AMD Radeon RX 9000: Unveiled on February 28 – Now it’s time to settle accounts

You could have seen it coming: AMD is finally opening the bag and officially unveiling the new Radeon RX 9000 series with RDNA 4 on February 28. The event will run on the AMD Gaming YouTube channel and, as always, there will be a big mystery spectacle with selective tidbits of information. The cards should then go on sale at the beginning of March – assuming there are no spontaneous delays or “last-minute optimizations”.

Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 – The first wave

According to previous leaks – and there have been plenty of them – the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 are the first in the starting blocks. Both are based on the Navi 48 chip and are equipped with 16 GB GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit interface. Allegedly, a 32 GB model is also buzzing around the rumor mill, but this should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. The RX 9070 XT is said to come with 4,096 shader processors, a boost clock of up to 3.1 GHz and PCIe 5.0. Some specifications for the smaller model are still open – but hey, there has to be a bit of suspense.

Performance? Depends on who you ask

When it comes to performance, there are already grandiose claims that the RX 9070 XT can keep up with an RTX 4080 Super. But wait a minute – are these the famous “synthetic benchmarks” again, which are not quite as impressive in practice? If you want a real comparison, you’ll have to wait for independent tests, because paper values are notoriously patient. Incidentally, ray tracing remains the big question mark. AMD has not exactly shone with outstanding RT performance in the past, and whether RDNA 4 can finally provide serious competition for NVIDIA remains to be seen.

The wait is almost over. Join us on February 28 at 8 AM EST for the reveal of the next-gen @AMD Radeon RX 9000 Series. Get ready to make it yours when it hits shelves in early March. RSVP by subscribing to the AMD YouTube channel: https://t.co/4rkVxeoDIa

— David McAfee (@McAfeeDavid_AMD) February 13, 2025

AMD wants to fix it with the price

Cheaper than NVIDIA? That would probably be the only realistic way for AMD to secure market share. Rumor has it that AMD is pursuing an “aggressive pricing strategy” – whatever that means in the end. A good price could go a long way, but if the energy efficiency or software support can’t keep up in the end, even a price tag with a discount label won’t help much.

RDNA 4: What’s new?

According to AMD, RDNA 4 brings some exciting improvements. The compute units should work more efficiently, ray tracing should (allegedly) be raised to a competitive level and a new upscaling process comes into play with FSR 4. The catch? FSR 4 is supposed to be exclusive to the RX 9000 series – whether this is really a selling point or just an artificial restriction remains to be seen.

Waiting for the reality check

Everything sounds promising so far – but marketing presentations always do. The real questions will only be answered when the cards are tested in practice. AMD not only has to convince with performance, but also with price, efficiency and driver support. Anyone who buys blindly now is playing the GPU lottery. So it’s better to wait and see, check reviews and then decide whether AMD has really landed a hit here – or whether the whole thing will end up being just a mediocre update with a lot of PR hype.

Source: David McAfee via X