be Navi 41, which would’ve been capable of challenging at least Nvidia’s RTX 5080, but it is said to have been scrapped alongside the Navi 42. That leaves us with the Navi 48 as the flagship card and the Navi 44 as the mid-to-low-range option.
Although AMD omitted the GPUs from its CES 2025 keynote, it shared a few slides with the press beforehand, which is why we know a little bit about the RDNA 4 architecture. A huge highlight comes in the form of third-gen ray tracing accelerators, which is something that leakers have long been talking about. AMD also promises improved ray tracing per compute unit (CU), which means it could be more on par with Nvidia in that regard.
The company touts improvements such as “supercharged AI compute” — which is huge, as it’ll help power its next-gen upscaling tech, FSR 4, but more on that later. RDNA 4 will also feature second-gen AI accelerators and a new-and-improved Radiance Display engine, as well as better media encoding.
We’re moving on to leaks, because this is really it when it comes to confirmed information about the RX 9000 series.
Package sizes:
Navi 23: 35 x 35mm
Navi 44: 29 x 29 mm— Everest (@Olrak29_) October 14, 2024
According to Olrak29 on X, AMD may be reducing package sizes in the new generation by a considerable amount, scaling down to 29 x 29 millimeters for Navi 44 — which is the smaller of the two GPUs. AMD is also likely to switch to a more efficient node, which most leakers currently expect to be the TSMC 4nm process (most likely the N4P).
The company is said to be sticking to GDDR6 memory modules — for reference, Nvidia has used GDDR6X in the RTX 40-series and will use GDDR7 in Blackwell. Kepler_L2, a known leaker, also claims that AMD may limit the bandwidth to 18Gbps, whereas Nvidia’s RTX 5080 might use faster 30Gbps modules. Again, AMD may have planned to use GDDR7 VRAM in the high-end portion of the lineup, which is most likely not going to make it to market.
Only 18Gbps 🤔
— Kepler (@Kepler_L2) April 23, 2024
AMD CEO Lisa Su also promised major gaming improvements in the new architecture. We know that “improvements” are subjective here, what with the flagship potentially not rivaling AMD’s current top GPU, but it’s still possible that we’ll see generational gains in that mainstream bracket.
AMD RX 9000 series: lineup
For many months, almost everyone expected AMD’s next-gen lineup to be called the RX 8000 series. It made sense, as this would’ve followed the naming scheme that AMD had used since the RX 5000 series. Many — myself included — also thought that the flagship would be the RX 8800 XT, marking the step-down from the previous RX 7900 XTX.
Now, thanks to AMD’s press deck and various other statements, we know that the flagship GPU will be part of the RX 9070 series, which will include the XT and the non-XT model. There’s also the RX 9060 XT/non-XT. AMD explains its choice as a way to simplify its naming scheme “to match direct competitor,” which is easy to believe, given Nvidia’s branding.
AMD may have had a last-minute name change, but the two GPUs have remained the same. Below, I’ll talk about what we can expect from the RX 9070 XT and the RX 9060 XT.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
The Radeon RX 9070 XT is currently expected to be the star of the RDNA 4 lineup, and it’s also the GPU I’m most excited about in 2025.
AMD itself hasn’t said much of anything about the GPU, but it claims that it’ll perform on a similar level to the RX 7900 XT, whereas the non-XT model might rival the RX 7900 GRE.
Current leaks estimate that the RX 9070 XT will be based on the Navi 48 XTX GPU, and it’ll come with 4,096 cores. It’s also said to feature 16GB of VRAM across a 256-bit bus, clocked at 18 to 20Gbps. The maximum memory bandwidth to expect from such a configuration is 640GB/s.
The card is also said to offer an impressive maximum clock speed that may hit as high as 3.1GHz. All of this will be achieved at a total board power of roughly 260 watts, as per VideoCardz.
These specs position the RX 9070 XT as a direct rival to cards like Nvidia’s RTX 5070, and early performance leaks do nothing to dispel that notion. Although many believed that AMD might deliver something along the lines of the Nvidia RTX 4080 (and some benchmarks prove that this might be true), it seems like a more conservative estimate is needed — but performance leaks are really all over the place.
For example, zhangzhonghao on the Chiphell forums recently shared that the RTX 4080 and the RX 9070 XT are within just 5% of each other. No matter which one’s the winner in that equation, that’d be great news for the RX 9070 XT, but most leakers tend to disagree. Previous estimates pinpoint the RX 9070 XT at around the same level as the RX 7900 XT.
This kind of performance level puts the RX 9070 XT in a difficult position, one where it’ll be forced to compete not just against cards like the RTX 4070 Super or the RTX 4070 Ti Super but also AMD’s own RDNA 3 offerings. As a result, a lot of it will come down to pricing, which is still unknown at this stage.
This GPU is most likely to be the first to hit the market, with AMD promising to deliver some RDNA 4 cards in March.
AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT
The rumored RX 9060 XT is still a huge enigma. It’s expected to be based on the Navi 44 GPU, which may, in turn, come in two flavors: one with a 192-bit bus, and the other with a 128-bit bus.
We might be looking at a similar situation to what we’ve seen in the RX 7000 series, where AMD released an RX 7600 and an RX 7600 XT. The latter had twice the VRAM, sitting at a whopping 16GB, but still limited to a 128-bit memory bus. If the above leak is true, we might still see an RX 9060 with 8GB memory and an RX 9060 XT with 16GB, but the XT model might now get a wider, 192-bit interface.
However, some leakers, such as All_The_Watts, only mention just one variant of the Navi 44. This same leaker revealed that the RX 9060 XT might come with 32 compute units (CUs) and 18Gbps of memory speed, which is the same as the RX 7600. However, architectural improvements between RDNA 3 and RDNA 4 should still hopefully provide the GPU with some sort of a boost, even if these specs check out.
Availability for this card is still unknown, but it might become available in March alongside the RX 9070 XT. If the previous generation’s pricing is anything to go by, the RX 9060 XT should cost around $250 to $350.
AMD RX 9000 series: FSR 4
AMD announced its next-gen FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 alongside its new graphics cards, and this time, it’s taking a page out of Nvidia’s playbook by making the upscaling tech an RDNA 4 exclusive. The company promises to deliver high-quality 4K upscaling, and frame generation should be easier to achieve with the upgraded AI hardware in RDNA 4.
FSR 4 will be available in games that already support FSR 3.1, which should include titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Horizon Forbidden West.
Later on, AMD revealed that it doesn’t want FSR 4 to be limited to the RX 9000 series — at least not forever. Frank Azor, chief architect of gaming solutions and gaming marketing at AMD, said in an interview: “We may be able to optimize it [FSR 4] to work on RDNA 3 architecture. And we are, and we want to do it, but we have work to do for now.”
Ambiguous as it may be, that statement implies that there’s a chance RDNA 3 owners might still one day benefit from FSR 4, but nothing is certain right now.
