New information suggests that AMD might be planning a launch event for its Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs by the end of February, per Benchlife. While the GPUs are still slated for a March release, this could be an excellent opportunity to learn more about the ins and outs of RDNA 4, provided AMD details those aspects.
The initial unveiling of RDNA 4 at CES was quite underwhelming. With many still hoping for a January launch, AMD quickly addressed rumors and confirmed RDNA 4 for March, citing much-needed tuning for maximum performance ahead of launch. Even so, we grabbed a few snippets of Navi 48, the GPU that powers the RX 9070 family, measuring roughly 390mm2, slightly larger than GB203 on the RTX 5080, coming in at 378mm2.
In an article detailing the RTX 5070 Ti's embargo, Benchlife claims that AMD is hosting a dedicated launch event for RDNA 4 later this month. If this information is accurate, we can expect to learn more about AMD's pricing structure and how RDNA 4 holds up versus Blackwell. For context, the RX 9070 XT is rumored to keep up with the RTX 4080 Super in raster performance. While we don't expect any more hardware revisions, as a handful of retailers already have these GPUs in stock, the performance can further benefit from driver optimizations.
"If nothing else, AMD will hold a launch event for the Radeon RX 9000 series with RDNA 4 GPU architecture at the end of February, but details are still to be confirmed."
Benchlife (Translated)
The RX 9070 family will be contested by the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070, assuming the latter is even available in stock at launch. With rumored performance numbers within 15% of the RTX 5080, this could be the perfect opportunity for AMD to disrupt the budget market and get these GPUs into the hands of gamers. More competition generally always benefits the end-user.
With that in mind, Nvidia is also rumored to be preparing to launch the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060 next month to combat what should be the RX 9060 XT and 9060, or possibly even RX 9050 from AMD's dugout. However, these are supposedly coming in at higher ASPs (Average Selling Prices).
AMD will also debut FSR 4 this generation, which incorporates AI-powered frame generation that will be exclusive to RDNA 4. It also features AI-powered upscaling, similar to what DLSS and XeSS have been doing for years. We'll have to see how its upscaling compares to Nvidia's new transformer model for DLSS. Either way, it's good to see AMD pushing its technology forward to combat Nvidia.
